Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Lahabic Verbs II: Person and Number

From:Anthony M. Miles <theophilus88@...>
Date:Monday, October 16, 2000, 22:39
Please tell me if I'm breaking some basic tendency here.
A dissection of the Early Lahabic verb form showed this:
STEM + indicative/subjunctive + aspect/tense + person + animacy of subject
The person plus animacy endings were thus (C= is a syllabic, s/d/p=
singular/dual/plural, i/a = animate/inanimate):
1s   -z         az, a: before voiced consonant > a (levelling)
2s   -l         al
3s   -n         an
1d   -z-l=      a:la > ala (leveling)
2d   -l-l=      alla
3di  -n-m=      ana
3da  -n-l=      andla
1p   -z-r=      a:ra > ara (levelling)
2p   -l-r=      arra
3pi  -n-n=      ana
3pa  -n-r=      andra
Note that 3s had one form, and 3di and 3pi are identical. 3pa resembled too
closely the nominative plural of a consonant-stem animate noun and soon was
restricted to purely formal documents.
3da followed its precedent.
With loss of the final vowel, the colloquial system became:
1s   -0         a
2s   -l         al
3s   -n         an
1d   -l         al
2d   -l         al
3d   -n         an
1p   -r         ar
2p   -r         ar
3p   -n         an
The ambiguity this system created required the use of pronouns. This also
explains the -0 ending of 1s, since the Lahabic form for 'I' is [nak<h>e].
3p developed an irregular stress in aspect/tenses where the thematic vowel
was short, thus contrasting 3s tyaini'man ['t<j>aj.ni:.man] with tyaini'man
[t<j>aj.'ni:.man]. The pronoun, however, is still obligatory. Although the
grammarians continued to use the terms dual and plural, the real system was
as presented below: (e/i=exclusive/inclusive)
1s   -0         a
2s   -l         al
3s   -n         an
1pe  -l         al
1pi  -r         ar
2pe  -l         al
2pe  -r         ar
3p   -n         an
I wanted to continue the dual in some form, but it tends to vanish. It
seemed to me that the dual could change into an exclusive because dual = two
 > _only_ two > _only_ undetermined number > exclusive. Does this
development make sense?
Also, the stress patterns for verbs changed as follows
(P/A=penultimate/antipenultimate):
long-vowel:  PPPAAAAAA -> PPPPPPPPP
short-vowel: AAAAAAAAA -> AAAAAAPPP
That isn't terribly significant, but I found the pattern reversal amusing.
Oh, and one final question.What does bh stand for if voiced consonants can't
be aspirated? Clearly this is crucial issue for native Lahabic speakers.
Hiyippha'la leima bahaimma/Yipha'l li'm bhaim
-Antani' Markuz Maialza (Anthony Marcus Miles)

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.