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There are 25 messages in this issue. Topics in this digest: 1. Anybody on AIM From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2. Re: Information on future English language development? From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 3. Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses. From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 4. Re: Anybody on AIM From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 5. Re: Naming your Language From: James W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 6. Re: Information on future English language development? From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 7. Re: Palatization and Lenition etc From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 8. Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses. From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 9. Re: Anybody on AIM From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10. Re: Information on future English language development? From: Rik Roots <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11. Re: Palatization and Lenition etc From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 12. Re: OT: Children and video games From: Cristina Escalante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 13. Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They) From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 14. Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 15. Re: Toki Pona survey From: Simon Richard Clarkstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 16. Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They) From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 17. Re: Anybody on AIM From: Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 18. Re: Anybody on AIM From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 19. Re: Anybody on AIM From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 20. Re: Palatization and Lenition etc From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 21. Re: Naming your Language From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 22. Re: Anybody on AIM From: Akhilesh Pillalamarri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 23. Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 24. Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses. From: Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 25. Re: Anybody on AIM From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 1 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:01:15 +0200 From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Anybody on AIM Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- and in the CET time zone would be nice! -- /BP 8^) -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 2 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:17:25 +0100 From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Information on future English language development? Simon Richard Clarkstone wrote: > Joe wrote: > >> ... One thing I will say, though, is that >> English will change more in the next fifty years than it has in the last >> two hundred. In my opinion. > > I only agree with you partly there. Due to increased global > communications, English could also be said to be changing less, as a > better connected language community makes change of language more > difficult: a new word will be very unlikely to spread fast enough to > last long. There is also a less convincing argument that since the > whole of humanity has been discovered, then we cannot meet up with new > peoples who give us new words; we have taken all of everyone's words > that we want. > However, the increased number of new types of things will lead to many > new names being needed for them, or adaptations of old words, or > borrowings. > The global communication argument, IMO, doesn't work. Instead, there will develop standards, which will split from the vernacular, as it always has, really. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 3 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:22:17 -0400 From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Trebor Jung" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 3:43 PM Subject: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses. >I can't think of any ideas for my conlangs' relative clauses besides these: > as in English, Turkish (participles), and Egyptian Arabic (resumptive > pronouns). > > Any others? > > Thanks, > Trebor There are a variety of relative clause structures, so you have to be specific here. There's the one that expresses opinion or thought, as Remi's "emotional case" does: "I thought that the boy was your son." "I feel that it's time to go." But there are similarly structured relative clauses that don't involve emotion, usually of the stating, writing, saying, observing variety: "I said that I had sold the book" (a statement of fact). "The article says that the man died." "The time clock registers that he departed early." How would Remi construe that? Then there's that ornery distinction made between "proper" and "improper" relative clauses with who/whom/whose, etc, so often set out in Welsh grammars: "I saw the boy who kicked the ball." "I saw the boy whose cup was full." [these examples; I'm not making them up!] "I like the girl whom you hate." Proper relatives are so called because the who/whom refer back to either the nominative or the accusative. Improper relatives refer back to referents in the oblique case: "The boy whose aunt had died came to see me." "I know the book to which you are referring." "I saw the man to whom you spoke." Of course these terms proper/improper stand out in my head because Welsh makes a distinction in its use of particles to express them, and English prescriptive grammar (drummed into me as a kid) makes you recall these distinction and the "correct" use of prepositions with respect to them. But they are worth thinking about in a conlang, too. How would you distinguish between "I thought that it was blue" and "it is a matter of fact that the boy is blue"? Or: "I kissed the boy who was blue," and "I saw to whom the blue boy blew a kiss"? :) :) Teonaht expresses the first type of relative--call it emotional or factual or what have you--with a simple juxtaposition and a reversal of syntax: Elry kare nel li beto fyl bantwel. Past-I think was the boy your son. "I thought the boy was your son." [Note how easy it is in modern English. It's a juxtaposition of two sentences. Relative clauses in many languages start out this way: "I saw the woman, she kissed the steps of the tomb," wherein the relative is fashioned out of the pronoun, or in Middle Welsh the preverbal particle. The two verbs juxtaposed indicates the start of a relative clause. Usually, Teonaht is zero-copula, but in this case the conjugated form of parem is invoked to set up the juxtaposition. Here's one without the copula: Ely krespr conauarel la bantwel. Past-she write die-COMP.PST. her son. "She wrote that her son had died." For versions of the "proper relative" as accusative we have something like this: Il beto elo ke ravvo fy il/etsa/der/hain the (Acc) boy PAST-I see love you the (one)/same/him/whom. So there are a variety of resumptive pronouns you can use in T., one of them being the bare article, one of them signaling relativity (hai[n]). For versions of the "improper relative," then this: Il beto elo ke kresprel fy euiil/eueetsa/edder/ehhain the boy (ACC) PAST-he see write-PAST you to the (one)/to same/ to him/to whom. "He saw the boy to whom you wrote." "He saw the boy you wrote to." Then there is another kind of relative, related to the improper relative: I love the man whose hair is black! In this respect, Teonaht borrows somewhat unimaginatively from Semitic and Celtic grammar by just saying: I love the red-his-hair man, but it takes on a new flavor under OSV structure: Il zefz flero lo vimba der yrravo! The man red his mane him I love. Requires a resumptive pronoun in der before the main verb. Requires a "z" after "zef" to indicate that the accusative stops there, and it's not a red man in this case. Damn the postpositioned adjective in Teonaht! (vimba is used of a lion's mane, of a horse's mane, but also of luxurious flowing hair on a human. Could also be hair and beard on a man). I suppose you could put this in the usual pattern: Il zef ryrravo na lo vimba flero The man I love is his hair red. (the juxtaposed copula again) Then there is a relative construction with the copula that I haven't really used much in writing Teonaht: Il zef ryggarne pahai beuimonaht. the man I like be who compassionate. "I prefer the guy who's kind." Yppre pesthai li rando I know will be who the king. "I know who will be king." Pahai, pelhai, peshai and all the permutations for oblique cases: padhain, pelthain, pesthain... pajhain, peljhain, pehshain... it was a chore. THEN: there is the substantivization (or gerundizing?) of a verb with possessive pronoun, you just use the verb/noun: "I saw your swimming in the lake!" (i.e., I saw that you swam in the lake) Fyl nwehsrem celil mifranil uarry ke. your swim in the deeplake have-I see I prefer that he read books, which can also be expressed in English as I prefer him reading books or, more prescriptively, I prefer his reading books, is structured the same way in Teonaht: rin nikkyam lo elepmaren ryggarne. "His reading of books I prefer." That's about all I can remember at the moment. Heinrik wrote: > In Tyl Sjok you use the relative clause instead of the modified > noun, so you 'embed' the relative clause into the matrix clause. > The modified noun is found in the relative clause, where it is > optionally marked to be modified. > > E.g.: > Matrix clause: I like tea. = 'I like the tea.' > Relative clause: you buy tea. = 'You bought tea.' > Together: > I like you buy tea. (unmarked referent) > I like you buy REF tea. (marked referent) > 'I like the tea that you bought.' This is lovely. How do you know that it doesn't mean "I like that you bought tea?" How do you express that? Put the referent marking before "buy"? Sally http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/pronouns.html http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/verbs.html I saw to whom the blue boy blew a kiss: First: the blue boy blew a kiss to her. Le beto bov bocaz eddam elo htilioma The boy blue kiss-ACC to her did-he whisper [boca pronounced /'butS@/, i.e., bootch-uh. Same derivation as boca, though! beto: /'betu/; bov: /buv/ -z added to boca to indicate accusative case when syntax has been changed to SOV. I saw: Elry ke Elry ke htilioma ehhain le bov beto bocaz. Did-I see whisper to whom the blue boy a kiss! "I saw who the blue boy blew a kiss to!" English is wonderfully ductile! (of course what needs to be contemplated is how one expresses emphasis in Teonaht, given its rigid syntax, other than just pitch or vocal emphasis. "I saw who 'THE BLUE BOY blew a kiss to." "I saw who it was that the blue boy blew a kiss to." Probably recombinations, as in English: DAM elry ke htilioma le bov beto bocaz IHHAIN: Her did I see whispered the blue boy a kiss TO WHOM. More engineering work to come. Emphasis may have to reside in the chiastic structure, with the emphasized element opening and closing the main and subordinate clauses. More bridgework needed) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 4 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 18:55:33 -0000 From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- > and in the CET time zone would be nice! Yep... Qatharsis, GMT +1. How come you are holding back your screen name? -- Christian Thalmann ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 5 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 13:59:08 -0500 From: James W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Naming your Language >>>> scott<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 10/21/2004 2:31:35 PM >>> >Just a quick question. I've been working on my conlang for a while now >and have been using a word made up quite a while ago as the name of the >language and the name of those who speak it. I've realized now it >doesn't quite fit in with the language any more. > >How are some of the ways you have named your language and its speakers? > My first conlang, orelynna, basically means 'for song'--intended to be a language for text in songs. My current project (on hold due to time constraints), emindahken, can be seen as: e-min-dah-ken e - abstract/invisible noun prefix -min- people (root) -dah- mountain (root) -ken- speech (root) or 'speech of the mountain people'--a language for a conculture who live high in a mountainous region, isolated from the rest of their world. James W. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 6 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:56:50 -0400 From: Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Information on future English language development? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Richard Clarkstone" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Joe wrote: >> ... One thing I will say, though, is that >> English will change more in the next fifty years than it has in the last >> two hundred. > In my opinion. > I only agree with you partly there. Due to increased global > communications, English could also be said to be changing less, as a > better connected language community makes change of language more > difficult: a new word will be very unlikely to spread fast enough to > last long. I presume you mean the media--television, radio, Internet--that has slowed down the production of basic changes in structure and pronunciation. I'll buy that to a degree, but I disagree that the media has slowed down neologism. In fact, I think it expedites it. New words are being made all the time. It's like consumerism: a toy, a product, an invention needs to compete with what else is out there, and play on the complicated human desires of the moment. Words can be coined, but it takes usage, and circulation by the media, for them to stick. There is also a less convincing argument that since the > whole of humanity has been discovered, then we cannot meet up with new > peoples who give us new words; we have taken all of everyone's words > that we want. I can see why this argument is less convincing. Or non-convincing. Is the whole of humanity really completely discovered? by everybody? Have we really "taken all of everyone's words that we want"? There are cultures that are still obscure to those who are coining phrases in English. You have to read about them in books on anthropology. How many among the American or European masses know of the Piraha~ for instance? How many Americans even know French argot, for that matter? > However, the increased number of new types of things will lead to many > new names being needed for them, or adaptations of old words, or > borrowings. True. And new political or social developments. New wars for instance. The acronym WMD has spread pretty quickly. I've already heard it used to mean "weapons of mass distraction." SORRY!!!! Please ignore this unnecessary political reference. I mean to stay neutral. No cross no crown. (It's what I've heard, though.) Let's focus on something else: the plus minus verbs that have come to replace "add" and "subtract." I think it was Marcos who expressed distaste for this new jargon, but who couldn't deny that it was catching on. Everything new contributes to new language, and the media spreads it better than anything before the advent of the print culture. Also, writing conventions on email. How many of you have seen the spelling "speach"? As the Internet becomes available to more and more people, it will democratize writing, spelling and speaking conventions, and we will be exposed to more dialectical flavors than ever, not unlike the problem that faced Caxton sitting and wondering whether to write eggs or eyren in his first printed text. Sal I must get off now. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 7 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:23:48 +0100 From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Palatization and Lenition etc Joe wrote: > Chris Bates wrote: > >> >> I think this is how lenition started in welsh, as simple phonological >> conditioning that later became grammatical as well (thanks to words >> vanishing or being eroded maybe? I'd be interested to know the rule >> about adjectives following feminine nouns undergoing lenition came >> about). I don't see why a similar thing couldn't happen with >> palatization like this over time, but as far as I know no celtic >> language does this. Do you think its realistic? >> >> > > Well, yes. It's generally seen as how the thing began. > > The adjective after feminine noun(or, indeed, anything), came about > because feminine nouns ended in a vowel. As far as I know, intervocalic > consonants were softened in Welsh, largely ignoring word boundaries. > So, because most Masculine nouns ended in *'-os', and most Feminine in > *'-a', things following feminine nouns softened, and following masculine > nouns did not. > > The thing is, lenition doesn't occur when a noun follows another noun that ends in a vowel does it? Why doesn't it also happen in this situation? Do you have any idea what stopped it applying to this when the "softening" effect first started to occur? The only thing I can think is that something else (possibly an article) blocked it. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 8 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:23:20 +0200 From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses. Hi! Sally Caves <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >... > Heinrik wrote: > > > In Tyl Sjok you use the relative clause instead of the modified > > noun, so you 'embed' the relative clause into the matrix clause. > > The modified noun is found in the relative clause, where it is > > optionally marked to be modified. > > > > E.g.: > > Matrix clause: I like tea. = 'I like the tea.' > > Relative clause: you buy tea. = 'You bought tea.' > > Together: > > I like you buy tea. (unmarked referent) > > I like you buy REF tea. (marked referent) > > 'I like the tea that you bought.' > > This is lovely. How do you know that it doesn't mean "I like that you > bought tea?" How do you express that? Put the referent marking before > "buy"? Exactly! :-) I like you REF buy tea. = ~'I like the buying of tea that you did.' I like REF you buy tea. = ~'I like you, who bought the tea.' Tyl Sjok is greatly underspecified wrt. what modifies what. **Henrik ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 9 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:40:17 +0200 From: Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:01:15 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- > and in the CET time zone would be nice! I'm on, moderately often during daytime CE(S)T. Screen name available on request. Cheers, -- Philip Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Watch the Reply-To! ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 10 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:42:22 +0100 From: Rik Roots <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Information on future English language development? On Thursday 21 Oct 2004 21:41, Sally Caves wrote: > Anybody else doing this? I'm writing on behalf of my friend, but I'll > admit a bias towards the contemplation, as well, of a future human. Given > how much our language reflects our politics, technology, and so forth, a > future English has to take into account some sort of future history, and > future technology, right? Especially given our increasing "digitalization." > How can it not? > While I've not formally pulled together a Future English Conlang, I have developed some ideas about how the language could evolve as part of a (currently abandoned) poetry sequence: http://www.kalieda.org/poems/xwalk.html The language is set 300 years into the future, and assumes we'll be working and living in space by that time. Maybe it will be of interest to your friend? > yours truly, > Sally > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Rik ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 11 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:06:45 +0100 From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Palatization and Lenition etc Chris Bates wrote: > Joe wrote: > >> Chris Bates wrote: >> >>> >>> I think this is how lenition started in welsh, as simple phonological >>> conditioning that later became grammatical as well (thanks to words >>> vanishing or being eroded maybe? I'd be interested to know the rule >>> about adjectives following feminine nouns undergoing lenition came >>> about). I don't see why a similar thing couldn't happen with >>> palatization like this over time, but as far as I know no celtic >>> language does this. Do you think its realistic? >>> >>> >> >> Well, yes. It's generally seen as how the thing began. >> >> The adjective after feminine noun(or, indeed, anything), came about >> because feminine nouns ended in a vowel. As far as I know, intervocalic >> consonants were softened in Welsh, largely ignoring word boundaries. >> So, because most Masculine nouns ended in *'-os', and most Feminine in >> *'-a', things following feminine nouns softened, and following masculine >> nouns did not. >> >> > The thing is, lenition doesn't occur when a noun follows another noun > that ends in a vowel does it? Why doesn't it also happen in this > situation? Do you have any idea what stopped it applying to this when > the "softening" effect first started to occur? The only thing I can > think is that something else (possibly an article) blocked it. > > Because, I believe (though am not sure) that Welsh, at some point, dropped its final vowels. Most words ending in vowels are one of three things: a)Inflected forms b)Borrowings or c)Not I'm guessing the c) category ones once had a consonant, but dropped it. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 12 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:12:47 -0400 From: Cristina Escalante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: OT: Children and video games >>I'm sorry for this completely OT question, but since you guys >>are my best friends on the net I put this question to those >>among you who are parents. >> >>My six year old son has become totally obsessed with video >>games. He either plays sports games on the computer, or >>watches sport on the TV, and has totally creased to play >>in the more traditional sense. We don't want him to play >>*all* the time, but when we try to make him do other things >>he flies into a rage. So my question to the parents among >>you is: what is your parental policy on video games? > If none of this works, well, then you may consider following > Cristina's suggestion and get rid of the stuff altogether. But that's > not my preferred solution: by disallowing it altogether you may turn > it into a forbidden fruit. Exactly. That's what my father achieved by forbidding conlanging and fantasy literature! :) //Cristina writes: well, I think it is too late now. In my house-hold we NEVER had a tv worth watching, and the computer was for "work only" ( parents' work, not mine). However, I did get reading restrictions, which did turn into a forbidden fruit. I was also told repeatedly to "ve afuera a jugar"( which I don't mind ) and "cultiva tus amistades"(nice imagery there) Scanned by WinProxy http://www.Ositis.com/ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 13 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:45:56 -0000 From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They) --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Chris Bates > > > >On a different but related subject, do many languages just use >demonstratives instead of having special 3rd person pronouns? Both >Basque and Latin do this, so I don't think it can be that uncommon. >*thinks* I think Swahili may do it as well.... I'm trying to drag >it up into memory. If a language does this and it doesn't >distinguish gender in its demonstratives (which Latin does since it >has grammatical gender) then it doesn't distinguish gender in its >3rd person pronouns either. BTW, are there any languages which have >a gender distinction in their demonstratives but don't have a wider >system of grammatical gender? Swahili does have 3 personal pronouns: 1: mimi/sisi, 2: wewe/ninyi, 3: yeye/wao. There is no distinction of gender, but the 3rd person pl. cannot be used of things, only of people. They are mainly used for emphasis or contrast, the personal prefix on the verb being enough. nilisoma, I read ulisoma, you read alisoma, he read tulisoma, we read mlisoma, you read walisoma, they read ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 14 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:57:03 -0000 From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >OBTW: for those curious as to the race of said critter.. I was doing >this for my sentient crocodiles. I am presuming from the context that, by "sentient," you mean "speaking" as opposed to ordinary crocodiles that cannot speak. In reality, the word "sentient" does not mean that. It means either "conscious" or "experiencing feeling or sensation." Thus, ordinary crocodiles are, indeed, sentient. In developing my conculture I encountered several non-human species that could talk. I knew "sentient" was the wrong word, but I figured if the Latin verb "sentire" (to feel) could give us an English word based on its present participle, then "loqui" (to speak) could also. And, indeed, I found one in the Oxford English Dictionary: loquent. It is obsolete, but it works for me. I can now talk of loquent beings, meaning my six human races and a few non-human, all of whom can speak. P.S. When the Buddhists speak of the Buddha saving all sentient beings, they are not referring just to humans, but to all animate life. Charlie ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 15 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:18:45 +0100 From: Simon Richard Clarkstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Toki Pona survey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Yeah, with Proto-Drem, I have (C)CV(V)(V)C(C) for a base CVC which > is closed > > yet I have 3500 words,and I amd now doing "new" sections for > religion, spirituality, magic, herbs, mining, trees, > > as you can see, words add up, so my uestion would be for a conlang, > how is a closed sylable structure limiting the vocabulary? > It _is_ limiting the vocabulary, but possibly not much. The given structure could allow anything from 10,000~10,000,000 different words, depending on other aspects of your morphology. One problem is that, once this "space" of possible words starts to get full, every word will confusable with several others, unless multi-word constructs are used. A limited vocabulary probably is only bad with a much smaller vocabulary than that, e.g. 100~10,000 words. An excellent example (other than the obvious Basic English) is the efforts of Dalgarno and Wilkins. I have found a reasonably helpful summary of a thesis on this subject at: <http://www.illc.uva.nl/Publications/Dissertations/DS-1999-03.abstract.txt> Wilkins tried to start with a set of exactly 4,000 radicals, based on a 20*5*20*5 Aristotelian categorisation system. This worked by having 20 consonants and 5 vowels in the system and making every radical CVCV. (I actually heard about this originally in the wonderful book _Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language_ by Steven Pinker. See: <http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/wr.html> for all you want to know.) -- Simon Richard Clarkstone [EMAIL PROTECTED] / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 16 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 22:39:21 +0100 From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Demonstratives & 3rd Person Pronouns (Was: English They) >Swahili does have 3 personal pronouns: 1: mimi/sisi, 2: wewe/ninyi, >3: yeye/wao. There is no distinction of gender, but the 3rd person >pl. cannot be used of things, only of people. They are mainly used >for emphasis or contrast, the personal prefix on the verb being >enough. > >nilisoma, I read >ulisoma, you read >alisoma, he read >tulisoma, we read >mlisoma, you read >walisoma, they read > > > Okay... guess I was wrong about that one. :) I did learn some Swahili a while ago, but it was a long time now... sometimes its difficult to remember. :) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 17 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 23:59:58 +0200 From: Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM Name: ReneUit On: mostly during weekdays Zone: MET+1METDST Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: > Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- > and in the CET time zone would be nice! > -- > > /BP 8^) > -- > Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se > > Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! > (Tacitus) > ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 18 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:13:26 -0700 From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM --- Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- > and in the CET time zone would be nice! > -- > I would happen to be on AIM. _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. http://messenger.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 19 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:34:57 -0700 From: bob thornton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM --- Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- > and in the CET time zone would be nice! > -- > D'oh! Like a fool, I forgot my SN in the last email. It is sillyputtyrobot. Excuse the silly. > _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 20 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 17:23:07 -0700 From: Elliott Lash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Palatization and Lenition etc > > Well, yes. It's generally seen as how the thing > began. > > > > The adjective after feminine noun(or, indeed, > anything), came about > > because feminine nouns ended in a vowel. As far > as I know, intervocalic > > consonants were softened in Welsh, largely > ignoring word boundaries. > > So, because most Masculine nouns ended in *'-os', > and most Feminine in > > *'-a', things following feminine nouns softened, > and following masculine > > nouns did not. > > > > > The thing is, lenition doesn't occur when a noun > follows another noun > that ends in a vowel does it? Why doesn't it also > happen in this > situation? Do you have any idea what stopped it > applying to this when > the "softening" effect first started to occur? The > only thing I can > think is that something else (possibly an article) > blocked it. well..the nouns in vowels didn't always end in vowels. They probably had a consonant at the end that dropped off.... Come to think of it, I dont really know many Welsh nouns that end in a vowel. Some, like "lle" meaning "place", come from "llef". Others, like "ci" was originally an "n-stem", meaning that they ended in "n", which was lost. The word is related to "kuon" in Greek. So basically, the answer to your question is that, the vowels at the end of words now do not cause lenition, unless the word is feminine, because lenition ended before these became vowelfinal words. I can't give any examples of Welsh development, but I'll use Nindic, my conlang, which has a strong Welshfeel about it. Nouns in the "Genitive" position in Nindic are lenited. This came about after a long process of lenition-spreading, whereby, the rules for lenition were standardized through analogy. Originally, only words which had ended in vowels caused lenition to a genitive word following it. The examples show the original state of affairs, where only previously vowelfinal nouns cause lenition. Example: buth fucha /buT vuxa/ "spider's web" web spider bucha "spider" (no lenition) buth < *bukta (vowel final) cawa burcho /kawa burxo/ "wizard's dog" dog wizard burcho "wisard" (no lenition) cawa < *kawan (consonant final) So, from this one can gather that lenition occured BEFORE the "n" was lost from <*kawan>, if it had been lost and then lenition occured, <cawa> would have caused lenition. Because lenition later became the rule in this case....the later Nindic language has <cawa furcho>. Which is not the inherited form. I hope this kind of clears things up. Elliott. _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 21 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 00:23:49 -0000 From: caeruleancentaur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Naming your Language --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Just a quick question. I've been working on my conlang for a while >now and have been using a word made up quite a while ago as the name >of the language and the name of those who speak it. I've realized >now it doesn't quite fit in with the language any more. >How are some of the ways you have named your language and its >speakers? later, scott --- End forwarded message --- Senyecan comes from "senin," ancient, and "yecan," language. In my conculture (last Ice Age planet Earth) it is the first language spoken by the 6 loquent peoples. Anyone who speaks Senyecan is a senyécun (pl. sènyecúni). Charlie ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 22 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:31:13 -0700 From: Akhilesh Pillalamarri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM AIM: ArdacilMenalkar, I am Akhi the creator of the Aryezi language at aryezi.tripd.net Rene Uittenbogaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Name: ReneUit On: mostly during weekdays Zone: MET+1METDST Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: > Is anybody on this list also on AIM --AIM > and in the CET time zone would be nice! > -- > > /BP 8^) > -- > Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se > > Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! > (Tacitus) > ~*AKHILESH*~ --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today! [This message contained attachments] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 23 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 02:45:10 GMT From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions ok, so sentient the way I meant it, is as a thinking thriving intelligent civilization so any help with syllable structures? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 24 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 05:22:19 +0200 From: Remi Villatel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Looking for interesting ways to handle relative clauses. Sally Caves wrote: > There are a variety of relative clause structures, so you have to be > specific here. There's the one that expresses opinion or thought, as Remi's > "emotional case" does: "I thought that the boy was your son." "I feel that > it's time to go." But there are similarly structured relative clauses that > don't involve emotion, usually of the stating, writing, saying, observing > variety: "I said that I had sold the book" (a statement of fact). "The > article says that the man died." "The time clock registers that he departed > early." How would Remi construe that? I fooled myself with the word "emotional" and didn't give exemples like speech, written words, sight, earing, affirmation, confirmation, and so one. You can virtually apply the emotional case to anything even if it doesn't imply an emotion. My(EMOTIONAL) (PAST)-speech: I had sold the book. The(EMOTIONAL) article's content: the man died. The(EMOTIONAL) clock's reality: he departed early. The emotional case doesn't even need to apply to a possessive kind of clause. One(EMOTIONAL) speech: ... = It is said that... The(EMOTIONAL) Law: ... = The law states that... > Then there's that ornery distinction > made between "proper" and "improper" relative clauses with who/whom/whose, > etc, so often set out in Welsh grammars: "I saw the boy who kicked the > ball." "I saw the boy whose cup was full." [these examples; I'm not making > them up!] "I like the girl whom you hate." These one would use resumptive postpositions. I saw the boy *and* he kicked the ball. I saw the boy *and* his cup was full. I like this girl *and* you hate her. In fact, the resumptive proposition isn't absolutely necessary here. In Shaquelingua, I'd just cut the sentence in two with the equivalent of a semi-colon. I saw the boy *;* he kicked the ball. Even an emotional case is possible with "to see". My(EMOTIONAL) (PAST)-vision: the boy kicked the ball. > Proper relatives are so called > because the who/whom refer back to either the nominative or the accusative. > Improper relatives refer back to referents in the oblique case: "The boy > whose aunt had died came to see me." "I know the book to which you are > referring." "I saw the man to whom you spoke." Apparently, "whose" was such a big problem that I created a postposition for it. Without it, all I managed to say was that the boy brought the corpse of his aunt to see me. ;-) So... taji të-raçtesa tadekju frë, kyó'zeçke sublu xili te'va jisso. His (PAST)-dead aunt whose, (DESCRIPTOR)'our meeting upto PAST'the boy. (Shaquelingua doesn't allow embedded clauses.) The two other ones are easy with a resumptive pronoun. You are referring to this book *;* I know it. You spoke to this man *;* I know him. > How would you distinguish between "I > thought that it was blue" and "it is a matter of fact that the boy is blue"? > Or: "I kissed the boy who was blue," and "I saw to whom the blue boy blew a > kiss"? :) :) My(EMOTIONAL) (PAST)-thoughts: the boy was blue. The(EMOTIONAL) reality: the boy is blue. The blue boy blew a kiss to someone *;* I saw them. In Shaquelingua "them" would be an epicene resumptive pronoun representing "someone". [---CUT---] A lot of interesting things about Teonaht... I wish I could be able to describe Shaquelingua's grammar this way. Any way, I'm going to give a deep thinking to all this. ji kaçtólu soe, [ji: ka.CtO4u so^e] (one soon until) -- ================== Remi Villatel [EMAIL PROTECTED] ================== ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Message: 25 Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:54:51 +0200 From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Anybody on AIM Christian Thalmann wrote: > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>Is anybody on this list also on AIM -- >>and in the CET time zone would be nice! > > > Yep... Qatharsis, GMT +1. > > How come you are holding back your screen name? I just forgot. It's melrochaestan GMT +1. -- /BP 8^) -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant! (Tacitus) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------