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Re: Tiki and French

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Friday, April 14, 2006, 2:43
Herman Miller wrote:
> * French, like many European langs including English, has a verb "to be" > with numerous uses. I was thinking that Tiki adjectives would be used > much like verbs, but this seems like an idea that would be unlikely to > occur to an early 20th century (non-linguist) French speaker. On the > other hand, "Dr. M" must have had some familiarity with Japanese > grammar, which has a category of adjectives that act much like verbs. > (I'm still assuming that Dutch and Japanese are the two foreign > languages that had the strongest influence on Tiki.) So it's possible > that adjectives might be used without "to be", but it'd probably be more > likely to follow the European model.
How about a compromise? Give Tiki a suffix, -i or something similar, that can (optionally) be added to adjectives to turn them into verbs meaning "be X". Thus, an adjective can be used either without that suffix in the European model, or with that suffix in the Japanese model.