Re: Nouns from Verbs

On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 03:27:24 -0400, Mike Ellis <nihilsum@...> wrote:

>In Rhean, the infinitive is used as a noun meaning "the act of -ing". There
>is another verbal noun form as well, usually for an individual instance of
>an act. In the case of "kick", and a (small) few others, it is formed by a
>bare stem. But most verbs take some kind of suffix.
>
>This system gets messy: -ak verbs may form this noun in -0 (bare stem), -
>ut, or -ad; -ek verbs in -o, -ud, and a few in -ed.[1] Both classes include
>a few in -uk, formed from verbs that end in either -uak or -uek. And then
>there are irregulars.
>
Ah, so my language is rather similar to yours.  OurTongue does not have an
infinitive proper, it has a masdar form (which is literally "the act of -
ing").  So, you have a construction like

tulen/menen darumale  (Note: the first two words are "dummies" borrowed
from Finnish)

Which literally means "I come/go to(wards) being-afraid" and would
translate to "I'm going to be afraid."  I'd also like to have a different
form for an individual instance of an act.  Plus I'd like to have suffixes
meaning "process," "result of an action," etc.

I could use the bare stem for the individual instances, but I don't know if
I want syncretism between accusative -m > -n and 1sg -m > -n.  However,
that would be the only case of syncretism.

I'll have to think of some easy way(s) to do it.  'Course, I'm kinda
constrained because I'm constructing OurTongue from someone's
reconstruction of the original human language.  What I'd really like is for
someone else to come on board, because then there would be an exchange of
ideas and the language might "evolve" faster/better.

So, what made you come up with the deverbal suffixes that you use?  Any
internal history behind them?

- Rob