Re: Grammatical Exerpts Distilled, Introduction
Rob Zook 
Mon, 19 Apr 1999 09:43:02 -0500

At 05:44 PM 4/18/99 -0500, Saul Epstein wrote:
>Hello, everyone. As promised, here are the clearest proposed revisions
>I could pull from What's Been Said So Far. "Spelling" has been, I
>hope, updated to the Consensus Transcription throughout. When I
>started, I included notes on how these parts are used to make words.
>(The notes are labelled "Syntax," though they should probably be
>labelled "Morphology.") I didn't do it everywhere, and I stopped
>altogether about two-thirds of the way through because I was getting
>further into proposals that were mostly offered by Rob, and whose
>morphology I either never understood completely or have since
>forgotten.

The only things that I proposed which you didn't include were never
really fleshed out that well :) Except for a couple things. Here's
the proposed syntactical ordering of affixes if more than one get
used in a temporal location:

 1. [Basic Tense word] 

 2. [Duration prefix]-
 3. Initial part of infixed word up to first vowel/dipthong-
 4. [Temporal Phase infix]-
 5. [Concurrence (Aspect) infix]-
 6. Remander of infixed word-
 7. [Temporal Contour suffix]-
 8. [Locative sufffix]

And the corresponding syntactical ordering of affixes in spatial
locations:

 1. [Deixis prefix]-
 2. [Relative Distance prefix]-
 3. Initial part of infixed word up to first vowel/dipthong-
 4. [Spatial Phase infix]-
 5. [Periodic Spatial Contour infix]-
 6. Remander of infixed word-
 7. [Prepositional suffix]-
 8. [Dimensionality suffix]-
 9. [Vector suffix]-
10. [Locative suffix]

or 

 1. Subject word
 2. [Temporal/Spatial/Space-Time suffix]

The other thing that was sort of implied, but never described well was
the how the prepositions have a static or dynamic aspect. I called the
movement particle. What I really meant, although the word kept escaping
me was a vector.

-'s   - Vector suffix
-liaq - Occupies Time
-riaq - Occupies Space
-liri - Occupies Space-Time

The vector suffix was meant to turn a static location into a vector. By 
default -'s locates the direction of movment. The prepositions involved will 
help determine the starting point and/or destination. Alternatively, For 
example:


inriaq spokjujehe le'matya
in  -riaq       spok -ju     -je      -he         le'matya
[it]-[in space] Spock-[above]-[behind]-[location] le'matya
"The le'matya is behind and above Spock (static location)"

inliri whl'q'nqia'she 'nterpraiz 
in  -liri            whl'q'n-qia             -'s      -he         'nterpraiz 
[it]-[in space-time] Vulcan -[departing from]-[vector]-[locative] Enterprise
"The Enterprise vectored away from Vulcan"

inliri whl'q'nqia'she ter'rathu'she 'nterpraiz
in  -liri            whl'q'n-qia             -'s      -he       
[it]-[in space-time] Vulcan-[departing from]-[vector]-[locative] 

ter'ra-thu          -'s      -he           'nterpraiz
Earth -[arriving at]-[vector]-[locative]   Enterprise
"The Enterprise vectored away from Vulcan towards Earth".


Now if I were in a space station orbiting Vulcan, and I see the Enterprise
leave I could just say:

inliri ter'rathu'she 'nterpraiz
in  -liri            ter'ra-thu'she     'nterpraiz
[it]-[in space-time] Terra -[moving to] Enterprise
"The Enterprise vectored towards Terra"

This time the starting point does not need to be specified because it's
obvious. Although one does not necessarily need to specify both starting
and ending points.


Rob Z.