There are 18 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition and
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1b. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition
From: MorphemeAddict
1c. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1d. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison, Def inition
From: Michael Everson
1e. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initio
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1f. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initio
From: Michael Everson
1g. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initi
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1h. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinais on , Def init
From: Ph. D.
1i. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Su rdé clinaison , Def initi
From: Padraic Brown
1j. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initi
From: MorphemeAddict
2.1. Re: Happy New Year
From: Padraic Brown
2.2. Re: Happy New Year
From: Anthony Miles
3a. Re: Orthographic Reform
From: Logan Kearsley
4a. Re: Siye Cases
From: Anthony Miles
5a. Re: M. A. R. Barker (1929-2012)
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
5b. Re: M. A. R. Barker (1929-2012)
From: Michael Everson
6. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surd�clinaison, Def inition
From: A. da Mek
7. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surd�clinaison, Def inition
From: A. da Mek
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition and
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:33 am ((PDT))
Hi everyone!
Grrr... Once again, I added a new post on Moten in my blog, and forgot to
announce it here :( . Let's repair that mistake now.
So the latest instalment of my Moten grammar series, available here:
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/2012/03/moten-part-viii-surdeclinaison.html,
is devoted to one of my linguistic features: surdéclinaison.
As some of you may remember, surdéclinaison was the subject of my
presentation at the LCC4 last year, and I still find it a fascinating
subject. I'm also very surprised that it isn't more often used in conlangs.
We seem to jump on each and every fringe language feature we can set our
teeth in (am I mixing metaphors here? :) ), but somehow surdéclinaison has
been ignored so far, despite the fact that its distant cousin
Suffixaufnahme is a well known denizen here... I simply hope the issue is a
simple lack of familiarity, and that posts like my own one here will help
solve this issue.
Anyway, in this post I define what surdéclinaison is and how it applies to
nouns in Moten. I've decided to split the discussion in two posts, so next
post will deal with surdéclinaison as applied to verbs, as well as smaller
patterns and isolated cases (if you remember my presentation, I had nothing
there yet. Now I have quite a few examples of how surdéclinaison is used in
Moten for instance to create new lexical items).
As usual, you can find my other posts about Moten here:
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/p/moten-language.html
And also as usual, comments are more than welcome. In this case, I'm mostly
interested in knowing whether anyone has ever tried their hands at
including surdéclinaison in a conlang of theirs, and how it works in that
conlang. Also, I'd like to know whether the explanations on my post are
understandable. Surdéclinaison is deceptively simple: its actual
application is slightly more complicated to describe. Any piece of advice
on how to make things clearer is more than welcome, and I'll be able to use
it for next post.
In any case, enjoy!
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:53 am ((PDT))
Christophe,
You have this parenthetical note at the first link: (the closest thing one
can find in English is non-standard double plurals and double comparatives
or superlatives, like "coatses" as a plural for "coat", or expressions like
"my bestest friend")
Simply doubling an ending isn't nearly as interesting as e.g., noun plurals
on verb phrases, e.g., 'How many "I'm coming"s do I have to say before you
hear it?'
Then there is "to best": He bested the contender and took the prize.
And the (somewhat) related "to better": He bettered his score on the test
enough to pass.
I think adding using a noun as a basis for surdéclinaison in English is
hard because English nouns have so few endings to make them distinctively
inflected nouns. They just become nouns used as verbs, which is completely
natural in English.
Good article, BTW.
stevo
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 9:32 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> Grrr... Once again, I added a new post on Moten in my blog, and forgot to
> announce it here :( . Let's repair that mistake now.
>
> So the latest instalment of my Moten grammar series, available here:
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/2012/03/moten-part-viii-surdeclinaison.html
> ,
> is devoted to one of my linguistic features: surdéclinaison.
>
> As some of you may remember, surdéclinaison was the subject of my
> presentation at the LCC4 last year, and I still find it a fascinating
> subject. I'm also very surprised that it isn't more often used in conlangs.
> We seem to jump on each and every fringe language feature we can set our
> teeth in (am I mixing metaphors here? :) ), but somehow surdéclinaison has
> been ignored so far, despite the fact that its distant cousin
> Suffixaufnahme is a well known denizen here... I simply hope the issue is a
> simple lack of familiarity, and that posts like my own one here will help
> solve this issue.
>
> Anyway, in this post I define what surdéclinaison is and how it applies to
> nouns in Moten. I've decided to split the discussion in two posts, so next
> post will deal with surdéclinaison as applied to verbs, as well as smaller
> patterns and isolated cases (if you remember my presentation, I had nothing
> there yet. Now I have quite a few examples of how surdéclinaison is used in
> Moten for instance to create new lexical items).
>
> As usual, you can find my other posts about Moten here:
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/p/moten-language.html
>
> And also as usual, comments are more than welcome. In this case, I'm mostly
> interested in knowing whether anyone has ever tried their hands at
> including surdéclinaison in a conlang of theirs, and how it works in that
> conlang. Also, I'd like to know whether the explanations on my post are
> understandable. Surdéclinaison is deceptively simple: its actual
> application is slightly more complicated to describe. Any piece of advice
> on how to make things clearer is more than welcome, and I'll be able to use
> it for next post.
>
> In any case, enjoy!
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdéclinaison, Def inition
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 1:58 am ((PDT))
On 19 March 2012 17:52, MorphemeAddict <lytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Christophe,
> You have this parenthetical note at the first link: (the closest thing one
> can find in English is non-standard double plurals and double comparatives
> or superlatives, like "coatses" as a plural for "coat", or expressions like
> "my bestest friend")
>
> Simply doubling an ending isn't nearly as interesting as e.g., noun plurals
> on verb phrases, e.g., 'How many "I'm coming"s do I have to say before you
> hear it?'
>
>
Mmm... I wonder what the status of those is. The simple fact that you felt
you had to add quotes around the verb phrase shows that those may not be
considered fully grammatical, at least for your idiolect.
I also know that conjugated verb phrases are often used as nouns in North
American languages, but since those tend to have little to no nominal
inflections, I didn't want to mention those (the fact that most readers
wouldn't be familiar with those played a role as well).
> Then there is "to best": He bested the contender and took the prize.
> And the (somewhat) related "to better": He bettered his score on the test
> enough to pass.
>
>
Actually, I felt a bit wary of adding that "bestest" example. "Better" and
"best" are irregular, so I'm not sure they are felt as *inflections* of
"good", or just separate lexical items that happen to work suppletively as
comparative and superlative of "good". If they are felt as separate lexical
items, verbing them is not anything special :P. Maybe I should have stuck
to "coatses" and maybe a historical example like "children". Using
"bestest" opens a real can of worms.
> I think adding using a noun as a basis for surdéclinaison in English is
> hard because English nouns have so few endings to make them distinctively
> inflected nouns. They just become nouns used as verbs, which is completely
> natural in English.
>
>
All very true. The thing is, finding examples of things similar to
surdéclinaison in a language most readers are at least familiar with is
*hard*. Even French, which has its share of nominalised phrases, keeps
those usually invariable (unless you consider articles in Spoken French to
be inflections, like I do, but I didn't want to get into this discussion).
> Good article, BTW.
>
>
Thanks! I hope I was able to convey what surdéclinaison is and why it's
awesome ;). Next post will go even further in details, and should drive the
point home. And then I hope it will not be long before I'm no longer the
only conlanger I know with a conlang using surdéclinaison. I'm just so
curious what other people could come up with!
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison, Def inition
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:38 am ((PDT))
On 20 Mar 2012, at 08:58, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 19 March 2012 17:52, MorphemeAddict <lytl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Simply doubling an ending isn't nearly as interesting as e.g., noun plurals
>> on verb phrases, e.g., 'How many "I'm coming"s do I have to say before you
>> hear it?'
>
> Mmm... I wonder what the status of those is. The simple fact that you felt
> you had to add quotes around the verb phrase shows that those may not be
> considered fully grammatical, at least for your idiolect.
No, one would add quotation marks around any word used as an example. Or one
would italicize the "I'm coming" but leave the s unitalicized. That sentence is
fully grammatical, and the quotation marks or italicization would be purely
orthographic.
> Actually, I felt a bit wary of adding that "bestest" example. "Better" and
> "best" are irregular, so I'm not sure they are felt as *inflections* of
> "good", or just separate lexical items that happen to work suppletively as
> comparative and superlative of "good".
Well, they're not irregular so much as suppletive.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initio
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:07 am ((PDT))
On 20 March 2012 10:37, Michael Everson <ever...@evertype.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Simply doubling an ending isn't nearly as interesting as e.g., noun
> plurals
> >> on verb phrases, e.g., 'How many "I'm coming"s do I have to say before
> you
> >> hear it?'
> >
> > Mmm... I wonder what the status of those is. The simple fact that you
> felt
> > you had to add quotes around the verb phrase shows that those may not be
> > considered fully grammatical, at least for your idiolect.
>
> No, one would add quotation marks around any word used as an example. Or
> one would italicize the "I'm coming" but leave the s unitalicized. That
> sentence is fully grammatical, and the quotation marks or italicization
> would be purely orthographic.
>
>
Mmm... Are you sure about that? I'm curious to hear whether people would
really naturally say that sentence rather than "how many times do I have to
say 'I'm coming' before you hear it?"
> > Actually, I felt a bit wary of adding that "bestest" example. "Better"
> and
> > "best" are irregular, so I'm not sure they are felt as *inflections* of
> > "good", or just separate lexical items that happen to work suppletively
> as
> > comparative and superlative of "good".
>
> Well, they're not irregular so much as suppletive.
>
>
Suppletion is just a subset of irregularity (by definition, anything that
doesn't follow the rule branded as "regular" is "irregular". Suppletion
doesn't follow the rule branded as "regular", thus it is "irregular").
Notice I used the word "suppletive" myself (well, the derived adverb), so I
knew very well what I was talking about :) .
But yeah, suppletion may be the key to understand why the verbs "to better"
and "to best" even exist. As I think of it, a true case of surdéclinaison
of this kind might be the verb "to lower". Is this considered to be a verb
derived from the comparative of "low"? If so it might be a better example
than "bestest".
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
1f. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initio
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:37 am ((PDT))
On 20 Mar 2012, at 10:07, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> Mmm... Are you sure about that? I'm curious to hear whether people would
> really naturally say that sentence rather than "how many times do I have to
> say 'I'm coming' before you hear it?"
Yes, I am sure about that. Any phrase or sentence can be nominalized in that
way. How many "Yes, I am sure about that"s will you need before you believe me?
;-)
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (10)
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1g. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initi
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:30 am ((PDT))
On 20 March 2012 11:37, Michael Everson <ever...@evertype.com> wrote:
> On 20 Mar 2012, at 10:07, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
>
> > Mmm... Are you sure about that? I'm curious to hear whether people would
> > really naturally say that sentence rather than "how many times do I have
> to
> > say 'I'm coming' before you hear it?"
>
> Yes, I am sure about that. Any phrase or sentence can be nominalized in
> that way. How many "Yes, I am sure about that"s will you need before you
> believe me? ;-)
>
>
21, from at least 5 different and independent people ;P.
Just kidding of course. Still, I'm surprised. I've heard people nominalise
sentences before, and use those in all kinds of ways, but never pluralising
them. But language is just that flexible :) .
Still, I think I might replace the "bestest" example in my post with "to
lower". Both Wiktionary and Etymonline list it as deriving from the
comparative of "low", so that's a bona fide example of surdéclinaison,
although not a productive one. It has the advantage of being very simple to
understand and very transparent.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (10)
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1h. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinais on , Def init
Posted by: "Ph. D." p...@phillipdriscoll.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 4:57 am ((PDT))
On 3/20/2012 7:29 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 20 March 2012 11:37, Michael Everson<ever...@evertype.com> wrote:
>
>> On 20 Mar 2012, at 10:07, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
>>
>>> Mmm... Are you sure about that? I'm curious to hear whether people would
>>> really naturally say that sentence rather than "how many times do I have
>> to
>>> say 'I'm coming' before you hear it?"
>> Yes, I am sure about that. Any phrase or sentence can be nominalized in
>> that way. How many "Yes, I am sure about that"s will you need before you
>> believe me? ;-)
>>
>>
> 21, from at least 5 different and independent people ;P.
I have to agree with Michael here. It's not unusual to hear such
sentences in conversation.
--Ph. D.
Messages in this topic (10)
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1i. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Su rdé clinaison , Def initi
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:41 am ((PDT))
--- On Tue, 3/20/12, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 20 Mar 2012, at 10:07, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
> wrote:
> >
> > > Mmm... Are you sure about that? I'm curious to
> hear whether people would
> > > really naturally say that sentence rather than
> "how many times do I have
> > to
> > > say 'I'm coming' before you hear it?"
> >
> > Yes, I am sure about that. Any phrase or sentence can
> be nominalized in
> > that way. How many "Yes, I am sure about that"s will
> you need before you
> > believe me? ;-)
> >
> >
> 21, from at least 5 different and independent people ;P.
>
> Just kidding of course. Still, I'm surprised. I've heard
> people nominalise
> sentences before, and use those in all kinds of ways, but
> never pluralising
> them. But language is just that flexible :) .
Yep. All perfectly regular occurrences in English, if nowhere else. That's
at least two sources.
> Still, I think I might replace the "bestest" example
> in my post with "to
> lower". Both Wiktionary and Etymonline list it as deriving
> from the
> comparative of "low", so that's a bona fide example of
> surdéclinaison,
> although not a productive one. It has the advantage of being
> very simple to
> understand and very transparent.
If it's derived from "lower" (comp. of "low"), then all that means is
we've verbed a comparative adjective. We could, theoretically, do this
with any comparative adj. "Hm. Redder it for me." = "make it redder".
Padraic
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Messages in this topic (10)
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1j. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surdé clinaison , Def initi
Posted by: "MorphemeAddict" lytl...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 6:10 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 6:07 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
tsela...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20 March 2012 10:37, Michael Everson <ever...@evertype.com> wrote:
>
> > >
> > >> Simply doubling an ending isn't nearly as interesting as e.g., noun
> > plurals
> > >> on verb phrases, e.g., 'How many "I'm coming"s do I have to say before
> > you
> > >> hear it?'
> > >
> > > Mmm... I wonder what the status of those is. The simple fact that you
> > felt
> > > you had to add quotes around the verb phrase shows that those may not
> be
> > > considered fully grammatical, at least for your idiolect.
> >
> > No, one would add quotation marks around any word used as an example. Or
> > one would italicize the "I'm coming" but leave the s unitalicized. That
> > sentence is fully grammatical, and the quotation marks or italicization
> > would be purely orthographic.
> >
> >
> Mmm... Are you sure about that? I'm curious to hear whether people would
> really naturally say that sentence rather than "how many times do I have to
> say 'I'm coming' before you hear it?"
>
>
> > > Actually, I felt a bit wary of adding that "bestest" example. "Better"
> > and
> > > "best" are irregular, so I'm not sure they are felt as *inflections* of
> > > "good", or just separate lexical items that happen to work suppletively
> > as
> > > comparative and superlative of "good".
> >
> > Well, they're not irregular so much as suppletive.
> >
> >
> Suppletion is just a subset of irregularity (by definition, anything that
> doesn't follow the rule branded as "regular" is "irregular". Suppletion
> doesn't follow the rule branded as "regular", thus it is "irregular").
> Notice I used the word "suppletive" myself (well, the derived adverb), so I
> knew very well what I was talking about :) .
>
> But yeah, suppletion may be the key to understand why the verbs "to better"
> and "to best" even exist. As I think of it, a true case of surdéclinaison
> of this kind might be the verb "to lower". Is this considered to be a verb
> derived from the comparative of "low"? If so it might be a better example
> than "bestest".
>
I've come across "to lower" in my L&D (lexicalization and disambiguation)
work. Didn't quite know what to do with it.
stevo
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2.1. Re: Happy New Year
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:09 am ((PDT))
Nawruz piruz!, for those who prefer a later new year!
Padraic
--- On Fri, 1/27/12, Douglas Koller <douglaskol...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> From: Douglas Koller <douglaskol...@hotmail.com>
> Subject: [CONLANG] Happy New Year
> To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
> Date: Friday, January 27, 2012, 5:11 PM
> Okay, it was Monday, but there's
> still time... 恭禧發財，萬事如意！gong1 xi3 fa1
> cai2, wan4 shi4 ru2 yi4! Kou
>
>
>
>
Messages in this topic (63)
________________________________________________________________________
2.2. Re: Happy New Year
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:06 pm ((PDT))
Indeed, sike suno sin pona! And perhaps "peya lukanehi pempu nimupuni."
Messages in this topic (63)
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________________________________________________________________________
3a. Re: Orthographic Reform
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:13 pm ((PDT))
On 10 March 2012 16:46, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:28:38 -0700, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> [...]
>>The 'll' is taken from Welsh, and inspired the usage of double letters
>>for the rest of the digraphs. I really like the look of double
>>letters,
>
> You like double letters, you say? And Welsh? Well, here's an off-the-wall
> idea based on the Welsh values of <f>, <ff>:
>
> fricatives:
> <c> /D/ <cc> /T/ (<c> /D/ as in Fijian!)
> <f> /v/ <ff> /f/
> <y> /j\/ <yy> /C/
> <s> /z/ <ss> /s/
> <x> /Z/ <xx> /S/
> <l> /K\/ <ll> /K/
>
> and do something for /l/, whether <lh> or just an absurdity like <v> or
> whatever.
Oy. That has a certain aesthetic appeal, though I don't think I can
use it here. <yyyy> for /C:/ and all.
> (I must say <rr> for /K\/ displeases me; 'r' is not to 'l' as voiced is to
> voiceless, and I've grown a strong aversion to schemes where all the
> consonants are paired, by voice if one can and by something else if not.
> But de gustibus disputandum non est.)
It is a little bit off the wall, but since there is no letter for
unvoiced l, r seemed like the best available match. And the look has
since grown on me. Consonants aren't really paired in any meaningful
way in the language (at least, not yet), but I like organizing
phonemes that way when describing them. It makes the descriptions
tidier, I think.
On 10 March 2012 18:03, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So, tell us more about the phonotactics. What consonant clusters are
> forbidden? Are there any consonants that don't cluster with anything
> else, or are fairly restricted in what they can combine witih? Maybe
> that will give you an idea of what you can use to form unambiguous
> digraphs without giving up a basic letter which can still represent a
> consonant sound of its own, when it occurs between two vowels or at a
> word boundary?
Well, part of the problem is that I don't know what clusters are
prohibited yet. I won't for another few months, until i can develop
enough of a corpus to do a real analysis of how my fiancee actually
pronounces things. So far, all I know for sure is that /kt/ and /tk/
are disallowed in terminal positions, and that doesn't help much.
However, I have noticed that <q> /N/ is rarely used in the existing
dictionary, so turning it into a digraph would do the least to upset
the existing order.
Just about everything else about the language is being developed
as-needed, but that means the orthography has to be able to deal with
just about anything right out of the gate. If I wait until the
phonology is fully described and stable, we'll either be stuck trying
to write and read X-SAMPA on my cellphone in the meantime (not a
pleasant prospect), or finding out later that we need to make changes
to the orthography to reflect unanticipated developments in the
language. And I much prefer to make any changes now, before we get
"fluent" and overly accustomed to the existing orthography, rather
than having to unlearn and relearn.
On 12 March 2012 17:13, Larry Sulky <larrysu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It also occurs to me that in many languages [h] is permitted only
> before a vowel, so a consonant cluster that BEGAN with <h> could only
> be seen as a digraph. Teonaht does this, at least with <ht> => [T].
Unfortunately, there is no /h/. I've ended up with a bit of a hybrid
solution where one sound (/N/) is written differently depending on
whether it is preceded by a consonant or a vowel, though, which is
sorta kinda a similar idea.
Thanks for the feedback, everybody. I generated a few different
possibilities and samples of how they would change the spellings of
common existing words, showed them all to my fiancee, and picked the
one she liked best. We ended up using <q> as the digraph-indicator,
with original <q> itself represented by a new digraph whenever it was
next to another consonant, but remaining just <q> next to vowels since
vowel symbols can't participate in consonant digraphs anyway. This was
most convenient since /N/ is not part of a voiced/unvoiced pair in the
original orthography, so turning it into a new digraph doesn't feel
like breaking symmetry the way using <h> would. This makes 'q' an
extremely common letter! And apostrophe is now totally unused, so
maybe it'll end up brought back in as actual punctuation mark for
something. The final result is as follows:
Original -> Reformed
q -> C+nq, V+q
dd -> dq
tt -> tq
rr -> rq
ll -> lq
' -> wq
Doubled consonants written as monographs are just doubled monographs,
so /r\r\/ = <rr>.
Doubled digraph consonants, however, can save space by just doubling
the 'q', so /K\K\/ = <rqq>, as contrasted with /r\K\/ = <rrq>
That results in sample words as follows:
/j\o.K\Ik/ <yorqik>
/br\eD/ <bredq>
/eN/ <eq>
/aK.Ki/ <alqqa>
/i?\m/ <iwqm> (this one caused the most debate, incidentally; other
options were <hq> and <yq> for /?\/, but <wq> won out on maximal
aesthetic acceptability and because /w/ belongs to the same consonants
series as /?\/)
-l.
Messages in this topic (9)
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________________________________________________________________________
4a. Re: Siye Cases
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:37 pm ((PDT))
On Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:00:36 -0400, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:10:16 -0400, Anthony Miles <mamercu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>The diachronic origin of the Possessive Agent:
>>Atam-0 Adam
>>Adam-NOM
>>Mele-0 atam-me-0
>>name-NOM Adam-POS-NOM
>>mele atam-me-0
>>name Adam-POS-NOM
>>atam-me
>>Adam-POS
>>
>>An example sentence:
>>atam-me pitake-0 payikopume.
>>Adam-POS animal-ABS he sees it
>>
>>You're right, however, that the current Siye speakers would process it as a
>>quirky use of the Possessive (the Dative-Accusative is already overburdened,
>>and if I follow Sumerian models the Instrumental cannot be used with
>>animates). I was stuck in an Indo-European mode of justification.
>
>Alright, that clears that up for me. Thanks.
>
>I still don't get what motivated the process to happen in the first place,
>though! What possible sort of defect does "Adam sees it" have that "Adam's
>name sees it" remedies?
I noticed that the sentence
atam pitake yikome (the verb construction at the time)
could mean
"Adam sees the animal" (atam is nominative)
(Adam is a possible name for baptized Siye speakers). Since Siye speakers
tend to use names like Tupi "Bird" and Uku "Fish/Nothing", this seemed to be
a problem. Possibly it is not. I originally incorporated a topic marker in
Siye, but then deleted it when I learned that the sort of SOV language I
want Siye to be does not use topic markers, but word order instead. So
atam pitake yikome
means
"Adam sees the animal"
and
pitake atam yikome
means
"Animal sees the humanoid"
What I could do is change the direct object in the Absolutive case. If I use
the Accusative-Dative case -a, I get:
atam pitakeha payikome
"Adam/the humanoid sees (someone named) Animal."
Would the following using the Directive case -tu be better? The verb is
still unambiguously transitive
atam pitaketu payikome
"Adam/the humanoid sees (towards) the animal."
Even with this structure, however, "atam" could be a n
>
>Alex
Messages in this topic (9)
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5a. Re: M. A. R. Barker (1929-2012)
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:19 pm ((PDT))
Hallo conlangers!
On Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:59:29 +0100 taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> He was an RPG (the real kind, not the computer kind) grand master and a
> great conlanger, creator of Tsolyáni and the world of Tékumel.
>
> While 83 is a good run, pioneers die too early by definition.
>
> He set up the Tékumel foundation
>
> http://www.tekumelfoundation.org/
>
> to look after his stuff, but I don't know whether he ever finished a
> definitive reference grammar of Tsolyáni.
>
> Press release:
> http://tekumelfoundation.org/PressRelease-MARBARKER-1929-2012.pdf
Sad news indeed. He was a master on a par with Tolkien. His world
is one of the most original and colourful fantasy words ever made.
We will miss him.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1
Messages in this topic (2)
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5b. Re: M. A. R. Barker (1929-2012)
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:57 pm ((PDT))
I love his conscript. I always wanted to make an actual working font for it
with shaping behaviour.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (2)
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6. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surd�clinaison, Def inition
Posted by: "A. da Mek" a.da_m...@ufoni.cz
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:31 am ((PDT))
> I'm mostly
interested in knowing whether anyone has ever tried their hands at
including surd�clinaison in a conlang of theirs, and how it works in that
conlang.
I became aware of the superinflection already in the Anthony Appleyard's
article
http://tolklang.quettar.org/articles/Appleyard.Quenya
[CASES OF CASES?]
In some languages the possessive genitive is often replaced by a
declinable
adjectivizing suffix, e.g. Homeric Greek `-eios' instead of `-oio', Russian
`-ov' instead of `-a'; and early Latin `cujus cuja cujum' = "whose", so the
noun can be genitive and also in the case of the noun that governs it. Greek
uses genitive instead of the usual case with "to" and "in" to make forms
with
ellipsis like `en Heeraas' = "in Hera's (temple)", `eis Priamoio' = "into
Priam's (house)"; c.f. English "to John's". Are these possible in Quenya? If
`omientie-lva-sse' = "at our meeting" is used much, then (since gen. `elva'
=
"(something of) ours") `elvasse' = "at that object/event of ours" is a
likely
abbreviation, being in effect allative of genitive of `elve'. Likewise
`Vardo
tellumassen' = "in Varda's halls", if used much, may get shortened in usage
to
`Vardo-ssen' = "in Varda's", being locative pl. of genitive sg. of `Varda'.
Other cases than genitive may be treated this way: `Nuumenoore-llo
(atan)-in'
= "for the (men) [who came] from Nuumenor" > `Nuumenoore-llo-in' (dat.pl of
abl.sg); `osto-sse (atan)-ion' = "of the (men) in the town" > `osto-ss-ion'
(gen.pl. of loc.sg.); `ta na er selda-in anna-ron' > `ta na er selda-in-ion'
=
"that's one of the (presents) for the children" (gen.pl. of dat.pl.).
Googling for it, I found also my own message written 11 years ago:
(in my conlangs), there is not so great distinction
between inflexion and derivation.
Inflected forms are considered as compounds with grammatical roots.
Cases are considered as adverbs derived from substantives
and participles as adverbs derived from verbs.
Any derived adverb can be used as a "compound root".
A typical example is "locative of genitive", like
at baker's (shop), at Hera's (temple).
The noun derived from genitive or dative has very wide meaning
and can be considered as a shorthand of a compound,
whose second part is omitted
because it is obvious from context.This stays valid even for languages I
"discovered" since that time,as can be seen from following Gad�hish
examples: Ba�hlatim "of the Lady" genitiveBa�hlatim�m "at (the
one|place|house|temple) of the Lady" locative of genitiveBa�hlatimom "to
(the one|place|house|temple) of the Lady" terminative of
genitivebajtu-Ba�hlatim "the house of the Lady"bajt�-Ba�hlatim |
bajtu-Ba�hlatim�m "at the house of the Lady"kabr�-bajtu-Ba�hlatim |
bajt�-kabru-Ba�hlatim | bajtu-Ba�hlatim�-kabrum "at the great house of the
Lady"butbajt�-kabri-Ba�hlatum | bajt�-Ba�hlati-kabrum "at the house of the
great Lady"
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part VIII: Surd�clinaison, Def inition
Posted by: "A. da Mek" a.da_m...@ufoni.cz
Date: Tue Mar 20, 2012 5:50 am ((PDT))
(My last message became wrongly formated, so I am sending it again.)
> I'm mostly
interested in knowing whether anyone has ever tried their hands at
including surd�clinaison in a conlang of theirs, and how it works in that
conlang.
I became aware of the superinflection already in the Anthony Appleyard's
article
http://tolklang.quettar.org/articles/Appleyard.Quenya
[CASES OF CASES?]
In some languages the possessive genitive is often replaced by a
declinable adjectivizing suffix, e.g. Homeric Greek `-eios' instead of
`-oio', Russian `-ov' instead of `-a'; and early Latin `cujus cuja cujum' =
"whose", so the noun can be genitive and also in the case of the noun that
governs it. Greek uses genitive instead of the usual case with "to" and "in"
to make forms with ellipsis like `en Heeraas' = "in Hera's (temple)", `eis
Priamoio' = "into Priam's (house)"; c.f. English "to John's". Are these
possible in Quenya? If `omientie-lva-sse' = "at our meeting" is used much,
then (since gen. `elva' = "(something of) ours") `elvasse' = "at that
object/event of ours" is a likely abbreviation, being in effect allative of
genitive of `elve'. Likewise `Vardo tellumassen' = "in Varda's halls", if
used much, may get shortened in usage to `Vardo-ssen' = "in Varda's", being
locative pl. of genitive sg. of `Varda'.
Other cases than genitive may be treated this way: `Nuumenoore-llo
(atan)-in' = "for the (men) [who came] from Nuumenor" > `Nuumenoore-llo-in'
(dat.pl of abl.sg); `osto-sse (atan)-ion' = "of the (men) in the town" >
`osto-ss-ion' (gen.pl. of loc.sg.); `ta na er selda-in anna-ron' > `ta na er
selda-in-ion' = "that's one of the (presents) for the children" (gen.pl. of
dat.pl.).
Googling for it, I found also my own message written 11 years ago:
(in my conlangs), there is not so great distinction between inflexion and
derivation. Inflected forms are considered as compounds with grammatical
roots. Cases are considered as adverbs derived from substantives and
participles as adverbs derived from verbs. Any derived adverb can be used as
a "compound root". A typical example is "locative of genitive", like at
baker's (shop), at Hera's (temple). The noun derived from genitive or
dative has very wide meaning and can be considered as a shorthand of a
compound, whose second part is omitted because it is obvious from context.
This stays valid even for languages I "discovered" since that time,as can be
seen from following Gad�hish examples:
Ba�hlatim "of the Lady" genitive
Ba�hlatim�m "at (the one|place|house|temple) of the Lady" locative of
genitive
Ba�hlatimom "to (the one|place|house|temple) of the Lady" terminative of
genitive
bajtu-Ba�hlatim "the house of the Lady"
bajt�-Ba�hlatim | bajtu-Ba�hlatim�m "at the house of the Lady"
kabr�-bajtu-Ba�hlatim | bajt�-kabru-Ba�hlatim | bajtu-Ba�hlatim�-kabrum "at
the great house of the Lady"
butbajt�-kabri-Ba�hlatum | bajt�-Ba�hlati-kabrum "at the house of the great
Lady"
Messages in this topic (1)
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