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

From:Danny Wier <dawiertx@...>
Date:Monday, April 19, 2004, 11:25
From: "Henrik Theiling" <theiling@...>

> Danny Wier <dawiertx@...> writes:
> > I'm visualizing what a complicated and precisely-marked verb might look > > like. A hypothetical example might be _mstkjefftl'ihac'xwong_ and it
might
> > mean "I hope I never say that he should get into the habit of giving > > anything to them ever again". A noun (again factitious) like > > _shqittghlormta'ilh_ might mean "belonging to that so-called father of > > theirs who thinks he's so great". Of course it won't always be that
extreme
> > in practice. Words won't be quite so long because many consonant
clusters
> > can legally exist. > > Ok, so the phonology is not influenced by Inuit-Aleut. You said the > verb was influenced by the Geogian screeve system, right?
I just posted Tech phonology and a wee bit on grammar for you and anyone else interested. The first ideas for polysynthesis came from Georgian verb grammar, which is polypersonal if not polysynthetic. The screeve system is still confusing me; it's a multi-dimensional system of tenses, aspects and moods that affect, among other things, the case the subject and objects are declined in. That's how Georgian is mixed-ergative. Tech will use ergative or accusative depending on not only tense, but (anti)passivity (Inuktitut is normally ergative, but becomes accusative with antipassive verbs). According to the Wikipedia article, Ubykh and its surviving NW Caucasian sister tongues are polysynthetic in a similar vein. But Inuit-Aleut languages are also incorporating, enabling it to make one-word clauses. Phonology is derived from Afro-Asiatic, Kartvelian and Dravidian with features taken from Northwest Caucasian, but Inuit-Aleut does contain distinctive consonants found in Tech: the voiceless lateral fricative /K/, a voiceless uvular stop /q/, a voiced uvular fricative /R/ and in some languages, a voiceless uvular fricative /X/. Some dialects of Inuktitut also have a uvular nasal /N\/, which occurs as an allophone in Tech, but that too should achieve phonemic status since the language does have Celtic-like mutations, including nasalization.

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Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>