There are 18 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
From: Daniel Bowman
1b. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
From: Herman Miller
1c. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
From: Anthony Miles
1d. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
From: Daniel Burgener
2. Name That Glyph | Round Eight « Pseudoglyphs
From: Andrew Mendes
3a. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Garth Wallace
3b. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Peter Cyrus
3c. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Peter Cyrus
3d. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Paul Bennett
3e. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Paul Bennett
3f. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Paul Bennett
4a. Re: Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
From: Eric Christopherson
4b. Re: Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
From: Logan Kearsley
4c. Re: Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
From: Anthony Miles
5a. Re: Nonhuman features: birdspeak
From: Nikolay Ivankov
5b. Re: Nonhuman features: birdspeak
From: Nikolay Ivankov
6a. Re: Worldbuilding Question
From: Wesley Parish
7a. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
From: Peter Cyrus
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
Posted by: "Daniel Bowman" danny.c.bow...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:25 pm ((PST))
Daniel,
I think that if phonology is not your interest, then you can more or less
ignore it. Pick a subset of English sounds that you like, add a different
emphasis (perhaps the first syllable of every word is stressed?) or a
stringent consonant/vowel structure (perhaps as simple as
Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Vowel) and I feel like you could have something
that doesn't feel too much like English but is still simple to pronounce
for English speakers.
When I created my primary language I really didn't pay much attention to
phonology. Over time, as my interest and aptitude developed, I
incorporated more and more exotic (relative to American English) sounds.
As a result, my conlang Angosey has a core of easy to pronounce words,
followed by a layer influenced by Kiswahili, then a layer influenced by
Korean. One can then back-historicize this as stages in the language's
development.
The great thing about conlanging is that there is no instruction manual.
Danny
2012/2/28 Daniel Burgener <burgener.dan...@gmail.com>
> I find grammar, morphology, and pretty much everything about language that
> I've learned except for phonology to be absolutely fascinating. However,
> as someone with no linguistics training, phonology just gives me a really
> hard time. Whenever I try to start a new conlang, I usually start with
> phonology, and get bored and stopped before I get it looking like I want
> it. My central problem is that I have trouble making a phonology
> interestingly different from English, partially because I have a lot of
> trouble pronouncing most non-English phonemes (In terms of consonants,
> essentially I can pronounce English, the German ch, and dental stops For
> vowels, I generally can't tell them apart at all).
>
> Lately I've found myself wishing I could just skip the phonology section or
> take care of it in a few minutes and get on to the interesting parts right
> away. Are there any shortcuts I could take that would allow a non-linguist
> to quickly create a phonology that's interesting, easy for someone with
> only experience in English, German and Spanish to pronounce, and not
> totally "cookie cutter"?
>
> Thanks.
>
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
Posted by: "Herman Miller" hmil...@prismnet.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 8:23 pm ((PST))
On 2/28/2012 12:13 PM, Daniel Burgener wrote:
> I find grammar, morphology, and pretty much everything about language that
> I've learned except for phonology to be absolutely fascinating. However,
> as someone with no linguistics training, phonology just gives me a really
> hard time. Whenever I try to start a new conlang, I usually start with
> phonology, and get bored and stopped before I get it looking like I want
> it. My central problem is that I have trouble making a phonology
> interestingly different from English, partially because I have a lot of
> trouble pronouncing most non-English phonemes (In terms of consonants,
> essentially I can pronounce English, the German ch, and dental stops For
> vowels, I generally can't tell them apart at all).
You don't need a lot of non-English sounds to make a language with a
non-English phonology. Hawaiian for instance has sounds that are mostly
similar enough to English sounds, but the glottal stop (which is
marginal in English) is distinctive, and vowel length is also important.
What makes Hawaiian sound different is the syllable structure (lots of V
and CV syllables, unlike English which has consonants at the end of
syllables and can have clusters of up to 4 consonants in a row).
Swahili has sounds that are all in English except for /x/ and /É£/ in
some Arabic loanwords. It also has predominantly CV syllables, but many
words have syllabic /m/ and /n/, and syllable-initial /Å/, which in
English is always at the end of a syllable.
As far as vowels, English has an unusually large supply. Many languages
get by with the 5 basic vowels that you find in languages like Hawaiian
(or Spanish, or Swahili), and some like Arabic have only 3. But what
might be one vowel phoneme in a language like Arabic might sound like
more than one English vowel sound depending on the context.
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:23 pm ((PST))
I also don't understand why you have to able to pronounce it. I
find, however, that complex phonology can be distracting if the
core idea is grammatical or syntactical. The phonology of my
current project, Siye, is simple for now (9 consonants, 5 oral
vowels, 5 nasal vowels, syllable structure (C)V(N)) because working
with a split ergative language with Suffixaufnahme is hard enough.
If I keep the phonology simple, it's also easier to answer "can you
pronounce it?" One possibility for you might be to take a basic
system and delete a feature (like my mother does when she goes
to the opera). Some natlangs have no labials; Australian ones
have no sibilants; Hawaiian conflates /t/ with /k/ and has /n/ as
the only coronal. Of course, you could also steal a simple
phonology from one natlang and apply it to an entirely different
syntax and grammar. Or you could claim (conculturally) that this is
a transcription and that the pronunciation provides is a scholarly
best guess!
On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:04:22 -0800, David Peterson
<deda...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Two comments:
>
>(1) I second what Alex said. Why do you have to be able to
pronounce it? You can get something that's quite different from
English if you open yourself up to the range of human speech
soundsand you can do just that by being rid of the constraint
that you should be able to pronounce it.
>
>(2) You can skip the phonology by creating a language without
speech sounds. Here are two examples:
>
>X (visual conlang)
>
>http://dedalvs.com/x/main.html
>
>Rikchik (alien conlang)
>
>http://www.suberic.net/~dmm/rikchik/rikchik.html
>
>David Peterson
>LCS President
>presid...@conlang.org
>www.conlang.org
>
>On Feb 28, 2012, at 9:13 AM, Daniel Burgener wrote:
>
>> I find grammar, morphology, and pretty much everything
about language that
>> I've learned except for phonology to be absolutely
fascinating. However,
>> as someone with no linguistics training, phonology just gives
me a really
>> hard time. Whenever I try to start a new conlang, I usually
start with
>> phonology, and get bored and stopped before I get it looking
like I want
>> it. My central problem is that I have trouble making a
phonology
>> interestingly different from English, partially because I have a
lot of
>> trouble pronouncing most non-English phonemes (In terms of
consonants,
>> essentially I can pronounce English, the German ch, and dental
stops For
>> vowels, I generally can't tell them apart at all).
>>
>> Lately I've found myself wishing I could just skip the
phonology section or
>> take care of it in a few minutes and get on to the interesting
parts right
>> away. Are there any shortcuts I could take that would allow a
non-linguist
>> to quickly create a phonology that's interesting, easy for
someone with
>> only experience in English, German and Spanish to pronounce,
and not
>> totally "cookie cutter"?
>>
>> Thanks.
Messages in this topic (19)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Shortcuts on phonology?
Posted by: "Daniel Burgener" burgener.dan...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:11 am ((PST))
Thanks for all the interesting comments so far! I'll try to respond to as
many as I can.
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:01 PM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My approach to conlanging is to not do phonology at all. Ever.
> [etc snipped]
So, do you ever end up with a conlang that someone could speak? I imagine
we conlang for different reasons, but my ultimate goal would involve having
a language that at least I can speak. Good point about phonology not being
part of a language, but at the end of the day if you want to speak it,
don't you need a phonology to do so?
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:06 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/12, Daniel Burgener <burgener.dan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Are there any shortcuts I could take that would allow a non-linguist
> > to quickly create a phonology that's interesting, easy for someone with
> > only experience in English, German and Spanish to pronounce, and not
> > totally "cookie cutter"?
>
> I'm not sure how "interesting" you can get when taking extreme
> shortcuts, but "easy..." and "not totaly cookie-cutter" are probably
> doable. Start with the vowels: it sounds like you want a plausible
> subset of English's vowels. Maybe take one of the common three- or
> five-vowel systems and tweak it slightly; e.g., maybe take /i a u/ and
> add length distinctions (if you can distinguish length?) or give them
> stressed and unstressed allophones which could give you phones
> equivalent to six English phonemes, and interesting changes when word
> stress shifts for whatever morphological or syntactic reason. Or
> take /i e a u o/ and tweak it by replacing one of these most typical
> vowels with something a little more marked but easy for an English
> speaker, like /U/ for /u/ or /&/ for /a/; or add length distinctions
> (maybe just for a subset of them) or stressed/unstressed allophones as
> above, or add a sixth vowel that contrasts reasonably well with the
> others and is easy for you, like schwa or /&/.
>
Thanks for the suggestions. Another of my problems with phonology comes up
with my total lack of knowledge of the IPA, which makes reading helpful
suggestions and advice time consuming... I don't have time to go through
this and look all the sounds up at the moment, but I'll go through this
later.
> You can do similarly with the consonants; maybe start by cutting down
> the English consonant inventory by dropping some but not all of the
> less common and distinctive ones, and add some phonological processes
> that change one consonant into another (maybe phonemically, maybe
> allophonically), or delete or insert consonants, depending on what
> morpheme-boundary phonemes wind up next to as affixes and compounded
> morphemes are added.
>
Thanks
> I'm not sure how to advise you about phonotactics; assuming you can
> handle some non-English consonant clusters, I'd suggest using a
> syllable structure that's overall much simpler than English but which
> allows a few clusters that don't occur in English.
Phonotactics is less of a problem. I'm quite comfortable with plenty of
exotic phonotactics using English phonemes
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>
> I borrowed from the library that told you how to produce the sounds of
> the entire IPA, more or less, and drilled myself on them as I went
> through it. It was a real help. I think it was
> _A_Practical_Introduction_To_Phonetics_ by J. C. Catford, but it was a
> long time ago so I'm not sure (I just searched my local library's
> catalog for "phonetics" and that looks like the most likely match).
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Sam Stutter <samjj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And if you fancy going into phonology / phonetics at a later date, I find
> the best way is not to learn sounds by listening but by analysing how each
> is formed, which makes it a lot easier. /f/ = unvoiced bilabial fricative =
> place teeth on bottom lip, exhale without getting the vocal cords involved,
> etc, etc.
Thanks for the recommendations! Once I get up the energy to actually learn
something about phonetics I'll keep both of those suggestions in mind.
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/28/12, David Peterson <deda...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Two comments:
> >
> > (1) I second what Alex said. Why do you have to be able to pronounce it?
> You
> > can get something that's quite different from English if you open
> yourself
>
> Daniel hasn't said what specific goals he has for his next conlang,
> but there are a number of legitimate reasons one might want to limit
> the phonology to things one can pronounce. The most obvious to me,
> with my biases, is that one wants to be able to learn the conlang
> fluently, but there are others (e.g., wanting to use it in a story and
> have typical readers be able to readily pronounce the proper names and
> occasional conlang phrases). (Of course, this didn't prevent me from
> stocking gjâ-zym-byn with phonemes and clusters I could barely
> pronounce at the time I started working on it; but I was prepared to
> back off and revise the phonology for easier pronunciation if I found
> parts of it too hard to learn, and I did a lot of that in the first
> couple of years.)
Yeah, this. I haven't really shaped my goals around this yet-to-be-created
conlang yet, but I know that I ultimately want to speak it fluently. I'm
down with including phonemes and clusters I can't pronounce at the moment,
I guess, as it seems to have worked for Jim. But I'm not exactly sure how
to pick them if I can't pronounce them now (or even hear the difference.
For example, retroflex consonants are cool in theory to me, and I can bend
my tongue back and articulate, but they all just sound like "t" to my ear)
Any advice on that?
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 10:25 PM, Daniel Bowman <danny.c.bow...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Daniel,
>
> I think that if phonology is not your interest, then you can more or less
> ignore it. Pick a subset of English sounds that you like, add a different
> emphasis (perhaps the first syllable of every word is stressed?) or a
> stringent consonant/vowel structure (perhaps as simple as
> Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Vowel) and I feel like you could have something
> that doesn't feel too much like English but is still simple to pronounce
> for English speakers.
>
That sounds like good advice, especially if someone can claim from
experience that it works. I don't want to come out with something that
sounds like English.
> When I created my primary language I really didn't pay much attention to
> phonology. Over time, as my interest and aptitude developed, I
> incorporated more and more exotic (relative to American English) sounds.
> As a result, my conlang Angosey has a core of easy to pronounce words,
> followed by a layer influenced by Kiswahili, then a layer influenced by
> Korean. One can then back-historicize this as stages in the language's
> development.
>
Interesting!
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 1:23 AM, Anthony Miles <mamercu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I also don't understand why you have to able to pronounce it. I
> find, however, that complex phonology can be distracting if the
> core idea is grammatical or syntactical. The phonology of my
> current project, Siye, is simple for now (9 consonants, 5 oral
> vowels, 5 nasal vowels, syllable structure (C)V(N)) because working
> with a split ergative language with Suffixaufnahme is hard enough.
> If I keep the phonology simple, it's also easier to answer "can you
> pronounce it?" One possibility for you might be to take a basic
> system and delete a feature (like my mother does when she goes
> to the opera). Some natlangs have no labials; Australian ones
> have no sibilants; Hawaiian conflates /t/ with /k/ and has /n/ as
> the only coronal. Of course, you could also steal a simple
> phonology from one natlang and apply it to an entirely different
> syntax and grammar. Or you could claim (conculturally) that this is
> a transcription and that the pronunciation provides is a scholarly
> best guess!
See above comment regarding the need to pronounce it.
I like the idea of keeping it simple, but here's my question on this: if
you just take a natlang phonology and delete a few features, won't it still
sound like that natlang? Maybe linguists would go "oh, there is no
constrast on voicing, and no nasals in this conlang", but wouldn't Joe
Schmoe just say "sounds like English"?
I guess, what I'm realizing from several of these replies is that perhaps
my question should be more broad (and more well defined). Let's see if I
can offer a better question:
I'd like to make a conlang where I put very little effort into
phonology/phonetics, but it's easy to pronounce, and sounds very different
from English. If I can sufficiently achieve that with just phonotactics
(or some other field) related decisions based on a subset of English
phonetics (or phonology? Now I'm confused on the term) that would be
ideal. Is what I'm looking for possible? If so, how would one go about it?
-Daniel
Messages in this topic (19)
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________________________________________________________________________
2. Name That Glyph | Round Eight « Pseudoglyphs
Posted by: "Andrew Mendes" andrewtmen...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:34 pm ((PST))
Hello good people!
Please excuse my PURE LAZINESS and the delay. Life gets in the way of things
you'd rather be doing.
But back into it now and hopefully I'll have more control. I know I promised
some samples but alas I've none today. I'll do them up this evening and post
them next week our God strike me down!
Anyway please take part in the next round.
Happy building all.
http://pseudoglyphs.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/name-that-glyph-round-eight/
Messages in this topic (1)
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3a. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" gwa...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 8:09 pm ((PST))
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:37:40 -0800, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 3:28 AM, Paul Bennett <paul.w.benn...@gmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>>
>>> What intrigues me, though, is a writing system that would let someone
>>> literate in Hamer be more or less literate in the rest of Ethiopia. To this
>>> end, I'm thinking of a Ge'ez based writing system.
> [...]
>>> Questions, comments, suggestions?
>>
>>Personally, I'd try to keep it as similar to standard Ge'ez as
>>possible, so keeping it syllabic instead of turning it into an
>>alphabet.
>
> Agreed.
>
>>A virama of some kind could be introduced for consonants not
>>followed by a vowel; a second virama-like diacritic would be used for
>>unreleased final consonants.
>
> Conveniently, if /a e i o u/ are the only spelled vowels, there remain two
> unused vowels which could be used for viramas! No need to introduce more
> diacritics. Taking Ge'ez C@ for C0 is a perfectly logical thing to do, I
> think, especially as the C@ graphemes are the formally basic ones.
>
> [And let me be the record as saying that contrastive releasedness is
> completely hatstand. I'm sure I've read at least one phonology text
> asserting that it's impossible; I'd been planning to leave it out of Gleb
> for that reason...]
>
>>I'm not quite sure I understand how the vowels work from your previous
>>post. Can all of those vowels follow any consonant? If so, new
>>diacritics may be required for glottalized and laryngeal vowels.
>
> I think Paul's original idea works fine here: just find two unused consonant
> series, let me symbolise them as h*V and ?*V, and write glottal vowels as CV
> ?*V and laryngeal ones as CV h*V.
Only if those vowels never follow a consonant, if we're staying syllabic.
> Given the harmony, perhaps it is only necessary to use this spelling once in
> a root, and the rest will be inferrable.
He did say that the harmony is not always predictable.
> By the way, Paul, would you mind quoting some transcribed text in Hamer so
> we can see how this phonology plays out in practice?
That would probably help.
Heck, with a better idea of the phonotactics we could probably come up
with a tengwar mode just for the hell of it.
Messages in this topic (10)
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3b. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" pcy...@alivox.net
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 2:35 am ((PST))
"And let me be the record as saying that contrastive releasedness is completely
hatstand"
Hatstand is, in my dialect, only a pole on which to hang one's hat. My
guess is that you mean "fictive", but could you restate for clarity?
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 2:59 AM, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:37:40 -0800, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 3:28 AM, Paul Bennett <paul.w.benn...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> What intrigues me, though, is a writing system that would let someone
> >> literate in Hamer be more or less literate in the rest of Ethiopia. To
> this
> >> end, I'm thinking of a Ge'ez based writing system.
> [...]
> >> Questions, comments, suggestions?
> >
> >Personally, I'd try to keep it as similar to standard Ge'ez as
> >possible, so keeping it syllabic instead of turning it into an
> >alphabet.
>
> Agreed.
>
> >A virama of some kind could be introduced for consonants not
> >followed by a vowel; a second virama-like diacritic would be used for
> >unreleased final consonants.
>
> Conveniently, if /a e i o u/ are the only spelled vowels, there remain two
> unused vowels which could be used for viramas! No need to introduce more
> diacritics. Taking Ge'ez C@ for C0 is a perfectly logical thing to do, I
> think, especially as the C@ graphemes are the formally basic ones.
>
> [And let me be the record as saying that contrastive releasedness is
> completely hatstand. I'm sure I've read at least one phonology text
> asserting that it's impossible; I'd been planning to leave it out of Gleb
> for that reason...]
>
> >I'm not quite sure I understand how the vowels work from your previous
> >post. Can all of those vowels follow any consonant? If so, new
> >diacritics may be required for glottalized and laryngeal vowels.
>
> I think Paul's original idea works fine here: just find two unused
> consonant
> series, let me symbolise them as h*V and ?*V, and write glottal vowels as
> CV
> ?*V and laryngeal ones as CV h*V.
>
> Given the harmony, perhaps it is only necessary to use this spelling once
> in
> a root, and the rest will be inferrable.
>
> By the way, Paul, would you mind quoting some transcribed text in Hamer so
> we can see how this phonology plays out in practice?
>
> Alex
>
Messages in this topic (10)
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3c. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" pe...@shwa.org
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 2:44 am ((PST))
In CXS, ; indicates palatalization. Is that what i; and a; mean?
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 5:41 PM, Peter Cyrus <pe...@shwa.org> wrote:
> Of course I would vote for Shwa :)
>
> The only thing Hamer needs that the current version lacks is a suffix to
> indicate non-release. I had one in a previous version, but took it out
> when it seemed to me I couldn't find an example of a language where it
> wasn't phonologic, or even just idiolectal. Since your email of a day or
> so ago, I've been thinking it would make more sense to indicate the
> unexpected PRESENCE of a release in a syllable- or word-final pulmonic stop.
>
> What are i; and a;?
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Paul Bennett
> <paul.w.benn...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> More ramblings on the Ethiopian natlang Hamer.
>>
>> As far as I've been able to figure out, there's no writing system for it,
>> either de facto or de jure.
>>
>> I reckon this situation could be improved upon.
>>
>> So, consider this a con-scripting challenge, which appears to be more or
>> less on topic.
>>
>> To recap:
>>
>> * CONSONANTS *
>>
>> b d J\ g
>> p t c k ?
>> q'
>> b_< d_< g_<
>> z
>> f s S x h
>> ts
>> 4
>> l
>> m n J N
>> w j
>>
>> Plus phonemic gemination non-initially, plus phonemic lack-of-release for
>> pulmonic stops finally.
>>
>> * VOWELS *
>>
>> i u
>> e o
>> a
>>
>> Plus length, plus zero or one of { +glottal, +laryngeal }.
>>
>> i;
>> E O
>> a;
>>
>> Romanization seems pretty straightforward:
>>
>> IPA for the consonants, with doubling for gemination, and an apostrophe
>> for lack-of-release, leaving out the redundant apostrophe for /q'/. Maybe
>> plain <r> instead of "fish-hook" for /4/. Vowels as written above for the
>> 5-vowel triangle, plus doubling for length, and maybe acute for [ +glottal
>> ] and grave for [ +laryngeal ]. Macrons or something on <a>, <e>, <i>, <o>
>> for the additional vowels. Question mark immediately following the marked
>> word in yes/no questions, and some kind of mark, maybe <^>, <¬>, or <~>
>> after the marked word in negative statements. Maybe <j> for /J\/ and <y>
>> for /j/. Maybe <ñ> for /J/ and/or <Å¡> for /S/. Punctuation (except as
>> already used for pitch marking) pretty much as in English.
>>
>> What intrigues me, though, is a writing system that would let someone
>> literate in Hamer be more or less literate in the rest of Ethiopia. To this
>> end, I'm thinking of a Ge'ez based writing system.
>>
>> There are a couple of key things to bear in mind:
>>
>> * Unlike Amharic, consonants do not (almost) universally come with a
>> following vowel.
>>
>> * Unlike Amharic, vowels carry a much greater functional load, can
>> cluster in at least VVV clusters, and are far more numerous.
>>
>> With this in mind, I've been thinking of a semi-alphabetic system.
>>
>> Consonants would be written purely alphabetically, using the Series 1
>> form of the Ge'ez syllable (the /@/ series) plus some diacritics. There has
>> been talk of Amharic spelling reform to place two dots over geminated
>> consonants; I think that's a pretty good start. Maybe a single dot for
>> "lack of release". Acute and grave on the final (or first?) letter of
>> yes/no and negative words respectively.
>>
>> Vowels could be written using the Aleph row for [ +glottal ], one of the
>> "spare" <h> rows for [ +laryngeal ], and the Ayin row for plain / "umlaut".
>> The additional vowels would be written with another of the "spare" <h> rows.
>>
>> The consonants would look something like this, in roughly the order
>> above, with some blanks to be filled in later:
>>
>> á á° á á á ᰠḠᨠá á á ᰠḠá á ᨠá á á
>> á á á¨
>>
>> Note that this order is for convenience of notation. I'd probably stick
>> with the H, L, X, M, ... order used for the relevant subset of Ge'ez.
>>
>> The exact nature of the blanks, and the diacritics to be used, are left
>> as an exercise for the reader, along with the possibly-redundant process of
>> writing out the entire series for the vowels.
>>
>> Questions, comments, suggestions?
>>
>>
>> --
>> Paul
>>
>
>
Messages in this topic (10)
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3d. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" paul.w.benn...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 5:36 am ((PST))
On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:41:34 -0500, Peter Cyrus <pe...@shwa.org> wrote:
> What are i; and a;?
It seemed obvious to me at the time, but I realize it may not be after
all. A semi-colon being a "half colon", I used it to mark "half-long",
that is, between short and long.
--
Paul
Messages in this topic (10)
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3e. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" paul.w.benn...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 5:56 am ((PST))
On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:37:40 -0500, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally, I'd try to keep it as similar to standard Ge'ez as
> possible, so keeping it syllabic instead of turning it into an
> alphabet. A virama of some kind could be introduced for consonants not
> followed by a vowel; a second virama-like diacritic would be used for
> unreleased final consonants. Geminates would be spelled out (either
> prepending the same consonant with the plain or unreleased virama,
> choose your poison).
Since the /i\/ series is already used in Amharic for what is essentially a
virama, and there is no appropriate /i\/ phoneme in Hamer, I think that we
might have found a match.
As to the "unreleased" diacritic, I'm thinking "dot above" might be enough.
> I'm not quite sure I understand how the vowels work from your previous
> post. Can all of those vowels follow any consonant?
Yes.
There appear to be 19 vowels, of which 14 can appear in any given word.
i i: e e: a a: o o: u u: E O a; i; - can appear in any word
i_? i_?: e_? e_?: a_? a_?: o_? o_?: u_? u_?: - Category I words only
i_h i_h: e_h e_h: a_h a_h: o_h o_h: u_h u_h: - Category II words only
> If so, new
> diacritics may be required for glottalized and laryngeal vowels.
I've been thinking of a diacritic scheme for my romanization that places
accents much more sparingly, while being unambiguous.
I think it could work on a "full" Ge'ez too...
Category I roots with Harmonic suffixes - acute on stressed vowel
Category I roots with Umlauted suffixes - acute on stressed vowel, trema
on first suffix vowel
Category II roots with Harmonic suffixes - grave on stressed vowel
Category II roots with Umlauted suffixes - grave on stressed vowel, trema
on first suffix vowel
Umlauted Category I roots - circumflex on stressed vowel
Umlauted Category II roots - caron on on stressed vowel
> Are
> long vowels distinguished from sequences of two short vowels of the
> same quality?
I don't think so. However, clusters of at least three consecutive vowels
are documented.
The Category IV vowels and diphthongs appear to arise under these
circumstances, too. I need to get back and re-read that section.
> You mention diphthongs but don't list them; are they
> also distinguished from sequences of their components?
This is not documented, but the answer appears to be "no".
> If the answer
> to both of those are "no", then long vowels could be spelled by
> appending a vowel-only character of the same quality, while and
> diphthongs would append vowel-only characters of a different quality.
A vowel-only character? I suppose we'd need to choose to use either the
Aleph or Ayin row and stick with one of them. I suggest the Aleph row, but
I'm not tied to it.
> If Category IV vowels are reduced from certain sequences, they could
> just be spelled as if they were unreduced (like diphthongs).
This might be a winner, depending on the native intuition. If we're
sticking with Aleph for Categories I, II, and III, we could fall back to
Ayin for IV if the native intuition is that they are un-analyzable.
--
Paul
Messages in this topic (10)
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3f. Re: NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" paul.w.benn...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:02 am ((PST))
On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:59:28 -0500, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:37:40 -0800, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Personally, I'd try to keep it as similar to standard Ge'ez as
>> possible, so keeping it syllabic instead of turning it into an
>> alphabet.
>
> Agreed.
Thirded, after consideration.
>> A virama of some kind could be introduced for consonants not
>> followed by a vowel; a second virama-like diacritic would be used for
>> unreleased final consonants.
>
> Conveniently, if /a e i o u/ are the only spelled vowels, there remain
> two
> unused vowels which could be used for viramas! No need to introduce more
> diacritics. Taking Ge'ez C@ for C0 is a perfectly logical thing to do, I
> think, especially as the C@ graphemes are the formally basic ones.
Since Ci\ is used in Amharic (as opposed to the more-logical C@) as the
virama form, I think I'd stick with that, unless anyone has evidence from
Tigrinya or Tigre that they wish to share?
> And let me be the record as saying that contrastive releasedness is
> completely hatstand.
I'm only relating what the text says. It might be hatstand, it might be
cromulent.
I wont be able to provide confirmation or denial until some time after I
get back.
> By the way, Paul, would you mind quoting some transcribed text in Hamer
> so we can see how this phonology plays out in practice?
I will. I need to start getting ready for work here shortly, but I'll
start coming the text for the juiciest examples this evening.
--
Paul
Messages in this topic (10)
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4a. Re: Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
Posted by: "Eric Christopherson" ra...@charter.net
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:58 pm ((PST))
On Feb 27, 2012, at 2:49 PM, Logan Kearsley wrote:
> A bit of background- Celimine has always had demonstratives that
> conflate space+time (so you can say "here and now" or "then or there",
> but not "now but there").
[...]
> Now, I've recently started reading a grammar of Halkomelem Salish.
> That same article begins with an analysis of Halkomelem, which I
> totally skimmed over on the way to the much more interesting (at the
> time) bits on Blackfoot. And I feel really silly that I did not notice
> earlier that Halkomelem verb phrases work *eerily* similar to the way
> I came up with for Celimine, though sufficiently different that I can
> be reasonably sure I didn't just accidentally subconsciously copy it.
[...]
Cool. I had a similar idea, but the "here/now" thing would be used also for
first person (undecided whether it would apply to 1st-p subject, agent,
patient, possessor, or more than one). But I haven't worked out all the
implications of it yet.
What grammar of Halkomelem are you reading?
Messages in this topic (4)
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4b. Re: Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:13 pm ((PST))
On 28 February 2012 23:58, Eric Christopherson <ra...@charter.net> wrote:
> On Feb 27, 2012, at 2:49 PM, Logan Kearsley wrote:
>
>> A bit of background- Celimine has always had demonstratives that
>> conflate space+time (so you can say "here and now" or "then or there",
>> but not "now but there").
> [...]
>> Now, I've recently started reading a grammar of Halkomelem Salish.
>> That same article begins with an analysis of Halkomelem, which I
>> totally skimmed over on the way to the much more interesting (at the
>> time) bits on Blackfoot. And I feel really silly that I did not notice
>> earlier that Halkomelem verb phrases work *eerily* similar to the way
>> I came up with for Celimine, though sufficiently different that I can
>> be reasonably sure I didn't just accidentally subconsciously copy it.
> [...]
>
> Cool. I had a similar idea, but the "here/now" thing would be used also for
> first person (undecided whether it would apply to 1st-p subject, agent,
> patient, possessor, or more than one). But I haven't worked out all the
> implications of it yet.
I cannot imagine what any of the implications would be. What does it
even mean for that to apply specifically to the 1st person?
> What grammar of Halkomelem are you reading?
Gerdts, 1988. _Object and Absolutive in Halkomelem Salish_. It's a
PhD. thesis. Very annoyingly sparse in some areas, since it's not
concerned with actually teaching the language, but deeply engrossing
in others. I'm making lots of notes of interesting bits to steal.
After being told how incredibly alien Salishan languages are supposed
to be, I'm getting kind of weirded out by how much sense Halkomelem
seems to make. It alternates between "that's just *weird*" and "it's
odd how *normal* that seems". Way easier to understand than Blackfoot,
if you can get past the utterly unpronounceable phonology (and
correspondingly wacked transcription system), at least in my opinion.
YMMV.
-l.
Messages in this topic (4)
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4c. Re: Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:58 pm ((PST))
On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:13:03 -0700, Logan Kearsley
<chronosur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 28 February 2012 23:58, Eric Christopherson
<ra...@charter.net> wrote:
>> On Feb 27, 2012, at 2:49 PM, Logan Kearsley wrote:
>>
>>> A bit of background- Celimine has always had demonstratives
that
>>> conflate space+time (so you can say "here and now" or "then
or there",
>>> but not "now but there").
>> [...]
>>> Now, I've recently started reading a grammar of Halkomelem
Salish.
>>> That same article begins with an analysis of Halkomelem,
which I
>>> totally skimmed over on the way to the much more
interesting (at the
>>> time) bits on Blackfoot. And I feel really silly that I did not
notice
>>> earlier that Halkomelem verb phrases work *eerily* similar to
the way
>>> I came up with for Celimine, though sufficiently different that
I can
>>> be reasonably sure I didn't just accidentally subconsciously
copy it.
>> [...]
>>
>> Cool. I had a similar idea, but the "here/now" thing would be
used also for first person (undecided whether it would apply to 1st-
p subject, agent, patient, possessor, or more than one). But I
haven't worked out all the implications of it yet.
>
>I cannot imagine what any of the implications would be. What
does it
>even mean for that to apply specifically to the 1st person?
1st person here/now sounds like a variation on Tibetan
evidentiality, but that addresses "here" and allows both "now"
and "then."
http://web.linguist.umass.edu/~tibetan/Garrett.pdf
>
>> What grammar of Halkomelem are you reading?
>
>Gerdts, 1988. _Object and Absolutive in Halkomelem Salish_. It's
a
>PhD. thesis. Very annoyingly sparse in some areas, since it's not
>concerned with actually teaching the language, but deeply
engrossing
>in others. I'm making lots of notes of interesting bits to steal.
>After being told how incredibly alien Salishan languages are
supposed
>to be, I'm getting kind of weirded out by how much sense
Halkomelem
>seems to make. It alternates between "that's just *weird*"
and "it's
>odd how *normal* that seems". Way easier to understand than
Blackfoot,
>if you can get past the utterly unpronounceable phonology (and
>correspondingly wacked transcription system), at least in my
opinion.
>YMMV.
>
>-l.
Messages in this topic (4)
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5a. Re: Nonhuman features: birdspeak
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" lukevil...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 12:19 am ((PST))
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 1:19 AM, Padraic Brown <elemti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Tue, 2/28/12, Nikolay Ivankov <lukevil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Therefore, I've been wondering, if someone has studied sound
> > changes in
> > birds vocalization. Well, I anticipate the problems of such
> > a research, but still, maybe someone has done it.
>
> I don't know if this has been done or not. I do know that people have been
> transcribing bird song into musical notation for a while -- one place to
> look would be in the direction of musically inclined birdwatchers over the
> decades, and perhaps centuries back. Another direction would be birdsong
> as translated into music (Respighi comes to mind immediately -- one of my
> faovrites, Gli Uccelli), but of course keep in mind that this isn't
> birdsong per se. It would be a matter of comparison of those older written
> / notated records with recordings of modern birds of the same species in
> the same regions.
>
> For example: http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~tony/birds/music/intro.html
> "Bird Song" by F. S. Mathews (cited above) is available at Amazon
> http://www.pentatonika.net/songbirds.html
>
> etc.
Thanks for the matherial. I've seen people doing this before - not that
I've been looking for this on a purpose. Yet, I think these works aim on
the aesthetical side of the songs - not something like "_*tweet*_ in this
position becomes _*weet*_" or "this sound is a doubly aspirated beak
click".
Well, I won't really expect something like a bird IPA - the number of
people on Earth exceeds the number of all the wild bids nearly twice. I'm
afraid, this would only be possible is we've had a race of sentient
raptors. But that's what I've been interested in: what if there were
sentient creatures with non-human vocalization apparatus? They'll
definitely use all its advantages and suffer all its disadvantages, and te
rules of the development of this idioms - I can't call it language, because
I'm not sure they'll use the tongue - well, the rules may be completely
different.
In writing, I can present some non-human characteristics by choosing a
proper vocabulary. Say, the creatures have a different kind of colour
perception - so I never use the adjectives for colorus except for the
grayscale, and use something like "the colour of the sky" or "mottled" when
I need to go beyond that.
Of course, if sometimes I'll continue writing something about my conworld,
I'd use "human" letters and sounds - for these are the humans who would be
supposed to read this stuff. But still, I feel rather uncomfortable knowing
that my approximation may be quite far from how it could sound in fantastic
reality.
Sorry for a longish answer
Kolya
> > Maybe a stupid question, though.
>
> The only stupid question is the question unasked for fear of embarrassment.
>
> And even then, we can't blame the question so much as the questioner.
>
> Padraic
>
Messages in this topic (5)
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5b. Re: Nonhuman features: birdspeak
Posted by: "Nikolay Ivankov" lukevil...@gmail.com
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 12:30 am ((PST))
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 1:38 AM, Gary Shannon <fizi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm sure this is a tangent and possibly semi-off topic, but how cool
> would it be to get some kind of electronic gadget that could reproduce
> various birds sounds by twisting knobs and pushing buttons. It would
> have to be hand-held and with the kind of button arrangement used on
> game controllers you it could be manipulated quickly and fluidly to
> produce a huge variety of sound sequences. Then build a conlang around
> that "phonology".
>
> In fact, you wouldn't necessarily have to be limited to bird sounds.
> You could include buttons for white noise shots, light bell-like
> tinkles, spectrum-sweeping "whoop-whoops", and whatever the
> imagination could conjure up. Now imagine two people having an
> animated conversation using a pair of such "language" devices. That
> just sounds really exciting! :)
>
Yes, this sounds really nice indeed:) In fact, we do, or at least did have
something alike - for instance, military commands given by pipe and tabor.
Not really a language, but an improvement to it was and is definitely
possible. Or the tamtam telegraph, which was used to transfer a more
complex data.
And I'm afraid this gives me an idea...
> --gary
>
> On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:50 PM, Nikolay Ivankov <lukevil...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> ---
> >
> > Therefore, I've been wondering, if someone has studied sound changes in
> > birds vocalization. Well, I anticipate the problems of such a research,
> but
> > still, maybe someone has done it.
>
Messages in this topic (5)
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6a. Re: Worldbuilding Question
Posted by: "Wesley Parish" wes.par...@paradise.net.nz
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 12:30 am ((PST))
nit-pick: res publica res=issue, matter, "thing"; publica=popular,
something of the people, "public"
The meaning of "republic" is therefore that matters of the state are
also matters of interest and importance to the people.
Wesley Parish
On 13/02/2012, at 9:51 PM, Nikolay Ivankov wrote:
> I'm not really sure that this is the question to the LCS, even less
> than
> the previous question by Nicole. However, there are several hints I
> may
> give.
>
> First of all, what you describe resebles, with small historical
> "oscillations", USA around the war for independence. Slavery,
> democracy,
> the steam power is nigh, the science is still somewhat Renaissance.
>
> So what will really resemble Antiquity in your conworld? Is it only
> about
> sandals and togas, or do you mean something else, like lack of
> gunpowder?
>
> Furthermore, Greeks were aware of steam engine (in its most simple
> forms)
> and differential device, and that's the fault of Romans who didn't
> get the
> point. Greeks were also aware of lens since at least Vth century
> BC, so
> they could have constructed both telescope and microscope. And, by
> the way,
> the microscope, as an idea of reversing the telescope, appeared
> much later,
> because it looks much more practical and fascinating from the
> beginning to
> know what is far rather than what is right here, but invisibly small.
>
> As to democracy, Rome before Caesar was a Republic = Rex Publica =
> Reign of
> People = Demo+Kratia = Demo-Cracy. The development of the democracy
> was not
> something path-breaking in ancient times, it is actually the
> monarchy that
> was developing out of egalitarian societies.
>
> I'm not sure I've answered Your question, but this has nothing to
> do with
> conlanging so far. So if You want more answers and questions, write a
> personal message.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kolya
>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:15 AM, J. Snow <sonarsn...@live.com> wrote:
>
>> The conworld I derived my conlang from is a patchwork of elements
>> from our
>> own
>> world. I've mainly been dealing with a set time period in this
>> world, and
>> I've only
>> bothered with a relatively small region, because planning on using
>> it in a
>> story I'm
>> trying to write.
>>
>> -Society in this region is roughly similar to Roman times (in some
>> places), around
>> 500 BC to 100 AD.
>> -The technology is rather advanced for these types of societies;
>> steel is
>> beginning
>> to become mass-produced, and steam powered ships and machinery are
>> common
>> several of the nations of this region.
>> -Science is in a post Renaissance-like stage; the telescope is a
>> recent
>> invention and
>> microscopes have been around for a century.
>> -Religion is a bit blurred; there is a duothiestic, Christian-like
>> religion that has been
>> around for 1000 years but Romanesque gods are still widely
>> worshipped.
>>
>> My question is, how might these events have developed into what
>> they are
>> "today"? And how might democracy develop in this type of situation?
>>
>> (Sorry if I'm being kind of confusing. I'm tired and probably not
>> thinking
>> clearly.)
>>
Messages in this topic (11)
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7a. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" pcy...@alivox.net
Date: Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:28 am ((PST))
My big words were just masking a small thought. I was thinking of things
like English "telephone pole", where "pole" indicates the structure, the
how, and "telephone" indicates the function, the why. Your verbs seem to
indicate function well, but you're lacking the vocabulary to distinguish
the various contributions that pen, pencil and ink make to writing.
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On 27 February 2012 13:51, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:26:44 -0700, Logan Kearsley <
> chronosur...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>Mev Pailom* is very verb-oriented; there are small classes of
> >>prepositions, grammatical particles, and pronouns, and everything else
> >>so far is regularly derived from basically verbal roots. This has
> >>resulted in an explosion of vocabulary for abstract concepts and for
> >>concrete things that are easily associated with activities (like bed =
> >>"locative-sleep", hand = "instrument-do"), but it's leaving me without
> >>an easy way to form specific concrete nouns; e.g., what activity goes
> >>with "rock"? How does one distinguish "pen", "pencil", or "ink" from
> >>"instrument-symbol-draw"?
> >
> > My first suggestion would be *not* to distinguish them, at the basic
> level,
> > mindful of the fact that languages differ in what semantic divisions are
> > reflected in basic-level categories (and wanting to avoid an English
> > lexical-structure bias). If you need to speak of pens and pencils in
> > còntrast to one another, then stick on whatever disambiguatory modifier
> you
> > need: "liquid drawing-tool" vs. "sticklike drawing-tool"? "erasable
> d.-t."
> > vs. "unerasable d.-t."? But in most contexts this modifier would be
> > dispensable.
>
> Yeah, that's the basic thought behind using classifiers of some sort.
> I'm a big fan of Rick Morneau's approach of breaking things down into
> really basic concepts and then using derivational morphology to build
> them back up again, which has resulted in a lot of very different
> basic distinctions than what we'd get from just using English as a
> starting point.
>
> >>I'm averse to just making up a whole lot of basic nominal roots
> >>because I don't want a) to shift the character of the language too
> >>much or b) to impinge on the phonological space that's available for
> >>the regular derivational system to grow into; e.g., if there's a
> >>verbal root R-K and an unanalyzable noun "rok", the pattern -CoC- is
> >>excluded from possible use in the derivational system, or else we risk
> >>homophony, which eliminates potentially hundreds of possible derived
> >>words for the sake of one basic root.
> >
> > Why isn't a little homophony tolerable?
>
> A little is- there's even some potential homophony built into the
> derivational system already. I just don't want *every* potential noun
> root to be conflicting with a possible deverbal form. And I'm rather
> fond of the existing capacity to recognize a word as a verb or
> deverbal derivation based solely on the shape of the word;
> specifically noun-verb homophony messes that up, where verb-verb or
> noun-noun homophony presents less of a problem.
>
> >>So, I am looking for various morphological strategies that can are
> >>used for nominals in other verb-oriented languages.
> >>For the pen/pencil/ink sort of problem, I was thinking of using
> >>classifiers to distinguish different possible meanings of general
> >>nouns; regarding which, does anyone know of a good large list of noun
> >>classifiers / counters used in various languages?
> >
> > Hm. I get the feeling that would sometimes help but often not. My
> > impression is that natlang classifiers tend mostly to be based on
> > shape+size+consistency, or broad functional groups (rarely does it get
> finer
> > than "tools"), or broad associational groups (e.g. men's objects vs.
> women's
> > ones). Ink is liquid whereas both pens and pencils are sticklike; the
> > latter two are less likely to be distinguished in a class system, but
> maybe
> > (oldschool) pencils could be made to fall in a "trees & their products"
> class/
>
> That's why I'd like to look at comprehensive lists from multiple
> languages. They probably don't all divide things up in the same broad
> ways.
> But where it doesn't help anyway, that's where I need more than just
> one possible nominal-formation strategy.
>
> > My impression is that, in the verb-prominent native languages of North
> > America, one of the common strategies for naming particular objects is
> just
> > nominalizing a whole verb phrase, with whatever necessary modifiers in
> it.
> > Along the lines of "ink" = 'writing-tools are filled with it'.
>
> Indeed it is; unfortunately, I can't find a good dictionary with
> morphological information in it to see how those nominalizations are
> formed.
>
> On 27 February 2012 14:47, Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
> <jeff.rol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > You could just have a verb that means "to rock" or "to be a rock", and
> then syntax or morphology which makes it clear when the lexeme is being
> used in the nominal sense,
>
> I've taken that approach to form adjectives- making adjectival
> concepts into verb roots, which have derivations for the quality-noun
> (e.g., red = red-ness) and an attributive (red = red-ish).
>
> But it feels to me like that strategy just wants to be used for
> qualities and other abstract things. There's a big difference between
> having a verb for "to be happy" and a verb for "to be a rock".
>
> I'll have to think about it some more; that approach could certainly
> work for some things, but it just doesn't quite feel right.
>
> > Depending on what you're looking for, homophony could make your conlang
> more naturalistic.
>
> I expect it to; I'm looking forward to it just happening as the
> language gets put into use. But if I'm going to have a lot of
> homophony, I do want it to be genuinely naturalistic, not something
> that I am putting in consciously knowing that it will make it seem
> more naturalistic.
>
> > Also, you could disambiguate (some/all) homophones by derivation,
> compounding, and/or tone, so that
>
> Hm. I could introduce lexical stress. But then I'll have to come up
> with a good way to notate that....
>
> On 27 February 2012 15:30, Peter Cyrus <pcy...@alivox.net> wrote:
> > You could also consider that nouns are binominal conjunctions of
> structure
> > and function. Your verb system is providing the function, so you need a
> > few roots for structures, maybe just a few more than a classifier system
> > would have,
>
> I am not at all sure what you mean by "structure" in this case. Or
> really what you have in mind at all. Could you elaborate? Maybe with
> examples? Is there a natlang I could reference?
>
> -l.
>
Messages in this topic (6)
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