Re: THEORY: Deriving adjectives from nouns

Tem Fri, 4 Jun 1999 12:28:36 -0700, Charles <catty@...>
skribis:

>> Particularly on that case ("pretty little girl(s)(') school") you have
>> an ambiguity, since it's not clear whether the school is "for girls"
>> or "of the girls".
>
>It is a famous test case. There are many possible meanings.
Well, I know. I was referring now to the genitive ambiguity.

>How many can your conlang unambiguously distinguish,
>and how intuitive are the constructions?
Well, you tell me first what they are, and I give you the translations
:)

>Matthias once gratiously provided this other headache:
>"nice dancer" vs "nicely dancing one". (I cannot
>bring myself to say "nicely dancer"!)
Yes, this is the same as recently discussed "good fisher".
I proposed "bonama fishero" (bon-am -a fish-er-o) for the second
meaning you give (being "bona fishero" for the first one), though I'm
not very convinced with the "bon-am -a" derivation.
Btw I've decided to change -am adverbial ending for another. It just
gives problems of similiraty with accusative adjective ending -an. So
I'm now deciding between -i -in and -im. Each of them have possitive
and negative consecuences, so the decision is not trivial.

>Precision is good, but so is ease of use.
Yes, that's the challenge of making an IAL :)



Saludos,
Marcos