Re: Spoken Thoughts ( My second, better formed, non crappy Language)

On Fri, Dec 29, 2000 at 02:47:58AM -0000, Eruanno none wrote:
[snip]
> >There are a few things you can do.
> >
> >1) don't have either. Lots of languages don't have either.
> >2) have the indefinite _a_ but not _the_.
> >3) have both, like English.
>
> You forgot one idea, use the definate article, but no indefinate.
> Where, you would use THE, but if nothing was specified, it would be
> indefinate.
>
> Yet another idea from Quenya.  I probably won't go with that idea, because I
> don't wanna feel like I am copying another language.  What are your thoughts
> on this?
[snip]

Attic Greek does this. I think Modern Greek also does this, but I may be
wrong.

Alternatively, just forget the article and use demonstratives instead.
The Sinitic languages (Chinese "dialects") and Malay/Indonesian don't have
articles, and they use demonstratives ("this" and "that") instead. My
conlang doesn't have articles either. IMNSHO, articles are cumbersome and
redundant (except perhaps they're forgiveable in Attic Greek, where they
are much more flexible than in English). Context usually makes it clear
the scope of your nouns anyway, so why bother? :-)

And don't worry if your conlang "copies" features of another language --
the fact is, youu can never 100% copy how something works from another
language (unless it's deliberate), and your unique combination of features
is what makes your conlang special, not necessarily the originality of
each feature.


T

--
Don't modify spaghetti code unless you can eat the consequences.