Cross-linguistic Morpheme Analysis

[chester_100]

The Indo-European family is composed of multifarious languages that are thought to be closely interrelated. Comparative morphological and etymological analysis can help a researcher arrive at sound conclusions with this respect.
The following picture is a model:

[chester_100]

-This is an excerpt from Also Sprach Zarathustra. The equivalents have corresponding colors.
-The Persian one is rather influenced structurally by the original for the purpose of analysis.
-The German literary structure can be tricky; share your views with me about that.
-Can you make any generalizations?


English:

Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!

German:

Du grosses Gestirn! Was wäre dein Glück, wenn du nicht Die hättest, welchen du leuchtest!

Persian:

تو اي ستاره بزرگ! چه خواهد بود خوشنوديت، گر نمي داشتي

آنان را كه برايشان پرتو مي افكني

[Frank Antonson]

That is SO interesting.

Here is my contribution.

[chester_100]

Thank you. I suppose the German sentence can be diagramed pretty much like your English model.

[Frank Antonson]

Yes, I would have diagrammed the German this morning, but I didn't have time before I had to leave for school.

The German would diagram very similarly.

I take it that you know German as well as Persian and English.

It would be interesting to see how a non-IndoEuropean language would diagram.

I think Kondorosi did one in Hungarian on this forum.

I'm sure he did. If you want, I can go back and try to find it.

If you are looking back through the forum, you might want to look at the thread that reads something like "sentences as flowers".

[chester_100]

Originally Posted by Frank Antonson

Yes, I would have diagrammed the German this morning, but I didn't have time before I had to leave for school.

The German would diagram very similarly.

I take it that you know German as well as Persian and English.

Well, I like languages in general. When I deal with a particular language, I set a framework. In Arabic I'm mostly after etymological facts. German is a bit especial to me, because the most rigorous researches on the Persian language and culture were conducted by German researchers; as a result, one can find more detailed information about Persian in German. But I mostly read German literature rather than writer or speak it.

It would be interesting to see how a non-IndoEuropean language would diagram.

Yes, that's interesting; of course, I have no idea what the diagram would look like. I mean the similarities across Indo-European languages are so great that, in the majority of cases, a simple replacement of words will change a sentence from one language to another. However, it is not so with other families: a language may employ infixation like the following, with the morpheme in the between being the subject of the sentence; honestly speaking, that scares me:
Yhmeitar.

I think Kondorosi did one in Hungarian on this forum.

I'm sure he did. If you want, I can go back and try to find it.
That would be nice; of course I have no iota of information about that.

If you are looking back through the forum, you might want to look at the thread that reads something like "sentences as flowers".
I found it!

Chester

[Frank Antonson]

Chester,

I would love to know more about your education and occupation. You obviously are extremely knowledgeable.

Regarding infixes...

I think the Reed-Kellogg system would have to be adjusted some how for that. I have thought before that by introducing color to the diagrams what we Americans call "agreement" and what I believe the British call "concord" could be shown.

Do you know about a website called <Livemocha.com> ? It is easy to make friends from all over the world, speaking MANY different languages there. That could be a fertile field in which to plant interest in Reed-Kellogg.

Did you find any of Kondorosi's posts yet?

Frank

[chester_100]

Thank you and sorry for the delay; there’s a horrifyingly stormy season upon me, through which I have to sail with a half-broken bark. And because of that I can’t keep things in balance.

Well, about my education, I have to say that I believe in the relativity of knowledge, and that’s why formal education is not a crucial factor in my eyes. But I received academic education in translation and teaching and all the subjects pertinent to them like literature, linguistics, contrastive analysis, error analysis, research and etc.

I have also studied academic materials of psychology, but not at a university. I like psychoanalysis, philosophy, language, software programming, and anything interesting in general.
I mostly study to learn something about the universe and to give away what I’ve learnt to others.

Thank you for the address; I will certainly check it out as well as the diagrams in the Forum.

[Frank Antonson]

If you don't mind my asking, how do you earn your living?

[chester_100]

I teach and translate texts mostly.