Eric,
Yes, you are correct the same basic MS Search Technology is used in all
three of the Microsoft products you've referenced. However, there can be
significant difference in the actual versions as well as the functionality
supported via each product. As your questions seems to relate only to the
SQL Server version of "full-text query of Transact-SQL searching" the best
place to discuss this is in the fulltext newsgroup, however, I've cc'ed the
other newsgroups, for any additional input from those products...

Could you post the full output of the following SQL script as this is very
helpful (especially the OS platform info) in troubleshooting and
understanding your environment.

use <your_database_name>
go
SELECT @@language
SELECT @@version
EXEC sp_help_fulltext_catalogs
EXEC sp_help_fulltext_tables
EXEC sp_help_fulltext_columns
EXEC sp_help <your_FT-enabled_table_name_here>
sp_configure 'default full-text language'
go

Q. "... but inputting nouns won't generally find related verbs, and looking
for nouns won't find verbs. Is that true ?"
A. Generally,this is true, but I'd need more info, specifically the language
of your text as well as the column's "Language for Word Breaker" setting to
be sure. The above SQL script will provide that info.

Q. "so perhaps it also does anagrammatic forms ?" & "Is this 'behavior by
design' ?"
A. I've not specifically tested these words in a SQL Server 2000 on Win2K or
Win2003, but depending upon the OS platform, you may see different results
as these platforms each have different wordbreaker dll's - Win2K's
infosoft.dll vs. Win2003's langwrbk.dll. Is this by design? That would
depend upon the OS Platform supplied US_English wordbreaker's default
behavior for these words.

Q. "Has anyone else noticed other strange examples ?"
A. Yes, especially with FORMSOF(INFLECTIONAL) of certain words - proper
nouns such as "hydrocylone" or "sealant" in one case and in another case the
word "best" generated Error Msg 7619: "A clause of the query contained only
ignored words" with 'formsof (inflectional, best)', even though "best" or
"better" are not consider US_English noise words as well as "liked" and
"made" with FORMSOF(INFLECTIONAL).

FYI, Microsoft is aware of this issue and has acknowledged it as a "DOC bug"
sometime ago and hopefully it will be documented in a KB article or in
future releases of either the BOL or in the future releases of SQL Server
2005 (Yukon). However, I don't know the current status of this at this time.

Regards,
John

(Generation Term) - SQL Server