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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