Questions tagged [verbs]
For questions dealing with verbs (a part of speach)
25 questions
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Split condition for nominalization pathway used only in certain verbs
There is a construction I would like to formally incorporate into one of my language's verb system, which involves rendering the main verb as a noun, which is then possessed by the participant that ...
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1
answer
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Extending venitives/andatives
I'm in the middle of redesigning the verb paradigm for one of my languages, and I'm confronted with the dilemma of knowing that I want a prefix that looks like this, placed there for aesthetic reasons,...
- 899
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3
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Can a language exist without transitive verbs?
I'm developing my first conlang (no name yet) for a story and came up with an interesting idea: all verbs are intransitive, and objects are added with prepositions.
So, a sentence like "I eat ...
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Non-decomposable TAM strategies
The agglutinative language I'm most familiar with is Hungarian, and the way Hungarian handles TAM is, I think, incredibly boring: separate T-A-M markers with no allomorphs that just get concatenated ...
- 899
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How are separable verbs / phrasal verbs avoided in languages?
Phrasal verbs are common in English. What do other languages (natural or conlang) do to avoid this feature? That is, how can they say the same things without having this feature?
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Specificities of VSO languages and common ones with SVO languages
I'm currently working on a VSO language and syntax is the next big step to tackle. However, I find it quite hard to find ressources on VSO languages and thought I could glean some informations quickly ...
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0
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Participles and types of verbs
I'm currently working on the verbal morphology of my language and was wondering the following :
How are action verbs differentiated from state ones ?
Is it even a necessity ?
Could a verb be both ?
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7
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1
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How likely is it for conlangs to have verbs that have the same conjugation as another verb?
So I have been studying Spanish recently (mainly verb conjugations because I'm great at constructing sentences, but still am horrible when it comes to verb conjugations), and decided to teach myself ...
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Are there any general rules for creating verb conjugation for a conlang?
So I have been thinking a lot about trying to make my own conlang. I have attempted before to create one in the past, however, all of them have sadly been abandoned. Looking back at them (since I ...
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1
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How to get rid of "for" and "of" when making a conlang coming from English, aiming toward Chinese?
I have learned about serial verb constructions, and I am looking into Leonard Talmy and his theories of translating between and among Chinese/English. I have seen a few examples where "for" ...
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1
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How to structure verb phrases (as opposed to noun phrases)?
In my question about formal vs. casual noun phrases, I got to the point of distinguishing between causal and formal nouns.
Notice that the noun phrases all end with -a, the noun-creator affix. That ...
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What parts of speech (nouns, adj., verbs, etc.) could be limited to make a language with fewer words?
Essentially, in the English language how many adjectives, nouns, adverbs, verbs, etc. could be combined to make the language possess a single word for a term. E.g. huge, giant, enormous, and big could ...
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Are there languages that don't prefix verbs with "to be" or "to do" in continuous or progressive aspect and the like?
I am working on a conlang and wondering how we can rework the "continuous" aspect, like present continuous, looking for how other languages implement such a grammatical verb feature. Some ...
- 1,860
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2
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How do you write a language without the word "to" preceding verbs?
I am working on a fantasy language and am perplexed by the true meaning of the word "to" in English, at least when it appears before a verb, as in these sentences.
I want to go somewhere.
I ...
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4
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1
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85
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Is it attested for noun classifiers to be coopted for directionality?
A noun classifier marks on the verb some information about the form of one of its arguments. For example, Atili has a handful of "stationary" classifiers that produce semantic distinctions:
...
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1
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Is it reasonable for numerals to behave like verbs?
I am aware that adjectives can pattern like verbs in some natural languages. Is it reasonable for numerals to do the same? Thus
Some balls four.
There are four balls.
Fouring the balls were orange.
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Are there languages with five conjugations? If not, how would one construct one?
Most languages I am familiar with have six different person/number combinations for verbs:
Singular
1st (I)
2nd (you)
3rd (he/she/it)
*Plural
1st (we)
2nd (you (all))
3rd (they)
Obviously, verb ...
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1
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Structure only conlang? Nouns?
Are there examples of conlangs that are used by applying their structure such as grammar, sentence structure, intonation, means of combining words, etc… with other features of a given language or ...
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What are some strategies for setting verbs apart from other words without knowing it's a verb
In languages with conjugated verbs there is usually a similar structure across verbs that makes them easy to recognize even if you do not know the word. For example in German, all verbs after the ...
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3
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What verbs should be irregular in a naturalistic conlang?
I've read that the most commonly used verbs in a language are almost always irregular, and for the most part the irregular forms of verbs can be traced to an archaic form being preserved in the ...
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Swadesh List for Verb Infinitives?
I was looking through Wikipedia's Swadesh Lists recently and wondered if there was anything like a Swadesh list for verb infinitives, similar to how Spanish verbs work (to be, to want, to eat, to know,...
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How do Romance-based naturalistic conlangs deal with the different principal parts of a verb?
The Latin verb has four principal parts (e.g., ducere, duco, duxi, ductum) that are sufficient and necessary to create all inflected forms and derived words from it. As far as I know, no naturalistic ...
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What are the benefits of inventing irregular verbs in one’s conlang?
Many natlangs have irregular verbs that do not follow the same patterns as the majority of verbs, often as a product of old verb patterns that are no longer used. Some of the benefits of not having ...
- 529
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Do any conlangs have verbs that change form depending on the object?
Are there any examples of constructed languages that have verbs with different forms depending on the object of the verb?
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Can Kēlen truly be considered verb-free?
It has been claimed that the conlang Kēlen, winner of the 2009 Smiley award, is supposed to challenge Greenberg's universal of always having a noun-verb distinction by eliminating verbs. In light of ...
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