Re: polysynthetic languages
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, September 20, 2003, 6:19 |
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On Friday, September 19, 2003, at 05:27 , Nik Taylor wrote:
[snip]
> Also, many agglutinating/polysynthetic languages have allomorphic
> variations such as vowel harmony ......
Good point - vowel harmony has been part of BrSc for decades; maybe
that's one factor that's got me thinking in terms of a polysynthetic
structure.
> The distinctions between any of these types is also a matter of degree,
> it should be remembered.
Absolutely.
IIRC isolating, inflexional (fusional) & agglutinating were
categories set up by 19th cent. linguists. I think polysynthesis was
added later. If you browse through the Conlang archives you find
this sort of discussion has gone on more than once in the past.
The edges between these categories are fuzzy and few natlangs seem to
want to stick neatly into any one category. Modern English is, it has been
argued, is more isolating than modern spoken Chinese; but neither is 100%
isolating; they have fusional and/or agglutinating elements.
Ray
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