Re: Circumfixes?

En réponse à Danny Wier <dawier@...>:

>
> One of the features of the language will be the use of the "circumfix",
> which is
> really the addition of a preposition to a noun bearing a case suffix
> (which are
> used to indicate nominative, accusative/ergative and genitive, at least
> for
> now).  This creates a "compound" case, and a change in the case ending
> changes
> the meaning of the prepositional phrase.  So some possible local cases:
>
> "at" + noun-nom = adessive "at, on"
> "at" + noun-acc = allative "onto"
> "at" + noun-gen = ablative "from"
> "in" + noun-nom = inessive "in"
> "in" + noun-acc = illative "into"
> "in" + noun-gen = ellative "out of"
>
> English does this too, just with compounded prepositions like "onto",
> "out of",
> "upon".
>
> Anybody else use circumfixes or circumpositions in their conlang, or a
> dual-morpheme case marking system?
>
Moten is not far from what you're describing. First, it exhibits a three-case
marking: nominative, accusative, genitive. Cases (and number) are marked with a
suffix AND an infix (and it's really the combination of both that gives case and
number, the language is not agglutinating :) ). Moreover, there are prefixes,
which behave like prepositions, but those complete nouns in nominative case.
However, there are two other prefixes that have a different behaviour. The three
cases I've given don't only have the meaning I presented. They can also have a
spatial meaning (in which case nominative refers to the place where you are,
accusative to the place where you go to, and genitive to the place where you
come from), and even a temporal meaning (nominative for the moment, accusative
for duration and genitive for repetition). When the meaning is clear, the cases
are used as they are, but if you want to give to a case a clear spatial or
temporal meaning, in a context where it could be ambiguous, you can add the
prefix mo- for the spatial meaning, or the prefix di- for the temporal meaning,
to the noun already declined. It means that to mark unambiguously the place
where you go, you need a prefix, an infix and a suffix!!! Knowing that Moten is
full of rules of assimilation, insertion of vowels or consonnants, etc... (isn't
the process called sandhi, or is it something different?) to prevent sound
clashes when those affixes are added to the noun, you can imagine the nightmare
:) (in fact it's pretty straightforward, though complex).

Moreover, Moten also exhibits a phenomenon called "overdeclination" where an
already declined (or conjugated, since it also happens to verbs) form can be
declined again. The simplest case of overdeclination is the addition of the
infixed article (yes, Moten also has an infixed article :) ) on a genitive noun
or on the verb of a relative clause to transform them into nouns/noun phrases
meaning "the one of/the one that". For instance:

lineva|n moseju: the bird's leg (linan: bird, mosu: (animal) leg)
linevea|n: the bird's one, the one of the bird.

bvaj zanej: your ring (ba: you, zanej: ring)
bveaj: yours.

koga ipe|laj itos linean: the bird that I see (ga: me, ipe|laj: to see, atom: to
be (conjugation is periphrastic, the -s suffix is used to make relative and
completive clauses)
koga ipe|laj iteos: what I see, the one that I see.

Those new nouns/noun phrases can of course be declined depending on their
function in the sentence, or added prefixes if necessary.

A little more complicated is the overdeclination of a verb complement in the
genitive case to make it into a noun complement (only nouns in the genitive
case, adjectives, verbs with the -s suffix and a few particles can complete
nouns). Nouns completed with the prefixes I already described can be used only
as verb complements. To be used with nouns, they have to be overdeclined in
genitive case. For instance, with "fuli": gold, prefixed with ko- (an
instrumental prefix for means, manner, or material), you make the verb
complement "kofuli": (made) with gold. If you overdecline this complement in the
genitive case, you can complete a noun to describe that it is made in gold:

kofulvi zanej: a gold ring, a ring made in gold.

Also, the formation of subclauses in Moten sometimes asks for a conjugated verb
to be declined as a noun :) .

Finally, and probably the simplest of all this, superlatives are made through
circumfixes (pe- -no for superiority and le- -no for inferiority).

As you see, it's quite frequent that a word in Moten exhibits at least two
affixes (three is also very frequent), among which often at least one infix, if
not two :) .

Want more? Check my webpage (in French :( ), Moten is the language I describe
best in it. There are even a few texts in Moten as well as a lexicon
(French-Moten and Moten-French of course :) ).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr