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Re: Self-Segregating Morphologies

From:Mike S. <mcslason@...>
Date:Monday, May 13, 2002, 17:32
> > A. Lojban Approach - > Rather "Loglan/Lojban approach". > > > C. Ceqli Approach - > This is the Gua\spi approach as well. >
Correct, apologies to the authors of Loglan and Gua\spi.
> The Xuxuxi approach uses stress and vowel harmony. Polysyllabic words > are stressed on the first syllable and then go on up to and including > the first syllable that breaks vowel harmony; any following unstressed > syllables are monosyllabic words (particles). The vowel harmony > table is thus: > > 1st syll next sylls final syll harmony type > a a,e,o i,u low > e,i a,e,i o,u front > o,u a,o,u e,i back
Very interesting! I couldn't seem to find this language on the web though. > > Is it important to self-segregate the morpheme level, or is word-
> > level self-segregation sufficient? > > I think the importance of two-level self-segregation appears only > when you have a community of word-makers: it prevents gaffes like > man-slaughter being reinterpreted as mans-laughter. (Bad example, > but I'm tired.) Of course, if you don't admit compound words as > a separate type (as Gua\spi and Ceqli do not) then you need only > one level, the morpheme/word level.
That example makes sense. Certainly, ambiguity of the man(')s(-)laughter sort would be unacceptable in a logical language. I will keep mulling this over... thanks for the input.

Replies

John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Jeffrey Henning <jeffrey@...>