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ÇÜ adi `pejorative action.'

The main verb ÇÜ adi `beat, strike' may be used as a verbalizer to create verbs whose actions are considered pejorative, inappropriate, or unpleasant, i. e. the speaker disapproves of the action in some way.

Other examples are:

Note the contrast between ÇÜ adi and ½ýá pannu as a regular verbalizer for `ordinary' (non-pejorative) actions in the constructions above, where ؽԯ ÇÜ boor-adi and ´Ô¤½Õ ÇÜ kaappi adi using the English borrowed verbs `to bore' and `to copy' (as if they were nouns) means to do something unpleasant or wrong, whereas ؽԯ ½ýá boor-pannu and ´Ô¤½Õ ½ýá kaappi pannu mean to make legitimate and proper holes, copies, etc.

In some other combinations, however, ÇÜ adi is not pejorative.

  1. »ÿ»Õ ÇÜ tandi adi `send a telegram' (lit. `beat wire')

ÇÜ adi is normal in this phrase because of the action of tapping the telegraph key.



Vasu Renganathan
Sat Nov 2 21:16:08 EST 1996