Re: THEORY: Polysynthetic languages - used in a sentence?

From:    Sai Emrys <saizai@...>
> /Contemporary Linguistics/ (O'Grady) gives me this example of a
> polysynthetic language sentence-word (from Inuktitut):
>
> Qasu-iir-sar-vig-ssar-si-ngit-luinar-nar-puq.
>
> [tired not cause-to-be place-for suitable find not completely
> someone 3.SG]
> "Someone did not find a completely suitable resting place."
>
> ... what is the root morpheme of this mess?
The notion "root morpheme" is not always very useful in a polysynthetic
language.  Here, "tired" is closest; most of the other stuff is category
changing derivational morphology that allows verbs to become incredibly
huge.

> And what, if any, is its part of speech (/ "grammatical category")?
It's a verb.  Polysynthetic languages are defined by their rich
verbal morphology and head-marking characteristics.

> Can this be used further in a sentence (i.e., "qasu-etc foo")?
Yes.  What's more amazing is that IIRC in Greenlandic, which is
closely related, incorporated nouns may be referential and even
introduced as such in the discourse, contrary to a lot of functionalist
literature.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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