Kevin Smith | Re: [europidgin] Summing up?
- Autor: Kevin Smith (“kevinbsmith”)
- Tema: Re: [europidgin] Summing up?
- Data: 2002-09-21 16:49
- Mesaje: 175 (a supra, presedente, seguente)
On Thu, 2002-09-19 at 12:00, George Boeree wrote: > past -va > future -ra > [same for pijin and LFN] I seem to be the only person who thinks you should be able to understand the structure of a sentence without knowing the meaning of every single word. Despite that, I will share a concern I have about the -va and -ra endings: There are many words that end with this pattern that are not inflected verbs. So any time someone sees a -va or -ra word, they will have to know if it is a non-verb word. To know that, they would have to have memorized all of the words in the vocabulary (1500? 5000?) Then, if it is a verb, they have to mentally strip off the ending to find the root. I know that last step comes naturally to Romance-language speakers, but it certainly does not come easy to me. Anyway, for your pleasure, I am including a list of all the LFN words that I could find that look like verbs in the past or future tense, but are not. I could only find one word that really is BOTH a noun and an inflected verb at the same time: 'fava'. I suspect everyone will hate this idea, but could we use a hyphen to inflect verbs? Instead of 'trotava' we would have 'trota-va'. Instead of 'reatara' we would have 'reata-ra'. I'm not sure I like it, and I don't know how it would be pronounced, but at least it is unambiguous. The more I think about verb inflections, the more I dislike them. Adio, Kevin ---------------- cara clara declara dispara gara rara caldera camera carera colera entera era espera frontera gera jenera lasera lejera letera manera opera pera primavera sera siera sinsera tempera temporera tenera tera vera aira desira respira decora fora labora meliora onora ora portaflora seniora aventura cura dura figura fura matura mesura natura oscura pura purpura secura sura ---------------- ava cava fava neva nosiva oliva positiva riva ariva ativa jenjiva locomotiva nativa negativa nova uva ----------------