tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2535926528061546990.post186250771526958315..comments2023-12-22T23:44:00.713-08:00Comments on Nawatl Scholar: Nahuatl Oligosynthesis and the etymology of ”pachtli”Magnus Pharao Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15904103274303918066noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2535926528061546990.post-18199729229088163612022-03-13T01:23:25.502-08:002022-03-13T01:23:25.502-08:00I don't think oligosynthesis was meant as a th...I don't think oligosynthesis was meant as a theory of language or linguistics, but specifically as a typological descriptive category of languages like Nahuatl and Blackfoot which Whorf saw as having a fairly small inventory of lexical roots sometimes with very abstract meanings. <br /><br />I think you are right that it is not clear that this is in fact substantially different from word formation processes and their relics in European languages. This is perhaps the real reason he never publishedor finished work on the oligosynthesis idea. Magnus Pharao Hansenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15904103274303918066noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2535926528061546990.post-30671238850331140122022-03-12T12:30:37.380-08:002022-03-12T12:30:37.380-08:00I'm doing some research on Whorf... Do you thi...I'm doing some research on Whorf... Do you think he might have abandoned his oligosythesis theory for his ideas on Configurative Linguistics.. He was very keen on establishing the need to establish the building blocks of syntax, morpho-syntaxis and phonology in linguistic analysis... but the lexicography, he acknowledges, may be explained by borrowings from other languages, or as the "figure from a ground" of experience that he takes from Gestalt theory as some kind of germ that will later grow into "cognitive" approaches to language in culture. I also don't think that the idea of oligosynthesis is all that foreign to our European language study of Graeco-Latin roots with lexical and functional affixes. Anyway, thanks for this article. Glenn Baterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11034818389471416831noreply@blogger.com