Re: THEORY: 'true' nature of nouns vs. 'illusionary' nature

Dan (?) wrote:

<< Well I decided to incorporate a feature in Tech where a noun can be marked
to indicate that something is either really what it appears to be, or that
it only has the appearance of being that but isn't necessary inherently what
it claims to be. The suffix -i is roughly translated into English as the
suffix '-like' or the prepositioned 'so-called', but it doesn't always have
a negative meaning. I'm wondering if there's a natlang that has this
feature.>>

Previously, I had thought that this kind of an idea (that is, a fake or
illegitimate thing) was something that could only exist in an industrialized
culture (I don't know why.   I know nothing about evolution or anthropology or
achaeology or history or anything.  This is just something I thought).   So I was
rather surprised (and, again, others with more knowledge in the areas I
specified [or ones I didn't think to include] might not have been) to find that
there's a suffix for just this in the Eskimo languages I'm studying.   It's an
inflectional suffix you attach to a noun to indicate that that noun is: (a) a fake
or facsimile version of the noun; (b) a somehow less-legitimate form of the
noun; or (c) something that looks like the noun, but isn't really the noun
(this is kind of like (a)).   A very useful suffix and concept, IMO.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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