Re: Exocentric Derivation in Gweydr

Roger wrote:
<<
In what way? I see no relationship between bwe- in bwEm6ks and bwe- in
bwezine (or any of the others, snipped).
 >>

Oops...  Unfortunate typo.  I wrote "can" instead of "can't".  That
should've
read:

"Finally, though the prefixes in each group CAN'T be grouped together
semantically..."

Geez...  Sometimes typos don't matter, but sometimes they really do.

Roger:
<<
And BTW, isn't "rocky road" at least metaphoric? isn't r.r. ice-cream
loaded
with big chunks of something (like hard candies?)
 >>

Yeah...  Couldn't think of a better one, and was too lazy to get
the Bochner thesis for examples.  ;)  Can you think of any totally
unpredictable ones?

Roger:
<<
Perhaps I've spent too long with my literal-minded Kash friends, but
I can't
see a system like this occurring in any lang, nat or con-- wild and
crazy
though it be :-)))))))))))))))))))
 >>

I think it could.  What I think it does is it gives an arbitrary marking
to particular members of a set, such that if you know one member,
you automatically know 4 others--even if you don't know the
meaning.  You might be able to guess at the meaning by knowing
that the most common one would probably be coined first, second
most common second, etc.  So in a domain (fruit, nuts, furniture that
has to do with feet, ridesharing...), you probably already know any
basic words that have to do with the situation ("monomorphemic",
if you think about it morphemically).  With this system, you can
then come up with names for the 5 most common parts of the system
right away.

Bah, but the mind gets fuzzy.  Time for sleep.  Anyway, I've seen
crazy stuff in language.  I bet something like this exists somewhere.

Oh, wait:

Roger:
<<
But to what purpose?
 >>

Asking the purpose of being able to separate things into root and
prefix, even if the prefixes have no meaning.  Even though the prefixes
have no fixed meaning, if you know the root, or know that the root
has to do with a domain, then you know five words that need to have
a meaning (unless the root starts with a k, t, b, r or T, in which case
you just have four).  That's a good way to start off a conversation
about something you know nothing about.  "So that's the bwenid.
What's the kj&nid?  And the riwnid...?"

I tells ya', for whatever reason, this seems useful to me!  ~:D  I can't
believe something like it doesn't exist in a natural language.  They
do strange stuff, after all.

Anyway, when these things get coined, I bet, as you mentioned,
systematicity of a kind would arise.  So even if the gems were
coined by X independently of the berries coined by Y, if the gem
guy were to look at birds, he might coin the birds according to
the colors used with X, whereas Y might do flowers like berries.
And if Z can put the "foot furniture" into some sort of continuum
of usefulness (in his/her mind), then s/he might use that same
continuum when coining car parts.  Thus, there might be several
rationales, but rationales, nonetheless.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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