Pabappa SOV compounds

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Subject-object-verb compounds

Some nouns are actually complete sentences with just the verb endings removed. This could be classified as a type of polysynthesis. Unlike the subject-verb compounds above, SOV compounds generally show transitive action, and are commonly used as verbs. However, because all verbs have a stem which behaves grammatically as a noun, they are nonetheless grouped with the other compounds as nouns.

Polysynthetic compounds are generally used metaphorically, since the subject is generally present in the sentence. Many of these words are very old, and make use of short, sometimes even subsyllabic, morphemes that no longer have any independent use in Poswa as standalone words. For example, the early Pabappa verb pi "to kill" has disappeared from the language as a standalone verb because it coalesced with a verb meaning "to lick". However, it is still found in SOV compounds of this type. [1]

Examples of tripartite SOV compounds

Active
element
meaning Passive
element
meaning Verbal
element
meaning New word meaning
pop sharp object wul fish pi to kill poppi to go fishing
wul fish si ice ti to break open isti to behave as a fish breaking through ice
po hand lara legs pana to create pleasure blana to masturbate
lara legs pana to create pleasure lana to have sex
pul baby isi to guess pulisi children guessing naively; to guess
ta toddler musa to play with each other tansa children playing with each other; as on a playground
po hand tim soap i bubbles; lather pommi to lather someone up with soap; to bathe
pip man so man pana to create pleasure pitsuna gay man
su sun sap snow im to make disappear sussem to melt
uma woman oma woman pana to create pleasure utana lesbian
pup penis wupu bloodshed; pain puppupu to rape
pup penis ma womb su penetrate punsa to impregnate someone; become a father
ma womb pul baby pi kill mappi to have a miscarriage; spontaneous abortion
pampor weapon as human api to repeat pamporapi war; when weapons hurt humans[2]
uma woman so man pana to create pleasure unsuna heterosexual female
pip man oma woman pana to create pleasure piptana heterosexual male
tipa flea lara legs pua to jump, leap tiblaba flea
pus ring sop[3] both hands poba to trap; restrain pusoppoba handcuffs
po palm of the hand pap cheek pe to strike, hit popepe to slap someone in the face
po palm of the hand p(t)ap buttocks (dual) pe to strike, hit poptape to spank; to humiliate
pep hand piri skin, body pe to strike, hit pepripe to punch someone
pup penis pip vagina pana to create pleasure pupipuna to have (penile-vaginal) sexual intercourse
po hand pup penis pana to create pleasure popupana a man masturbating
po hand pip vagina pana to create pleasure popipuna a woman masturbating

Choice of morphemes in SOV compounds

While some of the words in the table above may seem uncharacteristically graphic for a language such as Pabappa, their use is perpetuated by the fact that many of them have died out as standalone morphemes in the modern language. For example, although the compound puppupu "to rape" is made up of pup "penis" and wupu "bloodshed, pain", the shortest modern word for penis is pumapi and the word for pain is just one of many such words.

Likewise, if punsa "to impregnate" were re-created using modern morphemes, it would look something like

Pumapi rompa pussap.
Penis penetrates womb.

(Spaces have been inserted to make the word boundaries clearer.)

Likewise, mappi "abortion, miscarriage" would have to be expressed as

Rompa pampap uradi.
Womb kills baby.

Even poppi "to go fishing" would appear as something such as

Papiba ibip uradi.
Sharp object kills fish.

Lastly, some SOV morphemes have become generalized as metaphors such that their S component has effectively lost its meaning. Although pulisi means "to guess", it previously carried the more specific sense "to guess in a childlike way", where pul was a word for baby that came to mean a word for children in general before dying out. If a new compound in this style were created today it could be either

Pampa pulisi.
Baby's guess.

Or

Blumpur pulisi.
Child's guess.
  1. From Poswa: Note that the accusative ending -p on the object is often not present; this is because the OV portion of the word can be parsed as another SV compound in which the inanimate subject is grammatically active but syntactically passive. However, if the object of the sentence is animate, it will take the -p.
  2. spelled pampobapi in pink notebook
  3. could regularlize this to "pup"