Re: Help: Zhyler ECM/Raising Verbs (Longish)

I already had worries with such problems. I don’t want
to get into Zhyler peculiarities, but in general,
here’s my idea :

I you translate: “He wants to eat the cake” by “He is
cake-eating-VOL” (volitive), it means that “he” is
“wanting”, so: “He is cake-eating-wanting”, or “He is
((cake-eating)-wanting). The same subject applies to
“eat” and to “want”.

Now if you want to use something similar to translate
“I want him to eat the cake”, you must have a form
meaning “He is ((cake-eating)-wantED”. It is no more
the same person who eats and who wants. This means
that there must be a possibility to add a passive mark
on the volitive mark (or to have a volitive-active vs
a volitive-passive).

If you want to precise who wants it (for ex, I want
it), then you have to include the agent in the form :
“He is ((cake-eating)-wanted-by.me)”

The other way, of course, would be:

“I am wanting (he eats the cake)”. If you really don’t
want to use the verb “to want” at all, you can replace
it by “to be-VOL”: “I am-VOL he eats the cake”, or I
am-VOL he is cake-eating.

There are many more possibilities:

He hopes to eat the cake -> he is
((cake-eating)-hoping)
I hope he will eat the cake -> he is
((cake-eating)-hoped-(by.me))
He is able to eat the cake -> he is
((cake-eating)-able)
I am able to make (to force) him to eat the cake -> he
is (((cake-eating)-forced-(by.me)-able)
I am able to enable him to eat the cake -> he is
(((cake-eating)-enabled-by.me)-able)
He was allowed to eat the cake -> he was
((cake-eating)-allowed)
We allowed him to eat the cake -> he was
((cake-eating)-allowed-by.us)
He is about to eat the cake -> he is
((cake-eating)-about)
He is supposed to eat the cake -> he is
((cake-eating)-supposed)

I’m sorry that she wanted him to eat the cake -> he is
(((cake-eating)-wanted-by.her)-regretted-by.me) ???
No, doesn’t work, because what is regretted is not
“he”, but the whole situation, so rather : There is a
(((cake-eating-by.him)-wanted-by.her)-regretted-by.me).

You know that I’m sorry that she wanted him to eat the
cake… uh, what about having a drink and talking about
something else ?

My initial idea was: could we imagine a language where
there would be no verbs like “to want”, “to wish”, “to
agree”, “to be able”, “to hope”, “to be sorry”, but
only modal affixes (meaning the same) ? But I faced
the same problem : it all depends on WHO wants,
wishes, agrees, and so on.

So by now my idea would be to have both possibilities
at hand : if in a language, the stem “to want” were
“vol” for ex, than you could used that stem both as a
real verb and as a (volitive) affix: Mi vol esn cak =
Mi cakesnvol = I want to eat the cake = I (am)
cake-eating-wanting.

If the passive of “vol” were “volt”: Mi volt esn cak =
Mi cakesnvolt = I am wanted to eat the cake = I am
cake-eating-wanted = (Somebody) wants me to eat the
cake.

If “he” was “li”: Li vol mi esn cak = Mi cakesnvoltli
= He wants I eat the cake = I (am)
cake-eating-wanted-by.him = He wants me to eat the
cake.

I don’t know whether all this can cope with Zhyler
features.


--- David Peterson <ThatBlueCat@...> wrote:
> Hi all, [snip]

=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html