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--- In txeqli@y..., "kevinbsmith" <yahoogroups@q...> wrote: > --- In txeqli@y..., Rex May - Baloo <rmay@m...> wrote: > > A quick question for the group. Should Txeqli mimic Mandarin thus: > > > > Go dorm. I sleep. > > Go dorm zi. I put you to sleep. > > > > Go djoy. I'm happy. > > Go djoy zi. I make you happy. > > > > That is, convert an intransitive to a transitive simply by > > adding an object? > > One concern I have is sentences like this: > > Kven djoy felin... > > At this point, we don't know if it is "Kevin [make] happy [the] cat..." or "Kven [who is] a happy cat...". Quite different meanings. Glosa, which has a similar structure, has similar problems. It has optional markers to start the verb phrase, but some people don't like to use them. > > Generally, you *can* figure out, by context, where the verb starts, but only after you've looked ahead in the sentence. I find that frustrating, and would like to be able to figure out the meaning by reading the sentence once, in order. > > So, to make a short story long, I do like the idea of verbing adjectives like this, but also fear a lack of markers that indicate breaks between S, V, and O parts of a sentence. Maybe the idea of my own project may help to solve this problem. In it, there are different morphemes for marking transitive, intransitive and causative actions, so the difference between them is always clear. A bit more words to learn at first, but a big problem solved once and for all. The theme and the predicate are also clearly separated by means of a predicator. Thus, e.g. "I move" would be (well, I haven't yet any word for "move" chosen yet, so for the example I'll borrow it from English: "muv"; and as I also haven't yet the word for the causative morpheme, I'll invent it for the example too): - "Go da qi muv" means "I move (myself)", "I experience the verbal notion of moving" - "Go da du muv" means "I move (something)", "I inflict actively the verbal notion of moving upon something" - "Go da ge muv" means "I cause a movement", "I'm an active motivation of an action of moving" Note that "da" is the predicator, which separates the theme "go" from the rheme "qi/du/ge muv". If it happened that no predicator appeared in the sentence, as in "Go qi muv", we wouldn't have made a statement, but just a "naming" ("I that move myself"), You can combine both and say, e.g. "Go qi muv da du muv", which would mean "I that move myself move something else". More examples: - "Go da qi nyz" - I sleep (I experience a sleep) - "Go da du nyz" - I put to sleep (I "inflict" a sleep) - "Go da ge nyz" - I cause a sleep - "Go da qi hij" - I am happy (I experience happiness) - "Go da du hij" - I make happy (I "inflict" happiness) - "Go da ge hij" - I cause happiness Hope it may help. Best regards, Javier