Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Beyond Whorf: "things," "qualities," and the origin of nouns and adjectives

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 17:34:56 +0300

"Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting)" wrote:
> --- In [email-masked], Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@M...> wrote:
> > Correction: _-ság/-ség_ `-ship, -ness' does not indicate
> > a noun, it forms one.
[...]
> You're right. What I wanted to express was that the (abstract) idea
> of "szép-ness" is indicated by forming a noun by adding a suffix.

Yes, unlike say Chinese, where all you do is convert the word to
the other class, a process that affects its syntactic behaviour,
though not its shape.

> > Still, there is a line:
> > `beautiful girl' is _szép lány_, not *_lány szép_ -- the less
> > nouny item (beauty) must modify the more nouny one (girlhood).
> 
> /meili ninba/ (=szép leány/szép lányok)

I know _mei3li4_ `beautiful; beauty', but I don't recognise _ninba_
(nor does my dictionary).

> /ninba meili/ (is not: leány szép,
> but somewhat: [...] lányi szépség)

And {nixli melbi} would be somewhat like _leányias szép_,
`girlish(ly) (in whatever sense) beautiful (thing/person)'.

How often is a language likely to need to express that? Much less
often than `beautiful girl', don't you think? And in either case,
why? What can make girlhood nounier than beauty? Is it the fact
that girls as a category share more relevant features than things
of beauty in general?

> /ninba cu meili/ (= leány szép or leányok szépek)
**************
Okay, I give up. What language's that in?

--Ivan