Re: How much data in your conlang nouns?

> I'm thinking about another tabulation for verbs. I'm
> curious to find out where various languages fall in
> the spectrum of variability of nouns and verbs.
Funny you should mention this. I was just figuring out such details for the
"verbal" system of Akathanu. Note that the system I'm about to explain is
"version 0.1" of the verb system in Akathanu, and will almost assuredly
undergo _serious_ revision. Also, I don't have any actual Akathanu words
yet in this system, just their meanings in English.

When I first started Akathanu, I wanted it to be about as nearly verbless
as I could get and still have it make sense. In fact, except for a number
of prepositions that will act similar to verbs (eg. "with X" = "using X."),
I wanted to use only the copula, with various dimensions to add more
meaning. After reading portions of the "eskimo.com" page about lexical
semantics (the URL to which was posted here recently) I figured out the
basics of how to do it!

First of all my copula has a property which, for lack of a better term, I'm
temporarily calling "behavior". Basically, it represents whether something
is "static" (already in a state) or "dynamic" (moving into a given state).
Anyone know the real term for this property? Mark's LKC mentions it, but
doesn't give a name to it. Also, I had thought about calling the dynamic
the "initiative dynamic" and having a contrasting "terminative dynamic"
(moving out of a given state), but this is probably too complicated and
more probably unneccassary.

Anyway, I then have three voices, which I call "passive", "active", and
"stative" (not to be confused with "static" above). These two features
("behavior" and "voice") I'm fairly hooked on. They'll probably remain in
any rewrite I do of the grammar. I summarize them below (X is a given
state, for example, "red", "alive", "observed", or "completed"). Note that
the active and passive voices can take a second argument, which is how I
deal with transitive verbs.

<pre>
The 6 Basic forms of the Akathanu copula:
-----------------------------------------
. . . . . static . . . . . . . . . . . dynamic
stative . "to be X". . . . . . . . . . "to become X"
passive . "to be kept X (by agent)". . "to be caused to become X (by
agent)"
active. . "to keep (a patient) X". . . "to cause (a patient) to become X"
------------------------------------------
</pre>

For example "I build a tower" could be expressed in either dynamic passive
or dynamic active:

"The tower (is caused to become built) by me."
or "I (am causing to to become built) the tower."

Similarly, "The tower is maintained." can be represented in static passive
as:
"The tower (is kept built)." with a null agent.


I'm thinking of adding other features as well. I have four numbers (s.,
pl., collective s., and col. pl.), and four "persons" (1st, 2nd, 3rd
personal, and 3rd impersonal), which the verb could conjugate according to.
There is no grammatical gender in Akathanu, however.

The next dimensions we could add are tense (3: past, present, future), and
aspect (possibly also 3: normal, progressive, and repetative). Finally, we
could add "mood" which I'm using as a grab bag for other various concepts.
This is probably the first list that will get shortened. I currently have
the following 10 moods: indicative, subjunctive, interogative, imperative,
negative, emphative, obligative, possibilitive, probabilitive, and
permissive.

To summarize:

2 behaviors
3 voices
3 tenses
3 aspects
4 persons
4 numbers
10 moods

= 8,640 forms of the copula!!!

In other words, there are potentially more forms of "to be" in Akathanu
than there are _words_ in many conlang lexicons. But remember: this is the
_only_ true verb in Akathanu.

Also, this doesn't include numerous possible instances where several moods
could be used at once. For example, you could have an "emphatically
probabilitively negatively interogative" which I can only guess would mean
something like:
"Is it very probable that he is not being...?"
Or if you change "interogative" to "imperative above you might get
something like:
"It is _definately_ probable that he is commanded not to be..."
You can further change "probabilitive" to "obligative" to get:
"He _definately_ should be commanded not to be..."
In addition to all of this, add an extra "interogative" in the right place
to get:
"Should he _definately_ be commanded not to be...?"
ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad sodium...

Examples like this are completely zany, and make my head swim! I may need
to drastically rewrite my mood system! But not until after finishing the
eskimo article.

In fact, once I calculated that number, I decided that I needed to cut it
down quite a bit (other than just mood). I haven't decided where to start
cutting yet, though. Probably person and number, and possibly aspect. Quick
math: if I eliminate all person, number, and mood, I have the much more
manageable 54 forms of the copula. Only 18 forms if I also eliminate
asspect.

Anyway, I thought it was kinda funny to have the possibility of having so
many verb forms in a "nearly verbless" language!

Thanks,
~Caleb