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Let's Make a Language: Day 7, Derivation

Derivation

So far I haven't put much though into how new words are derived in Munya, I only have three ways to derive new words, through CV reduplication of the first syllable for an augmentative, creation of a new root whole cloth, and compounding. In the spirit of my goals for this language, I want to create a few more derivation strategies today.

I'd like to start with creating a meronymic derivation strategy. As per usual, we need to determine an already existing word to be grammaticalized. There are a few ways to go about this, I usually go with a word for "half" or "break", but for Munya I'm liking the idea of going for [ku1] "to cut" as in "a cut of something" in a food analogy sense. Because [ku1] is a verb, it will be suffixed onto the noun which it modifies.

Byoku.
[pʲʰo.ku1]
n. a cut of a tree, a splinter, a branch

This can also double as a resultative when used to turn a verb into a noun.

Wahu.
[wa1.xu5]
v. to cry

Wahuku
[wa1.xu5.ku1]
n. tears

Next, I'd like to create a diminutive to mirror the augmentative we already have. I was stuck between using an adjective like "cute" as an affix for the diminutive, but I think I've decided on using the word [mil] "to shrink, to reduce"

Byumil.
[ˈpʲʰu.mil]
n. puppy; small dog

Now I'd like to have an affix that creates an agent from a verb, such as the English "-er" ending or the Finnish "-ja / -jä" ending. I've decided to use the word [lʲai5] "to know" as the lexical source for this suffix.

Munya
[ˈmu1.ɲa]
v. to speak

Munyalai
[ˈmu1.ɲa.lʲai5]
n. speaker

I want an oddly specific derivational strategy to give Munya that naturalistic flair. How about one for when two agents participate in an action in tandem. Something like this in English would be "travel" to "travel companion" or "conspire" to "co-conspirator". For this, I'll use the word [ˈfʲa5.le] in the sense of "bring together" and clip it down to just [le].

Tsoh.
[t͡sox]
v. to have sex

Tsohle.
[t͡sox.le]
n. lover

Now we'll create on that makes collective nouns using the word [to5] "sum" as the lexical source.

Nudus.
[nu5.tʰus]
n. book

Nudusto.
[nu5.tʰus.to5]
n. library

The final derivational strategy I'll make today I've already used in an example. [tʰus] from "to use" will become our instrumental.

Nu.
[nu5]
n. birch wood

Nudus.
[nu5.tʰus]
n. book

And that's all for now!

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