Re: 'Yemls Morphology

On Sun, 8 Jul 2001 23:11:19 -0500, Danny Wier <dawier@...> wrote:

>From: "Jeff Jones" <jeffsjones@...>
>
>| Note: I have not attempted to distinguish between the terms inflection,
>| clitic (en- and pro-), and affix (suffix and prefix), using the last set
>| for all.
>
>Tech is inflected big time, usually caused by internal changes caused by
>affixes (especially infixes used in verb classes, again a Semitic
>borrowing).
>
>A language that uses only affixes to express grammatical functions is
>called "agglutinative"; inflection usually reflects internal changes such
>as ablaut (changing vowels). English has both in verbs such as "sing": the
>past and past participles "sang" and "sung", but the present participle
>"singing".
That's what I thought. But it seems there is no clear boundary between the
two. Japanese is considered to be inflecting while Turkish is agglutinating.
In 'Yemls, the affixes are distinct in writing, making it agglutinating,
yet their are interactions between affixes and stems at the phonological
level. As for clitics, there is no difference from agglutinative affixes
that I can see.

>| An expressed subject is marked by lengthening the last vowel without
>| changing the stress (see Vowel Lengthening), i.e. if the subject was
>| originally monosyllabic, it remains unstressed. If the subject is
>| qualified, the marker is added to the last qualifier. If the last word is
>| not the head of the last qualifier (or the subject itself), a resumptive
>| particle {?} is needed?
>
>Hmm, I have to read up on qualifiers before I try and answer that.
>Anybody?
I hope somebody answers. That's one of the shakier parts of the language.

>| There are a number of possible aspects. Some of these are indicated by
>| lexical means (i.e. aspectual auxiliaries), while others are primary. The
>| latter are:
>|
>| o _progressive_ for an action in progress,
>| o _resultive_ for a state resulting from an action,
>| o _stative_ for a current state,
>| o _causative_ for a change of state in progress or an action causing a
>| state,
>| o _instantive_ for a change of state or an action taken as a whole.
>
>Oh I love them aspects. I think mine are going to be: imperfective (= your
>progressive), perfective and stative; but causatives and
>passives/reflexives fall in the category of voice, which is indicated by a
>prefix, most likely a sibilant that may assimilate to the following
>consonant (e.g. s-c^ > s^c^, s-t. > s.t., s-d > zd)
I like that. I vaguely recall starting a language years ago that used
sibilant and nasal prefixes and infixes, but I'm not sure if it was for
aspect, voice, or what. 'Yemls will have secondary aspects such as
frequentive, conative, continuative (term ?), but I haven't decided on the
specific prefixes yet. There will be other aspectual auxiliaries as well.

>All my thoughts are currently very disorganized...
My thoughts are almost *always* disorganized. You should see my files on
'Yemls syntax and semantics!

>| Note: This gives the following (arbitrarily named) moods:
>| o Indicative explicit tense with expressed subject
>| o Relative explicit tense with linked subject
>| o Subjunctive implicit tense with expressed subject
>| o Infinitive implicit tense with linked subject
>
>I haven't got moods worked out yet.  I expect at least an indicative, a
>subjunctive or jussive and an imperative (most likely the unmarked verb
>root for the generic 2nd person singular imperative; the 2nd plural adds a
>plural suffix, and I have no idea what that's gonna be).
It took me a quite a while to get that much. No doubt there will be
additional secondary moods, using auxiliaries with the subjunctive or
infinitive. As for an imperative, I've assumed that 'Yemls speakers will
avoid that sort of thing. But for emergencies, a nice short imperative form
would be useful ....

>| The tense of a word either indicates that the time of the event is
>| _general_ (non-specific) or specifies the time of the event relative to
>| the time of its matrix event; this can be either _past_, for events
>| occurring before the matrix event,
>| _present_, for events in progress at the time of the matrix event, or
>| _future_ for events occurring after the matrix event. For nouns, the
>| present tense must be marked, since the general tense is unmarked. For
>| other words, the present tense is unmarked and the general tense must be
>| marked.
>
>In Classical Greek you have a 3x3 matrix of aspect-tense combinations
>(perfect/aorist/imperfect; past/present/future), with a total of seven
>since the aorist present and future do not exist. I just wish I remembered
>how they formed.
Well, I can't remember either, even though "Homeric Greek" sits next to the
computer. Not only do you have to account for different personal endings
between the various tenses and aspect combinations, there are differences
for the various moods and voices. I'm trying to make 'Yemls a bit simpler
than Greek (or any classical IE language for that matter).

Jeff

>
>~DaW~

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