Re: Verbal distinctions

Quoting vaksje <vaksje@...>:

> On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 02:12:33PM +0200, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > Quoting vaksje <vaksje@...>:
> >
> > > [snip]
> >
> > If I'm reading this arightly, what you suggest is at least on the surface
> very
> > similar to what happens in (my conlang) Tairezazh. You'd get _ta ken_ "I
> live"
> > and _ta ken zent_ "I want to live". _Ken_ is still the finite verb -
> putting
> > this in the past tense yields _ta kenk_ "I lived" and _ta kenk zent_ "I
> wanted
> > to live".
>
> This is indeed what I meant. Does Tairezazh have any other words in the
> same category as _zent_ or is it a closed cateory (thus lexically
> restricted), with plain infinitives used for the remaining cases?
It's a closed class of so-called "modal adverbs", with eight members. From my
website:

Interogative; marker _fe_; turns the verb's sentence into a yes-or no
question; eg Seno dhek fe? "Did he go?".

Potential; marker _fiks_; indicates ablitity of carrying out the verb's
action; eg Seno dhek fiks? "He can go, he is able of going".

Debitive; marker _gez_; indicates that the subject should do something; eg
Senen dhek gez "They should go".

Obligative; marker _koi_; indicates that the subject needs do something; eg
Seno dhek koi "He needs to go".

Subjunctive; marker _lep_; indicates irrealis or hypotheticality; eg Tse sena
ak lep ated "If she were here".

Permissive; marker _skei_; indicates that the subject is allowed to carry out
an action; eg Sha raig skei "You may eat".

Necessitive; marker _tsin_; indicates that the subject must do something; eg
Sena dhek tsin "She must go".

Desiderative; marker _zent_; indicates a wish to carry out the verb's action;
eg Sena ak zent ated "She want to be here".

These are the ones in Standard Tairezazh; dialects may have slightly different
sets. The related Steienzh language have similar set, which includes
a "dictive" marker _ma_ [m@], used for indicating direct speech, and an
imperative marker _er_ [@r] (whose Tairezazh cognate has clitized and become a
regular inflection with different distribution form these adverbs).

                                                          Andreas

> > However, _zent_ "to want" isn't syntactically a verb at all - it's an
> > uninflectable adverb. Perhaps your -k could be interpreted as an
> adverbizer?
>
> Yeah, the concept of an adverbizer seems logical, since information is
> added to an existing verb, instead of rearrganging them into an
> infinitive structure.
>
> >                                                             Andreas
>
> --
> vaksje.
>

Reply