Re: 1st paragraph of La Karavano with relex

In a message dated 9/12/2007 11:00:54 AM Central Daylight Time,
philip.newton@GMAIL.COM writes:


> What are -ant-/-int-/-ont-/-unt-, -at-/-it-/-ot-/-ut-, and -ig-/-igx-?
> What about infinitive -i? What about est- "to be"?
>
> What other one-letter words are there besides "a i t"?
>
Infinitive "-i" is "n".  Imperative "-u" is "m".
"Est" is "ye".
ant/at = da/ta
int/it = di/ti
ont/ot = znu/qla
The future participles represent an irregularity, but the forms do/to were
already taken for more common morphemes ("don-", "trov-").
There are no equivalents for unt/ut, because those did not occur in the
story.  There regular forms would be du/tu, which are already taken for "du" and
"tut-".

The one-letter words are:
a = la
e = mi
i = kaj
o = li
u = ili
t = de
v = en
Single consonants as words takes a little getting used to, but it's common in
Russian (v "in(to)", s "with", k "to(ward)).
I tried "k" for "al", but didn't like the results, so it became ad hoc "ka".

wa = -ig-
yu = -igx-

The pronouns "ni", "sxi", and "gxi" are pronounced the same: ni, xi, ji.
"vi" is 'we'.  "si" is 'oy'.
I'm not fond of either "we" or "oy", but haven't found suitable replacements.
 The main criterion for choosing a shape of a morpheme was its frequency in
the original text.  The shapes I chose from were based on length.  The most
common morphemes were V, then VS and SV (S is semi-vowel y/w), then CV, followed
by CVS/CSV and CLV (where L is l/r) and CLVS.  Last were CVCV, which caused
too much confusion with CV+CV, so I inserted "n": CVnCV.

Relex ending "-g" replaces both Esperanto "-n" and "-en".  I haven't found a
case yet where an Esperanto root can have both these endings, so it's not a
problem in practice.  If there is such, I'd like to know.

stevo
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