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> and the patterns obviously predict a lot of words that don't actually exist I think I remember that there are a handful of cases where speakers started using
by schoen 8y ago
> and the patterns obviously predict a lot of words that don't actually exist
I think I remember that there are a handful of cases where speakers started using some of the previously unattested forms in modern times to refer to new concepts... is that right?
- rvense 8y agoWell, new words have to come from somewhere... new roots can be introduced (and be made to act like Arabic ones - like how the plural of film is aflam), but the derivation patterns are also productive like in any other language. As an example, though the loan word 'computer' is apparently common, there's also the word 'hasuub' which I learned in my Modern Standard/Media Arabic course. The exact form is not listed in Wehr's 1968 dictionary, so maybe it wasn't used at that time, but it is straightforwardly derived from a root with same meaning as the English word 'to compute' and has the form fa3uul which (according to Wolfdietrich Fischer's Grammar of Classical Arabic) is an 'abstract or verbal noun', so basically a calque of the English. (What a great topic - I miss this stuff!)