Re: How to minimize "words" (was "Re: isolating conlangs")

Hi BP

On 23/02/07, Benct Philip Jonsson < conlang@melroch.se > wrote:
>
> H. S. Teoh skrev:
> > On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 05:05:33AM +0000, Jeff Rollin
> > wrote: [...]
> >> My own conlang/artlang, provisionally called Vallian
> >> (Vn), attempts to minimize the number of independent
> >> "words" in a sentence by using as many suffixes as
> >> possible (the language is exclusively suffixing).
> > [...]
> >
> > This is very interesting. Taken to the logical conclusion,
> > you could end up with a conlang where every clause is a
> > single word, consisting of a root at the start, with
> > suffixes piled on behind it. E.g., you could start with a
> > verbal root, with some argument noun roots stuck behind it
> > in some order, with some tense/aspect morphemes thrown in
> > for good measure. The morphemes can "melt" into each other
> > via mutations, so that it's difficult to tell where
> > morphemic boundaries are.
>
> Many if not the majority of Native American languages are
> way ahead down that road, although they as a rule have both
> prefixes and suffixes. Look up [[Polysysnthesis]] in
> Wikipedia!

Indeed. Because I like gendered languages, my own conlang has adjectives as
separate words, which exhibit agreement with the gender of the relevant
noun. However, some polysynthetic languages include "adjectives" which are
simply affixes on the noun-root.

I don't see any reason, however, why you couldn't have both; after all, the
North Germanic languages, and Bulgarian/Macedonian, have "definite articles"
which are actually suffixes on the noun; they vary with the gender of the
noun they are affixed to: e.g.

B "kniga-ta" "book[F]-the.F.SG."

"kuče-to" "dog[N]-the.N.SG" (Corbett (2006:13).

Other languages (such as Vn!) use different suffixes on the noun to indicate
plural, depending on whether the noun is animate/animate or similar.

- So why not do it with adjectives?!

For example, where I previously used the example "fluent-ish Engl-ish" or
something like that, you might have something like "fluent-ishEngl-ish"
(hyphens used only for clarity).

Jeff