Re: Most developed conlang

On 4/18/07, MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com
<MorphemeAddict@...> ventured into territory that is
fraught.  Fraught, I say!

> I'd say those Esperanto words count as one word only, since they all have the
> same root and can be derived from the rules of the grammar.
> Different roots count as different words, but all derivations from that root
> come under the base word.  Thus "develop" and "development" would be two words
> in English, because they can't be derived from the rules of the grammar,
Uhm, huh?  "develop", as a verb, is certainly a "black box word" at
this point, but "development" is "develop" + "-ment".   The suffix
-ment may not be universally productive, but the meaning of sticking
it on the end of a verb is nevertheless predictable.  (This thing I'm
typing may not be a "communicatement", but even though that word
doesn't actually exist in the English lexicon, its intended meaning is
transparent.)  To be sure there are affix uses in English that result
in words with meanings that would not be predicted from the component
parts, but "development" is not such a case.

> Esperanto prefixes and suffixes can be applied by rule, so they wouldn't
> count in counting words either.
It depends.  Some of the meanings are not terribly predictable from
the base, either... words with -ajxo come to mind...

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>