Re: ?? Re: a "natural language" ?

Rodlox scripsit:

>  is suppletive supposed to mean that it is supplementary?
No.  A suppletive inflected form is one that is supplied from a different
root.  For example, the past tense of "go" in English is "went", which is
supplied from the root "wend" (now archaic and poetic).  This happened
when the regular past tense of "go" disappeared in the pre-Old-English
period (oddly, OE itself had a *different* suppletive past tense for
this verb).

More examples at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppletion .

>  what is an ablaut?
A change in the vowel of a root representing either inflection or
derivation.  "Sing-sang-sung" is an example of ablaut.  Ablaut comes down
from Proto-Indo- European times.  Not to be confused with umlaut, which
is a change in a vowel representing the quality of a second (following)
vowel in the word, now usually lost:  "man-men" is an example.  Again,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablaut is your friend.

--
John Cowan        http://www.ccil.org/~cowan          jcowan@reutershealth.com
Please leave your values                Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.                      check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel                   --Cordelia Vorkosigan

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