Re: polysynthetic languages

Tommie L Powell wrote:
> Chris Bates writes:
> > Eddy Ohlms wrote:
> > >Because they are verb inflections. You wouldn't say "I am smart er
> > than you" or "It
> > >explode ed."
> > But what I am saying is, if their form is always the same, why is it
> > any
> > more correct to analyse them as verb inflections than as separate
> > words?
>
> I agree with Chris.  I don't see a dime's worth of difference between
> "I am smart er than you" and "I am more smart than you,"
> or between "It explode ed" and It did explode."
Except that you could say "I am more highly smart than you" but you couldn't say "I
am smart highly er than you."

If you were, say, talking on the telephone and got some static on the line as you
were saying "smart-[static]-you" the person on the other line would likely say
"sorry, did you say 'smarter than'?" rather than "sorry, did you say 'er
than'?"

If you were speaking very slowly and separating each syllable, you'd say
"it...ex...plo...ded" not "it...ex...plod...ed." But you'd say
"it...did...ex...plode" not "it...di...dex...plode."

And you could say, "it did" but not "it ed." Or "more, more" but not "er, er."
They're just not the same thing.

(Besides, "it did explode" has a different meaning than "it exploded" anyway, so you
can't say they're the same.)

Those are just some of the differences. I'm sure I could think of more examples of
why "exploded" and "smarter" are one word apiece, while "did explode" and "more
smart" are two.

Heather

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