Detail #135: A set of copulas

Pretty much every conlanger, I bet, knows that Spanish has two copulas. Copying the Spanish model would be an easy way of getting more than one copula, but let us go further than that, and invent an entirely different set of distinctions.

First, let's have a copula that basically correlates pretty well with English 'is' in basic statements of the nature X is Y. Our distinction will not deal with the aspectual or temporal nature of how the subject (X) has its quality (Y) - so not at all like Spanish.

Instead, we'll have a look at how the subject's having its quality interacts with the rest of the sentence.

Let us consider, for instance, comparisons - less than, more than, like, as, in the manner of, ... all these take verbs that are derived from demonstrative pronouns. Which demonstrative pronoun depends on a few things.

If the thing compared to is in the presence of the speaker, and the subject is not, the verb is derived from this:

your dad this_ed skilful you.CASE = your dad was as skilful as you are

If the object of comparison is absent, the verb is derived from that instead.

 you that(verb) beautiful Marilyn Monroe.CASE = you are as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe.

 This also happens when there's no actual object of reference - x is later > x that_s late. The complement can be specified by adverbs signifying 'less' or 'more'.
 The comparison can also be a description - I that(verb) strong to carry it - I am strong enough to carry it. The regular copula never has such descriptions.

Further, we have the causative versions of both the regular copula and the demonstrative copulas. These are formed like regular causatives, but have a slightly different meaning - the subject has a quality and this causes something. This is a bit similar to how 'so' is used in the 'yo momma so fat ...' genre of jokes.

she is.caus beautiful every woman get jealous

This is somewhat similar to the descriptive comparison given above, but tends to be a) more causal, b) much less conditional and way more indicative.

Thus, one central distinction could be pointed out thus:

he is strong - he is strong

he thiss strong - as you can see from what he's doing, he's strong

he thiss strong John.CASE - he is as strong as John, whose strength you can see for yourself

he thats strong - you can, based on previous anecdotes given, conclude how strong he is

he thats strong to carry it - he is strong enough to carry it

he was.caus strong to carry it - he was strong enough and did carry it

he thated strong to carry it - he was strong enough to carry it (but we're not saying he actually did carry it)

he is.caus strong to carry it - he is strong enough, he can (keep on) carry(ing) it

A number of lexical complications in Tatediem

Tatediem has a relatively large gender system - obviously due to its vague Bantu influences. There are two genders that otherwise do act a lot like your average genders, and indeed most of the words in them are fully unremarkable as far as this particular thing goes. These two genders have, however, a number of words that have near-synonyms in both.

Examples:

kucende - gift (from the perspective of the giver)

ŋwucende - gift (from the perspective of the receiver)

kusunne - obligation (from the perspective of the person who is expected to perform the obligation)

ŋwusunne -  obligation (from the perspective of the person or group or so on who is expected to benefit from the obligation)

kurutki - assistance (from the perspective of the one giving the assistance)

ŋwurutki - assistance ( from the perspective of the recipient)

For a few words, the lexemes are not related, yet the same relation is definitely there:

kusatwis -  fatherhood (from the point of view of a father)

ŋwurehmuc - fatherhood (from the point of view of the offspring)

A number of family terms also come in two versions, although many family terms also have regular masculine or feminine versions, sometimes not lexically related at all.

kutali - uncle

ŋwutali - nephew

kusami - sister

ŋwusami - the brother or sister of a sister

These two genders also have unique congruence classes for possessed reference on verbs:

-kulo[se|ke|ne|ŋe|swi|kwi|nwi|ŋwi]- (basically 'the thing of this gender of mine|yours|his|her|ours|yours|theirs')

 -ŋwulo[se|ke|ne|ŋe|swi|kwi|nwi|ŋwi]- 

For object congruence, the prefix is

-hul-, -gul-.

Some dialects permit using the same [se|ke...] morphemes in combination with those two, but most do not. For most dialects, the owner of -hul- or -gul- is instead market in a variety of periphrastic ways. Finally, oftentimes further references to humans first referred to by nouns in these genders agree with the 'natural' gender, unless a very strong emphasis is placed on the type of relation.

 And here the  complication appears: -kulo- and -ŋwulo- both can refer to the same noun, if nouns that have 'siblings' of this kind are present in the sentence. In that case, a subtle shift in meaning may appear, e.g. the obligation now shifts from x's obligation to do something to y's privilege of receiving the benefits from that obligation, or the challenges and rewards of being a father to the perception of the father that the offspring has.

Detail #41: A lexical item

The verb used to denote smoking tobacco (or other similar things) varies a bit between languages. Swedish uses a verb derived from 'smoke' (rök → röka, but compare the verb used for fires and other things from which smoke is emitted: ryka). Finnish uses the verb for 'to burn' (polttaa), English uses a zero-derived verb smoke. Albanian, apparently, uses a verb that also denotes drinking. 

Considering the importance of the lips in smoking, I figure some kind of detransitivized or dereciprocalized version of kiss reasonably could be used as well in some language - maybe especially so if smoking is a ritualized practice in the culture.

Further possession-related things

A thing monoglot conlangers tend not to realize is that possession often is used somewhat differently in different languages.

Consider sentences like

I talked to my mom earlier today. 

I need to wash my hands.

My legs hurt.I have it in my pocket. 

Put it in your wallet. 

My brother is an engineer. 

His brother is an engineer.

Oftentimes, which wallet, whose head, whose pockets, whose mother or brother etc is obvious from the context, and in say Swedish, you'd usually say these along the lines of

I talked to (the) mom earlier today (mamma, morsan; the latter being a diminutive form of moder) 

I need to wash the hands 

The legs hurt 

I have it in the pocket 

Put it in the wallet 

My brother is an engineer (or even the brother, but in that case generally in the diminutive form brorsan) 

The brother is an engineer (generally not using the diminutive, but rather along the lines of brodern; hans bror is also an option, and can be used as well.)

In Finnish, it's not even unusual that definiteness would be ignored in contexts like these, given that Finnish does not usually mark definiteness at all. It does, of course, have possessive suffixes and can thereby mark things like "my brother" as veljeni, but in contexts where whose brother is being spoken of is relatively obvious, it is not unusual to omit this.

There is a lot of possibilities here:

• lexical distinctions along the lines of the use of diminutives or non-diminutives to distinguish owner
• derivative suffixes developing towards being possessive suffixes? (Is that possible?)
• reflexively possessed object marking developing through some odd grammaticalization of the situation described in Swedish?
• extending how often things will be marked for first or second (or even third person) possession - you do not usually say "it's in my street" when something's in the street by which you live, "this time of my day, I usually take my nap", "I am heading out to get my bottle of milk"... this could be very common in another language.

Short Sketch #4: Definite and indefinite verbs

Verbs come in two main forms, sometimes differentiated by suppletion, mostly by some simple but not entirely predictable morphology. (Probably such that dialects differ greatly in which affix which verb takes).

Indefinite verbs are more coarse-grained as well dividing semantic space generally into fewer slices, and may be less permissive in whether they accept direct objects at all.

Definite verbs, however, do not permit topicalization of objects, except through passivization. Passivization of a definite verb does not demote the subject to oblique, but both the subject and object of the finite active verb behave as independent subjects of the finite passive verb. Passives do not have congruence.


Other unrelated idea:
Have a few verbs require the object to be the topic.