GROUPLANG: noun and verb roots

Herman Miller wrote:
>
>I think I can accept the interchangeability of noun and verb roots if we
>can come up with a good scheme for relating the meanings of the various
>forms consistently. I don't want to end up with Esperanto where you have to
>memorize that you "marteli" [hammer] with a "martelo" rather than a
>"martelilo", or English where "bite" can be either the act of biting or the
>impression left by the teeth.
>
>"Bite" might work well as an action root, with the result of the action
>expressed by adding a derivational affix. But other words, such as
>"photograph", may be more convenient as concrete nouns, with "the act of
>taking a photograph" expressed by derivation. In English, both "bite" and
>"photograph" can be used interchangeably as nouns or verbs, but the
>relation between the noun and verb meanings is incompatible.
>
With the new cases we've added (suggested by Mathias in earlier posts)
there shouldn't be such confusions, which were the primary motive for
the unending discussions we had :-)

If I understood well:

agent-I predicate-hammer "I hammer" (I use a hammer)
absolutive-rock predicate-hammer "The rock hammers" (The rock is [used as] a hammer)
undergoer-hammer predicate-fall "The hammer falls"

You'll have to ask Mathias whether this

caus-pred-hammer undergoer-I pred-bother

should mean
1. "It bothers me to hammer", OR
2. "The hammering bothers me" (somebody is making noise with a hammer
and that bothers me).

I think it's 2. "It bothers me to hammer" should be more like

ag-I pred-hammer [ki], caus-ki pat-I pred-bother

where ki is a relative pronoun:
"That I hammer, [THAT] bothers me!"


What do you say, Mathias? Have I studied my lessons? :)


--Pablo Flores