Re: Varon
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, January 20, 2002, 1:19 |
|---|
Philip Newton wrote:
>On 19 Jan 02, at 18:36, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
>> En réponse à The RipperDoc <ripperdoc@...>:
>>
>> > It's just a sort of "irregularity". And I think it looks better, and,
>> > I didn't know any language that did have colors as nouns.
>>
>> French! In fact, in French any adjective can be used as a noun, including
>> colors.
>
>I think he meant "that has colours as *verbs*". As I understood it, his
>language was something like "The tree greens" for "The tree is green".
>
>(I think I read somewhere that some speakers of Esperanto do something
>like that -- add a verb ending to colour names and use it as a verb.)
Just as a general question: why are we having so much trouble simply
viewing "is (color)" as a verb?
As predicates, colors (and all other adjectives) are verbs in Kash: ange
ya/troçe 'the tree is green'; puna ya/vanat 'the house is white'; ana
ya/çangi 'the child is sick'-- cf. ya/haran 'he/she/it walks'; ya/sisa
'he/she loves....' (ya- is the 3rd sing. prefix)
As attributes: ange troce 'green tree'; puna vanat 'white house', ana çangi
'sick child'; with "true" verbs it 's a little more complicated, although
ana sisa 'beloved child' is possible.
As nouns in anaphora: yu ange 'the green one', ya çangi 'the sick one
(masc.)'. (lit. 'that one green/sick')
As nouns (color names): kuni troçe 'green' (lit. color green) as in ta
malisam kuni troçe 'I don't like green'.
>So can Polynesian. Leads to some interesting translations. My Niue
>dictionary has, among others, the following sentences with translations
>and an attempt by me at a literal translation:
> Ne taha e fufua moa i loto he kato
> There was one egg in the basket
> PAST one ABS egg chicken in bottom of basket
> = the egg in the bottom of the basket oned (= was one)
Kash has _similar_ constructions, e.g.
punani, atelni ket 'his/the house has six rooms'
house-3s/poss(topic), room-3s.poss six
Hardly surprising, since Kash is a crypto-Austronesian (i.e. in my mind)
language.
"Have" in Kash turns out to be quite complex. I could go on and on;
however, the Syntax portion of the website is nearing completion, so you can
read all about it there soon (if you have the patience.)......
Replies