Re: ??degrees?? of verbs

Scotto Hlad wrote:
>Ok all the talk about degrees of adjectives has me thinking of verbs in a
>new conlang that I've been putting together. When I was studying Hebrew
for
>my religious education degree, I learned about the different stems. I was
>always fascinated with teh qal and piel, the piel having been explained
as a
>stronger form of the verb. I may not get the example 100% (it has been 10
>years since I studied) but
>
>hit (qal) -> strike (piel)
>
>I tend so see everything in a mirror, so if there must be a stronger form
>there must be a weaker form. My conlang will have a form that gives both a
>stronger and weaker form. I have dubbed this property "force."
>
>example:
>
>tap, hit, strike
>
>
>I have named the weaker form "diminutive" and the stronger form
>"augmentative" but couldn't think of a name for the neutral form.
>
>I'm open to suggestions for this neutral form.
__________________________
I'd use the term "basic," "default" or "standard."  However, since you are
resorting to non-standard usage of the terms "diminutive"
and "augmentative", you might also consider using the term "equative."

By the way, Ithkuil makes this sort of binary distinction in its
formatives (nouns and verbs) but along a different parameter: informality
versus formality (a category I call Designation). Examples are "tool"
vs. "utensil", "grow" vs. "cultivate", "get/obtain"
vs. "procure", "populate" vs. "settle", "think" vs. "analyze", etc.  This
is all consistent with one of the language's goals to push to the
morphological level any systematic semantic distinctions that other
languages achieve at the lexical level.

--John Quijada