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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