[Lexicog] polysynthetic languages and dictionaries

[Wayne Leman]

Thanks, Melissa, for this post. I was beginning to think that my longtime
understanding of polysynthesis was incorrect. In layman (or Leman, if one
prefers!!) terms, I just thought polysynthesis referred to languages that
have "long" words typically made up of many morphemes. My understanding
might be a bit too simplistic, but I didn't think it was necessary to have
specific categories of derivation, for instance, incorporation, before a
language would be considered polysythetic. I suspect that this is a case of
a linguistic term taking on a narrower semantic focus within a specific
linguistic framework. If this is true, then this topic thread not only
remains on topic because several of us on this discussion list struggle with
issues of lexicography of polysynthetic languages, but the term itself is
illustrative of a semantic/lexicographic process of narrowing, in certain
sociolinguistic contexts.

Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language

> The Northern Athabaskan languages have a very
> productive system of noun incorporation, but the
> Southern ones, like Navajo, do not. I've found some
> remnant incorporation forms in Jicarilla Apache,
> but it's not a productive strategy. Baker would
> say that Northern Athabaskan languages are not
> polysynthetic because, although they have noun
> incorporation, they do not have obligatory
> agreement prefixes for subject and object. He
> would say that the Southern Athabaskan languages
> are not polysyhnthetic because, although they
> have obligatory agreement prefixes, they don't
> have noun incorporation. If you think of polysynthesis
> as being a matter of high synthesis and high fusion,
> however, I think all Athabaskan languages qualify
> as polysynthetic.
>   Melissa



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