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Re: Deriving words that aren't too long

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Monday, November 16, 1998, 12:18
Simon Kissane wrote:
> For example, I have the root "chit" (gift), and by adding the endings > "il" and "a" I get the word "chitila" (to take). Is there any way I > could still have regular derivation, but keep the size of the words > down?
One way would simply be shorter derivational suffixes, like "l" instead of "il", thus "chitla", or have derivations that combine several meanings. For examples, you could have a suffix "-e" meaning the same thing as "il" and "a" together, thus "chite". You could also use contrastive stress. I'm guessing that -a means verb (am I right?), if so, perhaps you could simply stress nouns on the first syllable and verbs on the second, thus "CHITil" would mean "taking", and "chitIL" would mean "to take" (of course, that wouldn't work on mono-syllables like your root "chit", but perhaps on mono-syllables you could add that -a). However, using a lot of derivation for what English and other langs use independent bases for is bound to make your average word length longer than it would be otherwise. -- "It has occured to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will." - "Lord Leto II" (Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert) http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/ ICQ #: 18656696 AOL screen-name: NikTailor