Re: Colors as verbsl

Very interesting, Charlie.  I invented the stative verbs in Teonaht
precisely to make colors verbs, but got sidetracked.  As of now, there are
only two color-statives: bovindi, and myebndi, "be blue" and "be red."
These of course have acquired extra meanings besides simply the room blues,
is blue; it can also mean be cold, be lofty, be superior, be the color of
the sky; and the other can mean be red with embarrassment, glee, health.
Myeebihs, however, became the adjective for "blushing."  But though I've
created a bunch of stative verbs (be proud, be alive, etc.) I haven't
extended the colors!  Be yellow, be green, be purple, be white, be black...
all of those need meanings.  Be gold, be gray, be sea-green...

Sally

----- Original Message -----
From: "caeruleancentaur" <caeruleancentaur@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 9:55 AM
Subject: Colors as verbsl


> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Geoff Horswood <geoffhorswood@H...>
> wrote:
>
>>"Green" may be used as a noun.  Most words can stray from their
>>specified part-of-speech role, so something that's technically an
>>adjective can be used as a noun ("green is beautiful") or even as a
>>verb ("the grass greens again after the drought").
>
> Senyecan is language based primarily on verbs.  I'm trying to convert
> all lexicon entries into verbs as the base words.  So far I've
> managed to do this with about 3/4 of the lexicon.
>
> This plan was obstructed briefly when I came to the names of the
> colors which were adjectives.  Then I remembered that the names of
> certain colors in English had been made into verbs with the -en
> suffix: redden, blacken, and whiten.  Some of the colors use the
> adjectival form for the verb, e.g., yellow, green, blue and gray.
> And I was delighted to discover two forms I had not known previously:
> embrown and empurple!
>
> Thus, in Senyecan all the colors are originally verbs.  Since there
> is no difference in form between transitive and intransitive verbs,
> these verbs can mean, using rúúða as an example, transitively:
> redden, make red; and intransitively: redden, become red, turn red.
>
> This is used with all colors, even the intermediate shades, e.g.,
> reddish-yellow, bluish-green, etc.
>
> Charlie
> http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
>