Re: Innovative Adverb Formation

Christian Thalmann <cinga@...> writes:

> Rather than forming adverbs from adjectives by appending an ending, I
> can use a generic adverbial phrase head |naw| meaning approximately "in
> a way, in a fashion".  So:
>
>
> |fom| "hot"
> |naw fom| "hotly" (lit: in a hot way)
Bokuchi Rinu-Khai does a similar thing (since they don't have a "like"
preposition).

    lea yizun yue
    lea   yi-zun-0    yue
    black GEN-way-CON night
    black in-way-of night = black like night

    sach dafele gozun azurama
    sach dafel-e   go-zun  azuram-a
    that dance-PRS COM-way disrespectful-NDF
    (s/he) dances with-way disrespectful
    [as in "disrespecting of tradition"]

As you see, the latter (adverbial) prefers the COMmitative case,
while the first (adjectival) uses the GENitive. The CONstruct
case goes mostly unnoticed.

The second example may be rephrased, using a different word,
like this:

    sach dafele gufot urami
    sach dafel-e   g-ufot           uram-i
    that dance-PRS COM-opposite_way ancient-DEF
    = she dances counter-the-ancient-way-ly

(|ufot| is the somewhat difficult to gloss antonym of |zun|).


Christian, maybe you know this, but if you don't want to repeat
the adverbial inflection on each adjective, you could do what
Spanish does:

    fría, lenta y solemnemente
    cold- slow- and solemn-ly

though this is sound because the derivative |-mente| used to
be an independent word.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.angelfire.com/ego/pdf/ng/index.html