Re: Sentences (was Re: Polysynthesis & Oligosynthesis)

Christopher Wright wrote:


>>Is the reply "a whole sentence [expressed] with just a verb"? If so,
>>why? If not, why not? What's a sentence?
>
>I defined it as "a coherent sequence of words (at least one) whose core
>argument is a verb". Now, I'm not sure. What about languages without a
>copula? Are their phrases that would include a copula not sentences? What
>about languages with a copula? Are their sentences that include copulae
>no longer sentences because their equivalents in other languages are not?

As you know, it's a very slippery concept.  How about:  "a coherent sequence
of meaningful morphemes, consisting minimally of a topic (or subject or
theme) and a comment (or predicate or rheme)" (Those terms are not
necessarily synonymous, but they'll do.)  Note  that this avoids the equally
slippery concept, "what is a word?"... which I think could be defined as "a
minimally meaningful morpheme, or sequence of morphemes, that can be uttered
in isolation".  So in Engl. Latinate vocab, de-, con-, and -ceive are
morphemes but not words; deceive, conceive etc. are.

Imagine an overly simplified polysynthetic lang with these roots
(morphemes), which cannot occur in isolation:
ekwi- 'horse'
salt- 'jump'
sup- 'over, above'
flum- 'river'
-b 'to be'
-il '3rd sing., human
-o 'imperative'

You could have:  ekwisalt 'the horse jumped' (a sentence, also a word)
ekwisaltsupflum 'the horse jumped over the river' (a sentence, also a word)
ekwib 'it is a horse' (Could be the answer to "what's that?")
saltil 'he jumped' (of course requires a context, to know who "he" is)
salto 'jump!'
saltosup 'jump over (it, understood in context)!'

This mini-explanation will no doubt be jumped on by those more
knowledgeable;  I hasten to add it's not my field of expertise.