[Lexicog] polysynthetic languages and dictionaries

[phil cash cash]

the best example of this type of polysynthesis might be the "bi-partite 
stem" construction as described by Delancey in a series of articles for 
Klamath.  the regular co-occurence of verb affixes and verb stems in 
some expressions make it almost fusional in apppearance.  for example 
you always have a bi-partite stem to express such Nez Perce notions as 
'to beat, kill'.

'oopciy'awtáayca
'e(w)-{wéep-ci'yaw-yáy}-ce
3OBJ-{with.hand-to.anihilate-do.in.pretense}-IMPERF.PRS.SG
'I am pretending to beat him up.'

again {} indicates the derivational morphology.  notice that you always 
have /wéep/ 'with hand & /ci'yaw/ 'to anihilate' in expressions like 
this, hence its "bi-partite" like character.  in fact, this type of 
co-occurence leads to fusion where in some instances you have two 
predicative morphological elements "fusing" together because they are 
so productive or frequent.

in Nez Perce, there are over 160 verb prefixes and 20-something verb 
suffixes.  oh and yes there is verb and verb affix reduplication with 
all kinds of cool stuff happening.

later,
phil cash cash (cayuse/nez perce)


On May 30, 2004, at 8:54 PM, Kenneth C. Hill wrote:

Phil--

Just how "polysynthetic" is Nez Perce?

The term "polysynthetic" has been used for many linguistic features and 
it
would be good to know just which features are at issue in any particular
instance.

Usually, as I understand it, "polysynthesis" refers to the incorporation
of arguments into a single verb-word, marginally attested in English in
formations like 'babysit'. Hopi, on which I've been working, abounds in
examples of incorporated objects and even incorporated subjects,
especially in 'weather' expressions (huk-yala 'the wind abated' < huukya
'wind' + yaala 'abate') and personal names (Posiw-yesva 'the magpies
alighted' < poosiw 'magpie' + yesva 'sit down, alight').

Bill Poser seems to regard the Athabascan* verbs as polysynthetic, but I
believe they don't incorporate nominal roots as in the examples above
though their morphology certainly does refer to both subject and object
arguments.

*I reject both the US spelling 'Athabaskan' and the Canadian 
'Athapaskan'
as silly attempts at a "technical" linguistic spelling of a name clearly
based on the geographically established spelling '(Lake) Athabasca'.

--Ken

--- phil cash cash <pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET> wrote:
> thanks Bill,
> why have a powerful lookup tool when the operations which emulate the
> rules of the grammar are non-transparent to the dictionary user? or is
> this again a wrong impression?  i mean this as a harmless question as i
> am just curious.  though i am no computational linguist, i would like
> to "model" nez perce verb morphology someday as i think i am getting
> closer to the core issues relating to the "rules" of composition and
> concatenation.  however, in the nez perce scheme of things (i.e
> polysynthesis: fusional) the morphology is tends to be more about the
> syntax-semantic interface, not to mention the input-output to
> phonological being just as complex if not more so.  the classic
> polysynthetic mohawk model of noun-incorporation (via Baker) just does
> not work for nez perce.
>
> qó'c (later)
> phil cash cash (cayuse/nez perce)
> UofA
>
> On May 27, 2004, at 2:11 PM, William J Poser wrote:
>
[message cut from this response]




	
		
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