Re: Too long words

E fésto Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>:
> Hallo!
>
> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 18:24:28 EST,
> David Peterson <ThatBlueCat@...> wrote:
>
>> Carsten wrote:
>>
>> <<Ayeri
>> is agglutinating, perhaps even fusional and somewhat isolating.>>
>>
>> This is kind of like saying, "My friend is a man, perhaps even a baby
>> boy, and somewhat female."
>
> Nope.  "Agglutinating", "fusional" and "isolating" aren't really
> that kind of mutually exclusive.  There are no clearly drawn lines
> between these types, and there are intermediates between all three
> (in fact, most languages combine agglutinating, fusional and
> isolating traits).
To be specific, "isolating" refers to having few morphemes per word, and
"polysynthetic" to having many morphemes per word; "agglutinating" refers
to having few *semantemes per morpheme, and "fusional" to having many
*semantemes per morpheme.

So possibly "My friend is a child, perhaps even a teenager, and somewhat
antisocial."



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