Re: Separate verb conjugation paradigms in conlangs

--- Peter Bleackley <Peter.Bleackley@...>
wrote:

> Staving Trebor Jung:
> >Was wondering... If your conlang divides up verbs
> into separate verb
> >conjugational paradigms (as in Latin and
> Lithuanian), what sort of ways do
> >you divide the verbs up? F'rex., is the didvision
> arbetrary or based on
> >semantics? If the latter, what semantic criteria do
> you use?
>
The division in Silindion is basically made on the
basis of root final sounds, with a random bit of
arbitrariness found in the past.


Vowel Roots:
 nanke-  "to come upon, find"
 ne:-    "to marry"
 malya-  "to move"  (intransitive)

These types of words have slightly differing endings
in some cases than Consonant/Cluster roots:

 mond- "to drag"
 mald- "to move (transitive)
 eosk- "to jump"

(Consonant roots have differing behaviours, according
to exaclty which consonant or cluster is before the
ending.  Most of these differences however are
predictable, being the product of regular phonetic
shifts.)

There is some arbitrariness in Past Tense Suffixes:
  -si, -na, -ti, -e, -i, -ssi, -ne

However, -si usually occurs in roots that end in
-b(v), -t, -p, -k. (sometimes other ones as well, with
decreasing frequency)

 The -ssi suffix tends to show up in roots that end in
vowels, where they don't take the -i past.

 The -e past is the most productive, being found in
roots with an -a- or an -e- or an -o- medial vowel.
The -i past is the second most productive, being found
in most vowel-roots (those ending in a vowel) and
those roots which have an -u- or -i- medially.

Other than that, there is one slightly semantic
difference that is expressed morphologically:

Sometimes, roots which indicated involuntary action,
or action which happens rather than is initiated for
any specific purpose, or some intransitives, or some
statives, take -r, rather than -n in the 3rd person
present indicative.

Elliott Lash




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