Participles in Natlangs and in Conlangs

I wondered whether I ought to use the [THEORY]: tag on this, but decided I
shouldn't.  In case that was the wrong decision, I apologize.

Most natlangs have verbal adjectives -- adjectives derived from verbs and
still having some of the characteristics of verbs -- which are
called "participles" by their grammarians.

Many natlangs have at least two different kinds of participles, differing
either in voice, or in tense, or in aspect.

Voice:  The noun modified by the verbal adjective may be either the agent
of the verb -- so the participle is an active participle -- or the patient
of the verb -- so the participle is a passive participle.

Example; suppose Giuseppe loses his gondola.
We could speak of "the losing gondolier" -- "losing" is an active
participle;
or we could speak of "the lost gondola" -- "lost" is a past participle.

Tense:  The noun modified by the verbal adjective may have been involved in
the situation described by the verb in the past -- a past participle -- or
may be involved in such a situation now -- a present participle -- or may
be predicted to be involved in such a situation in the future -- a future
participle.

Examples:
I don't think English has future participles; if I'm wrong could someone
let me know?
But we could speak of "the losing war" ("losing" is a present participle),
meaning one we are losing right now,
or of "the lost war" ("lost" is a past participle), meaning one we lost in
the past.

Aspect:  The noun modified by the verbal adjective may be (or may have
been) in the midst of the situation described by the verb -- yielding an
imperfective participle -- or the situation so described may be treated as
a lump without temporal parts -- yielding a perfective participle.

Example:
"the rising sun" -- "rising" is an imperfective participle.
"the risen sun" -- "risen" is a perfective participle.

Some natlangs have two or all three of these categories distinguishing
their participles.  I believe -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that Latin, for
example, had future active, future passive, present active, present
passive, past active, and past passive participles.

English, OTOH, seems to have only two morphologically distinct participle
forms.

Questions;

(1)
Is it a statistical implicational universal that, if a language has both
past and present participles, and also both perfective and imperfective
participles, that either the past participle is homophonous with the
perfective participle, or the present participle is homophonous with the
imperfective participle, or both?

(2)
Is it a statistical implicational universal that, if a language has both
past and present participles, and also both passive and active participles,
that either the past participle is homophonous with the passive participle,
or the present participle is homophonous with the active participle, or
both?

(3)
Is it a statistical implicational universal that, if a language has both
perfective and imperfective participles, and also both passive and active
participles, that either the perfective participle is homophonous with the
passive participle, or the imperfective participle is homophonous with the
active participle, or both?

(4)
What famous languages are counterexamples to the above?

(5)
How do conlangs you know about -- your own, for example -- fit in the above
questions?

----------

[MODE, MOOD, AND MODALITY AS CATEGORIES OF PARTICIPLES]

For many natlangs "participle" _is_, morphologically at least, considered a
mood or mode or modality by its grammarians.  But it seems reasonable that,
semantically at least if not morphologically, there could be a category of
mood or modality or mode applied to participles.

Consider the Latin gerundive; although it is a verbal noun rather than a
verbal adjective, it basically inflects a verb "V" into a noun
meaning "thing that somebody had better get around to V-ing one day."
Examples; an agendum is a thing that needs doing, a memorandum is a thing
that needs remembering, an explanandum is a thing that needs explaining, a
definiendum is a thing that needs defining, and an Amanda is somebody who
needs loving.

The "should" part of this semantics is the part I think could be called
modal.

(6)
Could a language have an inflection (which I'll write as "-6" due to lack
of creativity) that, added to a verb "V", would yield an adjective "V-6" so
that "N is V-6" would mean "Somebody ought to get around to V-ing N soon."?

(7)
Could a language have an inflection (which I'll write as "-7" due to lack
of creativity) that, added to a verb "V", would yield an adjective "V-7" so
that "N is V-7" would mean "N ought to V pretty soon."?

English has the suffix "-able" (also "-ible") which, when added to a verb
V, yields an adjective "V-able" so that "N is V-able" means "It would be
easy or pleasant or possible for someone to V N."  IMO this is a modal
participle; the mode is one of possibility, the voice is passive.

(8)
What do you think of that paragraph?

(9)
Do any natlangs or conlangs you know about have an inflection (called
here "-9" because I can't think of anything else offhand) that can be added
to a verb V to make an adjective V-9 so that "N is V-9" means "N can V"?
It seems this would be useful in English; there are common English phrasal
constructions with this meaning, but they aren't really verbal morphology.

(10)
What of the English suffix "-worthy"?

(11)
What conlangs and/or natlangs do you know about that do anything
interesting in regard to the above questions?

----------

[PASSIVE PARTICIPLES WITH INCORPORATED AGENTS]

English has at least a few passive participles with incorporated agents.
The agents so incorporated are never definite and never specific.  I
suppose they may, or may not, be referential; I'm not sure.

Examples;
henpecked
snakebit
sunburnt (OK, this one is pretty definite, but it's a coincidence.)
grassstained

(12)
Can anyone think of any more examples in English?

(13)
Can anyone think of any more examples in any other natlangs?

(14)
Can anyone think of any examples in any conlangs?  Which are most
interesting?  Do any of your own conlangs do this?

-----

Thanks

eldin

Replies