Re: related features
| From: | Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, October 31, 2002, 6:56 |
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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.
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