Re: aspects / nasal consonants / meanings

Hi!

Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> writes:
> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:21:31 -0500, # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...> wrote:
> > Are there natlangs that dont distingish verbs like "to eat" and "to drink"
> > and link them in a single word?
>
> There are certainly some which draw the distinction differently: for
> example, in English, you generally "eat" soup, while in Japanese, you
> "drink" it AFAIK.
Well, that may be a difference in habit instead of in language. :-P If
I eat a soup like a Japanese, I drink it, too. :-)))

However, I think Japanese uses 'to swallow' (or something like that)
for both 'to drink' and 'to eat' in a high level of politeness.  I
couldn't find a confirming web-page right now, maybe someone here can
confirm this.

>...
> > or that distinct more types of drinking and eating with suffixes or
> > independant words for "water", "fruit", "medication/drug", "blood",
> > "meat"...
>
> I wonder this, too.
>
> I know conlang examples for both questions (one verb for everything,
> and three verbs for food/soup or stew/liquids), but you did ask for
> natlangs.
But would you 'eat' a drug?  You'd 'take' or 'swallow' a pill, in
English, right.  And you'd probably 'suck' blood, I suppose. :-)

For meat, it would be interesting if there was a verb different from
that for 'bread', indeed.

'm-eat' %->

'I ead bread', 'I uit fruit', but 'I eat meat'?? :-)))

**Henrik

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