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Re: related features

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Thursday, October 31, 2002, 6:56
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.
> *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. -- "There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd, you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." - overheard ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42

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Clint Jackson Baker <litrex1@...>