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verbal system

From:Florian Rivoal <florian@...>
Date:Saturday, January 18, 2003, 13:13
trying to think about something twisted, i had the following idea. As always, i guess
other conlangers already had this idea, and that natlang have something even
worse. Anyway, here is my idea, tell me if you know something similar.

some languages mark tenses (present/past/future...)on the verbs, other prefer
aspect(progressive/punctual/completed/usual...). i was thinking of having two
verb groups. in one, comjugation would indicate tense, in the other, aspect.
and the first group could have mainly (or only, i am not sure) action verbs,
while the second would be more (or completely)filled with stative verbs.

Second part of the idea.
Add a little of aglutination. u can have a couple of suffixes applicable to the
verbal stem. u could have for example indicating volition, or supposition.
these suffixes would have to be conjugated them selves. but always as second
group. and u could also have some sufixes having first group conjugations,
expressing for example causative.

you could do things like this (my idea was about the verb, so don't pay to much
attention on the pronouns and their apparent case):

I smoke.PRESENT
I smoke.PAST
I smoke-volit.USUAL (i often want/wanted to smoke)
I smoke-volit-causativ.FUTURE  by him (he will make me want to smoke)

or oposite, if u start with a second group verb
the light (to be flashing).REPETITIVE  (the light is/was flashing repeatedly)
the light (to be flashing).causative.PAST ( the light was made to flash (by someone)

and so on. this idea of two groups comes from japanese, where adjective can be
considered as stative verbs, and some suffixes actualy make action verbs become
adjectives. but in japanese, adjective and verbs both have the same cathegorie
of conjugations : past/non-past.

I think what i say is not very clear, but i am not sure how to phrase it
differently. and please do not comment on the details of those examples, they
are not from an actual system, they are just meant to give a general idea of
what i mean, so they are probably not very acurate.

Reply

Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>