Re: Ideas for deriving verbs from nouns

On Thu, Apr 26, 2001 at 11:28:49PM -0600, Tom Tadfor Little wrote:

> 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.
Thanks :)

> 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.
Which is exactly what I was afraid of...

> 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,
That's wonderful!  Sadly, I think I've already gone in a more crypto-verbal
direction, at least with the "give" words.  But you've given me the key
I needed to get past that - I'll try to use it (I'm reluctant to scrap the
stuff I just created where the nouns are derived from a verbal concept
which doesn't get used as a verb as such, sorta, because I only just created
it and am having fun with it :)

Wow, that was a low-blood-sugar kind of sentence, wasn't it.  I should break
for lunch...

Amanda