Re: THEORY: French and polypersonalism (was: THEORY: Ergativity and polypersonalism)

ok let's forget what I said about that story...

but I passed the whole day to think to that, and to ask people around me
"how do you usually pronounce...?" to the point they were asking if I was
OK...


I'd like to bring another argument: I still think it is generalising to
think that a such polypersonnal definition is applicable

it is true that when the object is a pronoun, if considering words are only
countable by stress, that pronoun could be compared to a prefix

I love you=/ZtEm/, he eats you=/itma~Z/ etc...

but if the object is a noun or a verb that prefix will not be there

I love my cat=[ZEmo~SA] and not [ZlEmo~SA]
    (or maybe [ZEm:o~SA] -> I know the [m] sound is differencable of a
single m but I'm not sure if it is by its lenght or its strenght or
something)

I eat my vegetables=/Zma~Z.melegym/


so I'm not sure: can a desinence disapear when it represent an information
already represented by a noun?

a language saying the sentence "I love her" and "I love my mother"

love-1st.per.-3rd.pers.
love-1st.per.   my mother


Is it possible? the dropping of a desinence to avoid repetition

If so: yes, spoken French could be considered polypersonnal in some cases

If not: no, it can't because the congugation would not be the same with or
without an object


Do you have an example of language were it is possible to drop morphemes
repeating something?




polypersonnal conjugation of the verb to love in French at present time

                           Obj.

   Not a pronoun     Singular                 Plural
         ||      1      2      3       1        2         3
         \/
       1 ZEm    ZmEm*  StEm   ZlEm    ZnuzEm   ZvuzEm    ZezEm
     S 2 tEm    tymEm  tytEm* tyl:Em  tynuzEm  ---       tylezEm
       3 jEm    imEm   itEm   il:Em   inuzEm   ivuzEm    jezEm
Sub.                          isEm*

       1 o~nEm  o~mEm  o~tEm  o~l:Em  o~sEm*   o~vuzEm   o~lezEm
     P 2 vuzEme vumEme ---    vul:Eme vunuzEme vuvuzEme* vulezEme
       3 izEm   imEm   itEm   il:Em   inuzEm   ivuzEm    ilezEm


I still ask myself if a congugaison can change when the object isn't a
pronoun but in that case it would




I agree that the subject pronoun could be considered as a prefix most of the
time but not the object morpheme wich appears only in the case that the
object isn't a pronoun,

and because it goes between the subject and the verb, the subject is
probably not a prefix neither





How would these analysis of the spoken French analyse a sentence like

/SpAlA/(I'm not there)

alone the [S] means the present first person singular of the verb to be

[pA] means negation

[lA] means "there"


I'm not sure any one-sound-prefix could contain as much information, a
linguist analysing it as a new language without knowing any european
language would probably deduce it is a reduced form of a few words..


please give me one of these website where you say you've found these
polypersonnal analysis of spoken french, I've not envisaged all
possibilities and I'd like to read those who did

-Max

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