Conlangers

puza /puza/, noun: “hole, gap, lack, deficiency, emptiness; also as adj. empty”

I wish it was not so accurate!

So, today’s word is basically the opposite of yersterday’s duki. Puza's first sense is “hole, gap”, i.e. a hollow place or cavity, whether in a solid or on a surface. As an extension to that meaning, it also refers to the lack of something. And finally, it is used to refer to containers being empty of their contents.

Besides that, puza can be used, like its antonym, as a pseudo-suffix to form nouns that indicate a lack in something (much like words in “-less” in English). When used that way, puza always appears in its short compound form -puz, and the nouns formed that way are usually opposites of nouns in -duk (not always though. In particular, nouns ending in -som (which indicate ability or capacity to do something) will sometimes have opposites in -puz).

Questions?

puza /puza/, noun: “hole, gap, lack, deficiency, emptiness; also as adj. empty”

I wish it was not so accurate!

So, today’s word is basically the opposite of yersterday’s duki. Puza's first sense is “hole, gap”, i.e. a hollow place or cavity, whether in a solid or on a surface. As an extension to that meaning, it also refers to the lack of something. And finally, it is used to refer to containers being empty of their contents.

Besides that, puza can be used, like its antonym, as a pseudo-suffix to form nouns that indicate a lack in something (much like words in “-less” in English). When used that way, puza always appears in its short compound form -puz, and the nouns formed that way are usually opposites of nouns in -duk (not always though. In particular, nouns ending in -som (which indicate ability or capacity to do something) will sometimes have opposites in -puz).

Questions?

duki /duki/, noun: “solidness, fullness, completeness; also as adj. solid, full, complete”

Which is basically how I feel right now after so much feasting :). That’s the holidays for you!

Duki refers firstly to solidness, in the sense of lacking holes, being made of one piece. As an extension to that meaning, it also refers to containers being full, and to things in general being complete.

As such, it’s not a particularly interesting word (although it’s a useful one). I does actually get more mileage though, in that it’s commonly used as a suffix (I call such nouns “pseudo-suffixes”, because they behave much like derivational suffixes despite being full nouns) to form nouns that indicate possession of a certain quality (pretty much like “-ful” in English). When used that way, duki always appears in its short compound form -duk.

Questions?

|no|som /ɲo̞t͡so̞m/, noun: “stability, presence, existence; also as adj. stable, present, existing”

To be fair, the man had worse issues than just that :P.

OK, I have no idea what the deal with this word is. First, its senses. Now, I’ve seen my share of polysemic words in Moten. And I get why “existence” and “presence” could feel related enough to use a single word. But “stability”? Yet here it is…

Second, its etymology. |No|som is a compound, and quite a transparent one at that. But it’s a weird compound. First, I will focus on its second part, which is the least weird :). Som, in Moten, is a noun with a lot of cultural baggage. And since I know so little about Moten culture, this means I have difficulties translating it. In my lexicon, I glossed it as “primordial essence”, “fundamental matter” and “source of everything”. It seems to be a philosophical concept that refers to the source of all energy and matter. But it also has a more mundane meaning of “energy, the capacity to do work”. In that sense, it’s commonly used as a suffix to form nouns that indicate capacity or ability, or other abstract but measurable concepts (an example of that is negzom: “power”, from |negi: “to do, to accomplish”).

So that’s how it’s used in |no|som. But there is one issue: som is normally added to verbal stems, while |not, the first part of |no|som, is a nominal one. It’s actually a noun, with various meanings like “(abstract) source, origin”, “(abstract) cornerstone, main part” or even “head (of a body)”. All things that, while tantalisingly not completely unrelated, are still rather far semantically from “existence” or “presence” (“stability” sounds about right, given |not's meaning of “cornerstone”. But |not is strictly abstract, while |no|som can refer to the physical stability of a building).

So there you have it. A weird noun, with weird etymology and weird polysemy :). It’s probably just a very old formation, which then suffered semantic drift while its components suffered a different kind of semantic drift. Still, it’s not your average noun :).

Questions?

|no|som /ɲo̞t͡so̞m/, noun: “stability, presence, existence; also as adj. stable, present, existing”

To be fair, the man had worse issues than just that :P.

OK, I have no idea what the deal with this word is. First, its senses. Now, I’ve seen my share of polysemic words in Moten. And I get why “existence” and “presence” could feel related enough to use a single word. But “stability”? Yet here it is…

Second, its etymology. |No|som is a compound, and quite a transparent one at that. But it’s a weird compound. First, I will focus on its second part, which is the least weird :). Som, in Moten, is a noun with a lot of cultural baggage. And since I know so little about Moten culture, this means I have difficulties translating it. In my lexicon, I glossed it as “primordial essence”, “fundamental matter” and “source of everything”. It seems to be a philosophical concept that refers to the source of all energy and matter. But it also has a more mundane meaning of “energy, the capacity to do work”. In that sense, it’s commonly used as a suffix to form nouns that indicate capacity or ability, or other abstract but measurable concepts (an example of that is negzom: “power”, from |negi: “to do, to accomplish”).

So that’s how it’s used in |no|som. But there is one issue: som is normally added to verbal stems, while |not, the first part of |no|som, is a nominal one. It’s actually a noun, with various meanings like “(abstract) source, origin”, “(abstract) cornerstone, main part” or even “head (of a body)”. All things that, while tantalisingly not completely unrelated, are still rather far semantically from “existence” or “presence” (“stability” sounds about right, given |not's meaning of “cornerstone”. But |not is strictly abstract, while |no|som can refer to the physical stability of a building).

So there you have it. A weird noun, with weird etymology and weird polysemy :). It’s probably just a very old formation, which then suffered semantic drift while its components suffered a different kind of semantic drift. Still, it’s not your average noun :).

Questions?