Re: Keeping Track of Ambiguity in your Conlang?

Wesley Parish wrote:
>> >> ( another pairing i've seen mentioned is 'dust'
>> >> meaning to rid of dust and 'dust' meaning to sprinkle
>> >> with dust, but at least these come from the same root )
>> >
>> >I do think this is used by everyone, although the first
>> >meaning is probably the more common one.
>>
(Moi)
>> In my life, at least, 'to dust (sprinkle with....)' is mainly restricted
to
>> the kitchen--
>> "Dust the cutlets with flour......", Dust with powdered sugar"   I can't
>> imagine dusting something with real dust-----though given my housekeeping
>> habits it could happen....
>
>Heard of crop-dusting?  From aircraft?
Ah yes, slipped my mind. Dusting with insecticide.
But if your crops are simply looking untidy, Martha Stewart(TM) recommends
attaching a really big feather-duster to the plane. :-)

Actually this is a quite productive means of producing Engl. verbs from
nouns (and probably the despair of foreign learners)--
box (container), to box
pocket, to...
bottle, to...
bag, to...
as verbs these generally mean 'put s.t. into NOUN' (the noun must be marked
semantically as "container"; so [recording]tape must be a container)

water
carpet
paint
dust
roof
etc.
as verbs, 'apply NOUN (or noun-like substance) to s.t.' (semantics here are
a little looser; [adhesive]tape would go here)


There are more categories, though some, like "to table", where the meaning
is not immediately deducible, surely fall under "figurative speech".

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