Re: just curious.. ;)

>I'd say it depends on what type of a language you've got.  But as a "kind of/sort of" list...
>
>1.) Intransitive, non-experiencer: "I walk", or "I'm walking" (the subject is
>performing an action >which no one is really affected by, per se)
>
>...
>
>11.) Performative: "I bet you he won't show up", "I now pronounce you man and wife", etc. (These
>are called "performative" because the idea is that they perform an action merely by speaking
>them, so when you bet somebody something, you really bet them; when some holy
>fellow >pronounces a couple spouse and spouse, he's supposedly performing the
>act right then [even
>though, due to legal stuff, that's no longer true in most places]. While it's a
>class of verbs, many
>can be intransitive "I bet you can't do it", transitive "I bet a dollar that you can't do it" and
>ditransitive "I bet you a dollar that he can't do it".)

Thanks! Very helpful.

>A couple of the things you said in your question are things that aren't really
>verb types, so much >as things that verbs can be, or things that verbs can
>do. For instance, "auxilliary" isn't a class of >verb. Some would argue that
>it's not even a thing at all, just a convenient way to deal with
>Indo->European languages that do this sort of thing. It's essentially just a
>second particle that happens >to be a verb that helps the other verb along,
>like "I SHOULD go to the store", "He WAS walking to >the store", "I WILL eat
>my dinner". So while those can all be lumped together as "auxilliaries",
>>they each perform a very different function, and so, aside from the fact
>that they kind of are verbs >and they're not the main verb of the clause,
>there's no reason why they should be lumped together >at all.
Oh... all right. See, I'm no linguist, so I know nothing of this... I really did
need an explanation, though. Just so I'm not entirely lost. ;)

>As for the French example "se laver", if it's taken very literally, it's just a
>reflexive, and any >transitive verb can be reflexive; it just means that the
>subject is the object, as well: "I wash >myself", "I see myself", "He eats
>himself", etc. It's not a verb type; just something they can do. >As for the
>other functions this "reflexive" form serves, I think you'd better ask
>Christophe or >someone who speaks, because even though he tried to explain it
>to me very recently, I still don't >get it.
Ah, I see... ;)

>One of the functions might be the so-called "middle voice", which I disagree
>with whole-heartedly--I >think it's just a glorified passive with no agent.
>Nevertheless, it's in phrases like "The stew cooks >nicely" ("up" is often
>added after the verb), "It eats like a meal", "It smells good" (??!?!?). And
>so >on and so forth down the line with all the "suprasegmental" things that
>can happen to verbs. The >main types, though, I think I listed, unless I
>blanked and missed some, or unless my theoretical >base is somehow different
>or wrong.
You lost me there....

>Inflectional:
>zela, noun, "bird"
>
>Singular:
>Nominative: zela (the bird)
>Accusative: zelo (Subj transitive verb "the bird")
>Dative: zelin (Subj ditransitive verb direct object "to the bird")
>Genitive: zelaj (of the bird)
>
>Plural:
>Nom.: zelas
>Acc.: zeloro
>Dat.: zelir
>Gen.: zelajn
>
>    versus...
>
>Agglutinative:
>zela, noun, "bird"
>
>Plural suffix: -no
>Accusative suffix: -ha
>Genitive suffix: -me
>Dative suffix: -ki
>
>"bird" = zela
>"birds" = zelano
>I hit "the bird" = zelaha
>I hit "the birds" = zelanoha
>I give a ball "to the birds" = zelanoki
>"the bird of the birds" = zela zelanome
>
>See, in inflectional, there are different endings for each case, whereas in
>agglutinative, there's a >non-changing affix for each morpheme, and it's
>never reduced; they just get piled on. I hope that's >a simple (if not
>over-simplified), non-controversial explanation of the difference. :)
>
>-David
Oh, I see! Thanks! :)

>Well, agglutinating languages can have variations in the forms, for
>example, vowel harmony, where the vowel changes depending on the vowels
>used in the word.  For example, a common form of vowel harmony is one in
>which the vowels of the word must be either all front or all back.  So
>that, for example, you could have a word "keti" or "kotu" (meaning, say,
>"man" and "house") but not *"ketu" (since /e/ is front and /u/ is
>back).  Affixes would have two forms, like -to/-tö (meaning, say,
>"Genitive"), so the the genitive of _keti_ would be _ketitö_, while the
>genitive of _kotu_ would be _kotuto_.
Oh, right... I read a little something about that. Hungarian has vowel harmony, right?

> There may also be phonetic restrictions.  For example, my Uatakassi forbids /sC/ clusters,
>simplifying them to /SS/, so that -tas + -ki (ki = /Ci/) (3rd person singular rational
>and non->punctual respectively) creating -tassi (/taSSi/)
That's neat!

>Basically, an agglutinating language is one in which you simply string morphemes
>together, often >subject to certain phonetic adjustments, to create more
>complex words.
Ah, I see....

>In Mandarin (and I suspect in other Asian langs like Japanese) you can say "I
>put on the table" >and it would be understood that you put *something* on the
>table, even though you didn't mention >it. Of course, there is still this
>distinction, since such a sentence must be in the context where
>the listener knows what you're talking about.
That makes sense.

>In my L1, Hokkien, this is *exactly* the way you express the idea of giving. In
>Mandarin you might >say this is similar, although in that case "the book" is
>marked as secondary(?) object; whereas in >my L1 literally two verbs are
>used: you can say "I take book give you" to imply handing the book >over, or
>you can say "I throw book give you" as the equivalent of "I throw you the
>book".
Interesting! Makes everything really compact, doesn't it?


The Aquamarine Demon
"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I'm always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?' "


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