Re: verbal classifiers

At 11:33 AM 5/20/99 -0700, Matt Pearson wrote:
>Dredging up memories of my old Auari/Awemai project got me thinking about
>another project I've been kicking around, which exploits what I think
>may be a novel way for constructing verbs.
>
>The idea is for a conlang (call it Awari - I like that name), in which
>all verbs are formed from two parts, a PREVERB (or VERBAL CLASSIFIER)
>and a ROOT.  The preverb gives information about the argument structure
>and type of event the verb refers to, while the root provides the
>semantic content.  I started playing around with this last night, and
>here's what I came up with:
>
>[snip interesting details]
>
>As I see it, the possibilities are endless.  With a collection of, say,
>three dozen preverbs, you could produce an extremely large number of verbs
>using just a few roots.
>
>What do people think?
>
This strikes me as a really neat idea.  In fact, I can see where something
sort of like this could be useful in yet another new conlang that I've been
thinking about.  I've been trying to go in what's sort of a new direction
for me, focusing on figuring out what I want the language to sound like, and
designing a grammar that lends itself to that, rather than letting the
grammar be the starting point as with all of my previous conlang projects.
Anyway, what little I've come up with so far seems to be leaning toward a
system where most nominal and verbal roots have one of the forms CVCVC,
CVCVV, or CVCVVC, with stress on the last syllable.  This reminds me of the
Semitic triconsonental root-and-pattern system, but I wonder if it could be
a fossilized remnant of a system like the one you've described, with
preverbs attached to monosyllabic roots (but probably neither the preverbs
nor the monosyllabic roots are still productive in themselves).  (For that
matter, could the Semitic system have originated in that way?)

- Tim

-------------------------------------------------
Tim Smith
timsmith@global2000.net

Get your facts first and then you can distort them as you please.
- Mark Twain