Re: Ideas for deriving verbs from nouns

This is a fascinating thread. Sorry if I end up just echoing someone else's
comments, as I haven't thoroughly digested all the responses yet.

> >For example, one of the nouns I've made is "gift".  I figured I could make
> >a verb out of it that, depending on which role the trigger is in, would
> >mean "give", "receive", "be given" etc.
> >
> >However, upon further reflection, I can't justify to myself why the noun
> >should be "gift" and not "giver", "recipient" or one of the other roles.
> >Or "giving", in which case I'd seriously have to consider whether I'm
> >inventing nouns at all or just verbs whose infinitives can be used as
>nouns.
I think you're running into a kind of inescapable "artificiality" resulting
from taking an English verb-based concept and trying to map into a conlang
noun-based concept. You're hoping for a basic noun that is something like
"giveness", but that's phony--the Englist give-nouns are what they are
because "give" is fundamentally a verbal idea.

Perhaps you can break out the box. Get a *real* noun, imagine its cultural
associations, and then make a verb that can work with different triggers.
For example, suppose a cultural custom of leaving bread for the needy once
a month. Now "bread" is your noun, but "to bread" has the connotation of
generosity and giving, and your triggers can go to work and give you the
semantic range you need. Now there is really good reason why the root noun
is "bread" (i.e., the gift itself). With a different cultural scenario,
there might be a charitable order noted for their generosity--the verb
could be formed from their name.

The point is that if you really want to derive verbs from nouns, it will
ring hollow if you get all your core nouns by nominalizing English verbs.
Work with nouns that don't rely on a verbal concept for their own meaning,
and imaginatively draw verbal meanings out of them.

Cheers, Tom


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Tadfor Little               tom@telp.com
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Telperion Productions           www.telp.com
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