Native American verbs vs. nouns

[David Kaufman]

Heike,

Good points.  I guess I'm basing my assumptions on the "basic" laws of
physics as we know them currently--meaning that everything is constantly
changing and nothing is ever really static--kind of like the old adage that
the only constant in life is change itself!

I also agree with your last statement about whose criteria we should use in
correlating nature with a group of people.  I actually was wondering how
many African languages, for instance, would compare to the Native American
in this respect (i.e., are they more verb-oriented than noun-oriented,
process-thinking?).  What limited exposure I have to the Ewe language of
West Africa seemed to me more like IE languages in having both nouns and
verbs on equal footing, although I never became an expert on the language
after one semester with a consultant in a Field Methods class!

I think it would be good to get more Native American language-speakers'
perceptions on this, though.  I find Violet's comments very interesting from
a Native American perspective.  There definitely does seem to be a different
thought process about verbs and nouns in her native language vs. English!
Interesting stuff!

Take care,
Dave



Check out my personal web site:
http://dvklinguist.homestead.com/Homepage1.html





>From: Heike Bödeker <heike.boedeker at netcologne.de>
>Reply-To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Native American verbs vs. nouns
>Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 23:11:46 +0100
>
>At 20:50 15.12.02 +0000, David Kaufman wrote:
>>But, if we extend our thinking beyond the box of English grammar, we could
>>just as logically "re-interpret" the Native construct on a different
>>thought level--perhaps they perceive "talling" in the sense of it not
>>being a state as it appears to us in English "The man is tall"--end of
>>story--but perhaps they view "tall" as a process--focusing on the
>>continual process of growing taller.
>
>But being (and staying) tall as a state and growing tall(er and taller) as
>a process are different affairs in real life (whatever that may be, and
>which probably was a neat subject for ethnophilosophical investigations).
>What comes closest to your proposal is the category of resultative, i.e. a
>category denoing a state resultant from a process. Again, stative and
>resultative very nicely may be kept apart in the Old World, too, e.g. in
>Akkadian there's a separate category called stative for the former
>(mar.sâku "I'm sick") while the latter is one of the functions of the
>perfect (šumma bâb ekallim irtapiš "when the gate of the palace [name of a
>liver omen] has widened").
>
>Also it is not just a question of what reality really is like, but how I
>choose to describe things. Of course, when I say "I'm sick" that implies
>that I've fallen sick somewhen. Just that it's a different statement from
>"I've fallen sick more than 4 weeks ago". And, still worse, I can't see it
>as an advantage if some language didn't provide me the means of expressing
>both differently.
>
>>This is why I wonder if speakers of these languages might be more in tune
>>to nature and thinking in processes (being more fluidly verb- and
>>process-oriented) and this is reflected in their language.
>
>It is a romantic though understandable view, and Findeisen even had
>speculated about Paleolithic hunter-gatherers already having gotten tired
>of their kind of civilization. But then, where does *your* idea of nature
>being more adequately described in terms of processes rather than states
>derive from? Is it some time-honored wisdom or 20th century physics? And
>which criteria should we use in determining whether say North American
>Natives, Tropical Lowland South American Natives, New Guinean Papuas or
>Northern San peoples (too large categories anyway) were closer to nature?
>
>All the best,
>
>Heike


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