Detail #386: Limitations on Volition Marking

Let's consider a weird situation whereby for some reason, theory of mind is, through evolution - both cultural and biological - altered rather fundamentally, and volition marking becomes exclusively used in three contexts:

1. First person
2. Second person interrogatives
3. Reported speech

How this situation would come about is beyond me, but who knows, maybe at a certain stage technological could enable this, and some weird group might pursue some weird ideological or sociological goals and achieve them, and after ages of isolation - with certain technological solutions being ubiquitously  present throughout the society - the brain and language both have reached a point where this is a stable setup.

Let's consider what kinds of verbs this might conflate:

dive vs. be submerged
bathe vs. be wet
fall asleep vs. faint
etc

Now, this isn't as much a strictly grammatical idea, but I've never said this blog is only about grammar (though the reader would be forgiven for thinking so). This idea is more about the structure of the vocabulary. It's about structuring the vocabulary in such a way that words whose main semantic difference is one of volition, and only distinguishing this meaning by any marking  in a limited set of contexts. However, this also permits - nay, even demands - marking the distinction in contexts where we wouldn't. Verbs like

think
say
eat
wake up
read

etc.