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Re: polysynthetic languages

From:Chris Bates <christopher.bates@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 13:39
Yep, inuit is definately polysynthetic and I'm pretty sure it has case
markers on the nouns. Also, I think its ergative... why are so many
polysynthetic languages ergative? I wonder if there's a reason or if my
perception is just wrong.

> At 09:24 AM 9/24/03 +0100, you wrote: > >> Doesn't inuit have case markers on the nouns? I'm pretty sure it does... > > > I'll see if I can find out. (Right now, I'm going over that web page on > Georgian. Thanks for the tip. Inuit is polysynthetic, isn't it? > > Isidora > > >>>> > Which leads to my next question...Are there any natural >>>> > polysynthetic languages that do mark the nouns for case? It seems >>>> > to me that it would certainly be *possible* for polysynthesizm and >>>> > a case system to be found together because there are a number of >>>> > languages out there that are fond of redundancy and wouldn't mind >>>> > marking everything twice. Alternatively, are there any natural >>>> > languages that fall below the morpheme-to-word ratio needed to be >>>> > considered polysynthetic, rather than merely synthetic, that both >>>> > mark the verb for both subject and object agreement and also mark >>>> > nouns for case? >>> >

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Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>