Tears (Feature 111)
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Feature Annotation
In some languages, the word for ‘tears’ consists of two lexical morphemes, often with the meaning ’eye’ + ’water’. In this feature we are interested in whether the word for ’tear’ is synchronically monomorphemic (Value 1) or synchronically transparent as consisting of two morphemes (i.e. bimorphemic, Value 2).
Value 3 is reserved for all other cases, e.g. Nigerian Pidgin English, which has a number of different ways to refer to tears, none of which seems to be more than a circumlocution (e.g. Wòta de mì fòr ay. ’Water is in my eyes’).
Additional remarks
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Values
| Value | Value Annotation | |
| 1 | Monomorphemic | Guinea Bissau Creole larma ’tears’ |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Bimorphemic | Krio aiwota [eye-water] ’tears’, Haitian Creole dlo je [water eye] ’tears’ |
| 3 | Other | (Please give details in the “General comments” field.) |
WALS No.
(None)
