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All-verb language - instalment 1

From:Estel Telcontar <estel_telcontar@...>
Date:Thursday, July 24, 2003, 1:31
Hi Everyone,

I decided it's time to introduce youguys to a little bit of what I'm
coming up with for my all-verb language.  Today, I'm just going to
introduce the different kinds of verbs.  I don't have any phonetic
content worked out yet, so I'll just give glosses.

There are 4 different main categories of verbs, distinguished mainly on
semantic grounds.  The different types correspond somewhat to different
parts of speech in most languages; however, all inflect alike.

1.  Normal verbs.
Not much comment needed.  Plain ordinary transitive and intransitive
verbs:
RUN, EAT, SLEEP, HIT, etc.

2. "Adjectival verbs".
That's what I call them.  I suspect they're sposta be called "stative
verbs".  Essentially equivalent to English "BE" + adjective, and
usually intransitive (maybe always.):
BE.OLD, BE.GREEN, BE.TALL, etc.

3. "Prepositional verbs".
These come in 2 subcategories, "motional" and "locational", I'm calling
them for now.  Both types are normally, if not always, transitive.
Locational prepositional verbs are essentially equivalent to English
"BE" + preposition:
BE.ON, BE.IN, BE.BESIDE, etc.
Motional prepositional verbs are essentially equivalent to English "GO"
+ preposition:
GO.ON(TO), GO.IN(TO) (=ENTER), etc.

4. "Nominal verbs"
Essentially equivalent to English "BE" + noun.  Can be intransitive or
transitive.  If intransitive, meaning is as above:
BE.[a/the]HUMAN, BE.DOG, BE.HOUSE, etc.
If transitive, the syntactic direct object is semantically a posessor,
so transitive nominal verbs might be glossed thus:
BE.HOUSE.OF, BE.DOG.OF

That's all the four categories.  All words belong to one of these
categories.  What do youguys think?

Estel

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