† † † Miapimoquitch text: Eye Juggler (long)

Dirk wrote:

<<A lot of languages have derivational affixation which can indicate
stuff like body parts or basic implements or natural forces (rock,
stick, wind, sun). My inspiration for these is Uto-Aztecan and
Salishan. The suffix itself isn't an argument, so this isn't
incorporation, strictly speaking.>>

Sorry, I just can't get off this.   It doesn't make sense to me how exactly 
such a system could come to be.   I think I understand how it works.   Let me 
see if I've got this right:

       n-  sea    <Vk>   kasu   -pte
      TR- out.of <COLL> remove -EYE

       He took them out

This means "He removed his eyes", but more standardly "He eye-removed them".  
 A standard noun-incorporational language, though, would probably do 
something like "He eye-removed himself", right?   So that would be the difference.   
(What's also interesting: Is this a transitive verb that always takes a 3rdplu. 
object, since it's referring to a pair of eyes?   What if he wanted to take 
somebody else's eyes out?)   What's throwing me for a loop is what you wrote 
here:

<<<<A lot of languages have derivational affixation which can indicate
stuff like body parts or basic implements or natural forces (rock,
stick, wind, sun).>>

A *lot* of languages?   This is the first I've seen.   Do you know how these 
systems arose historically?   And what's the restriction on nouns/substantives 
that can become affixes?   Can you point me to a natlang. grammar that has 
something like this?   (P.S.: I just picked up a Siglit grammar [Inuit 
language], and it has adjective-like suffixes, so it's kind of like this.   They're 
attached to nouns or verbs to indicate, for example, "sharpness", "goodness", 
"bigness", etc.)

-David

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