Re: diachrony

In a message dated 7/27/01 10:42:15 AM, tom@TELP.COM writes:

<< Another important thing to bring in at this point is word-forming
mechanisms. These are not static, but change with time. Different affixes
may fall in and out of use, and other strategies, such as compounding or
stem modification, may vary in their application over time. Every language
has word-forming strategies that are "productive" (meaning speakers can use
them freely to coin new words that they haven't heard before but which are
completely natural to speakers of the language) and others that are
fossilized--we can recognize and understand them in words where they have
been used, but can't use them spontaneously without the resulting words
seeming odd. Of course, there is a continuum between these extremes. >>

    I'm working over one of my languages to make it seem more realistic
without creating a proto-language, and this is exactly what I'm doing.  I
have a list of about twenty affixes, many of which render the same result
with only slight differences (for instance, a suffix which makes an abstract
noun out of a naturally existing noun via metaphor, and a suffix that makes
an abstract noun out of an adjective, of a verb, etc.).  Only, I'm not doing
it regularly, so that, while the speakers will still be able to add these
affixes instinctively, they won't actively realize that this word is combined
of this noun and this affix (like Esperanto).  So, the word for "night" is
/venIs/, derived from the word for "star", /ven/.  Speakers might not even
notice this, or it'd be something that'd come up in conversation as
interesting.  However, they would know that adding /-Is/ to any noun makes a
word which means, roughly, "an abstract noun which has to do with what x noun
is like or does or is perceived by us".  Anyway, that was just my two cents
thrown into the pond <ripple, ripple>

-David