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Tense, aspect, mood or something else?

From:BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Friday, March 14, 2003, 12:21
I could use some advice.

I have begun again to try to sort out the vocabulary of Sohlob [sQ"KQb_0]
and Old Sohlob aka Kidjeb [ki"dz\@b_0].  Now I have decided that a Kidjeb
verb root is of the form (to simplify a little) C*VC* (i.e. one or more
consonants, a vowel, and again one or more consonants.

Such a verb root can be made into a verb **stem** by adding a theme-vowel
(and since Kidjeb has only three vowel phonemes the theme-vowel can only be
one of /a i u/).  This means that from each root can be formed three
different stems, and rather than letting such triplets have totally
unrelated meanings I want each root to form three stems that are somehow
grammatically significant.

The things that occur to me as potentially expressible by this stem
alternation are:

-- tense
-- aspect
-- mood
-- voice

I have already decided that voice is not really a candidate, since
Kidjeb/Sohlob is an ergative language, and voice seems to be unbecoming to
such languages (at least Tibetan doesn't have voice, and I **want** K/S to
be like Tibetan in this respect).

Thus there remains the other three or some combination thereof (such as
infective, perfective and imperative -- assuming that imperative in
different aspects doesn't make a lot of sense...).  Not surprisingly(?) I
would be interested in something with a high anadewic factor.

Perhaps some wholly other distinction wich is **very** anadewic?

Any suggestions you can give would be very helpful in making up my mind!

/ B.Philip Jonsson B^)
--
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations and of kings sink
into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them.
-Dr. Samuel Johnson (1707 - 1784)