Re: A Survey

Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:

I'm curious to see everyone's answers to the following questions:
1. Does your language(s) distinguish between active ("X breaks Y"), middle
("X breaks (apart)"), and passive ("X is broken (by Y)")?
2. If the answer to #1 was "yes," what method(s) does your language(s) use
to make some/all of the above distinctions?
>>>
It depends whether the base of the verb is intrisically a state that someone
puts something into (causative) or an action that someone applies on
something else (applicative). I stole this from languages I know. Fex:

"break" is based on the state of something broken:
mutasa "broken" > muta-mutasa "to make broken" > mu-muta-mutasa or mu-mutasa
"to be made broken".
"cut" is based on the action of someone cutting something (the reason is
that you need, feature or act as, a specific device):
pasita "a cut" > pasi-sita "to cut something" > pa-pasita "to be cut".

3. What method(s) does your language(s) use to distinguish between basic
nouns and verbs of the same root (i.e. "a hit" vs. "he hits")?
>>>
A first comment:  In natlangs the "basic" noun is not always what you would
expect in your own natlang. In Japanese, nouns derived from verbs with -i
are sometimes the instrument of the action, sometimes the result of the
action, sometimes the pattern of the action.
The base of the verb is a noun (action/state/instrument/result) which I
derive as shown above plus other ways. The verb is also used as a noun of
state or action:
mutamutasa = to break, the action of breaking something. But the verb of the
sentence takes a tag "a":
Pikani a paipataki mutamutasa pakutu "I do have-ability making-broken pot" =
"I break the pot".

I avoid deriving other "basic" nouns and I use compounds: tool+cut = a
cutting tool ; person+be_cut = a person wounded by cutting ; wound+cut = a
cut, action+cut = a cutting, etc.