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

On 12/19/05, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:
> --- Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...> wrote:
> > > Anyway, I didn't
> > > think Arabic used vowels to alter the meaning of
> > > roots.
> > They do use them extensively! _kataba_ 'he wrote',
> > _yuktubu_ 'he writes',
> > _ka:tibu_ 'he who writes', _kati:bu_ 'written',
> > _maktabu_ '(place) of
> > writing' that is 'school' (with prefix m-) etc.
> Yes, that's it. Except for the inflections. My
> intention was to create an isolating language where
> the parts of speech and basic meaning of the word were
> changed by switching the vowels, but there would be no
> inflections for tense, person, case, etc. These would
> be handled, where absolutely necessary, by particles.
It sounds like a neat project.  But I'm not sure "isolating"
is the right word for a language that has derivational
morphology but not inflectional morphology; you would,
I think, have typically at least two morphemes per word
(consonant pattern + vowel pattern) so "isolating"
doesn't seem quite the right term.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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