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Re: New Polysynthetic (?) Language

From:Ben Haanstra <kof@...>
Date:Saturday, June 2, 2007, 17:52
Checking out ur site, it looks well done and inspiring.

I myself am making an oligosynthetic language which is of course also
supposed to have polysynthetic aspects. But the one big question is, when is
something polysynthetic / oligosynthetic... my language can express a lot
without even going that deep into compounding and adding many morphemes to
make up one sentence.
However does that make it count as oligosynthetic? Same for
polysynthetic...how many morphemes do you need to have something actually be
called polysynthetic? Is there a border? Making the language polysynthetic
does that actually also make it to believe that word-order is out of the
question and should not be expressed or explained/used in grammar?

In addition, does polysynthetic/oligosynthetic only count for 'grammar
aspects' or also derivations of the root? For example in my conlang I can go
from flower to the forest's habitual daily requirements, or a wall becoming
an enormous office.

Atm my language has about 242 words, of which probably 20 could be removed
and 50 of them are just to make the language 'easier/appealing'.
Im not working that much on it lately due to exams, but hopefully soon Ill
be able to release a site with the words and the grammars. Usually im
changing the grammar/style of the language, to make every word fit in and
avoiding ambiguous situations. In addition looking for words which cant be
expressed yet in any way and finishing the 'parts' to get all derivations.