That's the problem - Raitoliste's aspect/mood system is totally different from that of any natlang, so I have no idea what abbreviations to use.
That's the problem - Raitoliste's aspect/mood system is totally different from that of any natlang, so I have no idea what abbreviations to use.
I find it hard to believe that you can't use the Leipzig system because your mood/aspect system doesn't match up perfectly to any natlangs.
Not perfectly - it's totally different.
In the translation challenge sentence, 'vöó' means 'he wants to', created by the third person masculine singular pronoun 'o' and the prefix 'vo-' meaning essentially the equivalent of 'want to' in English. 'Vöó sw' means 'he wants to go'. Is that a mood? Is that an aspect? What is 'vo-'?
Not perfectly - it's totally different.
In the translation challenge sentence, 'vöó' means 'he wants to', created by the third person masculine singular pronoun 'o' and the prefix 'vo-' meaning essentially the equivalent of 'want to' in English. 'Vöó sw' means 'he wants to go'. Is that a mood? Is that an aspect? What is 'vo-'?
(1) I think the Leipzig glossing rules were developed as part of the "Eurotyp" project, to typologize European languages. To the best of anyone's knowledge, there may be phenomena that occur in, for instance, the Circum-Pacific "Macro-Area", (or among languages native to habitations within a thousand miles of the Pacific Ocean,) which were unanticpated by the Leipzig Glossing Rules.
(2) Nevertheless you can probablly use them for the most part to get a good start.
(3) "vo-" in your example is clearly a mood/mode/modality. I'd call it "desiderative", based on not having any other examples.
You can use the well-known and widely-agreed definitions to decide it's a mood or mode or modality. Use the SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms, or Trask's dictionary (was that what it was called?).
True, mood/mode/modality is not a very well-unified notion; and true, there are various definitions around of mood/mode/modality.
But "vo-" wouldn't be an aspect, because that's described as morphology (or auxiliaries) meant to "denote the internal temporal consistency or character of an event/situation/action, regardless of when it happened". "vo-" denotes that someone wants to; it's got nothing to do with aspect.
"Vo-" also probably wouldn't be a tense. Tense tells whether one event/situation/action occurred before, or will occur after, or overlaps in time with, the speech act ("absolute tense") or some other e/s/a also spoken of ("relative tense"), and possibly how distant the times are from each other. Possibly "vo-" connotes a future event; but it seems to connote that the agent desires to do something more than that the agent hasn't done it yet.
"Mood" and "mode" and "modality" have been defined in several ways.
Indeed some don't use the same definition for all three words.
One is, the speaker's attitude towards the event/situation/action spoken of.
One is, the relation (or lack of it) of the speaker's or addressee's knowledge or will to the e/s/a.
One is, how the speaker intends the utterance to fit into the discourse.
One is, what the speaker intends the addressee to do with the information the speaker is imparting.
And I'd bet there are others as well.
The only reason "vo-" doesn't fit the first two definitions of "mood" is that it tells the agent's attitude, rather than the speaker's, and tells the relation of the agent's will to the e/s/a, not the speaker's or addressee's. I could argue, I think, that it does fit the third and fourth definitions; but I would rather argue that, in your language, "mood" refers to the speaker's or agent's attitude toward the e/s/a, and/or relates the speaker's and/or addressee's and/or agent's knowledge or will to the e/s/a.
Anyway; most accidents of verbs that aren't agreement, aspect, polarity, tense, or voice, can be assumed to be modality or mode or mood. But one can decide that modality/mode/mood isn't unitary, and that a particular accident denotes a particular kind of modality, mode, or mood.
Evidentiality, mirativity, and validationality, for instance, are usually discussed along with or right after mood, but are frequently not classed as kinds of mood. There's a recognized connection or similarity, but also a recognition of semi-independence.