JR wrote:
> First off, I've decided to use the term 'construct' after all for the Khafos
> suffix I asked about last month. Its usage is different from what I'm
> familiar with from Hebrew and the like, but I've found that the term is used
> for forms of nouns in certain African languages that occur not only with
> possessors, but with adjectives, relative clauses, etc. I guess that gives
> me license. Thanks to those who helped!
Interesting. Bowtudgelean has a similar feature for things identified
(not merely described) by a following adjective or adjectival phrase. I
called it indicated state for the lack of something better (though the
term could apply to some other definite states).
Construct actually could be a good name for it; since the following
adjective is more or less required. Except in one dialect I have them
using a bare indicated state for weakly definite words (things where you
want to communicate that there is a particular thing but not any sense
of what its identity is).
> I have another question. Khafos uses the same marker (an infix, sometimes in
> combination with a prefix too*; and the infix varies in the examples below
> because it contains a copy of the previous vowel) to mark words as being
> negative, or as being questioned, whether they're wh- words or anything
> else. Ex:
>
> ha-ia-lo-m
> leave1-X-leave2-2
> 'You're not leaving.'
>
> ha-ia-lo-m? (with rising intonation)
> leave1-X-leave2-2
> 'Are you leaving?'
> (This is not the equivalent of 'you're not leaving?" It's the unmarked way
> to ask the question; 'halom?' would only be used as an echo question.)
>
> p-a-ia-lllo halo-n-sh
> X-idiot1-X-idiot2 leave-Sub-3
> 'It's not the idiot who's leaving.'
>
> p-a-ia-lllo halo-n-sh?
> X-idiot1-X-idiot2 leave-Sub-3
> 'Is the *idiot* leaving?'
>
> gy-iy halo-n-sh?
> who-X leave-Sub-3
> 'Who's leaving?'
>
> Is there one term I can use that covers both the interrogative and
> negate-ive properties of this marker?
Perhaps antipositive or impositive or something like that.
> * Logically there could be a separate term for this combination, as there is
> for prefix + suffix (=circumfix), but I won't even ask.
Transfix. I just guesses that might be what it would be called, but lo
and behold the One Arbiter of Truth itself has an entry for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfix
Carl Banks