Re: The Conversive

Of course, as I think about it a little more, there are myriad subtleties in
what you suggest here that I didn't consider when I shot off my response.
To unfasten doesn't really mean to stop fastening.  So my "be-" doesn't
serve quite the same function.  Do I have a "conversive" in Teonaht?  As in
close, unclose (meaning open? return to the status of being open?)?

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

A conversive can't be applied to every word in Teonaht.

I think the conversive is expressed in the fairly straightforward prefix
"vo-" in Teonaht, which means "no, not."  But then again, that opens up
another subtlety!  :-#

Vokkare, no-think, doesn't (until now!) mean reverse one's thinking about
something.

Perhaps I should find another prefix, or have either be- or vo- serve double
duty to express the conversive.  Vo- could do just that, since T. already
has a construction meanting "think not": kare vera, as opposed to vokkare,
which could mean to reverse one's thinking on a topic. I think use of vo-
will have to be idiomatic to reduce the invention of new basic particles,
and to keep the language more natural.  Ver- in German has several different
meanings in front of a verb, or changes the meaning irregularly.  I aim for
that in Teonaht.

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sally Caves" <scaves@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2004 11:53 AM
Subject: Re: The Conversive


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "caeruleancentaur"
>
>> While reviewing some Swahili grammar the other day, I came across an
>> aspect of the verb called the conversive.  The suffix -ua is added to
>> the verb to "undo" the action of the verb, e.g., funga, fasten;
>> fungua, unfasten.
>
>> Have any of you encountered this in your study of languages?
>
> English, for one!  But I don't think un- can be universally applied to all
> verbs as it may do in Swahili.  To like (okay), to unlike (not okay), for
> instance; we would say, rather, "stop liking."
>
>> Have
>> any of you used it in your conlang?
>
> Yes, in Teonaht.  The prefix be- "undoes" or reverses the action of the
> verb, and very often means to "stop doing X."
>
> beuajarem, "stop detesting, to stop hating."
>
> It comes from the cessative modal adverbial begrem: Elo beg ennyve, "he
> stopped eating."
>
> Sally
> http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/adverbs.html#list
> http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/verbs.html#modal
>