Re: Isolating languages

Ph.D. wrote:

> Steven Williams wrote:
> >
> > --- Caleb Hines <Bachmusic1@...> schrieb:
> > > Are there many non-Sino-Tibetan isolangs? (I know
> > > English is one)
> >
> > For an isolating language that isn't Sino-Tibetan, I
> > think Yoruba is a good example, though I know next to
> > nothing of that language.
Isn't it tonal too?? Lots of W.African langs are.
> >
> > > Are there many non-tonal isolangs?
> >
> > English. Other than that, I don't know. Are you
> > looking for monosyllablic non-tonal isolangs?
>
> Aren't most Austronesian languages isolating and non-tonal?
> (although they're not monosyllabic)
>
The Chamic languages of Vietnam/Cambodia have become/are becoming tonal
under the influence of their neighbors, but that's about it for tonal AN
langs. (I think 1 or 2 have been reported from New Guinea, again probably
due to local influences but I'm not sure.)

From what we've seen here, I don't think we could call Philippine langs.
like Tagalog isolating... OTOH Malay and its relatives are about as
isolating (and SVO) as English--they have derivational morphology, but no
case or tense forms. That's also true of most of the Indonesian languages
I'm familiar with. Typically they have prefix/suffix morphology
(active/passive and some other focus things for verbs; noun derivations),
and almost all have possessive suffixes.

The related langs. Ngadha [Na.?d)a] and Lio of Flores _seem_ on slight
acquaintance to be more isolating than most. As far as my students and I
could tell, they've lost all the verbal morphology, and IIRC simply
postposed the full pers.pronouns to express the possessive. SVO. They are
also overwhelmingly CVCV and (personal feeling) rather jingly and boring to
hear...........

Found this Ngadha wordlist on Google:
http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/show_lsearch.php?id=00100

It mentions Arndt's dictionary (he also wrote a grammar, both in German)
from the 19-teens or 20s; there's also a more recent dissertation on the
lang. by Stephanus Djawanai, published IIRC in the ANU's Pacific Linguistic
series. (Hard to find...:-(((( )