I am currently working on my own little creation and have been running into an issue regarding verbs.
First, a short overview of my ideas regarding this conlang :
IDEA : General -> Detail The general info always comes first. Everything preceding it is to be regarded as elaborating the details. This means that the most important information is conveyed at the beginning of the sentence.
WORD ORDER : The idea is expressed predominantly in the word order. Humans usually talk about their actions. So I always put the action first. The word order is thus : V - S - O
ATTRIBUTES : Now there are general tendencies for VSO languages / head-initial languages. But it has to work a bit different here for it to fit my "General 1st, Details 2nd Idea", e.g. :
- 1. Verb -> 2. Adverb
Literally : (HEAR) this
English : to listen closely
- 1. Noun -> 2. Adjective
Literally : ROCK water
English : a liquid rock
- 1. Possession -> 2. Possessor
Literally : EAR animal
English : the ear of the animal
- 1. Noun -> 2. Postposition
Literally : ROCK flat.topside
English : on top of the rock
So far, so easy. Next, one word has to be said about my case system.
CASE MARKING : I want my language to have a free word order as I evolve it in the future, with the default being VSO. Easiest way to do so is by creating a case system. Now, the case markers are derived from adpositions. And my adpositions (postpositions) come from nouns. As we have seen above, the postpositions come after the nouns that they modify, so the case markers will in time turn into suffixes.
Examples:
- Nominative
Original meaning : brain
Postpositional meaning : "by"
Example : (ILO) risa FO.
Literally : (EAT) animal NOM.
English : The animal eats.
- Accusative
Original meaning : pressure; force
Postpositional meaning : "upon"
Example : (ILO) risa FO ki MĀ.
Literally : (EAT) animal NOM him ACC.
English : The animal eats him.
Now, here's my ordeal : I love the infinitve endings in romance languages, especially the way they are used in Spanish :
hablar -> No te quiero hablar. (I don't want to speak to you.)
vivir -> Si a Miguel le gusta vivirlo, por qué no. (If Miguel wants to experience it, why not.)
comer -> Lo quiero comer. / Quiero comerlo. (I want to eat it.)
The latin infinitves (and by extent the Spanish ones) are some very old dative forms for the nominalised verbs. Now I could do the same and say that my verb endings work like the case markers. I would choose a postposition, say it's called RI in my language, and voilà: kosami (ear) becomes kosamiri (to hear).
VERB GROUPS : The problem is, I want to have several different verb classes as well, all of which differ in their endings :
- Action verbs
Verb marker : RI
Literally : sun; day; action
Example : kolo = water; liquid -> kolori = to water sth.
- Stative verbs
Verb marker : OSO
Literally : equality; balance
Example : kolo = water; liquid -> kolōso = to be water / to be liquid / to have water-like qualities
- Occurence verbs
Verb marker : LAPI
Literally : event
Example : kolo = water; liquid -> kololapi = to become water / to become liquid / to turn into a liquid
- Construction verbs
Verb marker : TA
Literally : creation; life
Example : kolo = water; liquid -> kolota = to make water / to produce a liquid
A "verb case" already seems weird to me. But I don't think that five different "verb cases" would work - especially since the role of the word (that of being a verb) does not change with these different endings. So I thought, OK, maybe let's just use a possession-possessor-construction and say that the verb markers are like general groups that categorize the word that follow them. But here's the issue : Remember the main idea for the language? General info first, details second. Following that idea, the word order dictates that the verb markers (standing in for a general group) PRECEDE the main word that modifies them :
Example : riKOLO
Literally : action WATER -> as in action of the water
Example : osoKOSAMI
Literally : equality EAR
Example : taPOTA
Literally : creation rock
This move makes sense but it's quite different to how the romance infinitve endings work and look, of course. And whilst I have no problem with prefixes for verbs, they will also cause problems when I evolve my system later on, due to the fact that words in my language can start with a vowel. This will murky the verb markers to a point that they might not be recognizable or differentiable from nouns. Let me show you :
Evolution of : ri (action) OPĪ (surface)
riOPĪ -> clear, because vowel-only-syllables can only come at the beginning of a word
ryopí -> still clear, same reason above
ropí -> unclear, because there could be a noun out there that's called "ROPÍ"
Evolution of : ri (action) ITO (this)
riITO
rĪTO
rito
Compare that to :
OPĪri
ITOri
POTAri
KOSAMIri
KOLOri
These suffixes look way more pleasing and clean and won't meddle with my vowels. They will always be recognizable as verbs due to the RI-ending.
So after a lot of text, my question for you is : Do you have any idea how to work around this so that my verb endings FOLLOW the stem whilst still working with the "General 1st, Details 2nd Idea" and allowing for those 4 verb classes?
Thanks a lot in advance for your comments and suggestions!
Cheers, Domi