Re: Group Conlang: affix morphology

On Tue, 13 Oct 1998 00:24:32 -0400, Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

>Carlos Thompson wrote:
>> >Here's to round up the proposals about affix morphology.
>> >
>> >We have two affix systems so far:
>> >System A: case_tag + root + screeve_tag
>> >System B: gender_tag + root + case_tag
>>
>> Vote for System A
>
>Am I the only person who wants to vote for B?  It's more naturalistic.
>Very few (if any) languages have case-prefixes.  In fact, the very few
>cases of case-prefixes are actually inflected demonstratives that were
>fused to the noun, and therefore also incorporate gender.
I must have missed this one when it first came around. In any case, I =
might
as well vote for B since it was my original suggestion, although I =
modified
it to swap gender and case.

>> >For this, we have two alternatives:
>> >1. Use (C)V- and add a semivowel glide when a vowel follows.
>> >Example: pe- + ak- =3D pejak-;  o- + ak- =3D owak-
>> >2. Use (C)VC- and change the last -C- when a consonant follows.
>> >Example: ut- + pop- =3D uspop-;  ik- + pop- =3D ikhpop-
>> >(i. e. change stop > fricative)
>> >Although also,
>> >3. Use both systems according to the affix.
>
>Well, we could also have CV- --> C-, but that would limit the number of
>prefixes possible.  How about adding nothing.  What's wrong with pe- +
>ak- --> peak-?  If you definitely don't want VV sequences, add a glottal
>stop, thus pe?ak- OR have prefixes in the form CV(C)-, where the (C)
>indicates a consonant which is only used before vowels, thus, perhaps
>pe(t)- + ak- --> petak-, but pe(t)- + pop --> pepop.
The only potential problem with VV sequences as I see it is double =
vowels,
and adding an unwritten glottal stop would make those easier to =
distinguish
from single vowels. OTOH, many languages get along just fine with double
vowels. I think my preference though would be for #1.