Re: Unilang: the Grammar

Hi.  Newbie lurker delurking for a moment to say that that's precisely how Chinese works.

Verbs of motion begin with "lai2" or "qu4," "come, move towards speaker" or "go,
move away from speaker."
Ta1 lai2 le.
He come PERF.
He came.
 ("le" is sort of a perfective marker.)

Ta1 qu4 le.
He go PERF.
He went.

"Jin4" means "enter."  However, it must be combined with "la2" or "qu4." Thus you get:

Ta1 jin4qu4 le.
He enter-go PERF.
He went in.

Ta1 jin4lai4 le.
He enter-come PERF.
He came in.

If you want to specify how he goes, you add another verb of motion, for example,
"walk, run, jump, crawl, roll," or "zhou3, pao3, tiao4, pa2, gun3"
respectively. Thus:

Ta1 zhou3jin4qu4 le
He walk-enter-go PERF.
He walked in (there).

Ta1 pao3jin4lai2 le
He run-enter-come PERF.
He ran in (here).

You can change the direction of motion. Rather than enter, you could exit, go up,
go down, etc., or in Chinese "chu1, shang4, xia4" respectively. Thus:

Ta1 pao3chu1qu4 le.
He ran out (there).

Ta1 tiao4shang4lai2 le.
He jumped up (here).

Ta1 gun3xia4qu4 le.
He rolled down (there).

So, you can freely combine "come" or "go" optionally with a direction, or a mode
of motion, or both. I 've never thought about it before, but this system seems
rather neat and elegant to me. Anywyay, just thought I'd share.

BTW, what is a "satellite language?"

-Weiben

>---- Original Message ---
>From: Oskar Gudlaugsson <hr_oskar@...>
>To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
>Cc:
>Subject: Re: [CONLANG] Unilang: the Grammar
>
>On Wed, 25 Apr 2001 15:10:49 EDT, David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>
>wrote:
>
>>I realized that
>>if I only had one verb for "to enter", then I'd have to use that every
>single
>>time, and if I wanted to describe how whoever entered (running, slouching,
>>trudging, tripping, etc.), I'd need to use an adjective, and I didn't like
>>that; a preposition's must shorter.  Now that I do know of all this, I'm
>much
>>more careful when I create those words.  And I think I do favor satellite
>>languages, despite their flaws.
>
>I'm interested in those 'satellite' terms; have any more details on that?
>
>But I know what you're talking about, though I have a solution; but John
>Cowan already demonstrated:
>
>>You could also use a verbal dvandva-style compound:
>>he runs (+) enters the room.
>
>Exactly. In my model, combinations like run-enter, sneak-enter, shake-
>stand, cling-be under, jump out-be behind, etc etc, seem quite able to take
>care of this.
>
>Óskar
>
>

Reply