Or more precisely, they differ in their nature and applicability in different language groups. See for example Bantu languages, which do conjugation and declension but against a list of typically a dozen noun classes, rather than 2 or 3 genders.

Meanwhile Semitic languages don't have the notion of an adjective and use instead different phrase stuctures.

So I think if you are going to try and identify language primitives at this kind of level, you are right into Chomsky territory, trying to find a universal set of abstractions from which to specialise for different language groups.

Here you will find the bones of philosophers who have gone before.

Mike

On 22 July 2020 at 17:08 Grounder UK <grounderuk@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm loving all these emails but I find it hard to keep track of the different topics. Someone find me a Wiki!

So, your question, Adam: " What do you think about conjugation and declension functions?"

In general, I'm against them.  (Well, I'm English. What would you expect?)

In general, surely, they reflect Indo-European languages? Doubtless they are on topic, but three of the top ten Wikipedias, by visits, are not from that language group.

Charles

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