Re: polysynthetic languages

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On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, Heather Fleming wrote:

> Tommie L Powell wrote:
> > 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."
Only if 'highly smart' is a compound written as two separate words.
Personally, I have no idea what 'more highly smart' would mean.

Also, for speech, I find both of those ungrammatical (they'd need 'I'm'),
unless we're stressing *am*. While irrelevant to that exact point, does
it have any relationship between the isolativeness/polsyntheticity of
English? (The point about 'never' fits in here to: 'I'll never go' is
good (possibly the best construction), but 'I never will go' is archaic.)

> 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."
Actually, I'd probably say 'it...di...de...xplode', but that's just me :)

> And you could say, "it did" but not "it ed." Or "more, more" but not
> "er, er." They're just not the same thing.
You can't say 'it tomato',  either.

> (Besides, "it did explode" has a different meaning than "it exploded"
> anyway, so you can't say they're the same.)
Well, they both express the fact that some non-animal/human thing blew up
in the past. One is merely neutral and the other emphasises the fact that
the explosion has happened, and happened in the past. ('You can't be
serious!' -'It *did* explode!'.) Nevertheless, no-one said they're the
same thing, just equivalent.

> 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.
No doubt.

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
                -- Snoopy

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