Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell

Hey.

Shoshoni has several verbs of saying, speaking, telling. Here's what I
found in a quick search of my word lists (in official orthography; <e>
is a high, central unrounded vowel):

niikwi   to say, tell (tr)
taikwa   to talk (intr) (sg.subj)
yekwi   to say something (tr) (sg.subj)
natekwina   to tell someone something; to relate a story

Both _taikwa_ and _yekwi_ share a suppletive du and pl subject form
_niwene_.

The other verbs I found seem to be dialect (or idiolect?) variants of
these basic meanings. I don't know what the difference is between
_niikwi_ and _yekwi_; _natekwina_ is reserved for story-telling
(stories are called _natekwinappeh_ 'told (thing)').

English 'speak' is translated by Shoshoni _taikwa_ in the sense of
'speak a language'; 'speak English' is _taipo taikwa_; 'speak Shoshoni'
is _newe taikwa_ or _sosoni taikwa_.

Dirk

On Dec 8, 2004, at 10:23 AM, Geoff Horswood wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I was thinking about the English words "speak", "say", "tell" (and
> "talk"),
> and trying to quantify the exact difference between them.
>
> Specifically, I was wondering whether all the words were strictly
> necessary
> in a language, or whether you could postulate a language with only one
> word
> meaning speak, say, tell or talk, depending on context.  How realistic
> is
> this?
>
> (Kazakh has 3 words: /ajtu/ to speak or tell, /deu/ to say, and
> /s2jleu/ to
> talk, plus the compound /djep ajtu/.)
> What about other natlangs?
>
> Geoff
>
>
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie