![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muckefuckI confess: Another reason why I got so little sleep last night is that I was playing with Osage again. I couldn't help it; I'd stopped for a few days because it was distracting me from my Chinese, but I really wanted to plunge deeper into the verbal system. Are you ready for my report of the abyss staring back?
Of course, everyone remembers my excitement at the discovery of doubly-inflected verbs like kõða "he wants/wanted [it]", second person škõšta "you want/ed [it]". Last night, I discovered that the reflexive/reciprocal infix hkik also takes agent inflection, giving it the ability to create triply-inflected verbs.
You know about reflexives; they add to a verb the sense of doing something to or for oneself. Stick it into špižõ "you learn/ed [it]" (ž and š being both marked allomorphs of the second person active agent prefix) and you reach the giddy heights of ðahkišpižõ "you learn/ed [it] for yourself" (ða being the default form of this prefix--isn't allomorphy a gas?).
But is this the highest we can go? No way, baby!
Strictly speaking, Osage has no infinitive (although the unmarked third-person singular form is occasionally used as one). In complex predicates, speakers often inflect both verbs. In itself, this isn't the least bit usual. Many Balkan languages also lack infinitives or use them very seldom, preferring subordinate constructions. So whereas a Spanish speaker would say Quieres aprenderlo? "Do you want to learn it?", encoding the subject only once (i.e. -es), a Rumanian would say something like vrei să învăţezi'l--literally "Do you want that you learn it?" That is, both the verb a vrea "to want" and a învăţa "to learn" are inflected for a second-person subject. An Osage speaker, with her doubly-inflecting verbs, would see the Romanian and raise him twofold. In špižõ škõšta agent inflection appears twice on each verb for a grand total of four times. Combine this with my new discovery of the behaviour of hkik and you arrive at the glorious apotheosis:
(I must go; tears are welling up in my eyes!)
Of course, everyone remembers my excitement at the discovery of doubly-inflected verbs like kõða "he wants/wanted [it]", second person škõšta "you want/ed [it]". Last night, I discovered that the reflexive/reciprocal infix hkik also takes agent inflection, giving it the ability to create triply-inflected verbs.
You know about reflexives; they add to a verb the sense of doing something to or for oneself. Stick it into špižõ "you learn/ed [it]" (ž and š being both marked allomorphs of the second person active agent prefix) and you reach the giddy heights of ðahkišpižõ "you learn/ed [it] for yourself" (ða being the default form of this prefix--isn't allomorphy a gas?).
But is this the highest we can go? No way, baby!
Strictly speaking, Osage has no infinitive (although the unmarked third-person singular form is occasionally used as one). In complex predicates, speakers often inflect both verbs. In itself, this isn't the least bit usual. Many Balkan languages also lack infinitives or use them very seldom, preferring subordinate constructions. So whereas a Spanish speaker would say Quieres aprenderlo? "Do you want to learn it?", encoding the subject only once (i.e. -es), a Rumanian would say something like vrei să învăţezi'l--literally "Do you want that you learn it?" That is, both the verb a vrea "to want" and a învăţa "to learn" are inflected for a second-person subject. An Osage speaker, with her doubly-inflecting verbs, would see the Romanian and raise him twofold. In špižõ škõšta agent inflection appears twice on each verb for a grand total of four times. Combine this with my new discovery of the behaviour of hkik and you arrive at the glorious apotheosis:
ðahkišpižõ škõštaThere it is: A single predicate quintuply inflected for agent! Compare the first-person singular version, ahkihpimõ hkõbra "I want to learn it for myself". Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? Lesser languages, look upon these works and despair!
(I must go; tears are welling up in my eyes!)
Tags: