Re: polysynthetic languages

Eddy Ohlms wrote:
> What noun classes do you have? I have immaterial, animate, and inanimate.
My conlang has 7 genders:

1.  Sentient female
2.  Sentient male
3.  Sentient epicene
4.  Animals associated with people (domestic animals, some agricultural
pests, household pests, etc.)
5.  Other animals
6.  Other animate (insects, plants, social institutions, langauges,
fire, etc)
7.  Inanimate

> > To have free word order, don't you also need case markings on the nouns?
>
> Nope. That's the beauty of polylangs. The noun doesn't have to be marked for
> nominative or accusitive anymore. The verb is marked for the case of the noun. If
> you don't understand, I'll show you some good examples to explain it.
It's not essential to polylangs, tho.

Verbs in my conlang agrees with the absolutive (altho there are also
clitics that agree with ergative and absolutive - some dialects make
those mandatory).  There is heavy incorporation, auxiliaries incorporate
the main verb, and instruments and patients may be incorporated (in the
standard, only one may be incorporated, but some dialects allow multiple
incorporations)

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