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Re: Agglutinativity Index (was: Re: What's a good isolating language to look at)

From:John Quijada <jq_ithkuil@...>
Date:Friday, December 9, 2005, 6:15
I'm not understanding something about this synthesis index.  Do zero-marked
morpheme values get counted when determining the index?  For example, all
finite English verb forms carry semantic values for person, number, tense,
mood, and voice.  That's five separate morphological categories plus the
stem itself for a total of six morphemes.  However, in a sentence such as
"We sing" only one of these six morphemes is morpho-phonologically
manifested/marked by the verb form, that being the stem; all the remaining
five morphemes are zero-marked "default" categories (present tense,
indicative mood, first person, plural number, active voice).  So does the
word "sing" in "We sing" get counted as one morpheme or as six morphemes for
purposes of determining the morpheme count?

Replies

Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Dirk Elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...>