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Re: polysynthetic languages

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Friday, September 19, 2003, 16:29
Chris Bates wrote:
> and still mean that I want to build a house, even if it makes sense. I > thought what Christophe said about french being polysynthetic was quite > interesting actually... and it made my wonder again like I have before, > what apart from the position of stress is the difference between a very > isolating and a very agglutinative or polysynthetic language?
Mostly, restrictions on order. An isolating language can do things like, in English: I will never go there, placing the adverb "never" between the future morpheme "will" and the verb "go". But, a polysynthetic or agglutinating language restricts what morphemes can go where, saying "Iwillgo never" or "Never Iwillgo". Also, many agglutinating/polysynthetic languages have allomorphic variations such as vowel harmony or assimilation. Many affixes, and even some stems, have 2 or more legal forms, e.g., nai-/ni- "future", fa-/f-/v- "past", -va/-v "habitual". The distinctions between any of these types is also a matter of degree, it should be remembered. -- "There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd, you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." - overheard ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42

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Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>