On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:06:32 -0400, Jim Henry <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:
>
> I've admired the evidentiality systems of languages like
> Laadan, Ithkuil, and Qthyn|gai and thought for a while
> about whether it would suit to add some kind of
> evidentiality marking to gjâ-zym-byn.  It needs to be optional,
> I think, to fit the spirit of the language (very few categories
> are mandatorily marked for).   For a while I thought about
> introducing a system of adverbial particles for different
> modes of evidentiality, corresponding to the existing truth-value
> clitics (yes, no, maybe-fact, maybe-plan, to-some-degree).
> More recently I've thought of another, more extensible way:
> add a suffix that can derive an evidentiality marker from any
> root word.  Such derived evidentiality markers would
> either go after the main verb (probably last in any sequence
> of modifiers) or at the beginning of the sentence, like a temporal
> adjunct.
>
> [I'll go on using the ASCII orthography with digraphs
> in emails here because most of the
> characters I'm using in my website are not available in Latin-1.]
>
> If I use {-poxm} as the evidentiality suffix, then:
>
> bly-van      ku-poxm  pwiqm miq-i.
> fall-V.STATE hear-EVD water TOP-at
> It's raining (I hear it).
>
> fiqm-cox-van        riqm-poxm  pq jqaxr-i.
> healthy-OPP-V.STATE see-EVD    3  experiencer-at
> He's sick (I saw him).
>
> lju-poxm jeq'liq miq-i  fiqm-fwa     nxiqn-i.
> read-EVD garlic  TOP-at healthy-CAUS CMT-at
> (I read somewhere that) garlic is good for you.
>
> tam-ram-poxm twax-cu         poq  miq-i  jxyn-fwa      henx nxiqn-i.
> Tom-NAME-EVD sentence-system DEM3 TOP-at interest-CAUS not  CMT-at
> (Tom tells me that) that book isn't very interesting.
>
> Comments?  I think this can derive markers for many though maybe not
> all of the evidentiality modes shown in the languages I mentioned above.
> It's less concise than the languages that use a single-phoneme affix or
> fusional inflection or monosyllabic particles for evidentiality
> (always at least two syllables, sometimes three or more), but still
> more concise than the roundabout means for indicating evidentiality
> previously available in the language.

That's a nice method, since it makes evidentials an open class. I'm trying 
out something vaguely like that, but with certain limitations, in a new 
project. If a word can be used as an evidential, a form with the auxiliary  
affix is used. This takes person marking, unlike yours, where I guess 1st 
person is implied by -EVD. Possibly my system is like your previous method?

Jeff

> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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