Re: Decomposed verbs (OOP-ish but applies to any lang)

>I was wondering is there are any conlangs that do
>without certain verbs by decomposing them into smaller
>pieces.
[snip]
>Or: "About this red book, John caused himself not to
>own it and caused Mary to own it."
[snip]
>The questions are, what minimum set of verbs suffices
>to express all other verbs?  Just as "Own" can replace
>"Give" in the example above, which verbs are
>primative, or elemental in that they cannot be
>deconstructed?
I've been searching for such "minimum set" for
my con-auxlang project, but the conclusion I've
reached so far is that what concepts you take as
"basic" and which as derived is arbitrary.

In the above example, I don't think you can
completely substitute "own" for "give" without
introducing a new semantic nuance, because "give"
doesn't necessarily imply a change of ownership.

And, picturing an event of giving, one can argue
what is the primary, essential notion in such a
situation: Is it the action itself of passing
something to someone, or is it the change of state
that this something undergoes? From the former
perspective, "given" would be a derived notion
from the basic "give" (-> "the state of having
been the object of a giving"), while from the
latter "given" would be the basic notion and
"give" would be derived from it (something like
"to cause something to become given" or "to
change something's state into 'given'").

And still, there's even the question of what is
the 'primary' meaning of English "to give": Is it
"to give something to someone", which means that
"something" is the participant considered as
'affected' and thus "something is given to someone",
or is it "to give someone something", in which case
the 'affected' participant is "someone" and thus
"someone is given something"? Or more clear examples
of this point: What are the "primary" notions of
"to load" and "to plant"? We can "load a truck with
hay" or "load hay into a truck", and we can "plant
a garden with roses" or "plant roses in a garden".
In each case, we have a different semantic construct
expressed in English by the same word. And then we
have the nouns "a load" and "a plant" expressed by
the same words.

And we have the question of "take". Are "give" and
"take" separate basic notions? Are both derivations
of a basic notion of "passing of something from
someone to someone else", depending on which participant
is seen as "active" (the someone 'from' is active ->
"he gives", the someone 'to' is active -> "he takes")?
And what about "receive", should it be derived from
"give" (-> "be given"), or should "give" be derived
from "receive" (-> "cause to receive")?

Also, think about this: "be dead", "die", "kill".
What is the basic concept here? Is it "to die" and
"dead" a derivation (-> "the state reached at by
dying"), or is "dead" the basic notion and "die"
is a derivative (-> "to change state into 'dead'")?
Or is it "alive" the basic notion ("dead"="not alive"
or "no longer alive", "to die"="to change state from
'alive'", "life"="the quality of being alive")? Or
is it "life" (alive="having life", "to die"="to lose
life")? And what about "kill"? Could this one be a
basic notion and "to die" a derivation by demoting
the cause of death to non-active secondary participant
and promoting the undergoer to pivot and only
participant of the new semantic construct, so that
"A heart attack killed him" becomes "He was killed by
a heart attack" and finally "He died from a heart attack"?

Cheers,
Javier

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