Prosody-pragmatics rich language- the case of Piraha~?

[A. Katz]

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze wrote:

> For instance, Ossetian and Tokharian both show clear
>evidence for the re-agglutination of a former fusional paradigm *without*
>pasing through the isolating stage. In fact, the Grand Cycle is just a
>tendency (with massive recursions), not a *must* for the dynamics of
>language paradigms.


I find this very interesting, since it flies in the face not only of the
"grand Cycle" but also of the Unidirectionality Hypothesis of
grammaticalization (assuming this de-fusional process applied to specific
lexemes and not just the language as a whole). What is the evidence for
not having an intermediary isolating stage? I don't know much about
Ossetian or Tokharian, so citations to recommended reading would be
greatly appreciated. Are we talking about the entire language or just one
paradigm?

Best,

    --Aya

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