Re: Language Sketch: Yargish Orkish

Thomas Wier wrote:
>
>Quoting Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:
>
> > Roger Mills wrote:
> > >Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > >(snip interesting description.   I like.)
> > >
> > > >> > PRONOUNS
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Yargish pronouns don't have any gender distinctions, nor any
> > > >> > formal/informal distinctions, which makes for a neat pronoun
> > > >> > table with forms for three persons, two numbers and four cases
> > > >> > (again, the locative is only used with postpositions).
> > > >> >
> > > >> > -     1st.sg 1st.pl 2nd.sg 2nd.pl 3rd.sg 3rd.pl
> > > >> > - abs ang    nazur  zdi    naja   ach     nava
> > > >> > - erg nga    zura   zda    ja     acha    va
> > > >> > - dat ngu    zuru   zdu    ju     achu    vu
> > > >> > - loc ngiz   zuriz  zdiz   jayz   achiz   naviz
> > > >>
> > > >>[T.Wier] Can you talk a little more about the suppletion here?
> > > >
> > > >As soon as somebody reminds me what "suppletion" means!
> > >
> > > Substitution of phonologically unrelated forms in a paradigm
> > > (usually old synonyms) .  [...] Since na- is your plural marker,
> > > one might have expected some combination of na and ang in the
> > > lst pl, na/zdi for 2nd pl. etc.  The roots -zur, -ja and -va
> > > are suppletive (apparently).
> >
> > Thanks. Yes, they're suppletive. As for Thomas Wier's question, well
>it's
> > nothing remarkable for a language to have unrelated forms for I~we,
> > thou~you, he/she/it~they, is it?
>
>No, not at all unusual.  I was just curious what might have
>lead to that particular pattern.
We-ell, I tend to do linguistic development backwards - beginning with "end"
forms and work out the preceeding stages from them. In this case I've simply
decided that I wanted suppletive forms for the pronomial plurals, and
haven't worked out how the present system has evolved. I wanted something
between the extreme regularity in the Tairezazh personal pronoun system and
the mishmash of suppletion and homophony in the Germanic ones.

                                                   Andreas

                                               Andreas

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