Re: polysynthetic languages

Robert B Wilson wrote:
> actually, english does have restrictions on order... most people i
> know would consider "never i will go" and "i will go never" to be
> incorrect.  it seems the only two "correct" orders are "i will never
> go" and "never will i go"... so does that make english polysynthetic?
Well, I worded that poorly.  What I meant was that in English, there is
a fixed order, but it allows an open class of stressed words in the
middle of the verbal complex.  I.e., the basic order (in declarative
statements) is subject (auxiliary) (not) (other auxiliaries) (adverb)
verb.  In an agglutinating, non-polysynthetic language you could not
have that open category of "adverb" right before the verb.  There might
be a closed class of adverb-like prefixes that could go there, but it
would be a closed category.

Of course, that alone wouldn't make it agglutinating.  Spanish, for
example, IIRC, doesn't allow forms like *Lo he nunca visto for "I have
never seen it", but requires Nunca lo he visto.  Altho, I believe that
_he_ is stressed, and therefore it wouldn't be proper to consider it a
prefix.  However, it could presumably be a precursor to a future form
which *does* treat it as a prefix.

In a polysynthetic language, you could have an open category of adverbs
there, but they would be pronounced as part of the word.

> > Also, many agglutinating/polysynthetic languages have allomorphic
> > variations such as vowel harmony or assimilation.
>
> hmm... sort of like "will not" and "won't" in english?
Indeed, that is a form of agglutination in English, pronoun + auxiliary
-> pronoun-auxiliary compound (even "I will", at least in my idiolect,
could be considerd one word, since there's only a single stress, on "I")

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