Closed and Open classes in Natlangs (Especially Japanese)

[Chagen]

As we probably all know, in basically all languages word classes are either closed or open. Closed classes cannot take any new members (or at least have very large resistance to gaining new members), and usually are small classes of words like function words (for example, prepositions in PIE languages).

I bring this up for the odd case that is Japanese. In Japanese, verbs are closed--they have heavy resistance to taking new members whereas nouns are open. For instance, during the time where Japanese took a GIGANTIC amount of Chinese loans, literally hundreds to thousands of words, the amount of verbs they borrowed was almost nil. What the Japanese did was take Chinese nouns, and then use them with the verb suru "to do"; for instance, benkyō "study" can form the "suru verb" benkyō suru meaning "to study". Despite all these loans, the Japanese verbs resisted any new members. Other evidence for this is that almost no verbs in Japanese have /Cj/ clusters, which came from Chinese loans. Japanese also highly resisted adding new stative/adjective verbs, which end in -i. Any new adjectives were just nouns used with naru "to be" which was just shortened to "na".

However, I have seen, interestingly enough, some new verbs in Japanese coined in recent years that break this. For instance, there's a verb romuru, common enough to show up in dictionaries, that means "to browse an imageboard as a Read-Only-Member". This was formed from taking the abbreviation "ROM" and adding the suffix -ru, which ends a set of Japanese verbs (taberu "to eat" neru "to sleep"). However, -ru is not a verbalizing suffix in Japanese. Japanese has NO verbalizing suffixes, yet I ended up seeing this word, which conjugates like any normal verb; romuranai (negative), romutta (past), romuranakatta (negative past)....

A few days later, I saw the adjective eroi "sexy, erotic", from "ero", an obvious shortening of "erotic". -i was just added--but -i isn't a derivational suffix in Japanese. This also conjugates like normal adjectival verbs; erokunai (negative), for instance.

So, I made this thread to ask; are closed-classes in natlangs not perfectly "watertight"? Could this be a possible indicator of Japanese verbs becoming open class or at least more receptive to new members? Are there any precendences for closed-classes gaining new members regardless (I think English <they> is one)?

[Vuvuzela]

English has borrowed a pronoun-set (as you mentioned "they"), at least one preposition ("per"), and half a conjunction ("because") just off the top of my head. Even the form of the copula "are" was probably influenced by the Norse. Open vs. closed class is not a binary distinction, but more of a continuum which varies by language.

[clawgrip]

There are other verbs that come from nouns with -ru stuck on them:
事故る jikoru "have an accident" from 事故 jiko "accident"
メモる memoru "note; take down; write a memo" from メモ memo "note; memo"
ダブる daburu "to overlap; to double" from ダブル daburu "double"
ハモる hamoru "to harmonize" from ハーモニー hāmonī "harmony"
拒否る kyohiru "to refuse" from 拒否 kyohi "refusal"

There are others as well. I think the examples here are kind of informal and kind of becoming standard.

Some especially informal and slangy ones include:
写メる shameru "to send a phone message with photo attached" from 写メ shame < 写メール shamēru (写真 shashin "photograph" + メール mēru "mail")
ググる guguru "to Google" from グーグル Gūguru "Google"

There are also a few verbs that have Cj (I know you said almost none).
しゃべる、喋る shaberu "talk; converse" (not sure of the etymology of this one"
背負う shou "carry on the back" (informal contraction of seou)
いらっしゃる irassharu "be; come; go (HON)"
仰る ossharu "say; speak (HON)" (both of these are contractions of a classical Japanese honorific sufix -seraru

-i adjectives are indeed more resistant though, since の no can perform essentially the same function and is not closed at all.

[clawgrip]

Oh, and slightly unrelated, but interesting nonetheless: while Japanese has nominal and verbal adjectives, it also has a closed class of true adjectives with (as far as I can tell) only one word in the entire class: 同じ onaji "same". Nominal adjectives require a form of the copula both predicatively and attributively, while verbal adjectives never take a copula. This word, however, takes no copula attributively, but does take one predicatively, just like a regular adjective.

verbal adjective (no copula):
高い木
takai ki
tall tree

木が高い。
Ki ga takai.
The tree is tall.

nominal adjective (copular forms marked in bold):
立派な木
rippa na ki
splendid tree

木が立派だ。
Ki ga rippa da.
The tree is splendid.

true adjective (copular forms marked in bold; as you can see, it only appears on the predicate):
同じ木
onaji ki
the same tree

木が同じだ。
Ki ga onaji da.
The tree is the same.

It was originally a verbal adjective (which all ended in -shi in classical Japanese). This got voiced to -ji for whatever reason, and the voicing subsequently resisted the change of adjectives from -shi to -i and -shii (cf. 赤し akashi 赤い akai, 苦し kurushi 苦しい kurushii). It retained the ability to directly modify nouns, but lost the ability to stand as a complete predicate. It still retains its adverb form 同じく onajiku.

[linguoboy]

English has borrowed a pronoun-set (as you mentioned "they"), at least one preposition ("per"), and half a conjunction ("because") just off the top of my head. Even the form of the copula "are" was probably influenced by the Norse. Open vs. closed class is not a binary distinction, but more of a continuum which varies by language.

Oh, there are plenty of borrowed prepositions in English. See how many you can pick out of this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_En ... epositions. The newest addition to the class, however, is because.

For conjunctions, other part-borrowed forms are provided and supposing. Full-borrowed words are plus and except.

[Nortaneous]

No, 'are' is from 'earon', which is from a non-WS dialect. Modern English itself is descended from a non-WS dialect, so this should not be surprising.

It's not impossible that it could have been influenced by ON 'erum/eruð/eru', but how likely is it that it'd borrow and generalize the 1PL form? More likely is that earon and sind are from different forms of PGmc *wesaną -- *izum, *izud, *sindi.

Is *izum > earon regular? (m# > n is common, so that's not a problem.)

As I said in the other thread, 'until' is from 'til', an Old Norse loan, by analogy with 'unto'.

[aquatius]

There's also マクる makuru, to eat at McDonald's.

I don't think it's as simple as ru becoming a verbalising suffix because it tends to mainly happen with words which already end in ru or sound like a native Japanese verb with ru attached. With the above example, -kuru is a fairly common ending for verbs to have, but something like *terebiru would most likely not be allowed phonosyntactically.

[clawgrip]

There's also マクる makuru, to eat at McDonald's.

I don't think it's as simple as ru becoming a verbalising suffix because it tends to mainly happen with words which already end in ru or sound like a native Japanese verb with ru attached.

This may be a tendency that facilitates verbalization (as with トラブる toraburu (from トラブル toraburu), but not a rule that limits it; the counterexamples mentioned above, e.g. メモる memoru (from メモ memo), ハモる hamoru (from hāmonī), 事故る jikoru (from jiko "accident"), 拒否る kyohiru (from 拒否 kyohi) along with other examples サボる saboru (from sabotāju) オケる okeru (from karaoke) デコる dekoru (from デコレーション dekorēshon) パクる pakuru (from パッケン pakken) are proof enough of this. Even your example マクる from マック Makku.

With the above example, -kuru is a fairly common ending for verbs to have, but something like *terebiru would most likely not be allowed phonosyntactically.

Not sure why you would suggest that there is some problem with -biru...off the top of my head I can think of several -biru verbs: 伸びる nobiru "stretch", 浴びる abiru "bathe (in)", 錆びる sabiru "rust", かびる kabiru "go moldy" 綻びる hokorobiru "split apart". All Old Japanese kami-nidan verbs ending in -bu became -biru in modern Japanese.
I can't think of quite as many -kuru verbs...来る kuru "come", 作る tsukuru "make", and some variations of 繰る kuru "reel; wind up": 捲る/捲くる mekuru/makuru "roll/wind up", 括る kukuru "tie up; bundle together"

[aquatius]

This may be a tendency that facilitates verbalization (as with トラブる toraburu (from トラブル toraburu), but not a rule that limits it; the counterexamples mentioned above, e.g. メモる memoru (from メモ memo), ハモる hamoru (from hāmonī), 事故る jikoru (from jiko "accident"), 拒否る kyohiru (from 拒否 kyohi) along with other examples サボる saboru (from sabotāju) オケる okeru (from karaoke) デコる dekoru (from デコレーション dekorēshon) パクる pakuru (from パッケン pakken) are proof enough of this. Even your example マクる from マック Makku.

Yeah I didn't think of that (or the other thing) when writing. But I always thought マクる was from マクドナルド.

[Qwynegold]

But I always thought マクる was from マクドナルド.

Same here.

Here's another new i-adjective: ナウい (up-to-date, "nowy").

[clawgrip]

On topic:

Recently there is an ad for anti-aging wrinkle cream on the trains that is playing on this -ru usage. It created a new verb 般若る hannyaru "to look like a hannya" (a kind of female demon from Noh theatre). Obviously it is a joke usage, but in fact this usage is a major part of the joke (it wouldn't be as funny if instead of "ah, I'm hannyaing" they just said "ah, I look like a hannya"), so it's a clear indication that this phenomenon or -ru as a verbalizer is alive in the public consciousness.

[Terra]

Recently there is an ad for anti-aging wrinkle cream on the trains that is playing on this -ru usage. It created a new verb 般若る hannyaru "to look like a hannya" (a kind of female demon from Noh theatre). Obviously it is a joke usage, but in fact this usage is a major part of the joke (it wouldn't be as funny if instead of "ah, I'm hannyaing" they just said "ah, I look like a hannya"), so it's a clear indication that this phenomenon or -ru as a verbalizer is alive in the public consciousness.

I don't get the joke. Is this referencing the the typical personality of a hannya or something?

[clawgrip]

Just the idea of looking ugly, really.