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Re: polysynthetic languages

From:Eddy Ohlms <ohlms@...>
Date:Thursday, September 18, 2003, 1:16

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Eddy Ohlms : > > You fell into the trap of the prescriptivist grammars and the written form > of the French language. But Spoken French has *nothing* isolating in it, > and is very much polysynthetic. Trust this native speaker. Spoken French is > definitely a polysynthetic language with quite free word order and a mostly > prefixed grammar. The orthography may make it appear like an analytic > language using mostly suffixes, but it is showing more about the etymology > of the language than about its current spoken state. Look for instance at > the example you gave in your conlang:
I thought only some native American languages were polysynthetic.
> > > When I say something, write it down. > > In Written French, it look like: > > Quand je dis quelque chose, écris-le. > > But the spoken form is usually (with quite a few possible variations): > > /ka~ZdikEk'Soz/, /ekRi'l@/ > > Yep, in Spoken French, it makes only *two* words (and they are pronounced > as such, with a single accent and not even the smallest pause between what > the written language considers are separate words). It breaks into: > > ka~ - S -di - kEkSoz ekRi - l@ > when-1sg-say-something write-3sgm
Fascinating.
> > > Note the incorporation of the object with the verb, very common in > polysynthetic languages. Also, the way French makes compounds (they do > exist) is typical of polysynthetic languages: it just takes full statements > and uses them as nouns, sometimes getting rid of one affix or two. For > instance, "porte-feuilles" (wallet) means literally "carries sheets" > ("porte" is here a conjugated verb form). Even the written language > acknowledges it by leaving the "s" at the end of the "feuilles" part > although the word is singular here. It's really a frozen expression. And > all French compounds are like that.
I see. My conlang's equivalent would be kû@ti'uuxsalôni, except that my lang wouldn't call it that. It would use the word kû@qa!êuxsalôni for that, as @qa!ê is a unit of money.
> > > Christophe Grandsire. > > http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr > > You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.