Re: THEORY: derivation question

dunn patrick w <tb0pwd1@...> wrote:

> My lack of linguistic knowledge is showing *tugs his shirt down*.  How
> exactly does one go about deriving a word from a root?  Is there a system,
> or does one just make sound changes until it looks right?
There are two processes here: derivation by means of affixes
(Nik replied to this), and phonetic change. As for phonetic change,
you usually start with a word from a protolanguage, and then you
apply a set of rules that change sounds into other sounds. In general
you don't use words but roots, to make things easier.

You can't just make sound changes until it looks right :-). You
should create a set of rules and follow them. One thing I have found
to be useful is to provide dates for the changes -- for example, at
year 1 you have the protolanguage, at year 300 the sound X has
changed to Y in most dialects, at year 500 the vowel X has merged
with Y, etc. In this way you can take words from different sources
and at different dates during the evolution of the language, and
apply only the sound changes that took place after that date. This
is helpful when you are trying to avoid certain very upsetting sound
changes in favour of one or two borrowed words that couldn't have
survived it...

Of course there can be exceptions, for example: words that are almost
never used tend to stay unchanged. Some words are reborrowed from the
protolanguage to form technical words (like IE langs have borrowed
from Latin and Greek). And some very used words change faster.


--Pablo Flores

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
 Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labour:
  People are always available for work
  in the past tense.