Minhast: Difference between revisions

With the morphological complexity of the Minhast verb, capable of encoding various grammatical categories like gender, number, transitivity, tense, aspect, valence, mood, and many other functions, it is striking that derivational morphology is sparse when compared to other languages.  Nevertheless, Minhast does have derivational mechanisms that vary between productive processes, as well as the remnants of older processes that have now become fossilized and are considered independent roots in their own right.   

In Modern Standard Minhast and the majority of dialects, [[Minhast#Augmentive_Nouns|Augmentation]], along with [[Minhast#Type_I_Noun_Incorporation_Derivation|Type I Noun Incorporation]], is the most prevalent form of derivation.  Augmentation, in addition to its primary function of deriving larger versions of the noun root, can derive mass or collective nouns.  Apart from its use in deriving a larger version of its base noun, derivation of new, semantically different nouns via augmentation does not occur on an ad-hoc basis, as is the case in NI-derived lexical items, but where a perceived need to describe a new objects and phenomena.  As a result, augmentative nouns may differ between dialects, or even between local speech communities within the same dialectal region.  This is a characteristic of "institutionalized" lexification.