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LC-01 genitive noun  phrase s

From:David Peterson <thatbluecat@...>
Date:Friday, October 31, 2003, 7:09
Oops!   I didn't mean to spark serious discussion about this.   I just wanted 
to make sure that everyone knew it was *not* me just saying "this is my 
dialect so it must be right"--I didn't even come up with the idea.

However, looking at this, one could see how it could be useful to conlanging. 
  After all, has anyone created a system that, for certain things, just 
doesn't work comfortably?   Say just like this: An agentive suffix which runs into 
trouble when multiple words from multiple categories are all unified into one 
action?

Responding to several:

Andreas wrote:

<<> Does the form "up-picker" occur? It seems the second most natural 
alternative
> to me ...>>
You know what does occur: on-looker. Never "looker on" or "looker onner" or "look onner". <<BTW, David, do you find "passers-by" equally odd?>> Not at all, but this is, by now, a lexicalized form, I believe. I'd say that *passer byers would be ungrammatical, in all dialects. (Q: Did the need for this word come about because French has a single word for it, "quidam"?) Muke wrote: <<Practice:         1.  throw away + -er = ________        2.  blow up + -er    = ________        3.  cast aside + -er = ________>> The perfect test. I can get "thrower awayer" not *throw awayer, "blower upper" not *blow upper, and I can't do anything "cast aside". I'd produce "caster asider", but I'd be decidedly unhappy with it. I think that, considering all the data, the truly odd thing would be to come across a speaker that has one and only one form that they could comfortably use with everything. Maybe? -David

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>LC-01 genitive noun¬† phrase        s