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There are 4 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 11:36:09 -0200
From: João Ricardo de Mendonça <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: isolating is equivalent to inflected
On 12/5/05, Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<SNIP>
> OK. Tell me I'm all wet on this one, but (to me, at
> least) it's an interesting speculation that raises the
> question: is the difference between an isolating
> language and an inflected language little more than
> how it was first written down?
>
> --gary
>
If I understood correcly, you are saying that an inflected language is
actually an isolating language that happened to have its functional
words attached to lexical words when people started writing it. Is
that what you said? Well, I don't think so. In an inflected language,
the functional morphemes such as verb endings have some
characteristics of their own: they are unstressed, they cannot move
independently in the sentence, they cannot show up alone etc. Also
there can be no intervening words between such morphemes and the
radicals they attach to.
So, for example, English "played" cannot be broken down into two words
play + did. You can't have words between them (compare: "He will
_probably_ play with us", but not * "He play probably did"). The fact
that sometime in the past people actually spoke "He play did" instead
of "He played" does not affect the way current English speakers
analise their language.
About the gramaticalization cycle, an example comes from the future
tense in Portuguese. Classical Latin had inflected future endings,
such as amabo (I will love) and amabit (he will love). In Ancient
Portuguese, this was lost and the future was expressed in an isolating
way with the auxiliary verb haver: eu amar hei (I will love), ele amar
há (he will love). Then this auxiliary verb became incorporated into
the verb in Modern Portuguese: eu amarei, ele amará. Currently, this
ending is being dismissed again in spoken language, though it is still
the standard way of writing. But in a conversation one would form the
future with the auxiliary verb ir: eu vou amar, ele vai amar.
João Ricardo de Mendonça
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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 08:07:28 -0800
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.
These are some really fascinating topics that make me
wish I had majored in linguistics instead of
engineering. ;-)
But all this makes me suspect that the best way to
arrive at a really naturalistic conlang is not to
build it from scratch to completion in one step, but
to evolve it, step by step, from some starting point,
either an existing natlang, or a very rudimentary ad
hoc proto-language. If one started, for example, with
the few dozen words from the language of the movie
"Caveman", and applied, a few hundred years at a time,
ten thousand years worth of mutations, it would seem
that the result would be a very plausible imitation of
a non-existent natlang. Assuming, of course, that the
mutations applied at each step are plausible.
--gary
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 18:11:06 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.
Hi!
Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> These are some really fascinating topics that make me wish I had
> majored in linguistics instead of engineering. ;-)
:-)
> But all this makes me suspect that the best way to arrive at a
> really naturalistic conlang is not to build it from scratch to
> completion in one step, but to evolve it, step by step, from some
> starting point, either an existing natlang, or a very rudimentary ad
> hoc proto-language. If one started, for example, with the few dozen
> words from the language of the movie "Caveman", and applied, a few
> hundred years at a time, ten thousand years worth of mutations, it
> would seem that the result would be a very plausible imitation of a
> non-existent natlang. Assuming, of course, that the mutations
> applied at each step are plausible.
YES! This is a heck of a lot of work to do, but it often results in
really great conlangs, yes. :-)
I have never managed to do this so far due to the endless work in
front of me and my limited knowledge (due to lack of interest, I
think) of (linguistic) history and instead sticked to
engelangs/artlangs that were constructed according to what my computer
science back ground dictated. :-) Even that takes so much time (->
writing the Lisp grammar). E.g., S11 needs more work. I'd finally
like some example sentences, I think!
**Henrik
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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 09:19:31 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Isolating, Inflected, Word Building, ETC.
ObQuestion: How come, if language has "evolved" for so long, does it
still have so many quirky exceptions etc.?
On 12/5/05, Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > These are some really fascinating topics that make me wish I had
> > majored in linguistics instead of engineering. ;-)
>
> :-)
>
> > But all this makes me suspect that the best way to arrive at a
> > really naturalistic conlang is not to build it from scratch to
> > completion in one step, but to evolve it, step by step, from some
> > starting point, either an existing natlang, or a very rudimentary ad
> > hoc proto-language. If one started, for example, with the few dozen
> > words from the language of the movie "Caveman", and applied, a few
> > hundred years at a time, ten thousand years worth of mutations, it
> > would seem that the result would be a very plausible imitation of a
> > non-existent natlang. Assuming, of course, that the mutations
> > applied at each step are plausible.
>
> YES! This is a heck of a lot of work to do, but it often results in
> really great conlangs, yes. :-)
>
> I have never managed to do this so far due to the endless work in
> front of me and my limited knowledge (due to lack of interest, I
> think) of (linguistic) history and instead sticked to
> engelangs/artlangs that were constructed according to what my computer
> science back ground dictated. :-) Even that takes so much time (->
> writing the Lisp grammar). E.g., S11 needs more work. I'd finally
> like some example sentences, I think!
>
> **Henrik
>
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