Re: New Conlang: Terkunan

It seems plausible enough that newly coined words would use a regular
system, however, one would assume that many old words still show
affixes now unproductive, especially if people don't think of the old
word as "derived" anymore, which is frequently the case with oft-used
words.

Therefore I think that "amasion" for love is a rather bold decision,
since "love" was and is a common word,  not much affected by changes
in the derivational system. Testament to this is the state of the
word in modern Romance languages:
amour in French;
amore in Italian;
amor in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan and Romanian as well
and so forth.

Nonetheless, if people still perceive a word as derived than it may
change its ending.

I have read the grammar now more thoroughly and looking at the
phonology, my earlier "Rumantsch" suggestions were utter rubbish.

Looking at your self-set goals, I have to say you fully met them: A
good sounding Romance language with an easy to grasp, but yet
realistic grammar. I am looking forward to more texts in Terkunan!

Christian

>Hi!
>
>Dirk Elzinga writes:
>>...
>>  "... the derivational system of Terkunan is still productive. It works
>>  agglutinatively, and stems never change when affixes are added."
>>
>>  So what happened to all of the nifty stem changes from Latin?
>>  (scribere ~ scriptura, etc) I think it's a shame that it's gone, and
>>  also to my mind, slightly unrealistic.
>
>Indeed, all gone.  Same for the verbal system: all morphology gone.
>
>Unrealistic?  Well, it's a conlang -- it's not reality.  But ok, I
>know what you mean. :-) Maybe we'd need a different word: plausible,
>maybe?  Anyway, I don't know.  Afrikaans and English dropped most
>Germanic morphology.  Maybe Terkunan is even more radical, especially
>for derivation, but that's indeed what I wanted.
>
>>  Of course, if you're indulging your preferences, then there's no
>>  reason to include anything you don't want to ...
>
>Ok, my reasons are as follows.  I like Afrikaans grammar a lot and I
>like Tok Pisin grammar a lot.  A design goal was to exclude most
>morphology and still let it look Romance by retrofitting from
>structures found in Romance natlangs.  The derivational system is not
>at all complete or finished and I will rethink quite a few things
>since I'm not fully satisfied yet.  But the verb forms I think already
>do look natural for a Romance language, although all morphology is
>lost.
>
>**Henrik

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