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Re: Not applicatives, but...?

From:<morphemeaddict@...>
Date:Friday, March 21, 2008, 3:36
In a message dated 3/20/2008 22:12:19 PM Central Daylight Time,
langs@QUANDARY.ORG writes:


> I am trying to infuse some rigor into my major conlang (the transitional > version, "Mirexu", will be used in the upcoming relay). I know what I > want verbs to do: they take (what used to be?) adpositions, and use them > as prefixes to derive other monotransitive senses of the verb, discarding > the original object in favor of the formerly oblique participant. > > For example, "ti" to say (something); "duti" to speak (to someone); > "treti" to discuss; "vunti" to speak for, to advocate. (Wait - there > it is, right in Latin, right? Ad-vocate?) > > This does not appear to be an applicative process as such, as that > terminology seems to require an increase in valency. It's so similar to > what German infinitives and some English gerunds do, not to mention the > Latin I stumbled upon above. It must have a name! But I can't find it. > Anybody know? > >
This seems a lot like the anti-passive/anti-middle voice that Rick Morneau describes in his Lexical Semantics (as part of Latejami): http://www.eskimo.com/~ram/lexical_semantics.html It may even be the anti-anti-passive/anti-anti-middle voice of his earlier Katanda: http://www.eskimo.com/~ram/Katanda/Katanda.html stevo </HTML>