Re: Elvish ideas ...

Quoting BP Jonsson <bpj@...>:

> Isnerq Andraeyas:
>
> >I said I hoped to give more details on my still unnamed
> >Elvish language's verbal system this weekend. Unfortunately,
> >I'm finding myself unable to make up my mind on even very
> >basic questions.
> >
> >What is certain is that there will be a perfect formation
> >formed with an infix -u-, creating a diphthong in the stress
> >syllable of the verbal root. Eg, _coar_ [kwa(;)r] "eat"
> >yields _coaur_ [kwawr] "has eaten".
>
> I guess _uu_ will be pronounced [ow] analogous to _ii_ [ej]?
Yep. Otherwise we'd be getting phonemic length, and we can be having that can
we? :-)

> >There'll probably be an inflected present tense too, leaving
> >the basic, uninflected verb to be typically used as past
> >imperfect. It'll also be used with auxiliaries indicating
> >mood, and other tense-aspects. I can, however, not decide on
> >a phonetic form that I like for this present tense affix,
>
> What about putting final fricativization to service?
> IIRC it was only fricativization of an initial stop which
> was used as a marker in the nominal morphology
That would be extremely hard to justify phonologically. I think I mentioned
that postvocalically the stop~fric contrast reflects an old geminite~single
contrast.

> >so
> >if I stumble on something that just cries out to be a past
> >tense marker, I might shuffle things around.
> >
> >There's an active participial prefix _ma-_, which causes
> >fricativization of a following stop. It can be added to
> >either an imperfect or a perfect verb stem, giving
> >distinctions like _machoar_ "eating" and _machoaur_ "having
> >eaten" (the distinction is nicked straight from Sindarin,
> >altho the phonetic realization is not).
>
> No worry.  A lot of languages have both active and passive
> participles in different tenses and aspects.  IMHO it is
> Western European which is odd in associating active with
> present and passive with past participles.
>
> >Presumeably there'll
> >also be at least two passive participles ("eaten" and
> >"having been eaten"), but the phonetic shapes aren't fixed
> >yet.
The marker's probably going to be _de-_, so _dechoar_ "eatan" and
_dechoaur_ "having been eaten". It just occured to me that the later might be
an excellent way of thelling people they're shit ...

> >There'll probably not be any agreement in number or person.
> >But clitized pronouns (à la French) is in danger of getting
> >thrown in. No doubt they'll wreck phonetic havoc.
>
> Like "I-him-it-give" or like "I-him-give-it"?
> The first is decidedly coolest!
I was rather thinking of "I-give-it to-him", but that may be subject to change.

> >Oh, and stress is on the root syllable. For polysyllabic
> >roots, learn to guess.
>
> No stress mark?  Well, I guess the native speakers won't need
> any. (And the spirit will be happily swimming in the pond...)
Can English and Russian, certainly can Meghean. There might be some optional
way of indicating stress, for the benefit of outsiders and ignoramora*.

* False analogy is good for you!

                                                            Andreas