Re: Verbing Weirds Language

On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:37:39 -0700, veritosproject@GMAIL.COM wrote:

>How have your g*s' languages handled gerunds?  As a simple translation
>exercise, translate "verbing weirds language."  Carsten is exempt :)
>=========================================================================
Before translating this, perhaps a few things should be pointed out.
The process occuring above is not just changing words from nouns
to verbs, or from adjectives to verbs. What is really happening is
that completely new words are being formed based on the constraints
of English grammar. This works in English because there are endings
unique to verbs as opposed to nouns or adjectives, and the placement
of words is also rather strict. Thus for example the unaltered word
"weird" can have two different (but related) meanings in English
based on the endings and placement: 1. weird; 2. (to) weird= to make
weird.

Furthermore, this process is not fully productive as can be seen
in the above sentence which would not be viewed as a proper English
sentence.

In Ankanian (avesta) one could do nothing like this because the
word order is flexible and ALL words can take the same set of
endings. Thus there is no grammatical clue (or constraint) to be
applied to this type of word formation. In Ankanian the two meanings
of "weird" above would have to have different forms. But because of
its word formation tools, it is not particularly difficult to do.

kaz=weird,odd

This can be converted to "make weird" by using the instrumental
derived stem in -t-. This process is not completely productive
either, having a broader use than a causative. However with
descriptors (adjective-like words) it is fully productive indicating
a causal. Thus:

kazdi=make weird

In the case of "verb" which is füvúna (=action word) -t- will not
work, but there exists a fully productive causal indicator in the
prefix sil- (from the verb sili=to cause). Thus:

silfüvúni=make into a verb (lit. cause [something] to be a verb)

For the above sentence we can then just use the infinitive/gerund
of this verb. Thus:

Kazdi silfüvúnwa iveste = Verbing weirds language.
(lit. causing things to be verbs makes any language weird)

The Ankanian sentence here is considered proper usage.