Re: Natural Order of Events

On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:51:05 -0800, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
>Christophe:
><<
>That is a very interesting observation here. In fact, what about spoken
>languages? Do people have examples of languages that use different verbs
>depending on the nature of the object, while English uses a single one?
> >>
>
>Oh, I should mention that my number and verb weren't arbitrary.
>Apparently Tagalog has something like twenty verbs for "carry"
>depending on the nature of the object (carry something in one
>hand, carrying a bundle of things, carrying a big bowl or crate,
>etc.).
Oh, I assumed you had in mind the classificatory verbs of Athabaskan, where
each of 'handle N' (subsuming 'carry'), 'propel N', 'N be in flight' will
have a dozenish entirely different stems depending on the noun class of N
(based on shape, consistency, etc.)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Athabascan_grammar#Classificatory_Verbs

Alex