Re: Verbal nouns

En réponse à Estelachan@AOL.COM:

>
> there's probably more, but that's what I'm coming up with. incidentally,
> thank you for bringing this up, because I just realized that a
> designation
> "verb->noun" on an affix is not specific enough when I wanted it to
> refer to
> the action. Englishcentrism strike again! Hmm, wonder if I should have
> actual
> words for "result of X" and "doer of X" rather than using long
> phrases.....
>
That's an "as for my conlang" post :) .

In O, derivation is quite rare, but when a derivative affix exists, it's quite
productive. It's the case of the derivation of nouns from verbs. With a verb,
you can form:
- the infinitive: it's used to name the verb and as principal verb of
subclauses, but from transitive verbs it can also be used as a noun referring to
the general and habitual object of the action (for instance, udagr: 'to eat'
means also 'food').
- the action noun: it's name is quite transparent: it's the noun referring to
the action (or state) of the verb. Note that with verbal adjectives (which
behave like normal verbs), the action noun refers to the quality expressed by
the adjective.
- the agent noun: it refers to the habitual doer of the action, but has often
non-immediate meanings (it sometimes refers to the name of an animal
characterised by the action of the verb, or to an instrument). It very often
refers to someone who does the action as a profession. With verbal adjectives,
it often leads to nicknames.
- the actor noun: it doesn't refer to the habitual but to the current doer of
the action, with often a nuance of someone doing the action while it's not
his/her role or job. With verbal adjectives, it refers to someone (or something)
who bears temporarily the quality described.
- the instrument noun: regularly derives nouns of instruments from verbs.
- the profession noun: when the agent noun refers to the person that does the
action as a profession, this form refers to the profession itself.

Well, that's all, but that's quite an important part of O, as you can imagine.

Christophe.