Jul17 –  A Constructed Language

Jul17 Adverbs

Adverbial Word-Pairs

There are different kinds of adverbs, including adverbs of degree, adverbs of manner, time-when adverbs, duration adverbs, and frequency adverbs.

Degree Adverbs

Degree adverbs are used with adjectival words. They can be absolute, as in "five feet high", or relative, as in "2 years older". A degree adverb uses a number or other quantity word as the verb part and a units word as the noun part.

woman- exceed-Prs-Sec year- two-Sec man- old-Cpr-Prs-Fac
"The man is older than the woman by two years."

Degree words such as "very" and "slightly" are handled the same way:

pound- many-Sec dog- heavy-Prs-Fac
"The dog is very heavy."

woman- exceed-Prs-Sec year- many-Sec man- old-Cpr-Prs-Fac
"The man is much older than the woman."

Manner Adverbs

Manner adverbs are different from depictives, although they use the same inflections. A manner adverb simply uses "manner" as its noun part.

fōxraspe giannitōdic.
fō- xraspe-0-0 gianni- tōdi-0-c
manner- angry-Prs-Sec John- leave-Aor-Fac
"John left angrily."

Inherently adverbial words are treated the same way:

fōpifte cattutompetic.
fō- pifte-0-0 cattu- tompe-ti-0-c
manner- fast-Prs-Sec cat- run-Hab-Prs-Fac
"The cat runs fast."

Time-When Adverbs

For time-when adverbs, the noun part is a time unit such as "day" (of the week or month) or "month". There are a couple of things that can be used for the verb part. First, ordinal numbers can be used:

day_of_month- three-Ord-Sec John- leave-Fut-Fac
"John leaves on the 3rd."

Another desirable thing to use is names. This is a problem because names are nouns, not verbs. What has to be done then is to use a suffix to derive a verb from the name (currently called N2V for noun-to-verb; I need a better term). This looks like month-name-N2V-Sec. Common nouns use the same form.

day_of_week- sun-N2V-Sec John- leave-Fut-Fac
"John leaves on Sunday."

To use a time-when adverb attributively, it must be unpacked.

RPI- ten-Ord month- contain-Att day_of_month- three-Ord-Sec John- leave-Fut-Fac
"John leaves on the 3rd day of the 10th month."

Duration Adverbs

For duration adverbs, the noun part is a unit of duration and the verb part is a quantity word. Duration is the length of a time interval, with a start-point and an end-point. Where the start and end times occur depends on the tense (or compound tense). First, the absolute tenses:

Fut the start-point may be either the present moment or some future time
Prs the absolute present isn't used
Prf depends on the verb's class:
if the verb is dynamic, the end-point is the present moment
if the verb is static, the end-point may be either the present moment or some past time
Aor the end-point is some past time

hour- two-Sec 1XP- walk-Aor-Fac
"We walked for two hours."

hour- two-Sec 1NP- walk-Prf-Fac
"We've been walking for two hours."

Now, some (absolute) compound tenses:

past progressive. - the end-point is an indefinite past time
future progressive - the start-point is an indefinite future time
past perfect - the end-point is a definite past time
future perfect - the end-point is a definite future time
past prospective - the start-point is a definite past time
future prospective - the start-point is a definite future time

hour- two-Sec 1NP- walk-Prs-Sub 0- predict-Prs-Fac
"We will be walking for two hours."

hour- two-Sec 1XP- walk-Prf-Sub 0- remember-Prs-Fac
"We had been walking for two hours."

Frequency Adverbs

For frequency adverbs, the noun part is either "iteration", "occasion", or "frequency". The last is used for the words "often" and "rarely", using the quantity words "many" and "few", respectively. The others may take any meaningful quantity word as the verb part.

marsē rōmalōdic.
mar- sē-0 rōma- lōdi-0-c
occasion- one-Sec Rome- go_to-Aor-Fac
"I went to Rome once."


page started: 2013.Aug.05 Sat
current date: 2013.Aug.06 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

Table of Contents