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From: Troy Sagrillo <t.sagrillo@utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: lang without noun/verb distinction?
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Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 11:40:57 GMT
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> Finally, I'm reminded that classical Latin grammarians classified
> adjectives with nouns, but evidently only because they underwent the
> same sorts of inflections, not because they didn't distinguish between
> the concepts. That is, in a phrase like "big chicken," "big" and
> "chicken" would bother be "nouns," but "big" would be a noun used
> adjectivally while "chicken" would be a noun used substantively.

Arabic is much the same. Nouns and Adjectives are both called "ism"--
lit. 'a named (thing)'--and function grammatically as nouns. In Arabic 
thinking "big chicken" would be something like 'a chicken, a big 
(one)'.

Troy
