Re: Where does inflection change to agglutination?

Quoting Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>:

> En réponse à Roberto Suarez Soto <ask4it@...>:
>
> > On Dec/26/2002, Danny Wier wrote:
> >
> > > Well you're on the right track. Remember that Proto-Indo-European
> > became
> > > inflected after various alternations of an originally agglutinative
> > form.
> >
> >         I didn't know that. Curious :-)
> >
>
> Why? Language evolution is quite logically cyclic.
I think the term "cyclic" is too strong a word, since languages
can remain in a particular "phase" of the "cycle" for many
centuries or even millennia.  "Cycle" in English thus suggests
a regularity which is not appropriate for language change. But what
you say about certain structural features favoring certain types
of structural change is true enough.

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Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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