Suffixes that create Verbs.

Many words in Diinlang will serve as verbs or nouns without modification or inflection. This is a feature that Diinlang shares with English. For example the word “hunt” can be used as “a hunt, the hunt” or “to hunt”. Many English verbs are created from the name of a tool or instrument. “Brush” gives “to brush” and spawns the noun “brushing” for the act of the noun. This is not always the case in English. “Stone” has a very different meaning to “to stone”. This verb has two different meanings, one being to throw stones at something, the other to remove a certain form of fruit seed. Adjectives may also be used as verbs.

New verbs, or clearly related groups of verbs may be constructed in Diinlang by use of a small number of suffixes. These suffixes have been adapted from Otto Jespersen’s IAL “Novial”.

Some nouns are not suited for unmodified use as verbs. Jespersen uses nouns denoted from living beings as an example of these. For such words the suffix “-ira” is added. In Novial “king” is “rego”. “to reign” is “regira” and the derived noun “reign” is “regiro”. “-ira” or a similar mechanism may be used in Diinlang for the same purposes.

To create verbs that have the meaning of “transforming into, render” Jespersen offers two suffixes, “-isa” and “-ifika”. Lesson 3 tells us:

“The suffixes –isa and –ifika are used to make verbs meaning to make, make into or render. For example:

• liberi – liberisa (free – liberate, make free, free)
• real – realisa (real – make real, realize)

• kurti – kurtifika (short – shorten, make short)
• veri – verifika (true – verify)
  Verbs meaning to provide with , cover with are made with –isa (but not with –ifika):

• alkohole – alkoholisa (alcohol – alcoholize)
• lume – lumisa (light – light (up))

What is made clearer elsewhere is that while the two suffixes have overlapping roles “-isa” is used for “provide, supply with or cover with” and “-ifika” is used for “make into or cause”. Thus “carbonize” is “karbonisa” and “dormifika” from “dormi” is “lull asleep”.

Interestingly “fika” can be used in Novial as a standalone verb. This echoes my own ideas that suffixed words in Diinlang should be considered to be compound words.

In Diinlang we may use “-isa” and “-ifa”.

Novial has the suffix “-ada” to create a verb for a repetitive (or continuous) action. “frapada” = “to go on beating”, “kantada” = “to keep on singing”, “parlada” = “to keep on speaking”. This resembles many English words adopted from French such as “cannonade”, “fusillade” and “promenade”. Since “to” is “ad” in Diinlang “-ada” seems a suitable word, having within itself a suggestion of repetition.

The final Novial verbal suffix of interest is “-eska”. This is used to create inchoative verbs. Added to a verb it denotes the beginning an action or state. Added to an adjective it means begin to be (become). Therefore “dormieska” = “fall asleep”.

In Diinlang “-eska” is likely to prove very useful. It may possibly be used as a standalone verb with the meaning “begin”.