Delocutives

[Hans-Jürgen Sasse]

Hi Frans,

Just an addendum to Edith's Hungarian example: for terms of abuse you
use the same device adding the verbalizing suffix -z-; in addition, you
attach the preverb le- ('down'). Common traditional examples listed in
the dictionaries are the following:

le-marha'-z- 'to call somebody an ox (i.e. an idiot)'
    (from marha 'cattle')
le-szamar-az- 'to call somebody an ass'
    (from szamár 'donkey, ass')

The pattern is quite productive, so productive in fact that any X
occurring in the configuration le-X-z- ('to say X down on someone') may
be potentially  interpreted as a term of abuse in an appropriate
context.

Hans-Juergen