Re: New Language - Altsag Venchet

| -----Original Message-----
| From: Nik Taylor
| Subject: Re: New Language - Altsag Venchet
|
| Joseph Fatula wrote:
| > --- Gender ---
| > Every noun is either animate or inanimate.
| > Animate nouns are living things,
| > parts of living things, and other things being
| > viewed as capable of action.
| > There are a number of irregulars, of both genders.
|
| In most animate-inanimate distinctions, irregular
| forms are assymetrical, that is, it's common to find
| inanimate objects in an animate category, but to find
| an animate in the inanimate category is
| exceedingly rare.

        In the book "Describing Morphosyntax" (an excellent book for
conlangers and "armchair linguists"), the author often discusses his own
field work in the language Panare (I believe a Caribbean language, also
spelled Panare in a few places). Panare distinguishes between animate and
inanimate nouns. However, because of some old sound changes and pattern
over-correction, the words for "rock" and "pineapple" are treated as people.

| Joseph Fatula wrote:
| > Objects of prepositions are in the dative case.
| All prepositions?

        And all the time? Could other cases have special meanings?
("Penetration/into", "roughly / in that direction", "...and stops there",
etc.)

| Joseph Fatula wrote:
| > --- Aspect ---
| > Perfective is for completed actions.  Habitual,
| > actions repeatedly or
| > habitually done.  Inceptive means "to begin to
| > X", cessative "to stop Xing". Medial, "in the
| > middle of Xing", "while Xing".  Intentional and
| > unintentional reflect the speaker's intent.

        Some languages (I believe Hopi for one) have a "chaotic iterative".
It's for something done repeatedly but not out of volition. The best example
is coughing. Coughing just happens to you, and you just do it, but without a
pattern or regular period of iteration. I have that in the language I'm
working on. It may be useful for you as a combination of "habitual" and
"unintentional".

                Mike

______________________________________
Mike Karapcik   *       Tampa, FL
Network Analyst *       USF campus
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center
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B+++/R:Wic A+ E+ N1 Is/d K ia-:+ p-- s- m o P S----

Ignore the nasty addition below:

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