Re: Hadwan 'gerundive'

En réponse à Muke Tever <alrivera@...>:

>
> 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.
>
It looks quite nice to me. And indeed, as Ray said, it looks like a passive
deverbal adjective in this use, thus a "gerundive".

> 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...)
>
And in this use, it looks like an active deverbal noun, thus a "gerund".
Strangely enough, those two different notions look naturally connected in your
derivation. It is interesting and makes it even more worth keeping. As for the
name, I'd go for "gerundive". But that's only personal taste.

> > > 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?
>
Forget about it, now that I see it and read Ray's post, I see that in the use
when your forms corresponds to a relative clause in English, the antecedent of
the clause is always the object of the verb in the deverbal form.

>
> 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.
>
Well, when you say "my understanding" you do nothing else but inflecting a
gerund for person, even if actually the gerund itself is not inflected, in
English finite verbs aren't inflected either ("I understand" has the same
structure as "my understanding", even if the pronouns are not the same).

> I *think* there is a 'normal' gerund in the verb already, but I'm not
> sure
> (I may have it confused with an infinitive).
Well, a gerund *is* an infinitive (the Latin gerund for instance suppleted for
the infinitive which existed only in the nominative and accusative case), only
used in different cases then the "infinitive" per se..

>
> Now it's late and I'm forgetting how to think clearly.  Ook...
>
It doesn't need to be late for me to have foggy brains :) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr