Re: Re : Malat

Nik wrote :

Garrett wrote:
> > verbs can be made pretty close to logical; nouns can't. The nouns that
> > I've been deriving are ones based on verbal concepts; I haven't touched
> > the purely noun concepts (such as dog, house, street, etc).
>
> Have you ever read _Words in Context_ (also published, sans a chapter,
> as _Japanese and the Japanese_)?  The author makes a similar argument -
> he argues, quite persuasively, that most verbs can be defined exactly,
> while non-derived nouns cannot.
>
Way back I read a paper-back Japanese handbook on compound verbs trying to explain
why Japanese compound verbs are so confusing and give a method to master them
(a most confusing method which explains why the book was soooo long ;-) I'll
have a look at yours. It must be very interesting. I think that Malat verbs are
quite like Japanese *logical verbs* like tori hazusu, kumi tateru, tobi tateru,
yobi kakeru etc. But maybe they're not so logical : they just describe a
process by linking two other processes. But is a concept equal to the addition
of two other concepts ? Do *take and remove* and *put and raize* really mean
*to cancel* and *to assemble* to you ? Would you readily guess what they mean
if you didn't know them ? I just can remember I and others had enough after
learning the 2000th *-i/te -ru* verb and I got confused all the time : *let's
see : kumi hazusu ? tachi komoru ? tate tobu ? kake yobu ?* :-) I got them
right when I stopped regard them as compound verbs. So !
I !
!
!
started doubt *what's the point of making *logical* compounds for common verbs if a
single root does it ?* What is your experience about that ?
Mathias


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