Re: CHAT: query: where to start?

Nik Taylor wrote:

> "Thomas R. Wier" wrote:
> > So, it's not so much that manner
> > of articulation *is* the affix as, diachronically, the different morphemes were
> > once disambiguated in some other way.
>
> Diachronically, yes.  But, synchronically, it is an affix, a special
> kind called a *superfix*.  I don't have the reference with me right now,
> but there's a language I read about where personal inflections are
> indicated by a combination of tone and nasalization on the vowel of the
> root, so something like:
> kú = I go
> ku~ = You go
> kú~ = He/she/it goes
Yes, but the question is whether nasalization is in fact a supersegmental feature.
I would hesitate to say that it is if it's explicitly built into the phonology (we
don't actually know this since Tim hasn't told us), since that's what distinguishes
segmental features from one another.  Unless you make this methodological
distinction, there is no reason to separate supersegmentals from segmentals
at all:  everything's just supersegmental, just a layering on top of something else.

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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