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Re: Prevli: a question

From:David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...>
Date:Sunday, October 21, 2007, 6:13
Roger wrote:
<<
Any others I might consider??? I thought there was a rather extensive
post about these terms in the Listserv archive, but don't seem to
have found it.
 >>

I have a completely idiosyncratic list of these in Sathir which
work in a completely idiosyncratic way.

You listed:

-Desiderative (in Sathir, 1st tier [I called it Volitive.  Just made
it up])
-Inchoative (in Sathir, 2nd tier)
-Inceptive (in Sathir, 2nd tier)
-Causative (in Sathir, 2nd tier)
-Coercive (not in Sathir [Causative would be used with other stuff])
-Obligative (in Sathir, 1st tier)
-Debitive (either the Obligative or Necesitive in Sathir)

Those not mentioned but in Sathir:
-Habitual (1st tier)
-Dubitative (1st tier)
-Necesitive (1st tier [e.g., "I need to" vs. "I want to"])
-Optative (1st tier)
-Permissive (1st tier [i.e., "I'm allowed to"])
-Antipassive (2nd tier)
-Waxing (2nd tier [there's another term for this])
-Waning (2nd tier [ditto])
-Applicative (2nd tier)
-Cessive (2nd tier)
-Abilitive (2nd tier)

Obviously this list is problematic, but it might give you ideas.
I don't intend to fix the system, because Sathir is kind of like a
practical joke to me.  It's not overtly a jokelang, but I created it
for the purposes of satire, and I think this crazy system suits
it well.

Incidentally, the difference between 1st and 2nd tier is 1st tier
is a verb inflection: it must appear with a 1st tier inflection, or
it's not a well-formed word (there's a also a neutral for most
expressions in the 1st tier).  The 2nd tier are just affixes, but
both happen to be infixes.

The problems I ran into with the 1st tier ones (before linguistics
showed me how I could be creative) is that when I thought of
the English versions, I ran into problems, e.g.:

1a) I want to eat.
1b) I want you to eat.
1c) I want a pet.

2a) *I become to eat.
2b) *I become you to eat.
2c) I become a pet.

3a) I begin to eat.
3b) *I begin you to eat.
3c) *I begin a pet.

4a) *I cause to eat.
4b) I cause you to eat
4c) *I cause a pet.

A language can certainly treat each one of these the same, but
English doesn't, so I ran into problems since I couldn't think of
a non-English way out of it.  Now I can, though, so all is well
in my neck of the woods.  :)

Regarding actions and completeness, you have the inceptive, but here
are some others to consider (don't know the name for most):

-Cessive (mentioned above; end of an action)
-"About to complete"
-"Fail to complete" (unsuccessful cessive--unsuccessive [ho, ho!])
-"Having just begun"
-"Interruption with the intention of completing later on"
-"In the middle of"
-Resumptive
-Continuative
-"About to begin"
-"Simultaneous action" (while doing something else)

There should indeed be something like this up there somewhere.
Here's a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood

Roger:
<<
Whether to use prefix/suffix, or compound with relatable lexical
items-- not yet decided (more morphophonemics, yay!!). Some may
eventually be better done periphrastically.....
 >>

Deciding on different sets to be treated similarly morphologically
is always fun.  It'll be cool to see what you come up with!

-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/