Re: A question about connecting sentences

Matt Pearson wrote:
>
> Larry Schelin wrote:
>
> >1. Make 'want' a suffix/prefix.
> >   Hmm... I thought of that for a while, but then where do I stop making
> >suffixes
> >and start making verbs? :)
>
> Well, I stopped when I'd made up suffixes for the most common modal meanings,
> and a handful of others.  The complete inventory of modal/aspectual suffixes
> (as I call them) is:
>
>         -uh     "want to"
>         -amp    "can, be able to"
>         -ulhk   "must, have to, should"
>         -oin    "begin to, start to, become"
>         -ank    "try to"
>         -ahm    "shall, intend to"
>
> For example:
>
>         malha      "read"
>         malhuha    "want to read"
>         malhampa           "can read"
>         malhulhka          "must read, should read"
>         malhoina           "start reading"
>         malhanka           "try to read"
>         malhahma           "shall read, intend to read"
>
> All other kinds of embedding are handled by the system of dependent suffixes
> I discussed in a recent post.
>
> Matt.
        In Azak, which is very agglutinating, I use 15 suffixes for modals,
plus the absence of suffix that has a meaning too. For other modalities,
I simply use subclauses (Azak being an agglutinating language where most
suffixes are optional when the meaning can be seen by context, it makes
not so long words). My 16 suffixes (including the zero-suffix) are:

zero: atemporal (universality, or the modality has already been
described by another way)
-oj: immediate present or temporal point
-ut: perfective
-el: aorist (story, not past)
-es: imperative
-av: causative
-ib: translative ("become")
-ok: durative
-un: frequentative
-op: "may"
-al: "might"
-ef: personal opinion
-izh: "must"
-ur: "can"
-ash: "want"
-im: "wish"

        As you can see, it mixes aspects and modals, but that's the way I
wanted it. :)

--
        Christophe Grandsire

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