Re: Grammatical metathesis
| From: | Mike Ellis <nihilsum@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, August 8, 2004, 21:59 |
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Trebor Jung wrote:
>I know some conlangs like Mark Rosenfelder's Kebreni use grammatical
>metathesis. Do any natlangs?
Someone here mentioned Rotuman a while ago. They switch the last two sounds
of a word to show definite/indefinite.
from http://www2.hawaii.edu/oceanic/rotuma/os/languageprjct.htm :
"
In 1977, one of us, Cairns, published an article about Rotuman phonology,
analyzing the differences between two forms of words. As explained on the
Rotuman web site, most words in Rotuman have both a complete and an
incomplete form. So, for example, the word for flower, 'hosa' appears in the
complete form (hosa) when the speaker means "the flowers", and in the
incomplete form, hoas, when the speaker means a more indefinite "flowers."
"
M
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