Re: Isolating syntax, agglutinating grammar

>On 4/8/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> > Can I expect more than one basic meaning per
> > most word+tone combinations?
>
>I think yes -- which is why so many words in modern spoken Mandarin
>are disyllabic. (Not sure whether they can be called bimorphemic,
>though, though words such as "shenti" are analysable more easily than,
>say, "zhizhu" or "hudie", the canonical bisyllabic-but-monomorphemic
>word, at least in some claims.)
>
>Cheers,
>--
>Philip Newton
OK. Thanks.

--Roger Mills wrote:
>
> > OTOH, I've contemplated a language that *looks* isolating - in that it'd
> > be dominatingly monosyllabic -
>
>IMO predominantly monosyl. langs. probably descend from polysyl. langs., so
>you might need to work out the historical development.
Meh... Couldn't I just say that the language's been monosyllabic for quite
some time already? :)


> >..but would express cases and stuff with
> > mutations, clustering of consonants and maybe even tones, too.
>
>Certainly possible. If you're actually starting with monosyl.forms, it
>might
>be necessary to allow rather complex structure, in order to get enough
>variety.
My current draft has about 5 initial and 3 final POA with about 10
consonants / clusters each (plus 20-ish vowels/difthongs.) I can think of
some possible further additions, but I'm not really going to go fully
kitchensink.


>As for case distinctions-- in order to be at least a little realistic,
>there
>should be phonetic reasons for tones to develop (of course, realism may not
>be your criterion, which is OK...). The most common development(s) observed
>are: voiceless C lead to high(er) tones, voiced to low(er)
I'd probably start with multisyllabic words plus high/low tone - which, I
imagine, would collapse fairly easily into monosyllabic contour tones, no?


> > I'm however afraid the
> > morphophonology might get too strained.
>
>Since when has that ever been a problem for a conlanger??? :-)))
"All verbs must end with a nasal" sort of solutions aren't my thing, nor is
unlimited clustering really...

John Vertical