Re: derivational morphology

This post was prompted by Patrick Dunn's request to talk about derivational
morphology.

In my conlang, Palo, some derivational morphology is related to the
flexional morphology.

Word classes are distinguished by tones, and subgroups within these classes
are distinguished by alternations between vowels and diphthongs.

Tones in Palo are high and low.    High tone will be indicated with an
apostrophe in this post.

Pairs of alternating vowels and diphthongs are as follows:

a - ai
e - eu
i - iu
o - oi
u - ui

Nouns have LO non-final syllables and HI final syllables.

non-final & final pure vowels indicate common case:   crudo' = child
(common-case)
non-final & final diphthongs indicate genitive case:   cruidoi' = of the
child, etc.
non-final pure & final diphthong indicate locative case:   crudoi' = where
the child is, etc.

Modifiers have HI tone on all syllables.

non-final & final pure vowels indicate an adjective:    cru'do' = child-like
non-final pure & final diphthong indicate a verb modifier:    cru'doi' = in
a child-like way
non-final & final diphthongs indicate a modifier of a modifier:   crui'doi'
= in a child-like way
non-final diphthong & final pure indicate a determiner:    tlai'ho' = this
(as in 'this N')

Non-Copular Verbs,  Copular Verbs, and Postpositions have HI non-final
syllables and LO final syllables:

non-final & final pure vowels indicate a copula:    ci'hu = be in
non-final pure vowels and final diphthongs indicate a non-copular verb:
ci'hui = enter, put into
non-final diphthongs and final pure vowels indicate a postposition:   ciu'hu
= in

All Other Words have LO tone, EXCEPT for mosyns (clause initial particles
that convey modal and syntactic information) for genitive and locative
clauses;   the latter mosyns have noun-tones.

What do you think?

Jim G.