Re: Re : Re: Re : Case, Innateness, Almost Allnoun, NGL.

Joe Mondello wrote:
>
> Re: derivations
>
> My new project, Nzvauxa, is very anti-derivation.  i try not to derive
> anything, or at least as litte as possible.  anyone else do this?
>
> pp
> J Mondello
        Moten does something like this. It uses some (not much) compounding,
but nearly, unless if you consider that having multiple meaning for a
single root is derivation. What it does is using the same root for
multiple uses. For example:

        'odun' is the root for 'youth, young'. As a noun, it means the quality
'youth'. As a verb, it can be used to mean 'to become young'. As an
adjective (formally not different than a noun), it means 'young'. But
you can also 'nominalize' the adjective (not a real nominalization as
nouns and adjectives are indistinct) and 'odun' means then 'young one'.

        Is that derivation? Personnally I don't think so. The only real example
of derivation I can find in Moten is semantic. It is the use of the
suffixes -vu|z, -non and -sif that can't be used alone (other suffixes
that resemble them can be used alone, so that's more compounding). They
mean respectively 'employee of', 'artist' (the art is given with the
root) and 'person who is entitled to do (what is said from the root)'.
As they can't be used alone, the word 'fokez' ('person') must be used
when their meaning has to be used alone, so:

fokezvu|z: employee, fokeznon: artist (of any kind), fokezif: person who
has a certain title (difficult to translate, I know).

        I think there is some kind of compounding in Moten that seems a little
like derivation, but it is still not. It's more like the use of 'room'
in English to make different names of rooms (bedroom, bathroom,
living-room, etc...) generally in a more productive way. That's why I
think it could become derivation after some evolution of the language.

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
        5656 AA Eindhoven
        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com