Re: Basque Gender Marking (was Re: Further language development Q's)

On 24 Sep 2004 "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@UCH...> wrote:

> Our understanding of its phonology and morphology are based
> almost entirely on how Sumerian words borrowed into Akkadian
> were pronounced, sometimes centuries after Sumerian ceased to
> be spoken as a living language.  It is therefore difficult if
> not impossible to know whether these kinds of collocations that
> you mention are not just cliticized forms, and we can therefore
> not know whether to call Sumerian polysynthetic (to the extent
> that that term has any real meaning).
  As for the phonetics, maybe you are true. However we make
statements even on PIE phonology that is also a reconstruction.
IMHO therefore this argument is not enough to preclude the theory-
making.  Well, we do not know the exact phonetical value of
Sumerian |d| but it surely contrasts with another phoneme
transcribed as |t|.  Thus |d| and |t| are proper 'variable names'
in a linguistic function.

  As for the morphology, I see things differently. We do not have
to reach phonetical level to form morphological analysis (it is
much more explicit in a logographic language).

  Let's see the word |mu-na-ni-n-du-{}| 'he/she has built it there
for him/her'. Morpheme "mu" is the ventive mood marker, i.e. the
subject is personally involved in the act (i.e. he/she is an
animate Actor) and usually (but not ineluctably) benefits for
(another) animate Recipient.

  There is another phrase |lugal-e e mu-n-du-{}| 'the king has
build up the temple', (king-ERG temple VENTIVE-PERF:sg3-build-
ABS:sg3).  The morphemes |na| and |ni| in the first example may be
clitics but if they are clitic, the behave like infixes (i.e. they
are inserted into a morpheme chain).

  There is a third phrase: |nanna-ra urnammu-ke e-a-ni mu-na-n-du-
{}| 'Urnammu has built his temple for god Nanna' (Nanna-DAT Urnammu-
ERG temple-GEN-ANIMATE:sg3 VENTIVE-DAT:ANIMATE:sg3-PERF:sg3-build-
ABS:sg3).  There is a separate inserted reference of the Recipient
(in Dative) in the verbal morpheme chain.  This is another
characteristic that is common in verbal affixes.

  Moreover, AFAIK Sumerian verbal morpheme chains seems to be
strongly positional, that is devided into slots. E.g. in
affirmative: Prefix slots: 1. modal morphemes, 2. directional
morphemes (cf. English phrasal verbs, Slavic verbal prefixes), 3-4-
5. morphemes for verbal arguments (Patient, Recipient, Location
etc.), 6. mood+person+number (of Actor); Verb stem; Suffix slots
...  Slots are also an affixal feature.

  And finally, there are phonetical changes (assimilations) that
are characteristic for word-internal positions and not for simple
juxtapositions of separate words (unbound morphemes).

  And if something behave like an affix, IMHO it can be treated as
an affix. Surely, Sumerian has a very particular affix chaining
(even on noun phrases!), therefore it differs somehow from the
present polysynthetic
languages.  But I do not see another "container" for Sumerian in
the
typology schemes I know.  (Btw, in English literature, is there
distinction
between terms "polysynthetic" and "incorporating"?)

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