Re: average syllables per word?

At 10:30 30/06/99 -0300, you wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire <Christophe.Grandsire@...> wrote:
>>
>>         Well, everything is on my webpage (can you learn French?), but
here are
>
>Very funny. :-X
>
>> some examples. In fact, the basic role of 'n' is to make a root from a
>> suffix. This root can generally be translated as a pronoun (or pronominal
>> adjective, as adjective is a case of the noun (it's called
>> 'complementative'). I call those new roots 'grammatical words'.
>>
>>         With -ek, which is a question suffix (like the 'ka' particle in
Japanese),
>> I can make 'n-ek': what? With the declination suffixes, I can make other
>> question pronouns:
>> n-ek-ev (at what?): where (are you)? when?
>> n-ek-av (because of what?): why?
>> etc...
>>         With the indefinite suffixes, you make indefinite pronouns:
>> n-ab: something
>> n-oz: this, that (yes, I know that's not indefinite, but -oz is put in the
>> same list as indefinite suffixes. Not my fault)
>> n-eg: everything
>> n-ab-ab: a few, a little
>> n-ek-ab: how much? how many?
>
>So <n-> is a "general" noun root? I mean, if you take the word for
>"house" and add <-ab> it means "some house", <-oz> "this house",
>etc., right? And <n-> fills the noun slot... Very, very interesting.
>
        Exactly!

>>         With the absolutive personal suffixes, you make possessive
pronouns:
>> n-in: mine
>> n-esh: yours
>> etc...
>>         With the ergative suffixes, you make personal pronouns:
>> n-ef: I, me
>> n-ash: you
>> etc...
>
>This is curious. Do you have an explanation for this?
>Aren't there any free pronouns apart from these?
>
        No other free pronouns. I don't have any good explanation for this. But
that's not weirder than the existence of an ergative genitive and an
absolutive genitive!

>/snipped redundancy pronouns -- niiice!/
>
>> >(Speaking of consonant clusters... my favorite Georgian word
>> >is _vprtskvni_ 'I am peeling it', which is supposed to be
>> >one syllable. I don't know which part is 'peel', but I'm quite
>> >sure it's not the vowel.)
>> >
>>         How is it supposed to be pronounced? With a lot of schwas or with a
>> consonnant cluster of 8 consonnants?
>
>My grammar says "one syllable per vowel". So it *is* a consonant cluster
>(v-p-r-ts-k-v-n, seven consonants, since /ts/ is affricate). And it also
>says "almost no assimilation"! Wow.
>
        I agree: wow! A consonnant cluster with 3 stops, one affricate, two
fricatives, a nasal and something else (what is 'r'? a trill, a flap, a
fricative?) and where unvoiced and voiced consonnants are mixed! I can
pronounce it (with much attention) but I'm sure I wouldn't recognize it if
I heard it!

>
>--Pablo Flores
>
>
                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html