Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Department of Creativity / Late night verbal TAME thoughts / Late night verbal TAME thoughts
This is all in its earliest stages at this point, and feel free to critique.
Basically the idea is that each verb of mine will have six stems, each used for a variety of functions. Thus far I've called the stems: perfective, imperfective, habitual, future, optative, and stative.
From the perfective stem comes the perfective series - "I did X" and all that - and the narrative past series. The perfective series comes in the past and immediate past × first-hand knowledge (s), hearsay/inference (i), other asserted personal knowledge (k) and dubitative (d) screeves, but the narrative past only comes in one screeve.
From the imperfective stem come the progressive series "doing X", the inchoative series "starting to do X", and the immediate future series. The progressive series comes in past, immediate past, and present screeves, as does the inchoative, but the immediate future of course makes no tense contrasts. All screeves in this stem contrast s, k, i, d evidentialities.
From the habitual stem come the habitual series "do X" and the nak-iterative series (so named because it's formed by the affix "nak-") "do X over and over". Both of these series contrast all of past, immediate past, and present, and the nak-iterative in addition contrasts a future tense, but in this stem k and i evidentialities are not distinguished from one another.
From the future stem come the future series "will do X" and the tr-iterative series "do X over and over" as well as secondary mood. The difference between the nak-iterative and the tr-iterative isn't quite clear - in general, a verb seems to prefer one or the other, with motion verbs preferring tr-, but some motion verbs can take both with different meanings. In general tr- seems to be a more regular "over and over" than nak-, but at the lexical level this isn't really a distinguishing factor, and which one is typically used must be memorized. Secondary mood is something of an opaque term - a lot of affixes that correspond to English modal verbs like "can, may, want, should" etc. attach themselves to the future stem. I use the term "secondary" here simply because it occurs farther from the root than primary mood, which has a different stem. There are fewer generalizations about the screeves distinguished in this stem - the future series only distinguishes ski vs. d nor does it distinguish tense, leaving it with just two screeves, but the tr-iterative and the secondary mood series distinguish all of past, immediate past, present, and future tenses and s, ki, d evidentialities in their screeves.
From the optative stem come what I call the primary mood series, because they come earlier in the verb: imperative "do X!" , conditional "if you do X", optative "may you do X" (polite imperative), and potential series (might do X(. Screeves distinguished in these series are far fewer than in the other stems: no optative stem series distinguishes evidentiality. the imperative series distinguishes past, present, and future tenses, the conditional and potential distinguish past and present, and the optative does not distinguish. Personal distinctions are also fewer here: imperative and optative distinguish 2 vs. non-2, and the conditional distinguishes 1 vs. non-1.
The stative stem is so called because its verbal affixes are similar to the copular ones used on nouns. This stem has three series: the experiential "have done X (before)" and the resultative "have done X" and also for those verbs that take momentane affixes, the momentane series "do X (once, at once)". The experiential series has just one experiential screeve, but the resultative and the momentane distinguish past, present, and future tenses and all of s, k, i, d evidentialities.
Thoughts?
Basically the idea is that each verb of mine will have six stems, each used for a variety of functions. Thus far I've called the stems: perfective, imperfective, habitual, future, optative, and stative.
From the perfective stem comes the perfective series - "I did X" and all that - and the narrative past series. The perfective series comes in the past and immediate past × first-hand knowledge (s), hearsay/inference (i), other asserted personal knowledge (k) and dubitative (d) screeves, but the narrative past only comes in one screeve.
From the imperfective stem come the progressive series "doing X", the inchoative series "starting to do X", and the immediate future series. The progressive series comes in past, immediate past, and present screeves, as does the inchoative, but the immediate future of course makes no tense contrasts. All screeves in this stem contrast s, k, i, d evidentialities.
From the habitual stem come the habitual series "do X" and the nak-iterative series (so named because it's formed by the affix "nak-") "do X over and over". Both of these series contrast all of past, immediate past, and present, and the nak-iterative in addition contrasts a future tense, but in this stem k and i evidentialities are not distinguished from one another.
From the future stem come the future series "will do X" and the tr-iterative series "do X over and over" as well as secondary mood. The difference between the nak-iterative and the tr-iterative isn't quite clear - in general, a verb seems to prefer one or the other, with motion verbs preferring tr-, but some motion verbs can take both with different meanings. In general tr- seems to be a more regular "over and over" than nak-, but at the lexical level this isn't really a distinguishing factor, and which one is typically used must be memorized. Secondary mood is something of an opaque term - a lot of affixes that correspond to English modal verbs like "can, may, want, should" etc. attach themselves to the future stem. I use the term "secondary" here simply because it occurs farther from the root than primary mood, which has a different stem. There are fewer generalizations about the screeves distinguished in this stem - the future series only distinguishes ski vs. d nor does it distinguish tense, leaving it with just two screeves, but the tr-iterative and the secondary mood series distinguish all of past, immediate past, present, and future tenses and s, ki, d evidentialities in their screeves.
From the optative stem come what I call the primary mood series, because they come earlier in the verb: imperative "do X!" , conditional "if you do X", optative "may you do X" (polite imperative), and potential series (might do X(. Screeves distinguished in these series are far fewer than in the other stems: no optative stem series distinguishes evidentiality. the imperative series distinguishes past, present, and future tenses, the conditional and potential distinguish past and present, and the optative does not distinguish. Personal distinctions are also fewer here: imperative and optative distinguish 2 vs. non-2, and the conditional distinguishes 1 vs. non-1.
The stative stem is so called because its verbal affixes are similar to the copular ones used on nouns. This stem has three series: the experiential "have done X (before)" and the resultative "have done X" and also for those verbs that take momentane affixes, the momentane series "do X (once, at once)". The experiential series has just one experiential screeve, but the resultative and the momentane distinguish past, present, and future tenses and all of s, k, i, d evidentialities.
Thoughts?