Borrowing of verbs vs. nouns [fwd from Dell]

[Dave Robertson]

That nouns are more easily borrowed than verbs has been my experience with
Native American languages in Oregon and Washington and elsewhere.   I think
it is generally accepted, a sort of 'truism' in the field.
   Comparison of European languages points in the same direction.
English has many more nouns from French than verbs.  When medicine and
other disciplines
seek sources of names, usually the names are of things, objects, creatures,
parts of same.  Not always but mostly.
   Someone out there may well know far more than I about this, but I
guess that most linguists take this as common sense.

           Sincerely,

               Dell


--
"Asking a linguist how many languages she knows is like asking a doctor how many diseases he has!" -- anonymous



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