Re: The Conversive

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Sally Caves <scaves@F...> wrote:

>Cessative:
>walk, stop walking
>like, stop liking
>eat, stop eating
>and on and on.
>Be- can be applied to any verb in Teonaht.
>Conversive:
>close, unclose
>fasten, unfasten
>love, unlove  (there we have a sense of the cessative)
>do, undo
>create, uncreate (destroy your creation)
>but:
>read, unread?
>think, unthink?
>believe, unbelieve?
>see, unsee

>Meanwhile, to get back to your question:
>There are certain verbs, it seems, that can have no conversive, such
>as "eat."  How do you uneat? "vomit"?  Teonaht already has a word
>for that, but I can see a bulimic using the expression
>euphemistically.
>How do you unread something?  Untouch?  What properties would verbs
>have to have to be bad candidates for the conversive?
>Sally
I'm glad you clarified in a second message.  The conversive has
nothing to do with ceasing the action.  In Swahili, likewise, there
are many verbs that won't admit of the concept.

In some instances English un- is equivalent to dis-, but I don't
think in all.  Unarm = disarm, unrobe = disrobe.  Dis- is often
prefixed to a bound morpheme which makes comparison difficult:
distress, distend, disdain, etc.

What is also interesting is the English past participle with un- when
the verb denotes a concept that can't be reversed.  Unaccompanied,
but one can't unaccompany someone.  Uncounted, but one can't uncount
something.  Etc.

Addendum: The -ua suffix in Swahili in some cases intensifies, rather
than "converses."  Kama, squeeze; kamua, squeeze out.  Songa = press;
songoa = wring.

µ in the Senyecan orthography represents the unvoiced bilabial nasal,
an unvoiced "m."

Charlie

Charlie

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