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Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)

From:Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...>
Date:Monday, August 18, 2008, 21:19
On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:

> You mean, you need to express whether the wars are against clones, between > clones, concerning clones, including clones or whatever?
Yes, exactly.
> Maybe a point worth considering for naturalistic artlangs as well. But no > natlang or naturalistic artlang will have much trouble expressing the above, > with prepositions and/or case-endings. In Urianian, zirgi klonet = wars > against clones, with an accusative plural, zirgi klonan = wars between/of > clones, with the genitive plural, zirgi klonant = wars concerning/for > clones, with a dative plural, and zirgi klonit = wars including/with clones, > with an instrumental plural.
Cool. I think the relationship here is pretty much instrumental, but I haven't seen episodes I-III recently or often (maybe I've deliberately blocked things out :) and this latest movie dives in in media res without going into the causes of the war. It could be the use of clones is one of the issues the war is being fought over, but I don't remember for sure. I think the semantic relationship here is more like what we see in English "trench warfare", "nuclear warfare" etc. -- the war is named for its unusual feature of being fought with clone soldiers. -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>