Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Detail #201: Participles, Again

Let's derive verbs whose meaning aligns with "[to act upon something using a] tool". Let's derive those not by just zero-deriving them into verbs or by using instrumentals as verbs or something; let's instead take a slightly circuitous route: taking the instrumental case, attaching an active participle suffix, and then combining this with auxiliaries to form finite forms.

This would maybe work best in a language where the instrumental is not much longer than the regular form, say:
körs - körön (hammer, by hammer)
The participle should also probably be quite succinct:
nükörön ("hammering")
As an adjective, this would work fine: nükörön tarstas would be "hammering hangover", despite the fact that the hammer involved is nothing but metaphorical. However
bi nükörön ser  = I am hammering
bi nükörön sentri  = I was about to be hammering
A real passive is impossible for this construction, since this derivation strategy simply does not permit the passive participle prefix; instead, the object remains an object:
bir nükörön se = I am being hammered, "me is hammering"
However, the accusative argument is, from a syntactical point of view treated as a subject, e.g.
tor nükörön se ta stumdu mehede
him hammered is and still drink
he is hammered and still he drinks
(Assuming "hammered" has the same meanings as in English in this language as well)

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