Re: 'Yemls Morphology

On Mon, 9 Jul 2001 19:56:40 -0500, Thomas R. Wier
<artabanos@...> wrote:

>Jeff Jones wrote:
>
>> That's what I thought. But it seems there is no clear boundary between
>> the two. Japanese is considered to be inflecting while Turkish is
>> agglutinating.
>> In 'Yemls, the affixes are distinct in writing, making it agglutinating,
>> yet their are interactions between affixes and stems at the phonological
>> level. As for clitics, there is no difference from agglutinative affixes
>> that I can see.
>
>Usually the terminological difference depends on the scope of the
>boundness that's implied.  While agglutinated affixes are bound both
>phonologically and morphosyntactically to their root, clitics are usually
>said to be bound phonologically, but not morphosyntactically. For
>example, take the following line of Homeric Greek:
OK, that clarifies it quite a bit. Now, if I can remember it in the future.
I don't know if it will make much difference for 'Yemls, though, since the
same morphological system is used for all words (where applicable) with
minor differences.

>        Ho gar é:lthe thóas epì né:as Akhaío:n /
>    lusómenós te thúgatra... (Il. I. 12-13)
>        For [Kryses] came to the swift ships of the Akhaians /
>    to free his daughter...
>
>In the word _lusómenós_, the following _te_ (which is cognate and mostly
>equivalent to Latin -que, "and") forces the second accent to arise, since
>in Greek an accent must fall in the antepenult or after.  But the _te_ is
>not bound to nouns only, as the following examples illustrate:
>
>    Kalkhas Thestorides, oionopolo:n okh' aristos /
>    hos e:de: ta t' eonta, ta t' essomena, pro t' eonta... (Il. I.69-70)
>    Kalkhas son of Thestor, by far the best of dream-interpreters,
>    who knows both what is, and what will be, and what has been before...
>
>where _tá_ functions as a relative pronoun, and _pró_ as an adverb;
>
>        ... ho d' Atreíde:n enarízoi, /
>    ê:e khólon paúseien ere:túseié te thumón (Il. 191-192)
>        ... while [Akhilleus] might slay the son of Atreus, /
>    or he might put a stop to his anger and restrain his heart.
>
>and _ere:túseié_ a verb, "to restrain, keep in check".
(BTW, I plan to look a the Greek examples more closely later on)

>> >| An expressed subject is marked by lengthening the last vowel without
>> >| changing the stress (see Vowel Lengthening), i.e. if the subject was
>> >| originally monosyllabic, it remains unstressed.
>
>It is highly unusual in the world's languages for phonemically long vowels
>not to receive stress if stress is allowed -- vowel length attracts stress;
>in Optimality Theory, this is known as the "Stress-to-Weight" Principle.
I've noticed that it's easier to stress the long syllable, but didn't know
if it was considered a universal. I've decided that stress in 'Yemls will
be primarily pitch-based, which reduces the problem. Also, most roots will
have 3 moras, usually with the first one stressed, and many of these will
have long or quasi-long syllables combining the first 2.

>However, that is a statistical universal:  Hungarian is a counterexample
>(of which, unfortunately, I have no current record with me to provide).
IIRC, Czech always stresses the first syllable, even if there are long
vowels later on.

>However, final syllables also tend in many languages to be extrametrical
>(they don't count for purposes of stress), and so STW might not be a
>problem for you.
I don't think it will be. Syntax on the other hand ....

Jeff

>Well, this post turned out to be entirely about phonology, even though
>you were discussing morphology. Oh well.
>
>===================================
>Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier
>
>"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
>  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
>autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
>  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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