Re: verbs = nouns?

From: "H. S. Teoh"

> On Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 11:17:27PM -0500, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
> > fact remains, though, that these langs are more flexible across the
> > noun-verb divide than languages such as German (der Schlaf "sleep" (n.),
but
> > schlafen "sleep" (v.)), French (la toux "cough" (n.), but tousser
"cough"),
> > or Hungarian (nevetés "laugh" (n.), but nevet "laugh" (v.)), where
endings
> > are requisite to distinguish between nouns and verbs. In Chinese and
>       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Aha. I think this is probably what the original message was asking about.
> Sure, in English, many words lack (distinct) endings whether they are
> being used as a noun or a verb. I can see why Chinese would appear to be
> "more free" in the sense that many words may be used as a
> noun/verb/adjective in the same lexical form.
I, too, think that this was the point of the original question.

> > hong2 (de) lian3  a red face (i.e. "a face which is red")
> > lian3 hong2 (le)  (your) face is red (from drink or embarrassment)
> >
> > kuai4 (de) che1 a fast car ("a car which is fast")
> > che1 hen3 kuai4  the car is fast
>
> Hmm. To me, hong2 and kuai4 are just plain & simple adjectives. To make
> them into nouns, you'd have to compound them with something like tu4
> (degree), eg.  kuai4tu4 (degree of fastness, ie., speed). I'm not sure how
> they may be used as verbs, except perhaps for something like "kuai4dian3"
> -- "hurry up!"; but I think of it as literally meaning "be more fast!" so
> "kuai4" would still be an adjective.
But if hong2 is only an adjective with no verbiness, how, then, can the
perfective particle "le" be added to it? Isn't "le" a verbal suffix? I think
the point here is that, unlike in IE langs, adjectives behave more like
verbs than like nouns.