Non-verby uses of participle morphology

[miekko]

Many Germanic languages form 'equipped with X' (with regards to limbs, and sometimes other nouns) using passive participle forms on the nouns, e.g.
'gray-haired', 'hook-nosed', 'left-handed', 'peg-legged').

Does anyone here know of other uses of participle morphology with other word classes to derive some lightly unexpected meaning? In my blog, I wrote a short thing about using this with numerals, but that was obviously entirely from my imagination.

A few possible ideas I have had are:

• ordinals from cardinals?
• collectives from cardinals?
• group nouns from adjectives?
• Finnish-style translative and essive from nouns? ('noun-ing' = in the role of becoming a noun, 'noun-ed' = in the role of being a noun, however, other TAMs for participles than the English ones might work better with this)

[Linguoboy]

Many Germanic languages form 'equipped with X' (with regards to limbs, and sometimes other nouns) using passive participle forms on the nouns, e.g. 'gray-haired', 'hook-nosed', 'left-handed', 'peg-legged').

These aren't true participial forms but formations with an etymological distinct suffix. The suffixes are clearly distinguished in Old English but felt together due to vowel reduction in the Middle English period. Note how Standard German uses a completely different adjectival suffix (e.g. grauhaarig).

[miekko]

Many Germanic languages form 'equipped with X' (with regards to limbs, and sometimes other nouns) using passive participle forms on the nouns, e.g. 'gray-haired', 'hook-nosed', 'left-handed', 'peg-legged').

These aren't true participial forms but formations with an etymological distinct suffix. The suffixes are clearly distinguished in Old English but felt together due to vowel reduction in the Middle English period. Note how Standard German uses a completely different adjectival suffix (e.g. grauhaarig).

However, even if this is not the origin of the form - as it turns out you are entirely correct in it having a separate origin - this does not preclude the possibility that other languages could use participles derived from nouns or adjectives productively or semiproductively.

Consider, e.g. how Finnish can use comparatives with locative cases to imply increased proximity. This is a reuse of morphological comparative that wouldn't occur just like that to every conlanger.

[Richard W]

Many Germanic languages form 'equipped with X' (with regards to limbs, and sometimes other nouns) using passive participle forms on the nouns, e.g. 'gray-haired', 'hook-nosed', 'left-handed', 'peg-legged').

These aren't true participial forms but formations with an etymological distinct suffix. The suffixes are clearly distinguished in Old English but felt together due to vowel reduction in the Middle English period. Note how Standard German uses a completely different adjectival suffix (e.g. grauhaarig).

I'm not sure it is so etymologically distinct. The common element is PIE *t that formed adjectives from verbs, and at least in Germanic and Latin formed adjectives meaning 'possessed of X'. It happens that other elements were involved (-ja in the case of Germanic), but that's not unusual.

[miekko]

Many Germanic languages form 'equipped with X' (with regards to limbs, and sometimes other nouns) using passive participle forms on the nouns, e.g. 'gray-haired', 'hook-nosed', 'left-handed', 'peg-legged').

These aren't true participial forms but formations with an etymological distinct suffix. The suffixes are clearly distinguished in Old English but felt together due to vowel reduction in the Middle English period. Note how Standard German uses a completely different adjectival suffix (e.g. grauhaarig).

I'm not sure it is so etymologically distinct. The common element is PIE *t that formed adjectives from verbs, and at least in Germanic and Latin formed adjectives meaning 'possessed of X'. It happens that other elements were involved (-ja in the case of Germanic), but that's not unusual.

Let's ignore the etymology, and go by the fact that most speakers probably think of them as the same suffix (in fact, there's a whole argument as to whether certain terms such as "colored" or "transgendered" are used so as to imply that those so described have been exposed to some event that has turned them into what they are.) Now, the question then, does anyone know of any unexpected uses of participle morphology (or any kind of 'deverbalizing' morphology for verbs), or any other kind of word-class typecasting morphology that is used in odd ways in some language.

[Xwtek]

Indonesian is pretty much big on reusing the same affixes for different purposes. Sometimes, an affix has completely different meaning depending on the resulting word class of the word

1. Informal Indonesian also uses ke--an circumfix for both excessive and stative verbal noun. (kebesaran = too big/bigness, kemajuan = too forward/progress)
2. ter- is both accidential passive and superlative. (terbesar = biggest, terbakar = is accidentially burned down)

Also, Old javanese uses pa(N)- to form both imperative and the verbal noun.

[Linguoboy]

The Celtic languages don't really have "participles" as such, just deverbal adjectives. These tend to be regularly formed with -thA/-tA, e.g. glan "clean" > glanta "cleaned", oscail "open" > oscailte "open(ed)".

Certain varieties (e.g. Connemara) freely borrow English verbs with the addition of the originally denomative verbal ending -áil, e.g. tweet > tvuíteáil. This has led to some English adjectives being borrowed with the corresponding verbal adjective ending -áilte, e.g. sure > siúráilte, cool > cúláilte.

[Pabappa]

English still distinguishes "blessed " as a past tense verb with 1 syllable from "blessed" as an adjective with 2.

[Travis B.]

English still distinguishes "blessed " as a past tense verb with 1 syllable from "blessed" as an adjective with 2.

Same thing with learned versus learnèd. Another word that preserves the schwa before participal /d/ is belovèd.