Re: adjectives and adverbs

Henrik Theiling wrote:

>Hi!
>
># 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> writes:
> > I have a little question about Adverbs
> >
> > In Vbazi, the adjectives are verbs that are "to be ---" when stative and
>"to
> > become ---" when active
> >
> > But yesterday, I wanted to create adverbs since I never passed through
>these
> > things up to then.
> >
> > I first thought of the most simple ones: "a lot", "well"... and realised
>I
> > already gave these meanings to auxiliaries
>
>The two categories are very closely related in some languages.
>
> > So I thought of making all the adverbs with auxiliaries that take the
>verb's
> > ending and let the verb unchanged
>
>Ok.
>
> > So the question is: Would that kind of word be really an auxiliary or
>would
> > it simply be an adverb that conjugates in TAM and person?
>
>Auxilary, *since* it conjugates.
>
An adverb never conjugates?

> > Oh! and an extra question: Is it an ANADEWism? have the whole set of
>adverbs
> > in auxiliaries?
>
>In Mandarin Chinese, it's often hard to tell.  I noticed this in a
>construction that is different in German and English:
>
>   English:    I like to drink beer.        auxiliary 'to like'
>   German:     Ich trinke gerne Bier.       adverb 'gerne'
>
>Now, in Mandarin Chinese, this cannot (easily) be distinguished, since
>it's a (mostly) isolating lang and adverbs and auxiliaries take the
>same position in a clause:
>
>    Mandarin:  Wo xihuang    he    pijiu.  auxiliary/adverb 'xihuang'?
>               I  like.HABIT drink beer
>
>(In 'I'd like to drink beer.' or 'Ich würde gerne Bier trinken', thus
>the non-habitual clause, I'd probably use 'xiang3' in Mandarin -- a
>different word.  Please someone correct my incomplete knowledge if I'm
>wrong about the exact usage.)
>
>It's really hard to tell.  In this case, 'xihuang' can be used as a
>standalone full verb, but the word 'feichang' ('often') cannot, but it
>still takes the same position:
>
>    Mandarin:  Wo feichang he pijiu.       adverb 'feichang'
>               I  often    drink beer.
>
>Is the question whether words can be used as full verbs a distinction?
>In English, auxiliaries cannot.  Just like adverbs.
>
>Whether it even makes any sense to distinguish between adverbs and
>auxiliaries in Mandarin is not clear to me.  I don't know how it's
>handled in analyses of Mandarin Chinese, but as I see it, things like
>'be able to / *to can' (German: 'können') cannot clearly be
>categorised in Chinese:
>
>    Mandarin:  Wo hui he    pijiu.
>               I  can drink beer
>
>But 'hui' cannot be used without a verb (just like 'feichang'), so is
>it an adverb, then?  Probably it's just thinking in categories
>inappropriate to that language.  Just call it 'verb modifier' (in case
>'verb' is an appropriate category).
>
OK If adverbs and auxiliaries are similar enough for no needing a clear
distinction, that's simpler. I should stop thinking as much the way my L1
classes the words and adapt it to my conlang!

>However, in your conlang's case, conjugation is a clear indication of
>a verb, so I'd not call it an adverb.
>
>**Henrik
Yeah that's true. Thanks for the advise

- Max

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