Re: verbs = nouns?

On Tue, Jan 09, 2001 at 09:39:08PM -0500, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
[snip]
> It seems to me that I've read analyses that allow a grey, blurry area
> between nouns and adjectives in the Eurolang realm. Doesn't the term
> "substantive" come into play here? My memory is hazy.
OK, I might be way off here, but here's what I remember from Greek class:
an adjective is actually distinct from a noun, but sometimes, you can use
it substantively -- ie., as if it were a noun. For example, in English,
you can say "this is the path of the brave". "Brave" by itself isn't
normally used as a noun, but in this case, it's as if it were a
contraction of "the brave people" or "the brave men". In other words, the
adjective "brave" is being used here substantively. The presence of the
article seems to be required in such cases (Greek also requires the
article in this case) -- you can't say "this is the path of brave".

With this in mind, it's perhaps not that special that adjectives often
inflect like nouns -- since it would facilitate their substantive uses.
Of course, this *might* indicate common origins -- but it's way beyond me
to speculate about that.


T

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