Talk:deesdoi

Inceptives in the perfective

The etyl currently states "the verb has no inceptive meaning", but actually it does, only in the perfective, past-tense sort of way -- "it got hot" or "it's gotten hot" are English ways of saying the same thing, and that include the get as the inceptive marking a change of state. The di- inceptive prefix here in Navajo is still semantically present as an inceptive in the perfective mode, but in the completed sense as expressed by the perfective mode. Similar semantically to other inceptive-but-perfective verb forms that can be used to describe things in the present, such as déyá "I began to go" → "I have started going" → "I am going (somewhere, to do something)".

The comment that "the verb has no inceptive meaning" might need changing or removing. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I'm ok with it being removed; I originally added that just because it might seem confusing, since there is no imperfective counterpart. But yeah, it makes it more complicated, and most likely anyone who's interested in the composition of the word already knows (or should know!) about this. Ewweisser (talk) 22:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

That "i" on the end

Any ideas where this is from? It doesn't appear in other perfective verbs using what seems to be this same verb stem, such as sido or hoozdo. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:51, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

There is a non-neuter stem set with perfectives ending in -doii (e.g. niidóóh / niidoii), although that perfective has the extra -i on the end. Plus, that doesn't change that it's kind of weird that there are two neuters. For what it's worth, there's the same pattern in yiigááh / yiigaii and łigai, and a similar one in yiitsóóh / yiitsoii. Maybe it's a voiced version of the -h on the imperfective? Ewweisser (talk) 22:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)