Re: THEORY: Storage Vs. Computation

At 04:38 PM 6/15/99 -0400, you wrote:

>Well, it's a systematic change in certain vowels.  For example,
>"Ann" is pronounced the way "Ian" used to be pronounced.
Ooh, cripes, did I need to hear this?  After hearing my husband's Northern
Irish vowels occasionally producing dipthongs where no dipthong has been
before?  :)

>> >...we also have "dove",
>>
>> Still present here as a "fossilized" form.  Very country.
>
>Actually it's an innovation.
Truly?  I remember using it as a kid...but it was already on the way out
then, in the NY suburbs of the late 50's - early 60's.

>> >..."shat",...
>>
>> We have this one too, though it's rare.  I heard it in Dublin recently,
>> though, which surprised me a little. Possibly a back-formation...?
>
>No, analogy.  sit-sat, shit-shat.  But the original verb was
>shite-shit-shitten, like bite; I believe in Ireland "shite" is
>still current?
Boy, is it ever.  :)  Not as a verb, but in formations like "It's all
shite, that's all it is."  But even commoner, seriously, every-other-word
commoner, is the F word as a common intensifier...used (especially in
Dublin) with as little concern as a USAnian might say "Sure" or "Hey...".
(sigh)

>> I would have thought "to twig" was a very UKish construction.  Are two of
>> the Great Englishes drawing sneakily closer together, then?  ;)
>
>"And" = And Rosta, a conlangist who lives in the U.K.
>As far as I know, "twig" is not normally used in this sense in the
>U.S., which is why I glossed it.
>
Aha.

>BTW, if you are *the* Diane Duane, Romulan is an impressive conlang!
:)  I don't know about "the", but I'm the one who writes.  And thanks for
the nice words.  Since I now suddenly have two new Rihannsu books to write,
and I don't presently see it as likely that I'll be asked to do a
dictionary/grammar as such later on (especially since both the language and
the people are Noncanonical), I need to do my serious and final
construction work on the language over the next couple of months:  which is
why I've turned up here, to listen and grow (theoretically) wise.  ;)

It won't be lost on people here who know my Trek work that the Rihannsu
(non-canonical Romulan) language is not only a constructed one on this
layer, the here-and-now, but a constructed one on the next layer down as
well, since I feign (as Lewis would have said) that the Romulans started
building their own new language on deciding to part company, way-back-when,
from the Vulcans.  (And yes, this idea did hit me after running into Pravic
in LeGuin's "The Dispossessed".)  This produces its own difficulties.
Potentially at least the language is diachronic, since the Romulans-to-be
built it from Old High Vulcan roots aged "in a different direction" from
the originals.  All I have to do now is work out what those roots
"were"...and then age them differently... :)  Argh.  And then add
apropriate syntax, grammar, etc...while also writing 140,000 words of the
next two books...over the next two months.

Eeeeeeeeeehhh.  (sound of author producing a very subdued scream)  It'll
all work out.  It's just right now that it looks impossible.  But I shall
sit and listen and soak everything up, and the details will start to work
themselves out.

Best! -- Diane




Peter Morwood & Diane Duane  /  The Owl Springs Partnership
http://www.ibmpcug.co.uk/~owls/index2.html / ICQ # 21654840
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