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Re: motion verbs in Tokana

From:Jim Grossmann <steven@...>
Date:Sunday, March 12, 2000, 5:41
>Well, there *are* morphological changes to the "prefix" that you don't >know about--in some cases rather radical changes. For example, the >verb meaning "run to" is "penta", while the bound morpheme meaning >"running" is "pa-". (I remain agnostic on whether "pa-" is a reduced >form of "penta", or whether "penta" is an irregular formation from >"pa-" + "eta" = "go to".)
>As far as whether we're talking about prefixing or compounding, I really >don't care what you call it. But if it's compounding, then the first >element in the compound sometimes undergoes radical phonological >alteration, as in the above example.
Okay. :-)
>>You could vary the order of the roots for stylistic purposes.
>>sneak + enter = sneak in enter + sneak = enter >>surreptitiously >>chug + exit = chug out exit + chug = exit with the >>sound of active machinery
>I don't really understand the semantic differences here.
There aren't any basic semantic differences; the distinction I was trying to convey was informal vs. formal. Sorry I wasn't clear.
>As a general response to your comments and And's: I think there >may have been a misunderstanding here. I was merely presenting >a scheme for *grammaticalising* different conflations of manner >and trajectory--for deriving new lexical items. The language also >provides other means of expressing events where both manner >and trajectory are specified: For example, you could use a manner >verb together with a locative noun expressing a spatial relation. >The following two sentences, for example, are roughly synonymous:
> Na pa-lhuye-i kotoi > he running-entered-the room:DAT > "He ran into the room" > lit. "He entered the room runningly"
> Na pente-i himai kotu > he ran-the interior:DAT room > "He ran into the room" > lit. "He ran to the room('s) interior"
>Matt
I can't see anything unworkable about either scheme, or any reason why Tokana couldn't use both. Personally, I like them both.