Re: Adding New Words

On 28 May, Isaac Penzev wrote:

> Michael Adams wrote:
<snip>

> | But the question is, how does one add to a language new terms?
>
> Several techniques are used:
>
<snip>

> 4) Abbreviations:
> |tapuz| "orange (fruit)" from |tapuach zahav| lit. 'golden apple'
    Strictly speaking, AFAIK, this technique is called making
portmanteau words --- making a new word out of parts of
two other words.
    Turning abbreviations into words is something else, though.
In Hebrew, for example, a small drone plane is called
a |mazlat|. It's from the abbreviation M.Z.L.T.
(Matos Za'ir Lelo Tayas = Plane Small Without Pilot).


> 5) Borrowings: |telefon|, |otobus|, |universita|.
    What's interesting is how, in borrowing from non-Semitic langs,
Hebrew speakers sometimes view the consonants as
a Semitic-type root and build regular verb forms around it.
    For example, |telefon|. The "root" is considered to be
t-l-f-n and the verb is formed like other verbs:
|letalfen| = to telephone someone, |tilfanti| = I phoned, and so on.
    Even more interesting is when the "root" is changed so as to
fit in with the Hebrew phonological system. For example:
the English word "puncture" has been borrowed to cover
the sense of a punctured tire. (There is a perfectly good
Hebrew word for this; many if not most people know it;
and, IME, nobody uses it in ordinary speech! :-)   )
    Anyhow, the word is pronounced something like
[pantSer]. But since in Hebrew, /p/ in word-medial position
usually changes to [f], the infinitive, "to puncture"  comes
out as [lefantSer] !
    But this does not hold for all borrowings. For example,
the word "virus" has been borrowed to cover both
the biological and computer varieties. It's pronounced
something like [virus]. However, AFAIK,
it has never been analyzed into the "root"  v-r-s.
Thus one can not turn it into a verb. To describe infecting
a computer with a virus, the form *|levares| is not used.
You'd have to use a verb together with the (borrowed)
noun |virus|.


Dan Sulani
-------------------------------------------------
likehsna    rtem  zuv  tikuhnuh  auag  inuvuz  vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

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