Re: LANGUAGE LAWS

Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:
> I strongly agree with you. Also, these languages often refer to one
> specific context by means of a locution made of several morphemes.
> For instance, 'to give' would be referred to as 'hand...give' and
> 'cow' as 'animal-cow'. I think that Europeans often underestimate
> these 'classifiers' as 'redundant', whereas I do believe they are an
> inherent part of the concept evoked. It's not a question of compounding
> but of limiting and identifying the concept meant. Maybe 'grammar'
> originate from some of these parts of words having gained mandatory
> syntactic role ?
Well, I don't think that these polysynthetic types *are* older than
"modern" types.  Your example of "animal-cow" is essentially a
gender-marker (animal gender).  When such classifiers become mandatory,
and spread to other words in the sentences (e.g., adjectives, verbs,
pronouns), then they become genders.

Actually, I think that polysynthetic is the newest type.  My personal
theory is that the first language was a few words, no grammar.  Much
like pidgins, relying on context.  For instance, in Hawaiian pidgin
(early pidgin), "me cape buy, me check make" could mean "He bought my
coffee, he made me a check", or "I bought coffee, I made out a check"
(that's an actual example).  Nouns and verbs, perhaps, were the first
words.  Grammar would have appeared, but perfectly regular (no irregular
verbs, for instance), with a few simple rules.  Fixed word order, some
way of distinguishing objects and subjects (either word order, redundant
pronouns, or adpositions).  As the human mind grew in complexity,
subordination, etc. appeared.  Various particles fused with words
(adpositions with nouns, pronouns with verbs, for example), forming
aglutinating and polysynthetic languages, as more fusion occured,
fusional languages appeared, and finally those inflections were lost,
returning to isolating, and so the cycle continued.

Or, perhaps, language appeared full-blown, like ISN (idioma de signos
nicaraguense), where deaf people, who had never learned sign language,
pooled together a group of crude signs into a pidgin, dubbed LSN (lengua
de signos nicaraguense).  Children observed this and created a
full-blown language, ISN.  If Tommie's theory that the human mind
prefers polysynthetic was true, one would expect a polysynthetic
language to have emerged, yet it is, IINM, isolating.

--
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was hanged." - Irish proverb
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