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Re: How much data in your conlang nouns?

From:Caleb Hines <cph9fa@...>
Date:Monday, January 5, 2004, 22:31
> 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