This is impossible for a language
#11
(19-03-2026, 08:03 AM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In Spanish and Portuguese, 'antes' is a very common word that means 'before'.  But it is also a suffix like English '-ents' and '-ants', so there are many hundreds of words that end with '-antes', like 'estudiantes', 'cantantes', 'passantes', ...

In Italian 'vino' of course is a very common word, but it is also the ending of all nouns and adjectives that end in '-vo' when inflected in the diminutive: 'bravo' -> 'bravino', and also of all verbs that end in '-vare' when inflected in the subjunctive 3rd plural: 'provare' -> 'provino', 'trovare' -> 'trovino'...

In Italian I would add 'mente'. It means both 'mind' and 'he/she lies' and is also an extremely common adverbial suffix, similar to English '-ly'. Abitualmente (usually), attualmente (currently), banalmente (trivially), casualmente (randomly), dannosamente (harmfully), estremamente (extremely)... thousands of words I guess, surely (sicuramente) many hundreds (*).

(*) I then asked Google (translated and shortened): many thousands attested in the dictionaries, but it's impossible to give an exact number because the suffix is extremely productive and new words in -mente are continually evolving.

And I guess this holds for most languages.
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Messages In This Thread
This is impossible for a language - by oeesordy - 19-03-2026, 05:19 AM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by Mauro - 19-03-2026, 04:33 PM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by oshfdk - 19-03-2026, 09:03 AM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by eggyk - 19-03-2026, 03:53 PM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by eggyk - 19-03-2026, 04:41 PM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by oshfdk - 19-03-2026, 07:57 PM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by Rafal - 19-03-2026, 03:39 PM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by quimqu - 20-03-2026, 08:05 AM
RE: This is impossible for a language - by ReneZ - 20-03-2026, 08:19 AM

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