Re: THEORY: morphological processes

dirk elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...> wrote:
>
> 1.      vowel ablaut
Nope, Draseléq only has some irregular umlaut. OTOH,
Wamen has something (vowel harmony? vowel echo?) like
that. Some roots have an 'echoing vowel' in the stressed
syllable; when a prefix is added, this vowel echoes the
(last) vowel in the prefix.

> 2.      consonant mutation
Draseléq sometimes changes final /k/ to /q/ when adding
suffixes ending in back vowels. Old /kw/ always changed
to /q/, so sometimes final /ku/ has become /kw/ and then
/q/. Also, intervocalic /ts/ changed to /s:/, so you have
alternating pairs like

        gots    'fist'
        gossoth 'fists'

Apart from that, noun stems ending in a stop normally make
it a fricative in the plural; and unvoiced stops may revert
to voiced when suffixes are added:

        mèp 'day' (< old /me:be/)
        mèf 'days' (< old /me:bSu/ > /me:vS/)
        mèbn 'day.ACC'
        mèvn 'days.ACC'

> 3.      root and pattern/templatic morphology
None of that.

> 4.      reduplications of various kinds
Yes. Verbs show progressive aspect (action in progress) by
partially post-reduplicating the last part of the stem. For
example:

        gokon- 'throw'
        gókoneq 'they threw'
        gókononeq 'they were throwing / they kept throwing'

> 5.      truncation
It's a phonetical (and predictable) feature. Draseléq can't
have syllable-final /h/, so the consonant is dropped and the
previous vowel is lengthened, resulting in pairs like

        kò    'village' (< *koh)
        kohür 'in the village'

> 6.      other kinds of stem manipulations such as lengthening,
>         shortening, and deletion of vowels or consonants
Again, phonetical changes only; unstressed vowels are syncoped
whenever affixes are added that make the stress too 'heavy'.
For example:

        bramar 'a fall'
        bramres 'of a fall'

> *       What morphological processes does your language use?
Affixion: mainly suffixes (43 in my dictionary, though there are
more), quite a lot of prefixes (23 + many grammatical ones I didn't
include), and some infixes.

Reduplication: productive in verbs (as stated); unproductive for
various uses in nouns.

Consonant mutation: synchronically speaking, many mutations are
apparent, but I think the most obvious one is the change stop
-> fricative in the nominal plurals.

> *       What grammatical category does it mark?
> *       Is the process the only marker of the grammatical
>         category, or is it used in conjunction with other
>         markers such as affixes?
I'm not sure I understand this, but all these things are quite
productive, so you can use them one over another and so on,
usually in agglutinative fashion, if you want to. In general,
there are no double markings (like reduplicating and affixing)
for a single feature.

> *       What role does the process play in the esthetics of your
>         language?
Affixion gives me room to be productive when I want to, and to
devise new roots when a derived stem is too cumbersome. Many
of my affixes seem to have been unconsciously planned to form
word shapes that I like.

> *       What do you think the inclusion of such processes says
>         about you as a language creator? (Does it say anything?)
I think the ones I didn't include say something. I don't like
complications and need freedom in my word forms; therefore I
avoided ablaut, vowel patterns, and vowel harmony. I think I'm
biased towards agglutinative morphology, and don't like my
stems to be messed up too much -- I prefer words that 'unfurl'
before me when I read them.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/index.html
  http://www.geocities.com/pablo-david/draseleq.html