Re: THEORY: 'true' nature of nouns vs. 'illusionary' nature

From: "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>

> Eh? Under what definition of polysynthesis is there any doubt that
> Georgian verbs are polysynthetic? I mean, verbs inflect for the
> person and number of the subject, direct object, indirect object, for
> tense, various kinds of aspect, mood, a number of valence properties,
> "version", etc.
I should've said that Georgian is polysynthetic, but not incorporating. Or
not as polysynthetic as Inuktitut or Cherokee. I read something about
different types of polysynthesis, that some languages have "optional
polysynthesis" (French might fall in this category). German also has a level
of incorporation, but not polypersonalism.

> It's not, actually.  It's a split-S system, as it has two classes of
> intransitive verbs, one mostly for unaccusatives that patterns like
> the notional direct object of first conjugation transitive verbs, and
> one for unergatives that patterns like the notional subject of 1st
> conjugation transitives.  The mixing you're thinking about concerns
> the behavior of precisely these transitives in the present series.
> (This is one area of the language I am currently researching.)
That's what's called 'version' right? I'm reading the online grammar at
http://www.armazi.com/georgian and it's confusing me. Kartvelian languages
just might have the most complicated verb grammar. But I've read Ket has a
scary verb system too. Sergei Starostin has a description of it in Russian
at http://starling.rinet.ru/index2.htm, but you need to install his font
package to view the phonetic symbols.