Re: Inchoactive in Jpn? (was: "Anticipatory" Tense)

--- "M.E.S." <suomenkieli@...> wrote:
>
> Speaking of Chinese, is such a trait common with the
> verbals? (ie, do you also tend to place 2 verbs
> together to produce a new meaning, to the degree JPN
> does...  _omou > omoi_ "think", _dasu_ "put out,
> take
> out, bring out", _omoidasu_ "recall")
>
> M.E.S.
This kind of compounding is one of the primary, and
highly productive, forms of word derivation in
Chinese, and particularly in Mandarin, since it is
phonologically the simplest of the dialects, and has
the most homophones.  The classic example is
kan4jian4, which was calqued into English as
"look-see."  Another examplye might be "shou1ji2,
"recieve-gather," meaning "to collect."

Also quite common are verb-object compounds, such as
chi1fan4, read most literally as "to eat rice," but
take together meaning "to eat (a meal), to dine."
Other examples might be da3zi4 "hit-word," meaning "to
type (on a typewriter)," or du2shu1, "read-book,"
meaning "to study, to attend school."

-Weiben

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