How would you denote this grammatical category

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Quetzalcoatl
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How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

How would you call a category in verbal morphology in which you add affixes to a verb stem of an activity you want to perform to express what you need to do first in order to be able to carry out the final action?

Like for example:

kota = to find

kota-ba = to search (find-X)

mera = to eat

meraba = to cook (eat-x)

(x = to do an action X in order to do action Y)
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eldin raigmore
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Re: How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by eldin raigmore »

Maybe “Albuquerquative”?
From Weird Al Yankovic’s song “Albuquerque”.
“He” wrote: .... I would not rest for a single instant until I had brought the one-nostrilled man to justice! But first I needed to get some donuts.
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Porphyrogenitos
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Re: How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

Semantically, this doesn't seem like a very natural class...not if you want it to work for both 'eat' and 'find'.

At first I thought "preparative" - to prepare to X. That works with 'eat', but not 'find' - searching is not preparing to find, it is attempting to find. But if it were 'to attempt to X', that would be an entirely different meaning for 'eat' - to try to eat.

So then I thought, okay, maybe 'to fulfill the logically necessary prerequisites of X' - you have to cook to eat, at least most things. But then...you don't have to search to find. It can just happen. The problem here is that eating, and preparing to eat, is volitional, but finding is involuntary - you can't decide to find something. You can try to, but it might not work.

Maybe if you limited it to volitional verbs, like 'eat' or 'depart' or 'dance', you could have a morpheme meaning 'to prepare to X'.
Salmoneus
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Re: How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by Salmoneus »

I agree - "cook" is not to "eat" as "search" is to "find".

"Search" and "find" are very closely related - indeed, they refer to the same event. "Search" refers to a process, and "find" refers to the successful completion of that process - it's closely related to aspect and telicity.

Note that you cannot search without intending to find (that's called 'pretending to search'). And while you can find without searching, that's really a different meaning of "find" I think (for instance, the use we're discussing can be replaced with "manage to find" or the like, while the other use can be replaced with "happen upon" or the like, and the two aren't interchangeable).

Whereas you can easily eat without cooking, and that's not a different sense of 'eat' at all. And you can certainly cook without intending to eat. The two verbs refer to different events that just happen to be often sequential. But lots of things can be sequential in that way. "Hunt", "harvest", "wash", "cut up" and so on are all equally valid as 'prerequisites' for eating, and indeed nothing is prerequisite beyond 'possessing comestibles'.


The difference between "search" and "find" is essentially that the former is atelic, and the latter is its telic counterpart. Note the in/for test: "I searched for my keys FOR a month" (atelic), but "I found my keys (with)in a month" (telic).
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Reyzadren
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Re: How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by Reyzadren »

If you just want a name for that affix, perhaps try "pre-requisite affix" (based on your lang's anology) or "requestance affix" (I want to find/eat something, therefore I request myself to search/cook).
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eldin raigmore
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Re: How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by eldin raigmore »

in my opinion what your language (and its grammar and morphology) actually do, is more important than what you call it.
Nevertheless I add my endorsement to Reyzadren’s last post.
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Dormouse559
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Re: How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by Dormouse559 »

My suggestion would probably be confusing because a similar term already exist in linguistics, but there's the concept of "terminal goals" (things you want for their own sake) and "instrumental goals" (things you do to reach your terminal goals). Accordingly, you could call your idea an "instrumental affix". But as I said, "instrumental" is already commonly used for a particular noun case.

To build on what eldin raigmore said, you can pretty much choose whatever label tickles your fancy, but no label can substitute for a thorough explanation and well-chosen examples.
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Creyeditor
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Re: How would you denote this grammatical category

Post by Creyeditor »

Quetzalcoatl wrote: 29 Jun 2019 22:40 How would you call a category in verbal morphology in which you add affixes to a verb stem of an activity you want to perform to express what you need to do first in order to be able to carry out the final action?

Like for example:

kota = to find

kota-ba = to search (find-X)

mera = to eat

meraba = to cook (eat-x)

(x = to do an action X in order to do action Y)
Adding to the other comments. It would be easier to understand what this category does with even more examples. I think preparing to do something' and `attempting to do something' both make a lot of sense for the two examples.
One crucial point is the difference in argument structure, if `searching ' is attempting to find' it is important that the subject of both verbs is necessarily the same: I attempt that I find something.
This is different from the `the prepare to X' meaning. In this case, you prepare something for either you or someone else to eat. This contrasts with the first example because the subjects of the two verbs are potentially different here.
I think this is crucial, both for looking for a term and for really understanding yourself what you want this category to do. One possibility is to tie this to telicity/Aktionsart as Salmoneus suggest. I agree with eldin that understanding the concept is more important than giving it a name.
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