Re: Self-Segregating Morphologies

> Indeed! It's a common beginner's mistake :)) . Welcome anyway!
Thanks!

> I've just realised that my Notya is pretty much self-segregating at the
word
> level. It's managed through a strict CV structure, and a morphology where
each
> and every word has to be ended through one of four affixes: -ma, -m, -na
and -
> n. Only the last word of a phrase can appear without affix, and only when
it's
> followed by a pause. And the pitch accent which is a phrase accent brings
also
> self-segregation on the phrase level. So when you hear a sentence you
always
> know where the phrases and words begin and end.
> But no specific system for self-segregation on the morpheme level, with no
> possibility to recognize whether a two-syllable word is a compound or just
a
> polysyllabic simple word. But hey, self-segregation was not my aim when I
> created Notya :)) .
Sounds like a good system!  The idea of a closed-class set of particles
and/or affixes is so simple and obvious I forgot to include it in my list.
Your implementation seems elegant for its ease of pronunciation;
not many people will have trouble with a language whose syllables
are strictly of form CV and CVN.

Another thing that can be done with such closed-class affix morphemes,
is to give them some syntactical meaning, such as number, gender,
tense, or whatever one wishes the language to encode, so that they
do more than just parse the syntax.

I have given only a little consideration to using pitch, tone, stress and/or
prosody for the purpose of self-segregation or syntax.  I am tempted
to try to use them somehow; after all, every language has to have them,
so why not regularize them and make them productive?  I hesitate for
a couple reasons;  right now I think it's best to keep the phonology
relatively simple.  It'll always be possible to complexify later.

For example, I would love to use tones to indicate descriptors equivalent
to Lojban "le" and "lo" (probably the most common morphemes in the
language),  but I am doubtful that many outside of east Asia -- including
persons such as myself -- could easily master such a system.

Thanks for the input.

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