Re: Grie Ka #1 (was Re: ,Language' in language name?)

From: "Kala Tunu" <kalatunu@...>

> avid Peterson a écrit :
>
> """""""""""""""""""""
> jafix   vs.     fixja
> jahari  vs.     harija
> jasom   vs.     somja
>
>     I still find the second list slightly easier.  Maybe
> it's just me.
Thank you for the evaluation!!

> Anyone else want to take a stab at this?
>
> -David
> """""""""""""""""""
> it's fun to try. i find the first easier list. maybe it's
> because i'm french plus i guess what fix, hari and som
> roughly mean. so i think "ja [de] fix", "ja [de] hari", "ja
> [de] som" like i would do with khmer or indonesian (and
> that's why my conlangs have this word order). really the
> secular head-tail vs. tail-head word order dilemma. BTW i
> think in old french the genitive was made without "de": "le
> cheval le roi" = le cheval du roi. but i have no pb to
> reverse that word order when switching to english or
> japanese. it's just that my poor brain feels the "jafix"
> word order more natural. it would be interesting to know how
> other romance language speakers on the list feel about that.
>
This is really interesting. This may suggest the reason why I felt
'fixpul' and 'haripul' are more easily recognized as different words than
the case of  'pulfix' and 'pulhari' was just one of
'unintentional influences from one's mother tongue' :-)

But let me point out one thing. (no matter picky I am!)
" ja [de] fix" seems to consist of two words, not one :-)
In the case of two words, even in Ka, the phrase " Grie Ka " itself is one of
the examples of category word comming first.
The thing is in Ka, 'pul' can be an independent word, but 'hari'
(or 'fix' or 'som') is not treated as an independent word.
Well,,,, am I just sticking to a silly point?

Anyway, here I have a question (actually two).
 Even in a romance language like French, IIRC,
inflection (declension, conjugation, etc.) is mainly carried out by changing the
ending of the word, not the beginning of the word.
Am I right? And if I'm right, I'm wondering why it is so. (Psycology?)
Or would anyone on the list provide me the interesting examples of languages
 where inflection is done by changing the begining of words?

Hiro

Reply