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It has been argued that the Young Speech is polysynthetic, particularly by Dr. R.M Adams of the University of Tennessee. Indeed, there are certain characteristics that the Young Speech displays considered essential in canonical polysynthetic languages: | It has been argued that the Young Speech is polysynthetic, particularly by Dr. R.M Adams of the University of Tennessee. Indeed, there are certain characteristics that the Young Speech displays considered essential in canonical polysynthetic languages: | ||
#Verbs are polymorphemic. | |||
#Productive holophrasis occurs alongside alternative analytic structures with the same meaning; the choice between holophrastic versus analytic expressions are driven by pragmatic and other discourse considerations | #Productive holophrasis occurs alongside alternative analytic structures with the same meaning; the choice between holophrastic versus analytic expressions are driven by pragmatic and other discourse considerations | ||
# | #Polypersonal agreement affixes has developed from the agglutination and fusion of once-independent pronouns; as a result, the Young Speech allows pro-drop in extended discourse. | ||
# | However, these characteristics alone, as argued by the majority of scholars specializing in comparative and theoretical linguists in polysynthetic languages, are not sufficient in classifying the Young Speech as polysynthetic. Adams' thesis rests primarily on the Young Speech's polymorphemic attributes. However, using polymorphemic attributes as a defining feature of polysynthetic languages is problematic as this would include Turkish, Finnish, and German, three languages that are decidedly not polysynthetic, as several prominent members of the field, Drs. Iyyaħmi and Naħkuy included as well as Dr. N. Tashunka of the University of the Lakota Nation at Three Pipes, Dr. A. Francobaldi at the Sapienza University of Rome, and Dr. Jaeng Tae-Moon at the Department of Linguistics in Beijing Imperial University have mentioned. Dr. Francobaldi observes: | ||
#In canonical polysynthetic languages, argument marking is obligatory, even if the referents of the agreement markers are overt. The Young Speech, however, obligatorily suppresses an agreement marker when an overt marker surfaces: if an overt direct object appears, its corresponding verbal agreement marker is disallowed from surfacing, and the converse is true when an overt subject appears. If both an overt subject and object referent appears, the verb's agreement markers are barred from surfacing; | |||
#The Young Speech displays neither noun incorporation (as in the Iroquoian languages) or lexical verbal affixation (as in the Eskaleut languages); | |||
#Modal affixes are lacking in the holophrastic verb. | |||
Nevertheless, the aforementioned linguists agree that the Young Speech, while not polysynthetic, shows incipient signs that it is developing in that direction. | |||
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