Attempting to justify the Proto-Eastern verbal endings

[Jaaaaaa]

Twill be fun, to be sure.

*sits waiting*

[Dudicon]

Twill be fun, to be sure.

*sits waiting*

I hope you're not planning to sit and wait in the same place until the waitee is achieved. Unless you have a servant.

[Delthayre]

I don't know. Maybe pickles are like Ents.

[Rory]

I must admit I do look forward to the experience.

As do I. It will, unfortunately, involved learning a good deal of the Western Languages though (it's not that I don't like them: it's that I'm lazy).

[Jaaaaaa]

Twill be fun, to be sure.

*sits waiting*

I hope you're not planning to sit and wait in the same place until the waitee is achieved. Unless you have a servant.

*points to Jar of Infinite Pickles*

Food and water source

I don't know. Maybe pickles are like Ents.

I just wear a pickle costume (not irl. i wish I had one, though. One fo tehs eyears I'm gonna be a pickle for halloween), I'm not a pickle. Or else I wouldn't eat them

[Mecislau]

not irl. i wish I had one, though. One fo tehs eyears I'm gonna be a pickle for halloween

You completely lost me there

[Jaaaaaa]

not irl. i wish I had one, though. One fo tehs eyears I'm gonna be a pickle for halloween

You completely lost me there

'twas a joke, sorta, and now I don't totally get it myself... ack.

What I said was, when I'm represented as a pickle (in pictures and such) it's (or would be) me "wearing" a pickle costume. However, in real life I don't have a pickle costume, though I want to get one and be pickle for Halloween someday.

[con quesa]

even if Spanish is agglutinating

Huh? I'm learning Spanish, and it seems to me that it's almost entirely inflicting or isolating. The only agguginative affixes I can think of are the various dimunitive suffixes, and the -ba- in some forms of the imperfect tense. What other agguginative characteristics does Spanish have?

[jburke]

even if Spanish is agglutinating

Huh? I'm learning Spanish, and it seems to me that it's almost entirely inflicting or isolating. The only agguginative affixes I can think of are the various dimunitive suffixes, and the -ba- in some forms of the imperfect tense. What other agguginative characteristics does Spanish have?

Spanish is the second most fusional ("inflecting" in LCK terms) language I've seen; the top being Mohawk.

[Aurora Rossa]

I know. Spanish compresses so much into one modified word ending.

[Whimemsz]

I know. Spanish compresses so much into one modified word ending.

Mark gives a good example in the LCK: in the word comi', "I ate," the ending -i' signifies a first person singular preterit tense indicative mood (verb type -er).

[con quesa]

Mark gives a good example in the LCK: in the word comi', "I ate," the ending -i' signifies a first person singular preterit tense indicative mood (verb type -er).

Isn't that an example of inflection? I'm asking about aggulgination.

[Aurora Rossa]

Isn't that an example of inflection? I'm asking about aggulgination.

I'd like to give you an example of it, but given that everyone is tired of hearing about my conlang, I won't.

[pharazon]

Huh? I'm learning Spanish, and it seems to me that it's almost entirely inflicting or isolating. The only agguginative affixes I can think of are the various dimunitive suffixes, and the -ba- in some forms of the imperfect tense. What other agguginative characteristics does Spanish have?

Isn't that an example of inflection? I'm asking about aggulgination.

Spanish doesn't seem very agglutinating to me, either.

I'd like to give you an example of it, but given that everyone is tired of hearing about my conlang, I won't.

Thank you, Eddy; since con quesa was just asking about agglutination in Spanish (I think), it probably wouldn't be too helpful. If someone was asking for an example of agglutination in general, we'd be happy to see one from your conlang.

[Whimemsz]

Mark gives a good example in the LCK: in the word comi', "I ate," the ending -i' signifies a first person singular preterit tense indicative mood (verb type -er).

Isn't that an example of inflection? I'm asking about aggulgination.

Sorry. I was responding to Eddy and Jeff's comments.

[Aurora Rossa]

Thank you, Eddy; since con quesa was just asking about agglutination in Spanish (I think), it probably wouldn't be too helpful. If someone was asking for an example of agglutination in general, we'd be happy to see one from your conlang.

Agglutination in Spanish? What would make you think that?

[Neek]

Spanish agglutination? Formation of plural nouns is in -s. Object pronoun integration is non-fusional: Degame. Does that help any?

[doctrellor]

Inflections are of course affixes used to conjugate verbs and decline nouns. Examples from English are the -s we add to verbs for the 3rd person present form, the -s added to pluralize nouns, and the -ed of the past tense. Languages such as Russian or Latin have complex, not to say baroque, inflectional systems.

A single inflection may encode multiple meanings. For instance, in the Russian form dom?v, the -?v ending indicates both plurality and the genitive case; it doesn't bear any evident relationship with other plural endings (e.g. nominative -?) or the singular genitive ending (-a). In Spanish com? 'I ate', the -? ending indicates the 1st person singular, past tense, indicative mood-- quite a job for one vowel, even accented.

In agglutinating languages, one affix has one meaning. Compare Quechua wasikunapi 'in the houses'; the plural suffix -kuna is separate from the case suffix -pi. Or mikurani 'I ate', in which the past tense suffix -ra- is kept separate from the personal ending -ni.

In isolating languages, there are no suffixes at all; meanings are modified by inserting additional words. In Chinese, for instance, w? chi f?n could mean 'I eat' or 'I was eating', depending on the context; the verb is not inflected at all. For precision, adverbs can be brought in: w? chi f?n zu?ti?n 'I was eating yesterday'.

(In practice natural languages are all a bit mixed; some inflections have a single meaning; Quechua does have a few inflections, for instance, and Chinese does have required grammatical particles, such as the aspect particle le, used to show completed action: w? chi f?n le 'I ate.')

Conlang creators seem to gravitate toward agglutinating or isolating languages; but there's something to be said for inflections. They tend to be compact, for instance. You can't beat -? for succintness.

I would say Spanish is inflecting...

[pharazon]

Agglutination in Spanish? What would make you think that?

That seems to be what con quesa asked about:

even if Spanish is agglutinating

Huh? I'm learning Spanish, and it seems to me that it's almost entirely inflicting or isolating. The only agguginative affixes I can think of are the various dimunitive suffixes, and the -ba- in some forms of the imperfect tense. What other agguginative characteristics does Spanish have?

Spanish agglutination? Formation of plural nouns is in -s. Object pronoun integration is non-fusional: Degame. Does that help any?

Yeah, but I wouldn't say Spanish is agglutinating, like someone apparently did earlier.

[Neek]

Of course not, however, considering it entirely 'inflecting or isolating' is false: it has obvious agglutinating featurs, so it's a nice mix of all three. And it also proves that languages don't have be agglutinating to have agglutinating features.