LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.12 (03) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

===========================================
L O W L A N D S - L - 12 October 2009 - Volume 03
lowlands at lowlands-l.net - http://lowlands-l.net/
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)
Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
===========================================

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.12 (01) [EN]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language varieties
>
> Mark, I don't think languages start with complex inflection. I
> personally believe (and I base this on my own observations in
> comparative Altaic) that affixing is an advanced stage of fusing
> strings of words of which some became bound morphemes used to mark
> grammatical function (word > bound morpheme > clitic > affix). Among
> the Turkic languages, for instance, you find suffixes that in related
> languages are enclitics and in others are separate words.

Couldn't this be a circular process where simple words bind into more
complex words which eventually get worn down (as in English) to simple
words again? And then of course the process could start again.
word > bound morpheme > clitic > affix > word
So no language could be said to be more advanced than another, they
would all simply be at whatever part of the cycle they're at.
Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

This is an interesting idea, Sandy, and not an implausible one either, in my
opinion.

If this is what has been happening, it might explain divergence of language
groups in the form of “families” that we perceive as being unrelated with
each other. Oftentimes, these families have features that seem
“suspiciously” similar on some deeper level or other, for instance the
Uralic, Altaic and Indo-European language families. But then the “evidence”
peters out and genetic relationships between them seem impossible to prove.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20091012/fbb8fa70/attachment.htm>