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Re: Conlang Irregularities

From:FFlores <fflores@...>
Date:Sunday, March 7, 1999, 20:48
Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
> > Here's a new question that I'm curious about, > and that I didn't ask on the Lunatic.: > > I know that one of the difficult tasks of getting > a conlang up and running is to make the rules > of grammar. How many of you established > conlangers, after having done that, deliberately > introduce irregularities and contradictions into > your conlang with an eye to giving it dimension > and realism? Or maybe you don't do it so > deliberately... maybe it just happens and you > decide to leave it be?
Grammar is not really the most difficult part for me; lexicon is. I tend to produce a lot of little lexical irregularities, always trying to trace them back to the protolanguage. Most times I change a form of a word because I don't like what it sounds like, or because the rules of change allow me do it so, and it's interesting. For example, in Drasele'q, _okal_ "berry" has the plural _okloth_; the protolang singular form was /'okalo/. This regularly lost the final /o/, but the plural /'okaloS(u)/ (unvoiced u) couldn't possibly evolve into regular _okalth_: the middle unstressed /a/ was syncoped and the final /u/ lost, /S/ > /T/ (regular), and so _okloth_. In the same way I have pairs like _esun/esnuth_, _apas/apsath_, _na`m/nambath_. Syncope is very common in Drasele'q and produces a lot of semi-irregularities when adding the genitive case suffix (or others) to certain nouns, for example: _maikar_ "plenty, abundance" _maikres_ "of plenty" (-es = genitive) Some very common verbs are irregular too (though not so irregular as English irregular verbs), generally being shortened forms. I also have irregular derivations from the protolang, showing older and newer words change differently. Finally, I have some grammatical oddities that you may call "irregularities" because they're not strictly good Drasele'q; for example, using accusative for dative (see my earlier post about this).
> > In other words, how many exceptions to the rules > you' ve made will you tolerate?
As many as I don't find annoying.
> One of the > criticisms leveled at invented languages is that > they are too regular. Does that bother you?
No (because of the above :-)
> > I have the choice of modifying my volitional verbs > that end with an "n" and that have done so for twenty > years. _Euan_, for instance, means "to go," volitionally.. > But I've fairly recently made it a rule that non-volitional > verbs will end in "n" in their absolute form (retaining the > vestige of the gerundive suffix that marks them as > non-volitional: -ned.) So: teprorem, y tepro, "touch," > "I touch"; but teproned, y tepron, "feel," "I feel." Brilliant! > But what do I do with euanrem y euan, "go," "I go," denrem > y den, "tell, I tell," and uenrem, y uen, "take, I take"? > Except to make them exceptions to the rule? These > are beloved words that I've had for decades and don't > want to mess with. And yet I can predict how they might > change in subsequent usage: _euaned_ "go" but not with > volition, and a new vol. form, euarem, y eua--which I'm not > crazy about. And an epinthetic vowel inserted between > root and suffix for uenrem and denrem: _uenarem, denarem_. > which are other verbs. Yikes, what to do? >
Why don't you use suppletory forms? (We were talking about this a few days ago.) Use _euanrem, euan_ for "go, I go" (non-vol) and another verb (root not ending in -n) for volitional "go". The others... well, can you tolerate ambiguity? Or you may use adverbs to make things explicit: "I purposefully touch/feel". --Pablo Flores * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * And the Lord said unto Job, "There's no reason for it. It's just policy." Kelvin Throop