Re: polysynthetic languages

Isidora Zamora wrote at 2003-09-22 21:38:26 (-0400)
 > Ok, I think I may have answered my queston about how a
 > polysynthetic language could have free word order and not mark it's
 > nouns for case.  I got out one of my college textbooks that I knew
 > had a chapter in it on Mohawk, and the information that I wanted
 > was there.  Here is how it works in Mohawk: Mohawk does not mark
 > its nouns for case, but it does mark its verbs for agreement with
 > both subject and object, and that agreement includes gender.
 > Mohawk also has free word order -- up to a point.  If you can use
 > the gender of the suject and object markers on the verb to
 > disambiguate which noun is the subject and which is the object,
 > then you can have free word order.

Other N. American polysynthetic languages do not index gender, but
can distinguish between two 3rd person arguments by means of a
proximate/obviative distinction.

 >
 > Which leads to my next question...Are there any natural
 > polysynthetic languages that do mark the nouns for case?  It seems
 > to me that it would certainly be *possible* for polysynthesizm and
 > a case system to be found together because there are a number of
 > languages out there that are fond of redundancy and wouldn't mind
 > marking everything twice.  Alternatively, are there any natural
 > languages that fall below the morpheme-to-word ratio needed to be
 > considered polysynthetic, rather than merely synthetic, that both
 > mark the verb for both subject and object agreement and also mark
 > nouns for case?

Possibly Georgian.  The person and number of the subject, direct
object and indirect object can be indexed on the verb, and nouns are
declined in seven cases.  I don't know how free the word order is, and
I don't know whether Georgian is considered polysynthetic (I don't
recall ever seeing the term applied to it).  There are people here
who've actually studied the language - hopefully they can provide more
information.  I the meantime,
http://www.armazi.demon.co.uk/georgian/grammar.html
is a nice introductory grammar (and the source of most of what I know
about the language).

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