VMs: Re: Paradigms Regained

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

10/10/02 17:02:55, "GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Dennis wrote:
>>A prefix,
>> infix, and suffix might be, in each case, a "glyph".

>>From a different angle, these "prefixes", "infixes", "and
>>suffixes" may be composed of glyphs, not compose a glyph. 

I wish that this word, "glyph", would be avoided here. 
It conjures up the term "hieroglyph", so it is all right 
when discussing Maya, Egyptian, even the Phaistos disk.
But dictionaries give "glyph" as "a symbolic figure,
either engraved or incised; hieroglyph." Totally inappropriate
for the VMs. Call them graphemes if you like, but not glyphs.
 
>It's
>more likely in my mind that they are less conjugational, root or
>declension oriented and far more systemic in nature.

There was never any suggestion that they were elements of
conjugations or declensions. This is clear in my first post
about Tiltman's observations which prompted me the Chinese
hypothesis. Chinese has neither declensions nor conjugations.
It is also clear in Robert Firth's note #24, where he 
suggested a _cipher_ with odd and even letters differently
enciphered. A sort of Vigenere with a 2-letter key, in other 
words.

In fact (Chinese again!), as I looked at those suffixes in 
EVA, I could not help think of tones, viz ain aiin aiiin,
ey, eey, eeey. and so on.