Re: motion verbs in Tokana

On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Matt Pearson wrote:

> [snip stuff on trajectory and manner verbs]
>
> I've now added a third category of motion verbs which
> conflate both manner and trajectory.  These verbs are
> formed by prefixing one of the trajectory verbs with a
> "manner prefix", where the manner prefixes are
> derived in quasi-regular fashion from the manner verbs:
>
>   pa-     "by running"
>   si(h)-          "by swimming"
>   ua(s)-          "by flying"
>   kakla-          "by scurrying"        etc.
>
> Some examples:
>
>   pahepa          "run along the edge of"
>   pahyla          "run past"
>   pakloha         "run through"
>   palhyua         "run into"
>
>   silhyua         "swim into"
>   sihsufa         "swim out of"
>   sihnema         "swim around aimlessly"
>
>   uaskloha        "fly through"
>   uastypa         "fly down and land (in a body of water)"
>   uaskahpa        "fly down (to)"
>   uasyisa         "fly up (to)"
This reminds me of Uto-Aztecan instrumental prefixes--sort of.
The UA prefixes indicate an instrument by means of which some
activity is performed. Thus ky- 'with the teeth or mouth', ta-
'with the feet', pi- 'with the buttocks', ku- 'with heat', etc.
The difference being, of course, that the Tokana prefixes are
really verbs as well, while the UA prefixes are nouns.

> Other more esoteric verbs are also possible, such as
> "kaklafuia" = "come scuttling out of (a body of water)"
> or "iannema" = "jump around in all directions".  Considering
> that Tokana has a rather rich system of trajectory verbs,
> the possibilities are enormous.  E.g., from the verb "sisihta",
> meaning "go down to the nearest river", we can form
> "pasisihta" = "run down to the nearest river", and from
> "ahuafa" = "go in the direction of the setting sun", we can
> form "sihahuafa" = "swim in the direction of the setting
> sun".
>
> What do people think?  Has anyone else played around with
> motion verbs in interesting ways?
This is very cool. I don't have any interesting things that I've
done with motion verbs in either Tepa or Shemspreg, although for
Shemspreg I've adopted the typical IE notion of preverbs. There
is a set of prepositions which may be used as verbal prefixes to
derive more verbs (in the spirit of English phrasal verbs like
'turn on', 'hand out', 'get up'), but that's the extent of verb
stuff of interest.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu