Thursday, November 1, 2012

Morphology morphs language for my family...

Around 20 years ago, my brother got a new puppy, and he specifically told us, "Don't turn my dog into one of those awful belly dogs!" It took a little explaining on his part, but eventually we all came to understand. My little brother does not like for a dog to come up to strangers and show "submission" by rolling over, putting his belly in the air. So my brother insisted that no one should pet the belly of his new puppy. For my family, this turned the term "belly" into an adjective. We all knew what a belly dog was after that, and all agreed that we didn't like them.
About four years ago, my mother had an orange tabby wander up (either stray or abandoned) and hang out in her yard. It wasn't long before we found that she was pregnant and she gave birth to a litter of oddly patterned orange & white male tabbys. All of these kittens immediately became belly cats. Oddly enough, the concept of a cat being submissive like this does not seem to bother my family.  Mostly outdoor cats, they roam the neighborhood and the three properties (my mothers, my grandmothers, and mine) as if they own all three and do as they please, as cats often will. Now, when one of the orange cats comes to your feet, he will start "bellying." They roll over and put their bellys up and look at you expectantly, waiting for you to rub their bell and make them purr. Now the term belly has morphed from a noun to a adjective and into a verb. Maybe it's not an action that other people recognize, but my family definately understands bellying as a verb from your feline (or canine) friends.
So one night this fall, my mother, my son, and I were headed home from a ballgame when the subject of the male orange cat triplets came up and my mother morphed the word once more. She stated, "Those cats are the bellyingist cats I've ever seen!" So, now it's come full circle. With the addition of a superlative-making morpheme, my mother turned the word back into an adjective again! Now, it may not be one the average person would immediately understand in conversation, but certainly everyone in the car knew exactly what she meant!


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