Re: Verbs of ingestion (was: aspects / nasal consonants / meanings)

Hi!

Tim May <butsuri@...> writes:
>...
> How does one translate "drink" into Qthyn|gai - just 'digest'?
>...
That's a derivation of 'digest' + 'water'.  The 'water' used as a
derivational suffix is more vaguely 'liquid' and is not an argument of
the verb, but a modifier of the verb.  It would be 'in a liquid way'
or for actions better 'as typically done to liquids'.

'digest' may be used without the derivational suffixes to denote both,
eating and drinking.

>...
> I think the difference between "drink" and _nomu_ is greater than that
> between "eat" and _taberu_ - Suzuki notes that in addition to unchewed
> rice, _nomu_ covers medicine and poison, in liquid or pill form, and
> "pins or rings which children might swallow by mistake".  If the
> semantics of the Qthyn|gai morpheme correspond closely to those of
> Englsh "digest", then it probably doesn't include the swallowing of
> indigestible items.
>...
Ah.  I hadn't noticed that!  Maybe I should change it to 'ingest' then
to get a closer approximation, as the meaning of the isolated morpheme
in Qthyn|gai is really very vague and would indeed include the
*ingestion* of indigestible items. :-)

...fixes lexicon entry...

**Henrik