Re: Names for derivative forms - request for comments PLEASE :)

> Sender:       Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
> Poster:       FFlores <fflores@...>
> Subject:      Re: Names for derivative forms - request for
> comments PLEASE :)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Eric Christopherson <raccoon@...> wrote:
> >Nomen actionis (gerund?)
> >        -Refers to the performance/occurrence of the action/event
> >
> >Examples:       My going to the movies (from "to go to the movies")
> >                His intolerance (from "to be intolerant")
>
> Is this habitual or actual action? (I think there's more to
> this later, but maybe you could leave that to verb morphology...
> assuming you can 'deverb' a verb stem already inflected like
> that.
Well, I will provide for both somehow. I think I'll use different verb
inflections for habitual and punctual, and the deverbatives will be formed
from the inflected verb stem. That way either one is possible.

> >Nomen agentis - inanimate
> >        -Refers to the thing which performs the action (always habitual?)
> >
> >Example:        The printer (from "to print")
>
>
> >Instrument
> >        -Refers to an item which commonly allows or facilitates
> the action
> >
> >Example:        The pen/pencil (from "to write")
>
> I don't see any difference between those two. Well, the
> printer prints 'by itself', but not really... Deciding
> where to cross the line between an inanimate agent and
> an instrument could be tricky. What if the printer is
> really an old press operated by hand?
Very good point. In fact, I have thought about using completely eliminating
the idea of an "inanimate agent." I guess it just depends on what I decide
will be the speakers' philosophy on causality and volition.

Oh, you want the short answer? ;) An instrument is something used BY an
animate (volitional) agent to perform something, whereas an inanimate agent
just *does* something. I guess originally, I wasn't going to have a
stative/eventive distinction, so something such as "the white one" could
have been construed as the inanimate agent of "to be white." But if I do
separate eventive and stative verbs, I suppose inanimate agents could still
refer to things in nature which "act" on physical laws but are not caused to
by animate beings -- maybe a satellite could be something like the inanimate
agent of "to orbit."

> >Associative
> >        -Refers to a miscellaneous object (or being?) somehow
> >        commonly associated with the action/event
> >
> >Example:        Food? (from "to eat")
> >                Midwife (from "to be born") (animate)
>
> For food I'd use a new category, _nomen patientis_ or
> the like. For midwife, maybe 'co-agent' or 'cooperating
> agent'? These two examples don't seem to fit on the same
> category.
The basic concept behind the associative category is that it's an object or
possibly a person which is in some *unspecified* way associated with the
action of the verb. Mainly it'd be used for something that didn't fit into
any other categories. Thus a midwife is someone involved in birth somehow,
but not really someone who either IS born or GIVES birth, and food is
something related to eating somehow (I suppose it could be an instrument
too). Think of the Japanese <tabemono> "food-thing." But I'm glad you
brought up the phrase _nomen patientis_. I think that might do nicely for a
category meaning "something which is intended to be ___ed," such as food
could be "something which is intended to be eaten." (BTW, did you invent
that phrase, or is it someone else's? I've heard of _nomen agentis_
and -_actionis_ before but not that one.)

> >Conceptive*
> >        -Refers to the concept, belief, idea, etc. that action/event
> >        happen(s)
> >
> >Example:        That he be/is late (from "to be late")
>
> "His non-punctualness"? Otherwise this would sound very much like
> the _nomen actionis_.
Yes, this one is hard to explain and even to understand myself ;) Let's see
if I can clarify:

"His habitual lateness annoys me." <- actionis
"I think that he is late." <- "conceptive"

Yeah, now that I think about it, the only real difference I can see that the
first is indicative and the second is subjunctive. I suppose I could
collapse those both into _actionis_ then, and mark them for mood. If I
really need to say "the idea that he is late" I could always use that form
in the genitive plus the noun "idea."

> >Occasion
> >        -Refers to a larger occasion surrounding or connected to the
> >        action/event
> >
> >Examples:       The movie (from "to show a movie")
> >                The test (from "to test")
> >                The wedding (from "to marry")
>
> Isn't this the same as the resultative? (Not criticizing,
> just positing the question so that you can think about it :)
> and find some difference -- I can see some, though very
> subtle).
Not exactly. This refers to some sort of "bigger" event surrounding a
smaller one, as a wedding is a large ceremony centered around the act of
people getting married, but also including other elements. I actually got
the idea for it a day or so before I read about something like this in
Spanish, oddly enough. For those of you who don't speak Spanish, when you
say "Where is the test?" (meaning where will the test be administered) you
would use the verb <ser> for "to be," whereas if you were asking the
location of the actual paper the test is printed on you would use <estar>.
So it seems that Spanish has some sort of separation between the two. I
think that if I hadn't come up with the idea myself, I would have by reading
that about Spanish :)

> >Institution*
> >        -Refers to an institution (or office?) associated with the
> >        action/event
> >
> >Examples:       The leadership/government (from "to rule")
> >                My senatorship (i.e. my being a senator) (from
> "to be senator")
>
>
> 'Leadership' seems to fit more into the conceptive.
Yeah, this is another one I'm cognitively fuzzy on. I might get rid of that
one -- but then again, if leadership could be conceptive, maybe I could keep
that and get rid of this. Hmmm...

> All in all, an impressive categorization. I think I'll
> steal some neat things here and there... :)
Thanks! I'd be flattered to be stolen from :)



Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo suHnus
raccoon@elknet.net