Description question
From: | Muke Tever <alrivera@...> |
Date: | Sunday, October 7, 2001, 0:26 |
Okay, in my new conlang Dunamy I have sentences like this (morphemes
separated by periods):
gges.i tak.s ara gae
chase dog ? cat
"The dog chases the cat."
pi.ggés gae.s ara tak
chase dog ? cat
"The cat is chased by the dog."
[<Ara> is a word that marks 'gae' as the patient in the first sentence and
'tak' as the agent in the second. Also the acute in <piggés> is just a
spelling change to mark that the pronunciation remains the same.]
This looks like active and passive but that doesn't seem quite right. Is
there a better way to describe this? And what do I call <ara>?
***
Also,
gges.i tak.s ara gae
chase dog ? cat
"The dog chases the cat."
gges.i tak.uz ara gae
chase dog ? cat
"The dog chased the cat."
gges.i tak.api ara gae
chase dog ? cat
"The dog will chase the cat."
[The same can work in the other construction:
pi.ggés gae.uz ara tak
chase cat ? dog
"The cat was chased by the dog."
The tense is marked on the subject.]
How common is it for nouns to be the carrier of tense like this?
*Muke!
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