Lizardsquid, maker of noises @lizardsquid@computerfairi.es

@chao hello!

@chao sleep well, softie!

huh... I'm in the mood to do some formal methods stuff again...

@Felthry @BatElite (as for the links about affixes turning into words, I don't have anything on-hand that you couldn't find just by googling, sorry!)

@Felthry @BatElite enjoy your snooze!!!!!!

@BatElite @Felthry for your "impossible" question — it depends on what happens.

It can become two words "im possible", but it won't become a compound.

A more likely scenario is that "im" could become what's known as a clitic.

I intentionally avoided mentioning clitics because they make this whole thing more complicated: in some ways they act like words, but in other ways they act like affixes.

I think the wikipedia articlemight be able to explain it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitic

@BatElite @Felthry oh yeah, so things go in both directions.

grammatical affixes can slowly turn into grammatical words, and grammatical words can turn into grammtical affixes.

We can also end up with words that were originally synthetic (so there's a root word and an affix), but because the affix has fallen out of use, it's now just a compound word.

@Felthry @BatElite I was going to quote the greenlandic word illu-lior-poq

illu is a root meaning house
lior is another root, meaning build
poq is a grammatical affix meaning "she does"

so illuliorpoq is "she builds a house".

(as I mentioned: it's harder to tell the difference between compounding and polysynthesis, and it requires a linguistic analysis that I couldn't possibly fit in a toot — so you'll have to trust that this isn't compounding)

@Felthry @BatElite yes, that's a decent example (and Inuktitut is polysynthetic)

@BatElite @Felthry you know what "im" means, because you know english – when you're (somewhat) fluent in a language, you understand the affixes and how they change the meaning of the words they're attached to.

But they're still not words! they can't be used in a sentence!

@BatElite @Felthry sure, but it's not a word.

I can't use it in a sentence, unless it's already attached to a different word

@BatElite @Felthry that's why I put it under a CW — explaining grammatical processes in languages you don't know is a bit difficult. It's ok if you don't get it!

@BatElite @Felthry so an important thing I forgot to mention: affixes cannot stand on their own as words.

In english, I can't say "im" and have you understand what I mean, I can't say "ness" and have you understand – both of those MUST be attached to a word in order for them to have any meaning.

But I can say "light" or "house", or "straw" or "berry".

With Kunsttentoonstelling, you can say "kunst" on its own, and you can say "tentoonstelling" on its own and have it be understood.