Re: THEORY: irregular conlangs

>===== Original Message From Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> =====
>Ed Heil wrote:
>> Again, this allows languages such as Navajo to exist.  In Navajo, the
>> personal prefixes (analogous to Latin -o -s -t -mus -tis -nt, and so
>> on) are pretty much *different for every verb*, which means that it's
>> not too much of an exaggeration to say that *every verb in Navajo is
>> irregular* in the same way that "to be" is irregular in English.
>
>That can't be true, surely there must be predictable patterns?  If a
>child learning Navajo learns a verb, how would he know how to use it in
>a form that he hasn't heard?
I won't be able to answer definitively until I have got a good Navajo
grammar, but as far as I can tell, the child will just have to use
patterns he knows or make an educated guess.  There are definitely
patterns, but they are not regular enough to allow one to definitively
predict all the personal endings for a given verb in a given tense if
one only knows one.

For example, the conjugation of ts'a', "to hear/understand" in the
present is:

   sing           dual-plural   distributive plural
1  diists'a'      diits'a'      dadiits'a'
2  dinits'a'      doohts'a'     dadoohts'a'
3  yidiits'a'     yidiits'a'    deidiits'a'
3a  jidiits'a'     jidiits'a'    dazhdiits'a'

But 'aah, "to learn," is:

bohoosh'aah        bihwiil'aah    bidahwiil'aah
bohoolh'aah        bohoolh'aah    bidahoolh'aah
yihoolh'aah        yihoolh'aah    yidahoolh'aah
bihojiil'h'aah     bihojiilh'aah  bidahojiilh'aah

and "to walk around" is:

naasha   neiit'aash   neiikai
nanina   naah'aash    naahkai
naagha   naa'aash     naakai
njigha   nji'aash     njikai

(Thats one of the ones where the root changes acording to person: a,
'aash, or kai.)

Now, there are certain more or less predicatble things (like yi and
ji in 3rd person, sh and n/lh in second person, da in distributive
plural), but it really just has to be memorized.

I think that given the hedges in the above message ("pretty much" and
"not too much of an exaggeration to say"), it's an accurate
description.

Ed