A few tidbits I wanted to show off/jot down:
The three meanings of verbs
An example:
Base verb: EAT (deverbal root: food/meat, the Mfalen assimilate most plant matter very poorly) Intransitive: have a meal Transitive: eat something ("you gotta eat to live" would is a deobjective) Bitransitive: eat something with someone (the bitransitive is frequently comitative or benefactive in meaning, I have not decided if it's considered normal for several options to be possible or if it's more set in stone)
It is a common usage in the more formal registers to coin new usages by using verbs in a valency that is not usual
Base verb: DREAM Intransitive: sleep (as a result the original verb for sleep refers to other forms of unconsciousness in modern Mfalen) Transitive: dream about something Bitransitive: [missing]
An example of a literary bitransitive that became normal usage is "reveal/expose". The bitransitive of that verb came to mean "reveal something that was hidden by something else".
Verbal incorporation
Mfalen does not (oddly enough) allow the incorporation of nouns within a verb, but it does allow incorporation of other verbs. An incorporated verb does not usually bring arguments with it, but rather expresses a mean or a result of the action. While the verb must share subject animacy, the semantic relations between them may vary greatly
lay-punch → punch to the ground lay-push → shove down/to the ground, tackle sleep-punch → punch unconscious open-the-arms--reveal → reveal by throwing curtains open (i.e. inaugurate) scrape-reveal → reveal by scraping something else away
etc.
In-laws
Traditional Mfalen society doesn't have a concept of in-laws because one of the two spouse is essentially adopted into the other's clan (i.e. come sunder the exclusive authority of that clan's leader for various matters). As such, they refer to their spouse's relatives as though they were their own, whereas the link to their prior relatives is considered to be severed. If there was really a need to refer to these relations, one would talk about one's or one's spouse's former relatives.
However, there has been a rise in popularity of previously rare nonadoptive marriages, and language is still in flux about it. A common way to refer to in-laws in such a marriage is to either refer to them as the relatives of one's spouse, but females in particular find it awkward to use the limited vocabulary available to males. Expressions like "fake cousins" or "new mother" are widely used.
_________________ Golden age set the moral standard, the Silver Age revised it, the Bronze Age broke free of it and the Rust Age ran wild with it. -- A. David Lewis
We're all under strict orders not to bite the newbies. -- Amaya
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