Re: All-verb language - instalment 1

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