OP Verb Patterns

Koontz John E John.Koontz at colorado.edu
Tue Oct 3 22:56:33 UTC 2000


The patterns I'm aware of are:

simple verb       = inflected verb + (b)i
progressive verb  = inflected verb + inflected positional (i.e.,
                    the article)
irrealis verb     = inflected verb + ta + inflected positional
                    (i.e., what is usually called the future)
(no name yet)     = inflected verb + ta + (b)i
                    (i.e., the form used with the evidential "the future
                    of certainty" or in polite requests)
momentaneous verb = inflected verb + inflected momentaneous auxilliary
                    (i.e., suddenly/begin/repeat forms)

Examples:

simple:       naN?aN'=i       'he heard it; he hears it'
progressive:  naN?aN'=akha    'he is hearing it, listening to/for it;
                               he hears it'
irrealis:     naN?aN=tta=akha  'he will/can hear it'
???           naN?aN=tta=i=the 'he must have heard it'
              dhanaN'aN=tte    'please listen to it'
momentaneous  naN?aN ????     'he suddenly heard it; he began to hear it;
                               he heard it suddenly and repeatedly'

In the last case I don't know the particular auxilliary for this verb.  It
varies with the verb and is generally a combination of a verb of motion
and a positional, usually causativized with a transitive verb.  I also
can't predict if a form is inceptive (begins to) or sudden (suddenly).  I
can predict if it's iterative, since in that case the positional stem is
reduplicated.  The most common forms are things like thihe, thidhaN,
thithe, thidhe, with though just dhe (especially causativized as dhedhe)
is fairly common, too.

Forms like =tta=(b)=as^i 'must, has to' and some others of similar modal
force may belong here, too, though I tend to think of this at present as
just something further than can come after a regular or irrealis form,
just as the tHe, etc., evidentials can come after a simple verb or an
irrealis verb.  I don't think that they can come after a progressive verb,
and so it's not surprising that they occur instead of a positional with
the irrealis (future), too.

verb (tte) { positional            }
           { (plural) (evidential) }


Here () marks being optional, and {} is used to stack alternatives.]

JEK



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