Re: related features

Nik Taylor nevesht:
>Florian Rivoal wrote:
> > * Tonal language tend to have many phonems, but strong phonological
> > constraints (as for mandarin, Shanghainese, cantonese, vietnamese, ...)
>
>Well, tones are generally evolved from lost consonants, evolving as the
>phonological constraints become tighter.
>
> > *inflecting langaguages have loose phonological constraints (IE,
> > tolkien languages)
>
>Inflecting languages tend to evolve from contractions and assimilations
>of earlier agglutinating structures.
>
>Altho, I believe there are some Bantu languages that are tonal, but
>still preserve the agglutinating structure of the Bantu family.
All Bantu languages except kiSwahili and a couple of pidgins(e.g. isiCamtho
and Fanakalo) have tones.
>
> > *tonal languages tend to be isolating (mandarin, Shanghainese,
> > cantonese, vietnamese, thai)
>
>Probably due to the fact that tones evolve from drastic phonological
>simplification, thus any inflections that might've existed will tend to
>get wiped out.
>
> > *aglutinating language tend to use SOV partern (japanese, korean,
>turkish)
>
>Bantu languages are generally SVO, yet agglutinating.
>




-Wayne Chevrier



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