Re: All-verb language - instalment 1
From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
Date: | Thursday, July 24, 2003, 4:11 |
Estel Telcontar wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
>
> 1. Normal verbs.
> Not much comment needed. Plain ordinary transitive and intransitive
> verbs:
> RUN, EAT, SLEEP, HIT, etc.
>
> 2. "Adjectival verbs".
> That's what I call them. I suspect they're sposta be called "stative
> verbs". Essentially equivalent to English "BE" + adjective, and
> usually intransitive (maybe always.):
> BE.OLD, BE.GREEN, BE.TALL, etc.
>
> 3. "Prepositional verbs".
> These come in 2 subcategories, "motional" and "locational", I'm calling
> them for now. Both types are normally, if not always, transitive.
> Locational prepositional verbs are essentially equivalent to English
> "BE" + preposition:
> BE.ON, BE.IN, BE.BESIDE, etc.
> Motional prepositional verbs are essentially equivalent to English "GO"
> + preposition:
> GO.ON(TO), GO.IN(TO) (=ENTER), etc.
>
> 4. "Nominal verbs"
> Essentially equivalent to English "BE" + noun. Can be intransitive or
> transitive. If intransitive, meaning is as above:
> BE.[a/the]HUMAN, BE.DOG, BE.HOUSE, etc.
> If transitive, the syntactic direct object is semantically a posessor,
> so transitive nominal verbs might be glossed thus:
> BE.HOUSE.OF, BE.DOG.OF
>
> That's all the four categories. All words belong to one of these
> categories. What do youguys think?
I am curious-- are pronouns and personal names verbs of Category 4 too? How
about quantifiers and demonstratives-- every, all; that, these etc.??
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