Re: polysynthetic languages

> >>Five words of an isolating language with strict word order, and saying
> >>that only one of them is stressed? If stress is the only difference
> >>between an isolating and a polysynthetic language then it seems like the
> >>distinction is over emphasized.
Except that it's not the only difference. There are actually a number of ways to test
where one word ends and another begins, other than stress. I can't remember
what they all are, but I know there are a number of tests you can apply. Field
linguists don't just decide "I think I'm going to decide that this language is
isolating instead of agglutinating because it's Tuesday and Tuesday is a good
day for isolating languages." That's not to say that it's *easy* to determine
word boundaries conclusively in a language that doesn't demarcate them in
writing, but word boundaries and the categorization of languages as primarily
isolating, agglutinating, polysynthetic etc., are by no means arbitrary.

Heather

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