Re: Verb-classifiers and preverbs.

Quoting Carl Banks <conlang@...>:

> caeruleancentaur wrote:
> > Adam Walker <carrajena@...> wrote:
> >
> > I suspect he meant conversations like:
> >
> >> A: So does it start at five?
> >> B: Ish.
> >
> >> A: Would you say that car is purple?
> >> B: Ish.
> >
> > That's fine for a one-word elliptical response, but how would you use
> > it in a complete sentence?  Is "ish" an adjective or an adverb?  I
> > don't see that "ish" has any meaning apart from being attached to
> > another part of speech.
>
>
> I think a better example than "ish" is "ism".  As in, "I will not
> tolerate racism, sexism, ageism, or any other isms".
>
> The fact that "ism" can be pluralized, but that you can't normally
> pluralize words with the -ism suffix, indicates that its usage here is
> as a separate word, and not a suffix with an elided base.
>
> I believe the reason "ism" was able to break free is that English
> speakers tend to parse -ism words as compound words, since -ism is added
> to a noun and results in a noun.  They think of "ism" as a word roughly
> meaning "focus".  Compare the above to the following hypothetical
> sentence:  "I will not tolerate racefocus, sexfocus, agefocus, or any
> other focuses."  See?  It's "right" to parse it as a compound in one
> case, "wrong" in the other, but there's really not much qualitative
> difference between the two.
>
> Of course what really proves "ism" is a word is it has started serving
> as the root for other words: words such as "ismism", the belief in
> (over)emphasizing isms.
There's also "istic" as an adjective meaning bigoted or prejudiced.

--
Andreas Johansson