Re: English "another"/Conlang Question

on 8/10/07 1:42 PM, David J. Peterson at dedalvs@GMAIL.COM wrote:

<snip long message>
>
> Once you get all the way to here, then, a speaker may well imagine
> that it's because things are objects that they get the /i-/.  But I
> now see that the analogy I used with respect to my initial objection
> was accurate.  Rather than "another", how about Latin with its
> prepositional prefixes?  Can you get something like "in incipio"?
> I feel like I don't know enough Latin to phrase this question
> correctly...  Seems like you do, though.
I too had reservations about the plausability of your i- derivations, but
your explanation helps a lot. What's really happened, it seems, is that a
~locative preposition was used to form exocentric compounds, and then became
generalized as a many-purposed derivational affix. That's far different from
an endocentric compound made from a simple object particle like I was
assuming.

One natlang example I can think of is French 'pourboire', deriving from
'pour' - 'for' and 'boire' - 'drink', and signifying neither a for nor a
drink, but a tip (given for a drink, or whatever else). A quick google for
'pour pourboire' presents 244 results, so I guess it's okay. Of course 'pour
un pourboire', with the article, is much more attested.

In English there are words like 'overflow', 'undertow', and 'onlooker', but
I think those are really formed from adverbs, or prepositions + a different
noun now dropped. Aren't the Latin examples too?

Here's one: how about 'in-law'? 'I've never taken much interest in in-laws,
though a few of them are decent people'. Works for me, and to leave out an
'in' results in nonsense.

It's also worth noting exocentric compounds like 'bigfoot', which don't even
take their components into account for pluralization ('ten bigfoots', not
*'ten bigfeet', except maybe in some people's snarky idiolects), because the
real head is neither of the parts, but rather a third item that's only
implied (in this case, the big-footed ANIMAL).

So I think your i- nouns would indeed have to have another object marker
before them, and that from the very get-go, not even as some eventual
reanalysis once the origins were no longer transparent. They would also
appeared in non-object positions from the very beginning.

Josh


> -David
> *******************************************************************
> "A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
> "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
>
> -Jim Morrison
>
> http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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