Re: Adjectives, Adverbs, Ad...

In some languages, there are verbs meaning for ex "to
be red" (I don't mention "to be blue" because it has a
very special meaning in English).

In French, such verbs don't exist, AFAIK. There are
verbs meaning "to become red" (rougir), or blue
(bleuir), or green (verdir) etc. But one could easily
imagine what they would be:
*rouger = to be red
*bleuer = to be blue
*verder = to be green
etc.
Then we could imagine verbs meaning "to lose a color
characteristic": derougir, debleuir, deverdir (acute
accent on "de"; note that "reverdir" exists already
for trees). And then verbs meaning "to possess a
colour characteristic no more": derouger, deverder...

All these innovations could be done without offending
in the least the "genie de la langue" we're so proud
about, although it would look a little strange at
first sight.

--- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
> Carsten Becker wrote:
> > > In our modern modern usage, we restrict 'noun'
> to the first group
> > only,
> > > and simply call the second group adjectives.
> >
> > Could you please give examples for the second
> group?
>
> Red, old, big, tall, small, fast, slow, smart,
> pretty, etc.  In other
> words, what we normally call "adjective".  In
> languages like Greek and
> Latin, it makes sense to classify nouns and
> adjectives together in one
> category ("noun"), subdividing them into substantive
> nouns (modern
> "noun") and adjective nouns (modern "adjective")

=====
Philippe Caquant

"He thought he saw a Rattlesnake / That questioned him in Greek: / He looked
again, and found it was / The Middle of Next Week. / "The one thing I regret',
he said, / "Is that it cannot speak !' " (Lewis Carroll)

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