Information

[Michael Mccafferty]

absolutamente. In Nahuatl verbs are a way to satisfy the English palate
for adjectives. Nitlatta = 'i see something' but can mean 'i am attentive,
observant' Nahuatl has many verb formations of this nature. Also, nouns
serve as adjectives, too. oquechtli = 'it is a man' but can mean
'masculine'. In cihua:tl oquechtli = 'she is a mannish woman'.

Michael Mccafferty

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm currently working on an article regarding the "verby" aspect of many Native American languages vs. the "nouny" aspect of Indo-European languages.  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."  Also, the sentence "(the) man is tall" seems to be rendered wace wahkuc, which literally seems to mean "(the) man talls"!  (John B.--please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, since you're the Hidatsa expert!)  I'm wondering if other Siouan languages and even non-Siouan languages might have similar grammatical constructs where an English noun or adjective actually becomes a verb form in the Native American language.
>
> Any info will be appreciated!  Thanks, and Happy Holidays!
>
> Dave Kaufman
> dvklinguist at hotmail.com
>


Michael McCafferty
307 Memorial Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
47405
mmccaffe at indiana.edu

"When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you
will keep saying again and again, "This is certainly not like we thought
it was".

--Rumi