Voice modals

>
On Sat, 19 Sep 1998 20:07:08 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:

>>=Gerald
>=Stephen
>>
>>I need comments and criticism on this new bit of grammar I have just
>>written. As has happened before, Stephen made me do it.
>>
>>FIU type of modals.
>
>First and foremost, I question whether these morphemes ought to be
>considered modal. Voice and mood seem to me to be separate things...
I could write an essay on this, but it will have to be another time.
For now I want to concentrate on the nuts and bolts of this invention.

>
>>fiu::- when x1, the first argument of P, is the subject of P and
>>      the patient in P; P is true.
>>      Abel fiu pa kill Cain.
>>      Abel(the patient) was killed by Cain.
>>
>>      Abel fiu pa kill.
>>           fiup
>>      Abel(victim) was killed.
>
>BTW, as I understand it, the phonology
>which has been ratified by vote forbids words ending in two vowels.
>The way we've been getting around that is to add a -' to the end of
>these words.
A big OOPS! for not using the phonology I voted for. But I want to float
the idea for a proposal here.
The glottal stop "'" could be replaced by an h. It might just become
NGL's first silent letter, as it doesn't contribute much to the
pronunciation. Personally I don't like all those terminal glottal
stops.

Furthermore, I propose we emulate French and use ellision with it, thus:

Abel fiuh pa kill---> Abel fiupa  kill.

It would facilitate
contractions so much.

>
>
>Just to let you know, the way I've been doing it is a bit reminiscent
>of Latin. Passive marked sentences are _not_ symmetrical with active
>sentences in PVS. Passive verbs cannot have direct objects... their
>agent, if referred to, must be refered to with the ablative of agent,
>which is made idiomatically by marking it with the preposition {wi'}
>(by, near) and placing the noun in the dative. It may be a bit longer
>winded, but it helps in the passive's role of de-emphasising the
>actor, and I find it aesthetically pleasing.
>
>>hia::- when x1, the first argument of P, is the subject of P and the
>>      agent in P; P is true.
>>      Cain hia pa kill Abel.
>>            hiap
>>      Cain (agent) killed Abel.
>>
>>      Cain hia pa kill.
>>      Cain (perpetrator) killed.
>
>It is interesting that you have chosen to create a way to explicitly
>mark the active relationship between the subject and the object... but
>I am concerned that in practice, this will prove redundant and be
>forgotten. The vast majority of sentences will be of the {hia'} type,
>and so in the interest of brevity (a thing you place high value on), I
>predict that people will almost always omit the active marker and only
>mark voice in rare cases where the passive {fiu'} is desired.
This I entirely agree with and I never conceived of the hiah marking
being mandatory. I did it for symmetry and in the faith that it would
find usage because it is symmetrical.  For example it could emphasize that
the doer willed the action. I leave that to usage.


Further to the question of passives and agent/patient; Carlos Pinzon has
brought my attention to the cases where agent and patient are one and
the same. The reflexive is required in Spanish expressions such as

"me llavo"
I wash myself.

An NGL modal for this is:
sieh

mi sieh ucah.
I control myself.

Carlos, please forgive the yankee word-imperialism.
Steven, thanks for urging me to put passives into Vtense.

Jerry
_______________________________
Vector tense is virgin.