Re: 'Yemls Morphology

From: "Jeff Jones" <jeffsjones@...>

[ego]
| >A language that uses only affixes to express grammatical functions is
| >called "agglutinative"; inflection usually reflects internal changes such
| >as ablaut (changing vowels). English has both in verbs such as "sing": the
| >past and past participles "sang" and "sung", but the present participle
| >"singing".
|
| 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.

Glad you brought that up.  English can fit into all three categories of
inflected, agglutinative and isolating.  I think a more correct terminology is
"synthetic" vs. "analytic", and all languages are both in varying amounts.

| >In Classical Greek you have a 3x3 matrix of aspect-tense combinations
| >(perfect/aorist/imperfect; past/present/future), with a total of seven
| >since the aorist present and future do not exist. I just wish I remembered
| >how they formed.
|
| Well, I can't remember either, even though "Homeric Greek" sits next to the
| computer. Not only do you have to account for different personal endings
| between the various tenses and aspect combinations, there are differences
| for the various moods and voices. I'm trying to make 'Yemls a bit simpler
| than Greek (or any classical IE language for that matter).

Huh, I'm actually trying to invent a more complex language than classical IE and
Semitic languages.  Good luck...

~DaW~


_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

Replies