Piotr:
>Well, this is your private etymology, and the same objections apply >here.
You are being dismissive without a satisfying explanation. A notice that you
conveniently avoid mention of the "public" etymology in these French
examples.
>The French examples you gave are not relevant to the matter in hand. >Those
>with "porte-" are verb+noun compounds like English spendthrift >or
>pickpocket (as opposed to hypothetical thrift-spender or >pocket-picker).
Many of the processes of English compounding occur equally in French,
probably because of their long histories together. Concerning "pickpocket"
or "spendthrift", we cannot confidently assert that these are a directly
derived from verbs since there are many examples of non-compounded English
nouns formed out of verbs of this kind. Nouns such as "a go", "a try"...
Need I elaborate further?
Now French. The first component /porte-/ is of course derived from the verb
/porter/ "to wear, hold" as found in another compound using the infinitive
"pr�t-�-porter" (translation: "ready to wear" fashions) but its function in
compounds of the sort "porte-..." can be viewed equally as a noun meaning
"holder". There are many, MANY nouns in French taken directly from verb
forms of various tenses:
VERB NOUN
---------------------------------------------------
d�ner "to dine" -> le d�ner "lunch"
manger "to eat" -> le manger "food"
pass� "has passed" -> le pass� "past"
pens� "has thought" -> le pens� "thought"
� venir "to come" -> l'avenir "future"
sorte "sort, arrange" -> la sorte "a kind of, a sort"
voyage "travel" -> la voyage "voyage, trip"
conduit "conduct" -> la conduite "behaviour"
The last three words are examples of the kind of verb-derived noun similar
to /porte-/. So, you need to more adequately justify your dismissal of the
/porte-.../ compounds as simply verb-noun. Meanwhile, the /cheval-vapeur/
example remains unchallenged since it is quite clear despite the
indirectness of meaning and symbolism that the relationship between /cheval/
and /vapeur/ can only be a _genitive_ one (that is: X-Y where "X (de) Y").
They certainly weren't brought together at random! It's literal meaning is
"horse of steam" where "horse" is obviously a metaphor for "power" or
"energy". It's implicit meaning is "power of steam" or "steam power". Along
your line of reasoning, we might just as equally dismiss the genitive
relationship of the English compound "horsepower" because of the same
symbolism.
Your reasoning isn't clear here. How is "cheval-vapeur" unimportant to this
discussion? If the relationship isn't a genitive one, what relationship
exists here?
>They are not endocentric -- that is, they don't meet the criterion >X-Y
>"is-a" Y or X: a "porte-parole" is neither a "porte" nor a >"parole";
I'm sorry? We have a bad connection. It is indeed a "porte" (not as in
"door" but as in "holder"). Porte-parole = "holder of discussion".
>"Le Roi-Soleil" (which you might thing of as the next counterexample) >is a
>"dvandva" compound
I admit to being a little slow but don't take me as a _complete_ fool now :)
I'm fully aware of these compounds. Porte-fen�tre is another example of a
non-genitive compound, but then again its plural exposes this fact:
portes-fen�tres. The relationship here is a conjunctional one [X-Y where "X
(and) Y"]. These facts are trivial.
>"H�tel-Dieu" is not a real compound but a fossilised phrase like "the
> >Hotel California" or "the River Thames" (in British English).
Are you saying that there was a particular medieval hotel called "H�tel
Dieu" from which this word derives?? >:) I don't understand this line of
reasoning. Please explain how "h�tel-dieu" and "Hotel California" are
related. This will be interesting...
>All you could argue is that your "river-people" word is also a >lexicalised
>phrase: "people river-Gen.pl.", but this is not how you >originally
>reconstructed it. I'm sure you'll make the necessary >adjustments
>immediately; however, this will remove only one of my >objections. What
>about the remaining ones?
Well, so far "cheval-vapeur" is still relevant to the discussion as an
example of a genitive compound where a needed little word like "de" is
absent. Examples like "porte-manteau" are still not confidently shown to be
strictly from the use of the _verb_ /porter/ as opposed to a verb-derived
_noun_. Since the plural is not a grammatical feature of IndoTyrrhenian
declension as far as I know, one need only state "people river-Gen".
The remaining arguements and alterations to my theory are coming but it
would appear that Hotmail has delayed this important first post.
AAARRRGGHHHH!!! Please, be patient.
- gLeN
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at
http://www.hotmail.com