Barxáw: Auxiliaries

Barxáw has auxiliaries. Some of them may be surprisingly specific in what they mean, and some of them behave in syntactically somewhat odd manners.

Let us first consider the most common syntactical pattern for auxiliaries in Barxáw. 

Noun_subj Aux Verb (Noun_obj) (Oblique arguments)

Some cause the main verb to be marked in some manner - a preposed é is not unusual. Considering this extra particle part of the aux would make sense, but some transformations show that é's location is relative to the main verb rather than to the aux.

A number of auxiliaries that follow this pattern are:

áɲ̟è - to be able to

t'íð -  to begin to

jùm (é) - to stop 

kìr (é) - to  do repeatedly or habitually

 err (é) - to stop due to some external factor (the external factor being preceded by the preposition cá if it is a noun, and the subordinating conjunction ísnu if it is a clause - the external factor need not be specified, however).

 génð [definite human subjects], gél [definite animate subjects], rrú (indefinite human subjects], bém [indefinite animate subjects], kádu [inanimate subjects] - explicitly perfective (also only used with transitives)

ðumú [human subjects], k'ipè [nonhuman subjects] - explicitly perfective (intransitive) 

Adjectival Auxiliaries
Some auxiliaries in Barxáw peculiarly enough distribute more like adjectives than like verbs.

q^húrro -  want to, desire to, hope to

cepá - attempt to, try to cause

azé - resume

c'arr -  refuse to

These are, at times, used like those given above. An interesting quirk is that these can also mark objects (but not obliques), signifying, for instance, that someone wants to be verbed - Séli kelað  q^húrro Joqù = Joqù wants Séli to help him. With azé, marking an object with it signifies returning to a certain object of the activity, whereas the activity itself may have been uninterrupted.
C'arr does never mark non-subjects.

These do not combine with other auxiliaries, and therefore may reasonably be considered auxiliaries in some sense.

Barxaw: Negation and Lexical Negatives

Barxaw - my main isolating conlang - permits double negation, and its negation generally follows the 'contradiction operator' ⊥. Its truth table is as follows:

⊥true = false
⊥false = false

The negative particles are different for different 'objects' of negation, verbs are negated by either xij (past telic), kim (non-past telic), kpà (past or non-past atelic) or án (non-existential). Entire previous sentences or even utterances by the same person by ŋían! Utterances, statements or proposals by another person elicit xiŋì or xwùá. Xiŋì can also be used as a negative imperative marker. Nouns can be negated by one out of the following, depending on noun class and other semantic considerations:

naù - a singular human (or similar) negated, both in existential-predicative, locative or as a negative indefinite determiner: teppé naù - (the god) Teppe is not here, teppé naù naù - (the god) Teppe does not exist, in lə delts naú - he is with no one, in naù kmtok - for him, there is no brother.

In Barxaw mythos, Teppe is a god whose existence is explicitly denied, and often appears in stories as what non-Barxa people pray to, seek help from or go to seek, but never find. Every Barxaw knows the real gods laugh at believers in Teppe. 

Those for other noun classes often cover about 3-4 classes each, and there is some overlap. Their syntactic use - both as predicates and determiners is similar to naù. 

These are íŋè (classes 1-3, 6), imáŋ (class 2, 4, 8), ŋaŋ (classes 3,4,5) and dìŋ (classes 4,5,1,7). 

Nouns and adpositions are not negated as complements - the verb is negated instead. Adjectives, however, can take xij, kpà or more generally àn (which, when used with adjectives, has no existential connotation). However, there is a number of adjectives that are considered semantically negative, and adding a negative particle to them only strengthens the meaning or specifies the aspectual-temporal meaning of the negation (i.e. xij would show that the hunger is a problem of the past) - ŋnì (hungry), inxu (sad), seóma (unable, incapable), tixwè (sick), kpùm (asleep), ancur (poor), enéx (weak), ámbec (unwashed, dirty). Negating these by adding a word is thus impossible, and antonyms have to be used. (mag - full, sated; ísep - happy, content; sèwap - capable, able; sudám - healthy, strong, doing ok; psir - awake, alert; èrmel - of sufficient means or indàa - rich, taŋèŋ - strong, ìdír - clean, pure, separate.

Detail #14: Suppletive auxiliary-based agreement

This idea is kind of a snapshot-in-language-history kind of idea, as I find it very unlikely it would remain for long.

A constructed isolating language where certain auxiliaries suppletively are changed to other ones depending on the class of the noun. Noun class is otherwise only marked by pronouns. Other than that, the noun class system has been losing ground in the language. Certain semantic differences between the suppletive auxiliaries may be evolving, depending on the lines along which the noun classes are distinguished.

Some of the auxiliaries may have incomplete 'paradigms' of suppletive forms, and for the noun classes that lack some specific auxiliary, some manner of periphrasis is needed, or whatever the auxiliary marks is simply avoided.