Re: New page on Kijeb morphology

On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:19:15 +0100, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> wrote:

>I have written a description of Kijeb nominal and
>pronominal morphology at <http://tinyurl.com/p79rw>
>and discovered a lot of new stuff in the process.
>
>Comments, questions and criticism requested.
Yes, a very nice regular morphology, using your phonological processes to
good effect.  Makes the apparent irregularities (like _igyu_, which I guess
is to avoid an _iy_ sequence) all the more tantalizing.

I notice the rational gender only exists in the plural.  What is it used
for?  (mixed groups of masculine and feminine referents?)

Which levels does Kijeb inverse marking distinguish in the nominal
hierarchy?  To my knowledge it's not usual for verbs in natlangs to
distinguish every single level; _the_ nominal hierarchy is more like the
total collection of level boundaries found in natlangs.

If in pre-Kijeb _xw_, or the contrast _xw : f_, had a low functional load,
so that there were very few minimal pairs distinguished by this contrast,
methinks it would be especially likely that _xw_ would collapse into _f_.
If any undesirable homonyms did arise replacements could always be found.

Alex

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