Re: Rrjoce'n Grammatical Sketch.

On Wednesday, October 17, 2001, at 10:37 , Elliott Lash wrote:

> Rrjoce'n /r~jots@n/ vowels:
>
> Verbal Morphology:
>
> The morphology of the Rrjocin verb is a basically a matter of 4 main
> stems and the 1st person singular present which is the citation form.
> From these can be formed any tense. Unfortunately, the majority of verbs
> in Rrjocin form their stems in an irregular fashion. (This is a
> consequence of various sound changes which caused the regular inflections
> of the Proto-Rrjocin verb to mutate drastically)
>
[snip]
After a first skim-through I was going to ask for some examples, then upon
a more careful reread realized that you did give proto-Rrjocin forms.  Duh,
  I'm awake today.  The irregularities, while possibly a pain if I were
trying to learn this, look real neat.

> 1) Present  (Present Singular Stem and Present Plural Stem)
>
> There are the following "classes"  of verbs in the present singular and
> present plural stems:
>
> a) n-infixal presents:
> These verbs were formed with an n-infix to a predominantly zero-grade
> form of the root. (e-grade is found rarely). For the most part, the
> suffix is only seen in the first or third person.
>
Also, forgive my slowness: what's a "zero-grade" or an "e-grade"?  Does it
refer to what the root ends with?

> examples:
>
> lij "I die"   *lenh-io
> llesh "We die" *lnh-osie
>
> shov "I am"   *syeu-uo
> vesh "we are"  *syu-osie
>
I like these examples in particular--very interesting.

Yoon Ha Lee
requiescat@cityofveils.com

A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.--Paul Erdos