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Welcome, New Conlanger

From:Jim Grossmann <steven@...>
Date:Saturday, May 15, 1999, 3:05
Hi!

        There is no end to the mental workout, agony, ecstasy, and just
plain fun of trying to describe an imaginary language.    I'd like to add my
voice to those of the other listers who enjoyed the thought that went into
your preliminary notes.   In answer to your questions ...

Check out this helpful page from Mr. Rempt:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/conlang.html


My own humble input follows:

Re:   Your alphabet.    I second (third? fourth?) the motion to go phonemic.

Re:    Tenses:

dad    going to do

            Actually, "going to" isn't quite future.   Someone can be fixing
to do, or going to do something right now.   "going to" has more to do with
present anticipation of an action than with the fact that some action will
occur in the future.   Do you have a true future tense that corresponds to
the English future auxiliary "will"?

mim    already did

Say, do you have a perfect aspect?   Is "mim" past  (I did it) or present
perfect (I have done it)?

Re:     I'm not sure I understand which words your language lacks.
Recommend you use more grammar terms.

"the" is the definite article.    Does your language also lack indefinite
article "a"?

Does your language lack both auxiliary be (as in "I am running") and copular
be (as in "I am popular)?

Does your language lack the verb "like" (as in 'I like roses'), the
preposition "like" (as in 'He swims like a fish') or both?

Does your language lack the main verb "do" (as in "Perry Mason proved Jim
did it") as well as the auxiliary "do" ....

        interrogative aux ...    "Does this mean that Jim will go to jail?"
or

        emphatic aux...        "My, this DOES put Jim in a pickle."

Re:   your questions:      Like your straightforward way of forming yes-no
questions.
Looking forward to seeing how you handle WH (what, who, when, where, how,
why) questions.

Jim