Saprutum & Meltyish

kam@CARROT.CLARA.NET wrote:

>It's difficult to know quite what to believe, as they encourage every
>tall story and wild speculation, so that if anything does slip out
>about them, it will get written off as just another myth/ folktale etc.
This is precisely what Meltyishmen are doing. :-)

>Can't find them, where are they? I could probably figure something out
>even though I don't understand Czech.
Morphology of an Semitic language inspired by Old Babylonian,
but heavily influenced by Meltyish
http://www.volny.cz/pavel.adamek/lang/jekr/mluvnice/morf.htm
but it is yet rather heap of notes than a synoptic document.

(Conculture: the Meltyish myth "Of Disappearance of Meltyland":
http://www.volny.cz/pavel.adamek/lang/meltj/zmizeni/disapp.htm )

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>You seem to be confusing inflexion with derivation.
From Meltyish point of view, there is not so great distinction
between  inflexion and derivation.
Inflected forms are considered as compounds with grammatical roots.
Cases are considered as adverbs derived from substantives
and participles as adverbs derived from verbs.
Any derived adverb can be used as a "compound root".
A typical example is "locative of genitive", like
at baker's (shop), at Hera's (temple).
The noun derived from genitive or dative has very wide meaning
and can be considered as the shorthand of a compound,
whose second part is omitted
because it is obvious from context.

>The genitive is an
>inflection, it can be applied to almost any noun and (leaving aside the
>occasional idiom) its meaning is entirely predictable. The "internal
>genitive" is a true adjective derived from a noun. Not every noun in
>XvYZ- will have a corresponding XvYiZ- adjective, and if the form does
>exist it's exact meaning cannot be predicted a priori, it's a matter of
>usage -- of lexicon rather than grammar.
Pity, earth languages usualy behave this unpredictable way.
But the Meltymen investigate them in hope
that under the layer of irregularities, there could be preserved some traces
of the fully regular heavenly language :-)

>Try telling a Hebrew speaker that their word for "good" [t`o:B] <<
>//t`awb-//
>should be replaced by a derived form ([t`e:B]??) like Arabic t`ayyib(un)
A Meltyman would tell him to use some regular form,
maybe **T.áJóV, imperf. **JiT.JaV
(Assuming that the root is T.-J-B rather than T.-W-B)
In Old Babylonian, there is v. t.iábum > tá`bum
praet. it.íb, praes. itíab, perf it.t.íb
(but stative t.áb instead of **t.íb)
The adverb is t.ábish and the adjective is t.ábum, f. t.ábtum,
but there is also an abstract substantive t.úbum,
which IMHO could be from intensive **t.ujjubum "being very good".

>In English I can say "John is very talkative",
>but not "J. is very writeative" or "Mary is very singative".
Nice words.

But for Meltymen is hard to understand why Englishmen say
"industrious" instead of *workative,
"drunkard" instead of *drinkative,
"sleepyhead" instead of *sleepative,

and that it is not posible to create locative and ablative according to
where, here, there; whence, hence, thence:
*Englandere "in England",
*Englandence "from England",

and that "spice" is not plural of "spouse",

and they usualy are asking: "Does
"cowboy" mean "young male cow"? It does not? I see. Then
"boyfriend" surely must mean "friend of boys"..."

      Pavel

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