tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post9055724597216734984..comments2024-03-23T01:31:13.502+01:00Comments on Jabal al-Lughat: Meaningless morphemes from Malta to MatrouhLameen Souag الأمين سواقhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-84036179894488418482012-01-10T17:26:05.048+01:002012-01-10T17:26:05.048+01:00Suru has many meanings, of which this use with bor...<i>Suru</i> has many meanings, of which this use with borrowed verbs is just one. But <i>ka</i>, IF I remember correctly, has no other use: it is purely a vehicle for verb endings.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-82271625298410042922011-12-17T17:33:36.647+01:002011-12-17T17:33:36.647+01:00@John Cowan: But that's the prototypical light...@John Cowan: But that's the prototypical light verb, the suru of the Japanese, and the et-/bol- of the Turkic peoples!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-64103511767255286222011-12-11T12:05:20.182+01:002011-12-11T12:05:20.182+01:00Wouldn't it be a hiatus break (fr. rupture d&#...Wouldn't it be a hiatus break (fr. rupture d'hiatus) preventing two vowels from colliding as in tamazight :<br /><br /><i>yenna-as -> yenna-<b>y</b>-as</i>, he told him/her<br /><i>a argaz! -> a<b>y</b> argaz!</i>, o man!<br /><i>tama-u -> tama-<b>y</b>-u</i>, this side ?<br /><br /><b>y</b> is irrelevant semantically but makes sense phonetically<br /><br />ref. Michel Quitout - Grammaire berbère: rifain, tamazight, chleuh, kabyle - page 22afifaynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-595602010832644312011-12-06T00:08:05.937+01:002011-12-06T00:08:05.937+01:00In Garo, which has a vast number of borrowings fro...In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garo_language" rel="nofollow">Garo</a>, which has a vast number of borrowings from English and Bengali (in principle, any English or Bengali word is a valid Garo word if a Garo-speaker chooses to adopt it), there is a dummy verb root <i>ka-</i> to which verbal endings can be added, since borrowed verbs are indeclinable. I can't check this now, but I believe I remember the example <i>disimisi kajok</i> '3SG has dismissed' correctly.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-35129944560414471432011-12-01T11:06:29.108+01:002011-12-01T11:06:29.108+01:00Yet we have a plural like دوا > ادويه / ادويجات...Yet we have a plural like دوا > ادويه / ادويجات whose singular is clearly of Arabic origin...Anís del morohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14234468884505774797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-27561604823757252272011-12-01T09:43:58.843+01:002011-12-01T09:43:58.843+01:00JC: -ate is a great example synchronically, but bo...JC: -ate is a great example synchronically, but both it and -esc- at least had a meaning to start with!<br /><br />DM: I'd say ge- is still functional, but that second g- looks a lot more like this -iyy-...<br /><br />Bulbul: In the absence of a phonemic glottal stop, art is a pretty atypical word - but more significant perhaps is the fact that "earth", "time", and for that matter "mother" are all words that are very rarely pluralised, increasing the pressure to adopt some commoner plural type. Looking forward to your corpus data!<br /><br />Abu Ilyas: I think the -j- in -jāt is because most Persian nouns ending in a vowel used to end in -g, but it would be interesting to have more details on the history of that one.<br /><br />Rain Drops: thanks. Do you have any more clear-cut examples? (The one you give sounds like a pun on Rubā3iyyāt to me...)Lameen Souag الأمين سواقhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00773164776222840428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-85985713406277328532011-11-30T10:03:30.656+01:002011-11-30T10:03:30.656+01:00Please correct me if I am wrong but I guess كس أمي...Please correct me if I am wrong but I guess كس أميات is the expected plural of كس أمية and not of كس أم.Anís del morohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14234468884505774797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-29063397443465664952011-11-30T07:20:21.779+01:002011-11-30T07:20:21.779+01:00As you concluded it's used mainly on nouns who...As you concluded it's used mainly on nouns whose form is unusual. We are familiar with this kind of plurals in Egypt, if you know a poet named Nageeb Sorour, his most famous diwan is named "k***-ommeyyat"Rain_Dropshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13664921740584398044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-40632922941705979872011-11-29T23:11:57.098+01:002011-11-29T23:11:57.098+01:00Mmm... what about Persian plural ending ـجات as in...Mmm... what about Persian plural ending ـجات as in سبزى > سبزيجات or ميوه > ميوجات?Anís del morohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14234468884505774797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-71052263233916322462011-11-29T13:59:19.278+01:002011-11-29T13:59:19.278+01:00it appears to be used mainly on nouns whose form i...<i>it appears to be used mainly on nouns whose form is unusual </i><br />It's a bit more complicated than that. I mean I wouldn't be surprised if it were something like the conjugation patterns of borrowed verbs which are modelled after verba tertiae infirmae - i.e. an irregular form was extended to borrowings and then regularized [1]. But what about such cases as art/artijiet (instead of *arieti) or żmien/żminijiet (instead of *azmina)? Maltese has no problem with broken plurals and borrowed nouns (see storja/stejjer), so what giveth?<br /><br />[1] Corpus data on the ratio of native words vs. borrowings forthcoming.bulbulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14505565281151328789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-19307072431498531792011-11-29T02:31:38.214+01:002011-11-29T02:31:38.214+01:00How about West Germanic (lost in English) ge- in p...How about West Germanic (lost in English) <i>ge-</i> in past participles? And how did it end up as part of the stem in <i>gewinnen</i> "win"? And what about the second /g/ in <i>gegessen</i> (past participle of <i>essen</i>?<br /><br /><i>Semantic bleaching is common enough, and there is nothing to prevent it from going all the way.</i><br /><br />Indeed, Latin <i>con-</i> as a verb prefix has bleached all the way in AFAIK all Romance languages. In many words it had already bleached pretty far in Classical Latin.David Marjanovićnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-38995056802990473562011-11-29T00:45:48.888+01:002011-11-29T00:45:48.888+01:00Actually, French -iss- is from Latin -ēsc-, which ...Actually, French <i>-iss-</i> is from Latin <i>-ēsc-</i>, which was a resultative in Latin (<i>adolēscō</i> 'become adult', e.g.) but became semantically bleached down to nothing in the Romance languages. Semantic bleaching is common enough, and there is nothing to prevent it from going all the way.<br /><br />A similarly fully bleached affix in English is <i>-ate</i>, which began as the Latin past participle suffix. But because it was more or less random which Latin verbs were imported into English using the present stem and which as participles, there simply is no synchronic reason why we use <i>prepare</i> and <i>separate</i> in English rather than <i>*preparate</i> and/or <i>*separe</i>.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-82839889687810638902011-11-29T00:30:45.294+01:002011-11-29T00:30:45.294+01:00Well, maybe. But that wouldn't explain scores ...Well, maybe. But that wouldn't explain scores of plurals of the same type, both native (art - artijiet) and borrowed (missier - missirijiet, karta - kartijiet). Unless, of course, omm is the source and missirijiet the first new plural formed by analogy and then came the rest. Makes sense semantically, but how likely is it?bulbulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14505565281151328789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13177437.post-9784133171226986082011-11-28T22:40:06.542+01:002011-11-28T22:40:06.542+01:00In the Maltese example, would the -ij- in the plur...In the Maltese example, would the -ij- in the plural omm-ij-iet "mothers" not come from *ummahāt, resulting from the loss of -h-?katohttp://dormirdebout.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com