Re: polysynthetic languages

On Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 08:53:37PM -0500, Eddy Ohlms wrote:
> No. I am still not used to this format and don't fully understand how it
> works.
Oh.  Well, it's a mailing list, or mailing reflector as it's sometimes
called.  If you send email to conlang@listserv.brown.edu, everyone who
has subscribed to the list gets a copy of your message.  You are,
of course, also free to send private replies directly to someone who
has sent a message to the list.

> On a more related note, I notice that there are few polysynthetic
> conlangs. What's your reason?
Well, Methkaeki is actually polysynthetic, now that I think about it,
since both the subject and object of the verb can take the form of affixes.
Thus, /dZI,dZOn.sIz'kON/ is a single word meaning "He gives it to her".

Okaikiar is not polysynthetic mainly because it's primarily inflectional
rather than agglutinative.  Inflectional polylangs are somewhat
more difficult to create, but in any case polysynthesis wasn't a goal of
mine - in either case, really.  Methkaeki's polysynthesis is more
of a side effect of its highly agglutinative nature.

-Mark

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