Tamara Woodcock wrote:
>
> I'm working on my first conlang. I write sci-fi as a hobby, and I
> decided that my xeno civilizations simply must have languages to go
> with the cultures. So this will be the first of a few languages for
> my own use. But I want to do it right, not just the occassional
> word or two like you usually find in sci-fi. I want a "real"
> language.
>
> In roman ornthology (is this the right word?), the consonants are
Perhaps you are looking for "orthography"?
> [snip]
>
> What I need to learn to create is the rest of the grammar structure.
> Would it make sense to have verbs to be also simply compounds of the
> roots? Is it necessary to have pronouns or indicators for
> adjective/adverb, tense, etc. How would a langauge that is context
> driven (without these written indicators) evolve to be used by a
> high-tech society, with a rich written history? I'm familiar only
> with English. My 3 years of Latin Studies in high school were
> merely to have a nice afternoon nap. And my Spanish consists of
> ordering beer when I go to Juarez for the occassional weekend.
It's not necessary to have pronouns or tense. Natural languages use
many different methods to indicate such things. It is helpful to learn
a little bit about languages in different language families to see how
they handle such things. May I suggest the books _Languages_and_
their_Speakers_ and _Languages_and_their_Status_? Both books
are written for the general reader. Each covers several languages
each in a different family. Not the entire grammar is covered, but just
some aspects. Both books are edited by Timothy Shopen and
published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (ISBNs 0-8122-1250-9
and 0-8122-1249-5 respectively).
-Ph. D.