Borrowing of verbs vs. nouns? [from LINGUIST list]

[Alan H. Hartley]

Liland Brajant Ros' wrote:

> Many languages have a class of verbs consisting of a noun followed by the
> verb "to do". Thus in Japanese "to study" is "benkyou suru" where "benkyou"
> is "study (n)" and "suru" is "to do"; and in Fiji Hindi "shut up" is "cup
> karo" where "cup" is "silence" and "karo" is "do (imp.)" (from "karna" "to
> do").
>
> Note that in Japanese verbs of the type described, the noun portion is
> usually a Chinese-origin etymon, not native Japanese. Occasionally English
> nouns are used, too. This is very common in Fiji Hindi ("stap karna" for "to
> stop", referring to a bus, e.g.).
>
> In both Japanese and Fiji Hindi these are very large and unfossilized
> classes of verbs.

There's an analogous and productive construction in Pashto: any noun or
adjective can be converted into a "derivative verb" by adding either of
two auxiliaries similar in form to the verbs 'do' and 'become'. And in
Persian, it's even more common, with adjs. and nouns (often of Arabic
origin) followed by any of several aux. verbs ('do', 'become', 'go', et
al.)

Alan