Re: USAGE: Classification questions

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 3:41 PM
Subject: USAGE: Classification questions


> This is really about linguistics more than usage, but I'm curious
> about classification of languages in edge cases.    I apologize for
> showing my ignorance, but I'm sure someone on here can help clear
> things up. :)
>
> For instance, the Romance languages are SVO if the object is a noun,
> SOV if the object is a pronoun.  Which order is considered the
> fundamental one?
>
> It also seems that there's a very fine line between agglutination and
> inflection, since many inflections can be analyzed as
>
>         (root + original suffix) - original suffix + new suffix
>
> And often the suffix is universally applicable to other roots.
> For instance, in Latin the verb suffix -o means "first person
> present indicative".  You can argue that it's not agglutination
> because the -o isn't further analyzable into a piece that means
> "first person", one that means "present", and one that means
> "indicative".  But then what about the Klingon verb prefixes,
> which each convey the person and number of both the subject and the
> direct object but are not analyzable into subject and object pieces?
> What makes Klingon verb conjugation agglutinative while Latin is
> inflected?
>
> I won't go into agglutinating vs. isolating, 'cause that gets into
> the whole "what is a word" can of worms. :)
>
> Can someone help me see the light?
Hmmm...

I think the difference lies in the basic form.  If there is an uninflected
form, then it is agglutinative, if not, then it is inflecting.

I'm largely making this up on the spot, but still.

For instance, the latin for, say...'house' is 'domus'.  However, in the
accusative, this does not change to 'domusum', but 'domum'.  On the other
hand, in Hungarian, taking the same word(which is, I believe, 'ház'[no, I
don't know Hungarian]), the accusative is 'házat'.  This definition, though
ould make bits of the third declension in Latin agglutinative.

> Thanks.
>
> -Mark
>