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Re: Diachronic instability of oligosynthesis

From:Peter Bleackley <peter.bleackley@...>
Date:Friday, January 20, 2006, 16:19
staving David J Peterson:
>Pete wrote: ><< >I had a thought the other day. Let us suppose that we have an >oligosynthetic language, i.e. few roots, but lots and lots of >derivational affixes. Over time, it seems likely that sound changes >might cause the derivational affixes to fuse with the roots in >unpredictable ways, thus effectively turning lots of root+affix >combinations into new roots, while simultaneously causing the >derivational affixes to lose their productivity. Ultimately, an >oligosynthetic language would be highly likely to evolve into a non- >oligosynthetic one. Could this be the reason why there are no >undisputed cases of oligosynthesis in the wild? > >> > >While there probably isn't a language where this is the *only* thing >that happened, this has happened before. And, in fact, this is what I >did with one of my languages, from a non-historical point of view. >The language likes two basic word shapes: > >-monosyllabic, heavy syllable = word > >-trisyllabic, at most one heavy syllable = word > >Words it doesn't like are CVCV. So I have this list of -CV suffixes >that I use to build these words up to make trisyllabic words. Some >are only used a couple times; some many times. None of them are >in any way productive, and sometimes they get swallowed up by >phonology. > >Anyway, to see an entire language designed on this principle would >really be fascinating. You up to it, Pete? ~:D
I've had some ideas for an oligosynthetic language hanging about for a while, so I may have a go at it. It's a big project, though, so I'm thinking of doing it as a collaboration. Pete

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>