Detail #342: Other Quirky Things besides Case

Quirky case is probably familiar to anyone with an interest in case systems. We could, however, considered similar lexically caused quirks for other things than case!

Quirky Voice

Consider some nouns that trigger exceptional voice marking on some, or even all vers? Maybe they cannot be direct objects, so whenever they are objects, they force some detransitivizing voice and some kind of oblique marking.

Quirky TAM

Some adjectives as complements, or maybe some nouns as verbs or objects, might cause unusual behaviours with regards to tense, aspect or mood. Maybe some noun as subject (or as object) always triggers some irrealis mood regardless of the reality of the VP and of the subject.

Quirky Gender

Some Semitic languages have some numbers mark opposite gender agreement. We could consider, though, verbs or adjectives that mismatch gender. Coming up with a historical reason for these might be interesting.

Quirky Adjective/Adverb Things

One could imagine certain nouns or verbs forcing comparatives or superlatives, or vice versa, some nouns or verbs blocking comparatives and superlatives (but making superlative or comparative meanings mandatory).

Quirky Number

Some adjectives or verbs or adpositions could imaginably also require some noun in some relation to it to mark number exceptionally. Alternatively, some verb could break the number congruence if verbs have that in the language.

Quirky Definiteness

I guess by now the reader should be able to come up with some ideas for this as well, analogously to the ideas given above.

Barxaw: Lexical Aspect and Verbs of Perception

In Barxáw, many verbs have an aspectual component to their meaning, for instance

xéλ - say, utter (perfective or rather maybe punctual)
najɛ̀  - talk, speak, orate, (imperfective, non-punctual) 

vár - to discover someone by hearing, to perk up from hearing something, to hear a very short sound
vìk - hear, listen

bìris - to decide in favour of something
t^harí - to think of something with an approving mindset

qursé - to be pricked by something, to experience a short flick of pain (that is generally not from heat)
sáré - to experience a pain that does not immediately pass (and is generally not from heat)

Now, with subordinated verbs where the main verb is one of perception, there's generally agreement between the lexical aspects of the main verb and the subordinate one, e.g.

nín qursé sa vár úŋ  - It stung, hearing you (enter or some other punctual thing like that)
*nin qursé sa vìk úŋ

nín sáré sa vìk úŋ - it pains/pained me to hear you (talk or sing or whatever)

 te úŋ vìk sa nín tiλì? - did you hear me sing?
*te ún vár sa nín tilì?

Situations where a non-punctual stimulus is perceived for just a punctual time-span requires some periphrasis:

nín tiλì, úŋ vár pex.
I sang, you discovered it/perked up from hearing it.

nín t^harí sa úŋ tiλì
I think with approval of your singing, "I like your singing"

Other new vocabulary in this post:

nín: I
úŋ: you
pex: a pronoun that refers to previous clauses. Also can mean something along the lines of "thus" or "such".
sa: a subordinating particle
tiλì: sing

Revisiting Bryatesle: Past tense verbs and their use

The Bryatesle verb morphology is relatively simple - in part because I made it while studying Russian, a language that overdoes verb morphology, and in part because I wanted to try something quite different from Finnish and Russian in that regard.

Most verbs do not mark tense, but all verbs mark person and aspect. The aspect resides somewhere between being derivative and being inflectional.

However, a handful of verbs do have a past tense form - to say (lirai), to give (likem), to go (kivyi), to have (ibam), to get (davei). Most of them have the full product of {telic, atelic}*{past, present}. Morphological tables can be found at the end of the post.

Since tense is rather marginal in Bryatesle, there is little in ways of 'specific' typological behaviors it showcases when it comes to tense. Its tense system is neither one of past-vs-nonpast or future-vs-nonfuture. I have chosen to call the tenses 'present' vs. 'past' out of convenience - 'present' is as much nonpast as it is future, and past is as much past as it is nonfuture. The system might best be described as one of nonfuture vs. nonpast.

This, however, only applies when these forms are used in isolation. When used in coordination with other verbs as 'tense-carrier', the difference becomes more clearly one of past vs. non-past - though a marked non-past is somewhat more likely to be future than present.

As tense-markers, these basically just coordinate with a verb that is inflected for aspect - both verbs usually are in the same aspect, although some circumstances (that I might describe later when I've designed them) permit for combinations of aspect, however. These do encode additional information about the function of the utterance, so these are not 'just tense markers', they mark a complicated combination of modal information.

Any more complex noun phrases than pronouns that are arguments of only the past-tense marked verb is an indicator that the past tense verb does not primarily work as a tense marker - its normal meaning is then assumed, although its past tense meaning too is invoked - and the past tense meaning of the other verb may still be implicit (although not fully necessarily). Shared arguments go to the left of both verbs. Only pronouns can go between the two verbs.

likem, to give. Also signifies to permit, to allow, to tolerate, to provide, to sustain, to hold up against something, to offer resistance

	PRESENT			PAST
	ATELIC	TELIC		ATELIC	TELIC
I sg	lïkem	lïkan		lïkun	lïkut
II sg	lïker	lïka		lïkuvi	lïkut
III h	lïker	lïkat		lïku	likut
III n	lïker	lïkat		lïku	lïkut
I pl	lïkeim	lïkam		lïkum	lïkvam
II pl	lïkeinï	likanë		lïkunï	lïkvanë
III h	lïkeis	lïkanis		lïkunï	lïkunas
III n	lïkeis/lïker	likanis/lïkanïi/ lïkat		lïkunï/liku	lïkanis/lïkanïi/lïkat

Esdos saube e liku - the bear roared (as an act of resistance)

hedam e lïkun - I kept sleeping (sleep-1sg give-1sg.past) (implicitly despite things that tried waking me up)

astas e likut - you fought (successfully) ('you gave, you fought' c.f. 'gave fight')

kvaster e nëm likut - he spoke nonsense (and I let him do so)

en kvaster e en likut - he spoke nonsense, (and continued to do so)

davei, to get. Also signifies to be released (from some obligation - x did until he no longer was obligated to, for instance), to be found innocent, to cave in, not to withstand something and thus to fall or be subdued by it, to be beset by something, to dislike the circumstance described by the other verb

	PRESENT			PAST
	ATELIC	TELIC		ATELIC	TELIC
I sg	davei	davin			davut
II sg	davar	davas			davuvi
III h	davasr	davat			davuvi
III n	davasr	davat			davat
I pl	davaim	davam			dauvam
II pl	davainï	davanë			dauvanë
III h	davais	davanis			daunas
III n	davais	davanis			davanis

emi ramat e tësri davuvi - she sings and you.dat got.3sg - she sang until you got annoyed

en sarbrat e davuvi - he work.3sg and got - he worked until he had fulfilled his obligation

en xnynër e davuvi - he felt a stench (and was revolted)

to say, to promise, to believe, to vouch for, to offer (a price or exchange), to claim ownership or entitlement to, to speak for (object in oblique secondary subject case), to have authority over (object in accusative possessive), to maintain a certain claim holds true

	PRESENT			PAST
	ATELIC	TELIC		ATELIC	TELIC
I sg	lïrai	lïran		lïrun	lïrut
II sg	lïrar	lïras		lïruri	lïrut
III h	lïrar	lïrat		lïrudë/liru	liruvi
III n	lïrar	lïrat		lïru	lïrat
I pl	lïraim	lïram		lïruim	lïruvam
II pl	lïrainï	liranë		lïrunï	lïruvanë
III h	lïrais	lïranis		lïrunï	lïrunas
III n	lïrar/lïrais	lirat/lïranïi		lïru/lïrudë	lïrunas

es parsak vanetsat nëm lïrun

he story tell.atelic3sg I say.past.telic

I told you he told a (mean) story!

lïrunï/lïrunas is often used as a past tense tag particle, marking the past-ness of the event referred to, and the general reputation that the event referred to is worth seeing, or that it truly does happen regularly or that the subject is able to perform such a stunt. Thus

es xudipanelë bumal xudsur lïrunï!

he throw-spring.dat water throws they said = the geyser really ejected water (as they are rumoured to).

A neuter noun that is the subject of a transitive verb is put in a construction where the masculine pronoun followed by the neuter noun in dative 'typecasts' the expression - basically, Bryatesle's ergative case looks like that. xudi = throw, panël = source, spring. Xudipanël = geyser.

to have, to understand, to rule, to judge, to consider [something or someone] [something], to know (by inference)

	PRESENT			PAST
	ATELIC	TELIC		ATELIC	TELIC
I sg	ibam	ibem		ibun	ibut
II sg	ibam	ibem		iburi	ibur
III h	ibar	ibem		ibudë	ibuvi
III n	tibar	tibem		ibu	tibem
I pl	ibaim	ibem		ibuim	ibuvam
II pl	ibanï	ibanë		ibunï	ibuvanë
III h	ibais	ibanis		ibunï	ibunas
III n	tibar	tibem		ibu	ibunas

to go, to continue, to appear to be, to acquire a quality or to increase having that quality, to be made to acquire a quality or increase having that quality, to resolve to do something, to go in order to fetch something (trans), to bring something (trans)

	PRESENT			PAST
	ATELIC	TELIC		ATELIC	TELIC
I sg	kivyi	kivan		kun	kut
II sg	kivar	kivas		kivuri	kivut
III h	kivyi	kivat		kivudë	kuvi
III n	kivi	kivat		kivudë	kuvi
I pl	kaim	kam		kuim	kuvam
II pl	kainï	kanë		kunï	kunë
III h	kais	kanis		kunï	kunas
III n	kais/kivi	kanis		kunï	kunas/kuvi

Exceptionally, this can take an adjective or a noun in the dative case as complement even when being a temporal marker - this then marks the quality which the subject is acquiring due to the other verb.

Tatediem: Some Morphology and also "Tense, Aspect and Mood: Not Quite Categories"

Tatediem's verbal system has a slot for TAM, which applies to all verb forms except infinitives. However, the TAM marking there comes in only four flavors: zero marking for non-future, and an often assimilated -də- for future, -ki- for imperative/hortative/optative and -ek- for tenseless irrealis. The extra subject congruence, of course, also codes for a somewhat specific aspect-tense thing.

Tatediem can encode information that encodes a much richer TAM system, but they are distributed in slightly weird ways. We find four slots in the verb slot system - manner, intensity, direction and the infinitive slots - where TAM-like information can be encoded. A slot can only ever take one prefix in it at a time.

The intensive slot can take the following quite regular markers:

-əŋu- non-committed, un-eagerly, weakly, slowly,
-oppo- intensely, strongly, quickly, obsessively (somewhat likely to be habitual)
-kauto- skillfully, gracefully, strongly
-habbi- sufficiently, suitably
-akriw- perversely, shamefully, like a madman, like a ferocious animal
-igŋu- pervasively, with lasting results (somewhat likely to be perfect)
-irbun- pervasively, with constant prevalence (somewhat likely to be gnomic)

In addition to these, the following also can appear in the same intensive slot and mark TAM-like meanings:

-iŋrul- optative
-kugbik- non-immediate future 

The voice slot does some non-voice stuff as well:

-gaf- (also -ŋaf-, -ŋav-, -gav-) passive present progressive
-daw- passive momentane
-raf- passive past
-lef- reflexive past
-lew- reflexive momentane, reflexive past
-tu- other third person subject than previously
-as- causative (adds an object slot after the regular object slot)
-ŋam- 'same subject and object as previously', leaves both slots empty. Aspectually, it also forms a kind of 'consecutive' tense. Historically a conjunction that turned into a prefix.

The manner slot can take the following markers, some of which tend to a more mood-like or evidentiality-related:

-hak- appears to be
-run- pretends to be
-sib- strives to be
-sok- is rumored to be
-cakŋi- "presently in preparatory stages for the verb"

 -nkurnke-  "enjoying the results of the verb, at the relative time spoken of" -gadun- "regretting the results of the verb, at the relative time spoken of"-stun- doing by cooperation
-stig- doing competitively
-hus- doing silently
-kagi- doing carefully
-xeme- doing due to duty
-sawin- doing as a gift to someone
-emek- doing in order to pay off an obligation or debt
-hayin- a chieftain-related causative
-kega- causing a change (reflexive or causative)

And finally, directions:

-ŋigi- homewards
-megs- outwards
-rigi- upwards
-rragi - turning upwards
-mags- turning clockwise
-tags- turning anticlockwise
-ŋiŋu- away from home
-nalk- downwards
-nnalik- turning downwards
-mis- in the role of, often present or past
-úli- turning into, often slightly future
-sud- in several directions, habitual
-irpi- towards an adverbial of location
-ahpi- away from an adverbial of location
-ippi- at an adverbial location
-kugi- towards the subject
-sagi- towards hunting grounds, present tense in times of hunting, past or future in times when hunting is not common
-nyagi- towards farming grounds, present tense in daytime, past or future in nighttime

Detail #27: Pronoun duplication

Pronoun duplication to mark perfect or perfective aspect. There may be a lot of room for designing the strategy by which the pronoun to duplicate is picked - e.g. something simple like subject twice, or then something like object if there is one, otherwise subject. The language should probably have some case morphology, at least on the pronouns.

Strategies if all arguments are full noun phrases could include: doubling the subject (or object) - once as a noun phrase and once as a pronoun, omitting aspect marking altogether, or having the noun phrase be a topic and having the doubled pronouns within the main part of the sentence. There's space for rules dealing with potential confusion due to extra pronouns possibly being ambiguous as to whether they refer to some NP outside the current verb phrase or whether they refer to an already present object/subject, depending in part on how much case morphology and such helps disambiguate. In such instances, aspect may be considered entirely unmarked. Of course, if the language has some kind of proximative/obviative pronoun distinction that is no problem.

The doubled pronouns do not occur in sequence. One is usually catapulted to the end or beginning of the sentence, or to the other side of the verb.