So, last autumn I did a lot of development of Feayran's aspect system, and I discovered some interesting dynamics that arose with regard to telicity of verbs, especially when negation was involved. I found it interesting how the three different systems managed to interact in surprising and useful ways, so I thought I'd put it up for critique and discussion.
Design Goals:
Feayran is an artlang designed for a fictional tribe of shapeshifters. It is intended to be naturalistic, but notably divergent from your Standard Average European languages, with perhaps some vague resemblance to North American languages like Oneida, Navajo, Lakhota, Mohawk, and Apache. Sociolinguistics and ethnography are two of my primary interests in conlanging, so a primary goal for Feayran is that it be closely tied to the culture and thought patterns of its speakers. The feayr frame their thoughts in terms of geographic locations and smells, so the language should reflect that. It does not, currently, have the benefit of a diachronic reconstruction to aid on the naturalism front.
Major Terms As Used Here:
Telicity
In Feayran, I use "telicity" to differentiate two classes of verb roots--any given root is inherently either telic or atelic.
Telic roots carry the implication of a completion state. K*ra, "going," is a telic root, because at some point you will get to where you are going.
Atelic roots do not have a completion state. Mazh*, "being red/yellow," is atelic, because the state of being red does not imply progression toward any kind of goal.
Aspect
Aspect is obligatorily marked on all verbs via an infix. There are seven different morphemes that can be used for the aspect marking; some make very aspect-like distinctions while others venture more into the realm of evidentiality and other things. For the purpose of this discussion, I deal primarily with three aspects:
-v- "Stative" aspect: This is one of two "descriptive" aspects, indicating a non-inherent state of being. With atelic roots, it indicates the participants have the property which the root describes (though that property is not inherent to their identity). So, mazhuvávu means "I am (currently) red," perhaps due to anger or exertion but not because my face is inherently red. With telic roots, it indicates the participants are in the process of progressing toward the root's completion state: Kaùvára, "I was going."
-sh- "Imperfective" aspect: This is one of two "eventive" aspects, indicating a progression toward a change of state. With atelic roots, it indicates the participants are in the process of taking on the property which the root describes: Mazhushávu, "I am turning red." With telic roots, it indicates the participants are progressing toward the root's completion state: Kàushára, "I was going." (This is distinct from telic stative verbs like kaùvára in that the imperfective raises the saliency of the verb's completion state, along with other differences that get into discourse structure and other things not relevant here.)
-k- "Perfective" aspect: This is the other "eventive" aspect, indicating a change of state. With atelic roots, it indicates the participants have changed from a state of not having the property described by the root to a state of having it: Mazhukávu, "I turned red." With telic roots, it indicates the participants have reached the root's completion state: Kaùkára, "I arrived."
In pseudo-picture form:
Code: Select all
ATELIC VERBS
sh k v
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =...
doesn't have the property developing the property gets the property has the property
TELIC VERBS
sh/v k
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ X
not progressing toward goal progressing toward goal completes goal
I doubt this would seem strange to a native Feayran speaker. It just caught my attention because, thanks to English, I'm used to thinking in tenses.
Negation
Feayran has two main strategies for marking negation:
"Internal negation" is accomplished by adding the -n- infix to the verb. This kind of negation can be seen as directly negating the base meaning of the root: where k*ra means "going," k~n~ra means "not going." Interestingly, this has the effect of converting telic roots into atelic roots; "going" has a completion state (reaching the destination), but "not going" does not.
"External negation" is accomplished by adding the negative particle úung/íing in front of the verb. This kind of negation affects the surface-level meaning of the inflected verb. In a way, you can think of internal negation as meaning "It is the case that (not (X))," and external negation as meaning "It is not the case that (X)." What this means will be shown more concretely next.
What happens when telicity, aspect, and negation interact:
I first noticed some interesting quirks of this system when I was working with the root h*sh, "searching," which is telic with the completion state of "finding what you were looking for." Its internally negated form is atelic, meaning "not searching."
Code: Select all
WITHOUT EXTERNAL NEGATION
Without internal negation With internal negation
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Stative haaùvúlkush haaùnvúlkush
we are in the process we are in a state of
of looking for him not looking for him
"we are looking for him" "we are not looking for him"
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Imperfective haaùshúlkush haaùnshúlkush
we are in the process we are progressing toward a state of
of looking for him not looking for him
"we are looking for him "we are losing hope of
and expect to find him" finding him"
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Perfective haaùkúlkush haaùnkúlkush
we completed the process we reached a state of
of looking for him not looking for him
"we found him" "we gave up looking for him"
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
WITH EXTERNAL NEGATION
Without internal negation With internal negation
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Stative úung haaùvúlkush úung haaùnvúlkush
we aren't in the process we aren't in a state of
of looking for him not looking for him
"we aren't still looking "we aren't not looking for him"
for him" (perhaps he was (probably a response to an
already found) accusation)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Imperfective úung haaùshúlkush úung haaùnshúlkush
we are not in the process we are not progressing toward a
of looking for him state of not looking for him
"we aren't still looking "we aren't losing hope of
for him" finding him"
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Perfective úung haaùkúlkush úung haaùnkúlkush
we didn't complete the we didn't reach a state of
process of looking for him not looking for him
"we haven't found him yet" "we haven't given up looking for him"
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
So, what do you think? What could I think about to develop this further?