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Hadwan 'gerundive'

From:Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 27, 2001, 7:04
> From: Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> > Subject: Re: feature name help (also re: conlang digest 21-22 mar) > > > It goes something like this: the inflected verb form becomes a new > > stem with a suffix in -c (/ts/) or -s (/S/) depending on the ending.
And
> > the meaning is basically "the act of Subject Verbing". The basic
parallel
> > construction in English is a possessive pronoun and an -ing form ('my > > doing' this, 'his misunderstanding' that), although I think the Hadwan
might
> > be more flexibly used, perhaps adjectivally: "The ghost of the woman
_he
> > had murdered_" > > So you take the form inflected for person and tense as a stem?
Yup... For an example of the second use, The man you were dreaming about has left. would be constructed in Hadwan something like this: leave.PERF.INTR-3SG man.DAT-SG about-dream-INF.AOR.TR-2SG.DVRB.DAT-SG (where the phrase 'you were dreaming about' becomes a complicated adjective: "your dreamed-about") The ending on that ("aor-tr-2sg-dvrb-dat-sg") would be something like "-siróci:" [-s-iro-c-i:]. I _think_ it works that way. I don't know how reasonable/certain that is for sure. Also I don't know whether this use follows from the main use, or should (for whatever semantic/structural reason) be classified as something else entirely. Er, anyway, for the basic sense, which I'm more certain of: Your incessant lying is a constant pain. lie-INF.AOR.TR-2SG.DVRB.NOM incessant.NOM be.3SG pain.NOM constant.NOM [Irregular copula 'to be' verb doesn't follow "intransitive" forms.] (I really need to work on vocabulary, so I can really illustrate these examples...)
> > What would yall call that? (Other than 'a bad idea'...) > > Tha's not a bad idea at all! And it looks like it solves very nicely the
problem
> of handling relative clauses (can this deverbal form take object
complements?). Er, well, I have no idea what that last bit means per se. Can I get an example sentence to work with?
> Why not "gerund" or "gerundive"? (I don't know which one corresponds
better,
> since French doesn't make a difference between the gerund and the
gerundive:
> they're both called "gérondif") Or "gerundive mood"? It seems to
correspond
> quite well to the meaning of your derivation...
Well, I recognize the proximity to a gerund, although I couldn't really find any reference to gerunds inflecting for person, so I was wondering if there might be a more descriptive name. I *think* there is a 'normal' gerund in the verb already, but I'm not sure (I may have it confused with an infinitive). But I could go with 'gerundive', if that gives an implication of something gerund-like... Now it's late and I'm forgetting how to think clearly. Ook... *Muke! -- lobster sticks to magnet?

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>