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TERMINOLOGY: Re: another new language to check out

From:David Peterson <thatbluecat@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 30, 2004, 20:13
Chris wrote:

<<If I were designing an IAL, just to be different
I'd make it agglutinating like Swahili instead of isolating like most of the
existing examples, since I think Swahili proves an agglutinating language
isn't necessarily any more difficult than an isolating one. :)>>

This issue pops up again and again, but I still haven't got it straight.   :(

I was under the impression that Esperanto was agglutinating.   It's
definitely
not isolating, but I thought it went beyond inflection.   In fact, can't you
modify Esperanto verbs the same way you can modify Swahili verbs, just
with slightly different prefixes?   So, for Swahili I know you can add a
prefix
(suffix?) to mean "for x", and also a prefix for the beginning of an action,
the
ending of an action, etc.   You can do the same thing in Esperanto (less the
"for someone" affix...?), which would lead me to believe that they should
both have the same term for them--whatever that term is.   Anybody want
to repeat the exact definitions of the terms again?   Ooh, I know!   We'll
put it
on the Conlang Wiki so we can just point people to that page from now on!

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

Replies

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>