Re: Diachronic instability of oligosynthesis

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 Peter Bleackley wrote:
>
> 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.

Hi Pete,

Funny timing, this.  I've spent a couple of hours today
tidying up a preliminary description of _Uiama_ that
I drafted last October.  Until you started this thread,
I didn't have a convenient label for the _kind_ of
language it was.  "Oligosynthetic", huh? :-)

Anyway, the genesis of Uiama was a silly, science-
fictional type of dream about some creatures trying
to gather fruits from a particularly difficult tree.
I saw the tree and the wild fruit-gathering animals
quite clearly, and heard the people singing a song
about the tree - as it were, on its behalf, addressing
the animal that always robbed it.  (Talk about
hallucinations! :-) )  So when I woke up, I wrote down
everything I could remember very quickly.  A few days
later, the music of the song 'Paruktfui mbo' was still
quite clear enough for me to write down.

The grammar has been developing slowly from this
seed.  These people are loath to coin a new word
when an old one will do, even in the most abstract,
metaphorical way.  So far, my outline runs to an
11-section Word document over 14 pages.  But I'm
waiting to return to the land of the _Uiama makpo_
sometime soon in my dreams, as I don't want to
force this thing to go where it doesn't want to ...

And it's far too soon for me to hypothesize what
kinds of sound change may apply, as I'm still sussing
out (or perhaps "fabulating") details of their culture
based on the "vision" I have of them.  But you're
certainly welcome to have a play with it as source
material if you want.  Just remember that the vocab.
is still rudimentary, so it might be worthwhile if
others helped me develop a good set of roots - the
derivational principles are coming along quite nicely.

Where can I lob a copy of the document outlining
Uiama (called "Discovering Uiama through its Poetry")
for anyone interested to read it?

Regards,
Yahya

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