[YG Conlang Archives] > [westasianconlangs group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
Ktebe David J. Peterson: > Anthony wrote: > << > How many phonemes must a language which uses radicals possess in order > to form sufficient triradicals? > >> > > Well, if you admit for the possibility of any kind of root (including > three of the same consonant in a row [Arabic has at least one: /j j j/, > which forms the verb "to use the letter yaa"]), then it's simply a > matter of multiplying it out. Let's say your low end is 20: > > 20 x 20 x 20 = 8,000 > > That's a fair number of roots, and quite possibly "enough". However, > rules on forming triradicals may cut that number down, so you may > want to increase the number of phonemes, and, with each phoneme > you add, the number increases significantly. > > How many phonemes were you thinking having? I merely second David's opinion. A typical Semitic lang (the only kind of natlangs that use this kind of morphology AFAIK) uses 20-30 consonantal phonemes, e.g. Hebrew uses 23. There are some restriction wrt phoneme combinations, but e.g. the whole Tanakh (s.c. "Old Testament") uses ca. 1,700 roots, which is far less than 12,167 possible combinations, but quite enough to express rather complex ideas. -- Yitzik