Open round | 10 points | 63.64% | Problem statement | Official solution | Tags: MorphologySemantics
Notice the following pairs (once you notice the first two pairs, the rest should be easy to pick out):
| Base | Derived |
|---|---|
| blang '(of the eyes) to become open' | balang 'to open one’s eyes' |
| plaajh 'an arm span' | palaajh 'to measure something by arm spans' |
| bsơt 'to go out (as a light or fire does)' | basơt 'to turn off, put out' |
| ckaang 'a hand span' | cakaang 'to measure something by hand spans' |
So the insertion of [a] after the first consonant changes an intransitive verb to a causative verb: "X does something" vs. "cause X to do something". It also changes a noun to a measuring verb: "X (a measure of something)" vs. "to measure something by X".
There's also a slightly different group:
| Base | Derived |
|---|---|
| paang 'to signal ownership of a swidden' | prnaang 'a sign placed in a swidden to show ownership' |
| kooq 'to live' | krnooq 'a house' |
So the insertion of [rn] after the first consonant changes a verb to an instrumental noun: "to do X" vs. "a thing used to do X". The sign is used to signal ownership, while the house is used to live.
B1 answers:
a. a unit of measure equal to an amount that can be picked up purse-hand = to pick up or measure out purse-hand - [measuring] = cabuuc - [a] = cbuuc
b. to put something on its face = to be on its face + [causative] = truum + [a] = taruum
c. a hanging thread, pierced through many objects = to pierce + [instrumental] = cooh + [rn] = crnooh
The six additional words can similarly be paired up:
| Base | Derived |
|---|---|
| B. kleer | A. kaleer |
| C. koorq | E. krnoorq |
| D. krneep | |
| F. paraang |
The first pair corresponds to the intransitive - causative pair: 2. 'to fall off (as a fruit does)' vs. 6. 'to pick something off (e.g., to pick a berry off of a bush)'. The second pair corresponds to the verb - instrumental noun pair: 1. 'to scoop out strips of a vegetable for food preparation' vs. 3. 'an instrument to scoop out strips of a vegetable'. D should be another instrument, so it's 5. 'tongs, pincers'. That leaves 4. 'to take someone across (e.g., across a river)' for F, which is also a causative verb.
In B3, we want something related to crossing rivers, and we happen to have paraang. To determine which one is the base form, notice we have the following derivations defined:
Therefore it seems that intransitive verbs are the base forms, so we pick 9. 'to cross over'. Unfortunately we don't know the exact translations for the other three words, because either their derivation (for 'a river' and 'a cross', neither of which is an instrument) or their base (for 'to put someone into a river', which is the causative of 'to go into a river') is not given.