Re: past tense formation

On Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 06:19:55PM -0000, Dan Jones wrote:
> In my new conlang, Denanan, I have something of a problem.
[...]
> This is fine for transitive phrases, but what about intransitive?
>
> S'annah anninta.
> bread-nom burn-pres-3s
> The bread burns.
>
> But in the past:
>
> S'annah annayan.
> Bread-nom burn-ppt
> The bread burnt.
>
> which doesn't sound right.
I don't see anything wrong with it.

> Not only that, certain verbs are intransative yet
> take an object (I know, this is confusing). For instance, dali "to go" does
> not take an accusative object, it takes the preposition ya and the dative:
>
> Yañanay ya tálanar dalita.
> man-pl-nom to mountain-dat go-pres-3p.
> The men go to the mountain.
>
> -but-
>
> Yañanayo tálan dalayan.
> man-pl-inst mountain-nom go-ppt.
> The mountain by the men was gone.
How about leaving the cases the same as in the present tense, but using the
ppt. for the verb? I.e.:

man.PL.NOM to mountain.DAT go.PPT.

This is the way (IIRC) it would be done in Italian or French using
copula+past participle; the only difference is that you don't have a copula.
E.g.:

Ando            alla    biblioteca.
go.1.S.PRES     to.the  library
"I'm going to the library."

Sto             andato alla     biblioteca.
COP.1.S.PRES    go.PPT to.the   library
"I went/have gone to the library."

I don't think it would be that likely for a nominative-dative sentence to
change to an instrumental-nominative (or absolutive-ergative, essentially)
one, because that change occurs already with originally
nominative-accusative sentences.

This looks like a cool group of languages :)

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo