All-Verb Language - Instalment 2

So, for Instalment 2 I'm going to take on subject and object markers.

First, there are standard anaphoric (I think that's the term) subject
and object markers, which perform much of the function of pronouns in
English.  These distinguish:
1. Two numbers, singular and plural
2. First, second, and third person
3. About 4 genders: Masculine (M), Feminine (F), Epicene (E) and Neuter
(N), I think.  I believe gender is only distinguished in 3rd person

Thus, ignoring other inflections such as T/A, we can get inflected
forms such as:

eat-1SG.SUB-3SG.N.OB  "I eat it"
be.tall-3PL.E.SUB   "They are tall"
be.man-1PL.SUB  "We are men"
be.language-3SG.N.SUB-1PL.OB  "It is our language"

Next, there is what I call "relative subject and object markers".
These function to make noun-like forms from verbs.  They translate as
things like "that which" (SG) and "those that" (PL).  I'm still
hesitating about how many distinctions I should make them show, but
currently I'm leaning towards having a single "relative subject marker"
(RS) and a single "relative object marker" (RO).

Again ignoring other inflections, including T/A, we can get inflected
forms such as:

eat-1SG.SUB-RO  "That which I eat"/ "the things that I eat"
be.man-RS "That which is a man"/"man"/"those who are men" / "men"
sing-RS-3SG.N.OB "The one that is singing it"
be.language-RS-1PL.OB
       "That which is our language"/ "Our language"
(This is the gloss of what the speakers of this language would call
it.)

There may also be what I call "relative adjective subject (RAS) and
object (RAO) markers".  These are somewhat analogous to the "relative
subject and object markers", but they produce adjective-like forms
instead of nounlike forms.  I originally thought they were necessary,
but I'm now debating whether I can do without them.  They work like
this:

sing-1SG.SUB-RAO  "which I sing"
be.tall-RAS "which/who is tall" / "tall"

So in order to translate a sentence like "the song which I am singing
is beautiful", you would get something like:

be.song-RS sing-1SG.SUB-RO be.beautiful-3SG.N.SUBJ

There may be other sorts of "Subject and object markers" showing up in
the future, but I haven't worked them out yet.

Estel


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