Re: Chevraqis: a sketch

At 01:29 PM 08/10/2000 -0400, YHL wrote:
>On Thu, 10 Aug 2000, Fabian wrote:
>
>> > Verbs:
>> > Infinitives always end in -u.
>> > Verbs inflect only by tense, not by number or person.
>>
>> By having infinitives, you are implying a lot of pseudo-indo-european
>> grammar. Japanese lacks this, as does Arabic, on which I thought you were
>> basing some stuff.
[...]
>I realize Arabic *doesn't* handle it this way, but what I've been doing
>is have affixes attach to the three-syllable base morphemes to produce
>infinitives in different aspects/moods (?).  You then conjugate those
>infinitives by lopping off the -u ending and replacing with whatever
>suffix.  So I guess it's a two-stage process, born of my foolish attempt
>to marry bits of Arabic verbs and bits of Japanese verbs.  We'll see
>where it goes--I expect to have to do complete overhauls on the grammar
>every so often anyway.
>
FWIW, Ancient Egyptian, another member of the Afrosemitic family,
 had consonantal roots, and also had infinitives.
They were an integral part of the language.  For example, the
"present progressive" translates most literally as "I am upon
to-go" = "I am going" (in Egyptian: iw.i Hr Smt).  Another example
is a literary formula: Smt pw iri.n.i "It is a to-go that I did" =
"I went". Egyptian did not, however, have the various verb types
of Arabic or Hebrew, so maybe a different logic prevails in languages
that do.

-- Terry

http://www.geocities.com/teresh_2000
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