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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!

Reply

David Stokes <dstokes@...>