Verbs, verbs everywhere...

Syntax-class was boring today, so I allowed my mind to
drift, with unexpected results: I finally got around to
starting work on tAruven's new-style verb-morphology.

Before sharing my notes on the subject, how much of the work
of a sentence does your verbs handle? What is marked on the
verb itself, what is phased out to auxilliaries, how do you
handle the copula (still not a resolved problem here - stay
tuned)?

Here's an appetizer for ya: All verbs by default agree with
the 1st person singular pronoun in the subject (S and A),
(so that the speaker never needs mention him/herself),
except for weather-verbs like 'snow', 'rain' etc., so you
have <rI> "give":

        rI duba=FE Ui=F0

        I.AGENT give knife.PATIENT you.BENEFACTIVE

I.AGENT is understated

Then you have:

        rIaf Ui=F0

        I.AGENT give_something you.BENEFACTIVE

Both agent and patient understated, and:

        rIivaf

        I.AGENT give_something_to_someone

All arguments understated.

Stay tuned...


tal.