Re: 501 Verbs

Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> <boggle>  Could you give us a taste of what a semi-fully inflected verb
> would look like?  I can't imagine a verb taking up so much space.
Well, the language is agglutinating, and you can string together
multiple prefices and suffices.

The first prefix is voice.  There are five voices:
Active: No prefix
Antipassive: S(u)-
Reflexive: K(u)-
Dative-Object: P(a)-
Reciprocative: Klan-

The second prefix is tense.
Past: F(a)-
Present: No prefix
Future: Nai-

The third prefix is conditional:
If: Vi- (rare)
If-contrafactual: Gua-
Then: Us-

So, ignoring the suffices for the moment, there are 5*3*4 = 60 possible
combinations of prefices

Suffixes:
First suffix: Person
There are 13 personal suffices, consisting of three persons, three
numbers (singular, dual, plural) plus a paucal in first person and a
sentient/nonsentient distinction in 3rd person

Second suffix: Aspect
There are 7 aspects
Punctual: No suffix
Non-Punctual: -ki
Habitual: -v(a)
Inceptive: -tu
Cessative: -l(a)
Prospective: -ma/-n
Perfect: -nu

So, there are 13*7 = 91 suffices.  Not all combinations are legal.
Namely, reciprocative can only be used for non-singular numbers.  In
addition, contrafactual can't be used with future.  Thus, the number of
prefixes is actually 55.

Now, the actual number of possibilities:

Excluding reciprocative voice:
4 voices * 11 tense-condition combinations * 91 person-aspect
combinations = 4004
Reciprocative:
11 tense-condition combinations * 63 person-aspect combinations
[excluding the singulars] = 693
Imperative: 1
4004+693+1 = 4698

> I don't see how having
> pre-conjugated verbs is helpful since so much is predictable repetition.
Actually, I suspect there's probably some help there in that repitition
could help you learn the forms.  But, I agree that it seems weird to
have so may regular verbs.  A listing of the irregular forms of verbs
would be useful.  My Spanish dictionary lists the conjugation of some of
hte most irregular verbs (like ir or ser), and then several other model
irregular verbs giving just their irregular forms.  So, in the
dictionary, next to irregular verbs, they'll give a refernce number to
say which verb it's inflected like.

> There's not historical-linguistics reasons why the
> two forms can't coexist, is there?
Nope, not at all.  That kind of thing happens a lot.  There's usually
some difference between the two, even if it's just a stylistic
difference (e.g., the older form is more formal or "sophisticated")

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