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Re: All-verb language - instalment 1

From:Jeff Jones <jeffsjones@...>
Date:Thursday, July 24, 2003, 11:24
On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 21:31:44 -0400, Estel Telcontar
<estel_telcontar@...> wrote:

>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 >
((( is it safe to come out? ))) I'll be watching this particular thread, since 'Yemls could be called a "mostly verb" language. WRT to syntax, there are 4 kinds of words: particles/conjunctions (with various subdivisions), pronouns/determiners, quantifiers, and general content words (the "verbs"). The verbs are classified WRT case-role mapping patterns and, independently, according to what aspect/mood/tense affixes are appropriate. The latter classification is closest to your 4 categories. I have: normally tenseless words (similar to your group 4), normally dynamic words (your group 1), graded static words, and binary static words. Your groups 2 and 3 would each be split between the last 2, I think. It will be interesting to see what you do. Oh, and 'Yemls also has the transitive "nominal" words where the object is the "possessor", but the object is required. Jeff