Re: THEORY: morphological processes

* dirk elzinga (dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu) [000120 00:36]:
> Here's something I've been thinking about for a while now. Many
> languages of the world show morphological processes which do not
> involve affixation of fixed material. These processes include:
>
> 1.      vowel ablaut
Traces; pairs like

    tani  "steep mountain, peak, tower"
    tyan  "range of tanis (but not in the tower-sense!)"
    skani "maybe"
    skian "probability, variation (in the mathematical sense)"

> 2.      consonant mutation
Not syntactically relevant but there is a nasal that takes its place of
articulation from its surroundings so that you have /mb/, /nd/ and /qk/.

> 3.      root and pattern/templatic morphology
Quite a bit of vocabulary has been borrowed from machrom, so you can see
traces in those words but it ain't productive in any way.

> 4.      reduplications of various kinds
Single full stem reduplication:

    gav gav "a dog is just a dog, not a <insert X from context here>"

pragmatic uses, hard to explain... you say something about the identity
of the (usually) noun as opposed to the rest of the world. If ST:TOS
were to be translated to ta:ruven, Doc McCoy would say "doctor doctor"
and not "I'm a doctor, not a..."

Double full stem reduplication:

    gav gav gav "a dog is just a dog, and recall the internal and
                 spiritual qualities of the dog"

pragmatic, a further development from the first, you not only look at
the identity as opposed to others, but underline the things that make the
thing (or class of things) unique, like the metaphorical qualities.

> 5.      truncation
> 6.      other kinds of stem manipulations such as lengthening,
>         shortening, and deletion of vowels or consonants
Hmmm.. not exactly the same, but... voiced stops cannot end a word, so
they need a supporting vowel (always e) or are aspirated. This falls
away before suffixes, derivational or not:

    dub'    "sabre"
    duben   "sabres"
    djeqge  "tourist"
    djeqgan "the two tourists"

This is phonological of course, not morphological.

Furthermore, there is one infix, -'i- /hi/ "bright, light, pale in color":

    gvaìr "dragon"
    gvaì'ir "pale dragon"

Some affixes (for instance those marked with umlaut like sï-) *never*
change shape nor are worn away, but others do, especially -vun and -gal
(see below). I don't have a similar overview of the other affixes (yet)
but shortening of the vowel in long, open syllables before certain
suffixes is quite common. The shape of the future marker for instance is
depends on the shape of the preceeding syllable:

    a:ruì  "will think"  (-uì after consonants)
    ct'ai  "will cross"  (-i after a, o or u, the "dark" vowels)
    cvys:e "will follow" (-s:e after e, i or y, the "light" vowels)

> [..] discussion of any kind of process which is not simply affixation
> of fixed material. Here are some questions you might use to guide your
> responses:
>
> *       What role does the process play in the esthetics of your
>         language?
1 and 6 are both important for the aesthetics, especially 6. ??laut has
been important for derivation, for instance many words suffixed with the
diminutive -vun or the augmentative -gal have been lexified:

    gvi     "town"              (gaìn "city" + -vun)
    djenqge "tourist"           (djin "travel" + -gal)
    av:e    "doggy"             (-av "canid" + -vun)
    kvan    "must, have to"     (kan: "force" + -vun)
    sïufy   "knife"             (sïub" "sabre" + -vun)
    xvan    "ache"              (xan "pain" + -vun)
    yérege  "fireplace, hearth" (yár:a "fire" + -gal)

etc. etc.

In short, root-adjustments are important lexically but not grammatically.


t.