Re: Strong/weak verbs, expanded infinitives and applicatives

Hello, everyone, and thanks for writing.
Hello especially, Taliesin the Story-Teller.  I did not see your post.
"Broken Plurals" versus "Sound Plurals" is a distinction mostly heard
when speaking of Arabic; next Hebrew; next other Semitic languages;
next Iraqw; next other Cushitic languages; but I think it occurs in
several subgroups of Afro-Asiatic languages including Semitic and
Cushitic.
In these languages, many sets of words are made out of tri-literal or
tri-consonantal roots or "radicals" which are then "transfixed" with
vowel patterns; kind of a run-away ablaut or apophony, as if they
were designed by a conlanger who had heard of ablaut and
thought, "What a neat idea!  Who needs affixes?  I'll just use a
minimum of 44 kinds of ablaut for /everything/!  And if I run out,
I'll make up new kinds of ablaut!  And, why restrict it to the /last/
vowel?  I'll ablaut /every/ vowel in /every/ word!"

So, suppose the root was, say, DRS.
You would have various words with related meanings and various vowels
distributed through these consonants ("v" represents any variable
vowel, not necessarily the same one every time, or possibly no vowel);
vDvRvSv
vDvDvRvSv
vDvRvRvSv
vDvRvSvSv
Also, there are some prefixes and suffixes that contain just one
consonant each.  If one of these is used, it is called a "servile
consonant".
In this case you could have, for instance, "m" for a servile
consonant in the prefix, or "t" for a servile consonant in the
suffix, and get words with patterns that might be like
vmvDvRvSv
vDvRvSvtv
vmvDvRvSvtv

Problems come up if; 1)the first consonant of the root is one of the
consonants allowed as a servile consonant in a prefix; 2) the last
consonant of the root is one of the consonants allowed as a servile
consonant in a suffix; 3) the second consonant of the root is the
same as its first consonant; 4) the second consonant of the root is
the same as its last consonant; 5) any of the consonants of the root
is a semi-vowel; 6) any of the consonants of the root is a glottalic
or laryngeal.  If a root has just one of these problems, there are
well-established, systematic ways to handle it.  If a root has
exactly two of these problems, it can be handled in various
idiosyncratic ways.  If a root has three or more of these problems,
then, I think, it is not likely to be used much as a root.

Some roots, such as the DRS root, form their plurals by adding a
suffix.  In Arabic, the feminine suffix contains the servile
consonant "t".  So, the plural of maDRaSa is maDRaSat.  (Someone
correct me if I'm wrong.  I know the principle is correct, but my
example could be all screwed up, I suppose.)

These are the "Sound Plurals".

However, some roots can't take the "normal" masculine and/or feminine
plural endings -- "-im" and "-ot" in Hebrew -- or whatever the
different plural ending(s) are(is) for their language.

Some of these form their plurals by the ablaut/apophony method that
underlies nearly all inflection and derivation for every other
category.

Plurals so formed are called "Broken Plurals".

I drew a parallel between "Broken Plurals" for Semitic and Cushitic
(and perhaps Berber and Ancient Egyptian and other Afro-Asiatic)
nouns, and "Strong Verbs" as opposed to just plain "irregular" verbs.

Here is a URL about Broken and Sound Plurals.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2002/ling001/nhomework3.html

Here is a URL reviewing another source; I quote part of their review.
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/linguist/issues/16/16-1363.html
"|Chapter 5: Noun and Adjective inflection describes gender and
|number inflections. Both adjectives and nouns are marked for
|masculine or feminine and singular or plural, although some are also
|used in dual forms. Morphophonological processes of elision and
|vowel insertion and inversion are illustrated in the lists of
|examples provided. The major part of this chapter is devoted to the
|plural. In MA, as in other varieties of Arabic, nouns and adjectives
|have either sound (regular) or broken (irregular) plural forms.
|Sound plurals are formed by an addition of a suffix [-in], [-a] for
|masculine and [-at] for feminine. Tables illustrate plural formation
|based on type of noun or adjective, phonological shape of the stem
|and phonological processes resulting from the addition of the plural
|suffix. There are about forty different broken plural patterns and
|one cannot predict which singular forms takes which broken plural
|pattern. In some cases one singular noun can be derived in more than
|one broken plural pattern sometimes with the same meaning and
|sometimes with different ones."

Hope that helps.

-----

I'm still curious whether anyone else thinks my parallel (between
broken plurals and strong verbs) was apt.

If no-one does, perhaps someone has a good reason why not.

Comments?

Thanks,

Tom H.C. in MI

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@W...>
wrote:
> Hallo!
>
> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
>
> > * tomhchappell said on 2005-08-08 21:36:39 +0200
> > > True or false;
> > > Strong conjugation vs weak conjugation, for verbs,
> > > is like
> > > broken plurals vs sound plurals, for nouns.
> >
> > What are broken and sound plurals? Some English phenomenon?
Arabic?
>
> Arabic.  Sound plurals are plurals formed with some kind of plural
> suffix, while the less common broken plurals change the word's
> vowels, or something like that.  Don't ask me for details; I am
> no expert on this.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Jörg.

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