Tatediem: Verbs as Adverbial Attributes

Tatediem verbs can form a kind of adverbial by simply taking the object/adjective that is congruent with the subject of the participle-adverb. These verbs cannot take objects with any congruence marking - an object will be directly after the adverbial verb, and will not be preceded by any affixes.

ne-hus-ðéspa Marwuq  e-yurme Dasti

3sg.m-silently-walk Marwuq 3sg.m(obj)-sleep Dasti. 

Marwuq walks silently, Dasti sleeping. (Here, a 'because' would be inferred.)

These verbal adverbs often relate causes, things going on simultaneously or in relation to the main verb, things resulting from the main verb, or even contrasting to the main verb. Whether the main verb or the adverb is the main semantic content can vary - a fronted adverb of this kind generally is the most important verb from a semantic point of view, pragmatically speaking.

ko e-sekarm Karum, ne-sekarm Siŋun.

Karum not guarding, Siŋun guards.

(Depending on context, this could be parsed as 'why can't Karum guard, when Siŋun does his duty as a guard?', or 'Karum sucks at guarding, pick Siŋun for guard duty instead', or 'It isn't Karum guarding right now, it's Siŋun'. The last alternative is maybe the least likely one, as this is a somewhat marked construction - the quite neutral statement would simply coordinate the statements that Karum does not guard, but Siŋun does so.)

Detail #112: A distinction in interrogative adverbial pronouns

Imagine a system with an adverb formed from some interrogative pronoun that signifies 'in what direction'. This is not all that uncommon ultimately, and Swedish, for instance, forms this by combining where and a preposition - but in Germanic style, puts the preposition last. (Strictly speaking, the adverb used is cognate to whither, rather than where.) Vartåt, so something like whither-to.

In a language where absolute directions are understood by the speakers, one could distinguish relative and absolute directions; maybe questions with an interrogative pronoun in the dual number are asked to distinguish left from right, whereas a plural number signifies desire to have an absolute direction.

Alternatively, of course, other means of distinguishing them could be used - imagine an English variety where what direction asks whether to go left or right, which direction asks for a compass bearing.

Of course, a thing that not all conlangers might now is that there are indeed languages where the speaker is assumed at all moments to know the cardinal directions' current, ehrm, direction.

Detail #35: 'anymore', 'anylonger'

Certain indefinite pronouns and comparatives have things in common, and this can be noted in how some languages actually use comparative forms in the latter (anymore, any longer).

Many of the contexts where these are used easily lend themselves to carrying some kind of emotional data:

Are you trying to learn the guitar any longer (mocking, dubious)

 Is there going to be more (curiosity) of that?

Are you going to stay a while longer (hope)?

On the other hand, such emotional markers being present would also tend to indicate that some kind of meaning along those lines is implied.

Hence, a language where indefinites and comparatives both are formed from grammaticalized adjectives or verbs denoting emotional states?

Detail #18: Weird things to do with adverbs

In some languages where adjectives are verb-like, let adjective-verbs form auxiliaries that mark all kinds of manner. Even permit numbers to form auxiliaries that mark "to do n times", or "to do the n:th time" or "to do to N objects" (in effect extracting the number from the object NP to the VP).

When many adverbs are called for, some may remain chained with the main verb, and if several are highly salient they can be coordinated with a shared complement VP along these lines:

John quicks and carelesses stack[infinitive] the books

John carelesses stack the books and quick

John carelesses stack the books quick

John stacks the books, carelesses and quicks

If the adverbial has little to do with the subject, they may take a dummy subject:

John's house burned down, [dummy] unfortunates. 

Maybe a causative would be nice there?

[dummy] unfortunate.causative.3sg John's house burned down.

Would maybe work best in a language where infinitives can mark subject agreement? Alternatively, a language where there is some but rather sparse verb morphology, e.g. something along the system in standard Swedish with an explicitly marked present tense distinct from the infinitive.

As for numbers, some pronouns could also work:

I many.1sg have ideas - I have many ideas, "I profusely have ideas"

You howmany.2sg run laps? - You ran how many laps?

They how.3pl.past? - How did they do it?

 On the other hand, if done badly - without making a really thought-through morphosyntax here, it would easily end up a silly way of marking things in the wrong place.