I decided to do a Split-Ergative language. Ergative-Absolutive is used in the Past/Perfective, Nominative-Accusative in the Non-Past/Imperfective.
Nom: Unmarked/ø
Acc: -(o)n (if after a V)
Ergative: -fin
Absolutive: -i
Would it make sense to leave the Nom or the Abs unmarked? The example I saw (Georgian?) had the same suffix for Nom/Abs, but I don't understand how you'd differentiate the aspect/tense in the intransitive.
Imperfective seems useful for the past tense, so I was thinking of having a suffix for the verb that indicates the Imperfective in the Past (-if) and a suffix for the Perfective in the Non-Past (-no). Would that make sense within Split-Ergativity as found above?
I have an infinitive particle (sam). However, I was thinking of making it -m for verbs ending in sV syllables. Is that strange? I imagine that perhaps it could have developed from a language with lots of reduplication, deleting final CV syllables that followed the same CV syllable. idk.
So far, verbs don't seem to have anything besides mood and aspect affect them. I was thinking about having them agree in number but not person with the most animate argument. Is it a naturalistic thing to have verbs agree in number and not person with their subject? Is it ever found in any language?
Would /ɪ/and /ɛ/ being allophones of each other realistic?
I'm using a suffix for the Conditional Mood (-áis) on verbs. So, if I had the sentence: I would drink beer if you drank wine, "drink" would receive the conditional marker, but what are my options for "drank"? I hope that makes sense. Obviously a preposition could be used, but I was wondering if something else could be used instead that was a bit cooler.
Seeing as though I have Past/Non-Past tense, I'm wondering how best to indicate something is in the far future versus near future (I eat vs I will eat?). I had been thinking an Irrealis mood would work, but that doesn't seem to exactly match the Future tense as it typically expresses some sort of doubt. I might still include the Irrealis mood (though I don't understand it well), but I want to make sure I have a way to state something "will" happen definitively in the future. The current Irrealis mood is Sái as a particle, but I'm not sure if I want to use it yet.
When using the Locative case, would you still need locative prepositions (in, on, near) or could those somehow be read from context? I'm not too familiar with the Locative, so I'd love any examples of some typical ways it is used.
That's most of my questions. Below in the spoiler is a brief, rough sketch of what I have. I'd be curious to hear what you all think. Thanks for any help you can give.
Spoiler: