2 Re Word order (Was: Conlangs of mischief

 this is two replies to two distinct posts...I fear this may be my 5th post
of the day...hence my combining them.  please, do not be offended.

On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 08:09:45PM -0400, David Peterson wrote:
> Teoh wrote:
>
> <<Keep 'em comin'! ;-)>>
>
> How about this: Metes appears to have no grammar or parts
> of speech of any kind whatsoever.   I was the one who had to
> try to decipher the text.   It also appears that all utterances are
> just one long word (if I understood the hyphens right).   Take
> a look at the Metes text, and how I translated it:
>
>> Metes:
>> http://steen.free.fr/relay10/metes.html
>Very interesting. Metes seems to be incompletely described on the
linked webpage,

 oh, it gets better --  the linked webpage was something I forgot to update
after I did a (minor?) overhaul of the language, just prior to the Relay.

> that does add a lot of obscurity to it. Nevertheless,
its lax semantics makes it a worthy challenger to Ebisédian!

 drat!

 (um, you *do* realize that I'd been *joking* when I mentioned Metes as a
challenger).  yes?

> :-) I
like its impersonal, intemporal register.

 thank you.
 (statement-of-which-I-am-fairly/reasonably-sure/certain).   :)

>Nevertheless, I'd like to see more explanation for how compound words
are formed, for example. I think part of the reason it looks so odd is
because there's little or no description of how this process actually
works
at-   =  To go; a year
au-   =  To perceive
attau =  to perceive {understand} a year {calendrical signifigance}

 (initially, I was puzzled...most of Proto-Indo-European seemed to be
prefixes  (what with alll the -  at-  the-  end-  of-  words- ).

>T
>--
>Notwithstanding the eloquent discontent that you have just respectfully
expressed at length against my verbal capabilities, I am afraid that I must
unfortunately bring it to your attention that I am, in fact, NOT verbose.

 pf.

 :)

> ===========================================
> On Friday, September 24, 2004, at 01:09 , David Peterson wrote:
>
> > Teoh wrote:
> >
> > <<Keep 'em comin'! ;-)>>
> >
> > How about this: Metes appears to have no grammar or parts
> > of speech of any kind whatsoever. I was the one who had to
> > try to decipher the text. It also appears that all utterances are
> > just one long word (if I understood the hyphens right).
 you did...I wanted to show that it was a super-aggutinating language (1
sentance = 1 word), yet allow ease for the Relay people to distinguish the
portions from one another.

 hmm...on that thought...maybe I should have used more of a
sequential-grammar-order...

 ie, male-person--oven-cooks--barley-drink.
 (fermenting/syrup-izing beer again, Methos?).

 and yes, that's where I got the name - from HIGHLANDER.

>> Take
> > a look at the Metes text, and how I translated it
> > Metes:
> > http://steen.free.fr/relay10/metes.html
> I have looked - the letters come serially. There is order.
>
> Even if Metes makes single utterances one word, the words are ordered,
> unless everyone is speaking at the same time.
 that's a whole other conlang, and one more suited to a herd species.  :)

> The single-utterance words
> are obviously composed of morphemes - they are surely ordered, or did
> Rolox simply get all his morphemes and then apply a randomizing function
> before writing them down.
 I used Proto-Indo-European as a guide (read, I tried to apply sound changes
to Proto-Indo-European words), and the result was Metes.

 my *big* problem, imho, was that, when I crafted Metes, I accidentally
confused grammar with word order...since, up to that point, everyone I
talked to (admittedly, not in school & off the internet), had seemed to use
them interchangeably.

Reply