Re: A Self-segregating morphology (was: Guinea pigs invited)

--- Patrick Littell <puchitao@...> wrote:

<snip>

>
> So long as we have separate consonant and vowel
> "tiers", why not
> assign meaning to the various vowel melodies, to
> give us a "binyamin"
> root-and-pattern system?
<snip>

Those are some very fascinating ideas! I had never
hear of "binyamin" before so I had to look it up and
do some studying. Wow! There's a huge range of complex
possibilities there.

Assuming a non-inflected isolating language (so we
don't have to waste vowel melodies on inflections),
how about having 8,000 roots of 3 consonants each (20
unique consonants) and letting the vowel pattern
determine part of speech and shades of meanings. For
example, let the root "nlj" represent things having to
do with knowledge and learning. ('j' pronounced as in
"judge") Then we might have these non-inflected words:

nlj - knowledge

-- vowel changes only (including -n on the vowel) --

nalija     n knowledge
nulajo     adj known
nuliajo    adj knowable
naleji     v to know (as in knowing a fact)
analenji   v to not know, to be ignorant of
niloja     n aquaintenceship
niloji     v to know (as being aquinted with a person)
anilonji   v be unaquainted with, as to not know a
certain person
inalijo    adj. knowledgeable
onolaju    adv. knowledgeably
analinja   n ignorance
analinjo   adj unknown
analianjo  adj unknowable

vowel melodies:

a/i/a = primary noun (knowledge)
u/a/o = primary adj (known)
u/ia/o = primary adj of ability (knowable)
a/e/i = primary verb (to know)
a~a/en/i = negative primary verb (to not know)
i/o/a = secondary noun (acquaintanceship)
i/o/i = secondary verb (to be acquainted with a
person)
a~i/on/i = negative secondary verb (to be unacquainted
with)
o~o/a/u = primary adverb (knowledgeably)
...
a~a/ian/o = negative primary adjective of ability
(unknowable)
...etc...

-- compounds --

finaliji   v to aquire knowledge
genaliji   v to teach (hard "g")
kanalija   n lesson, chapter, unit of knowledge
nalijuma   n scholar, knowledgeable person
nalijubo   adj knowledgeable
nalijuli   adv knowledgeably
finalijuma n pupil, student, learning person
genalijuma n teacher, teaching person
analinjuma n ignoramus, dunce, ignorant person
geniloji   v to introduce (as one person to another)
kianaleji  v to discover, invent, create knowledge
nilojama   n an acquaintence, a person you know

etc.

A few affixes:

~bu adjective ending
~li adverb ending
~ma person who does or has a thing
~ia~ possible, able to be done
a~(~n~) non-, lacking
fi~ to aquire, take, search for
ge~ to give, impart, donate
ka~ unit or quantum of
kia~ to cause, to create, to originate

And I'm sure that only scratches the surface of
derivational possibilities from one root: "nlj".

--gary

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