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Re: Suprafixes (was Re: TECH: Testing again, no new on-topic content (...))

From:Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Date:Saturday, November 15, 2003, 19:02
On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 16:52:12 +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
wrote:

> Hallo! > > On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 10:22:49 +0100, > Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote: > >> Quoting Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>: >> >> > I have been reading the descriptions of Mattole and Burushaski, as >> well as >> > some half-remembered stuff on Eskimo-Aleut languages, and I've been >> cooking >> > up one hell of a non-English, non-PIE, quite alien (to me) language. >> > >> > The first notable point is that it has 26 different Person/Gender >> > inflections for verbs, some of which depend on the gender of both the >> > speaker and the listener. It has 53 consonants and 15 vowels. Roots >> are all >> > CV monosyllabic. It is agglutinative, and does so via suffixes and >> > suprafixes, and has ablaut as a result, as well as vowel harmony. > > Whoa! Sounds very complicated, almost like Danny Wier's Tech! > Hope you manage, and not get stuck in build-and-tear cycles like Danny. > (BTW, I haven't heard of Danny for months.)
Not deliberately like Tech, but I suppose there are similarities now I think about it. I'm pretty well just going to fire and forget when it comes to this language, and go with first instincts all the way. Do I care if this makes a higgledy-piggledy mess of a language? No, I do not. Real languages are messy. At least, I don't care yet. I may have a nervous breakdown somewhere along the way. ;-)
>> Suprafixes? And that would be? > > AFAIK, a "suprafix" is a derivation or inflection which involves > changes to suprasegmentals, e.g. an accent shift.
Yes. It's an affix that works by modifying existing sounds rather than adding new sounds. The first example I thought of was the marker for reflexive possession (i.e. marking the object of a verb as being possessed by the subject of the same verb), which manifests as a lengthening of the vowel of the possessed root. Except "lengthening" is a semi-native term, and not exactly what happens. Here's a quick example, rather hastily converted to ASCII, but I'll try to avoid typos. Period after a letter means a dot below that letter. Apostrophe after a letter means an acute above that letter. z.d.a'dlha fpumo /z`d`AK\V fpUmo/ "he hit my arm" z.d.a'dlha fpu' /z`d`AK\V fpu/ "he hit his own arm" z.d.a' fpux.e' /z`d`A fpUXE/ "I hit his arm" z.d.a' fpu' /z`d`A fpu/ "I hit my own arm" Note the /U/ -> /u/ for reflexive possession, compared to the suffixes for regular possession. Paul