Linguist Forum
Specializations => Morphosyntax => Topic started by: Nico60 on December 21, 2017, 08:31:43 AM
-
Hi everyone! :) I've just started studying a linguistics module at uni and am a bit stuck with one of my tutor's sentences on their lecture sheet:
"As with verbs, there is an idiosyncratic relationship between the root and the choice of theme vowel, although the only productive one nowadays is the one corresponding to the first conjugation:
chat-e-a-r
person-a-r-se
presupuest-a-r"
- In what way is there an idiosyncratic relationship between the root and the theme vowel?
- What does the tutor mean by "productive" here?
- What is the "first conjugation"?
Apologies for all the questions! Just trying to get my head around it all. Thanks! :)
-
- In what way is there an idiosyncratic relationship between the root and the theme vowel?
- What does the tutor mean by "productive" here?
- What is the "first conjugation"?
I am not a linguistics expert, and I cannot answer your first question, but:
1. "First conjugation" in Spanish refers to verbs ending in -ar in the infinitive.
2. I presume that "productive" means that it is capable of forming new verbs.
3. I presume that the "theme vowel" in -ar verbs is a, which also occurs in many other parts of such verbs.