Information

[Randolph Graczyk]

In a message dated 12/12/2002 1:45:29 PM Mountain Standard Time,
dvklinguist at hotmail.com writes:

> I know Hidatsa, for instance, has a grammatical construct which essentially
> makes any noun into a verb by adding a sentence final -c, which is also a
> sentence-final marker.  Thus, I think the word wacawiri "bowl" can become
> wacawiric, which, as best I can tell, would literally mean something like
> "It is bowl-ing."


> In constructions like these, Hidatsa and Crow simply lack a copula.  I don't
> think it's accurate to say that this construction transforms a noun into a
> verb; perhaps it would be better to say that the noun functions as a
> predicate.  Wacawiric is best translated 'it is a bowl', not 'it is
> bowl-ing.'
>
> Randy

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