Re: Too Many Too Little Possible Roots!!!

Nik Taylor wrote:

>Kristian Jensen wrote:
>> It seems to me that if a conlanger wants to create a
>> naturalistic conlang, s/he should be careful not to create a
>> phonology and/or root structure that's complicated.
>
>Well, there are some languages with over 100 phonemes.  !Xu~
>IIRC) has 92 *consonants*, and a bunch of vowels, the record for
>consonants.  So, it's hard to think of a conlang that could have
>*more* than that (altho, IIRC, some of the phonemes are only used
>in inflections and/or mutations)
>
True! But !Xu~ is a khoisan language, right? As far as I remember,
khoisan roots are predominantly monosyllabic. My point again is that
languages would tend to obtain/maintain a specific number of
possible roots. So a language like !Xu~ would not need to have
polysyllabic roots because the number of possible monosyllabic roots
is sufficient. If !Xu~ had a smaller phoneme inventory, then there
might not be enough monosyllabic roots to express every desired
concept. A smaller inventory almost begs that the language develop
other ways to increase the number of possible roots. E.g., by adding
tones, using polysyllables, etc...

>> Basically, a language would strive to obtain/maintain an ideal
>> number of possible roots. If such is the case, is there a
>> recommended maximum/minimum to the number of possible roots
>> such a conlang should have?
>
>I don't know, but it would probably have a large variation.
>Syllables are definitely a huge variable, anywhere from 162 in
>Hawaiian (which therefore has lots of 2- and 3-syllable roots) to
>tens of thousands in others.
>
That's what I thought too. Among the languages I have looked at, I
have found that languages that have under ca. 5000 possible
syllables have predominantly polysyllabic roots. While those with
over ca. 10,000 possible syllables have predominantly monosyllabic
roots.

>> But say Chinese developed into a language with polysyllables,
>> then the tonal contrasts would not be necessary. In fact,
>> Mandarin Chinese with only four contrastive tones has quite a
>> few polysyllabic roots.
>
>IINM, Mandarin *is* becoming polysyllabic, due to formerly
>independent words being added together.  Many chinese languages
>use compounds of synonyms or near-synonyms to clarify which
>meaning is intended, as in the Chinese pidgin look-see (since
>borrowed by mainstream English). Counters also help to
>disambiguate meanings.
>
YES! Exactly what I thought. Mandarin *is* indeed becoming
polysyllabic. Since it doesn't have as many tones as other Chinese
languages, it would have to maintain the number of possible roots in
other ways like "polysyllabicism" (if that word exists).

>> Vietnamese is now with more certainty considered a Mon-Khmer
>> language. Mon-Khmer languages are non-tonal and polysyllabic.
>> How then did Vietnamese become tonal and monosyllabic?
>> Basically, under the influence of China (and perhaps Tai) it
>> become monosyllabic and tones would have to arise to compensate
>> for contrastive polysyllabicity.
>
>Actually, I think it's more that it acquired tones under the
>influence of Chinese, they may have used other methods of
>distinguishing homophones, such as compounds.
Whether it was one way or the other, my point is that Vietnamese
would still have to maintain/obtain an ideal number of possible
roots. If indeed it acquired a phonological feature from Chinese,
then this acquisition would increase the number of possible roots.
One way to decrease this number is to make Vietnamese roots
monosyllabic - which apparently it did.
>
>> Well... ever wondered why English roots are predominantly
>> monosyllabic? I'd reckon that its because of the extremely
>> complex syllable structure.
>
>I'd say it's the other way around.  English lost sounds
>(especially schwas), creating a more complex syllable-structure.
>For instance, the past tense marker was once always /@d/, thus
>one would say /hElp@d/, but later that schwa was lost, creating
>/hElpt/, when two-stop codas became permissible (actually, for a
>while both /@d/ and //d// were used, hence variations like
>helped/help'd)
>
Although English "ed" ending is not a root, this still serves my
point. Whether it English is monosyllabic because of the complex
syllable structure or it is because of the complex syllable
structure that English is monosyllabic, my point remains - a natlang
would still attempt to obtain/maintain an ideal number of possible
roots. English's complex syllable structure allows for a certain
number of possible monosyllabic roots. This number happens to be
ideal for English that it has predominantly monosyllabic roots.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)