Re: quantitative meter, accent and verse form

Dan Jones wrote:
>William Annis escreva:
>>            1) if anyone has created any languages where vowel
>>quantity is significant;
Tairezazh has phonemic length, altho' I can only seem to find one minimal
pair, which happens to be different forms of the same verb; _dhék_ "goes,
travels" and _dhek_ "went, travelled". This is one of the extremely rare
cases when a the addition of an ending makes the word shorter (_dhek_ is
historically _dhék_+_k_).

If you don't feel bound by traditional Tairezan analysis, you could argue
that [A: e: o:] aren't long versions of [a e o], but simply different
vowels. Or you could go the other way and argue that [ou ei] aren't "proper"
diphthongs but the long versions of [u i] (historically, [ei] is often <[i:]
and [ou] almost always <[u:]). In the later view I find at least one more
minimal pair; _lein_ "mortal", _lin_ "for that" (the dative of a
demonstrative pronoun).

>>            2) if so, was stress or pitch accent employed, or none at
>>all; and finally
Stress accent on the first syllable of the stem.

>>            3) has anyone tried to work with formal verse forms in
>>their constructed languages?  Successfully?
I'm not a poetic type. The minimal amount of Tairezazh poetry that exists is
in free form. Personal fave:

Skezar ments tai
Ne tan veilest telvér
Thak eiten ne dáken
Sous es thent groni tain.

("Take my hand
And we will walk together
Thru joys and sorrows
Till the end of our time")

Kinda sentimental, eh? People longing for a translation exercise, here you
have it :-)

                                        Andreas

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