Re: More on the Hermetic Language

En réponse à Paul Burgess <paul@...>:

>
> It would just tend on occasion to drop out-- moreso in
> informal conversation, and I should think moreso if I
> were using a large number of adjectives to describe
> myself. Somewhat idiomatic!
I see. It's mostly a speech phenomenon.

>
> I *want* to say it could also sometimes happen due to a
> Hermetic grammatical phenomenon I call "syncope"-- but
> I'd want to think that one over more carefully when I'm
> not sitting around with an early morning cup of coffee,
> not yet wide awake.
>
Well, here it's 4:08PM, but I can't say I'm wide awake either ;)))) .

>
> That combining of the two verbs is a phonetic and not a
> grammatical phenomenon.
It's still nice :) .

 In Hermetic, when a word ends in
> /o/ and the following word begins with a vowel, the /o/
> changes to /w/ and becomes the first sound in the
> syllable following:
>
> "Mna thsipo nathis," "The songbird sings":
>  mnah THSEE-poh NAH-thees   (pardon my non-IPA! :)
[mnA "Tsipo "nATis] is how I would transcribe it in X-SAMPA :) .

[Ts] initial cluster?!!! I may have evil clusters in Maggel but I never thought
of this one!!! I have to repair that mistake ;))) .

> "Mna thsipw'adis," "The songbird comes":
>  mnah THSEEP WAH-dees
>
[mnA "Tsip "wAdis] I'd say.

Interesting phenomenon. Somewhat reminiscent of French liaison and plenty of
phenomena like that happening in Maggel ;)) .

> Likewise under the same circumstances, /i/ --> /y/
>
// is used to enclose phonemes exclusively. If you want to enclose orthography,
use angle brackets: <i>, underscores: _i_, quotes: 'i' or "i", or pipes: |i|
(my personal favourite :) ). I just say that because the way you wrote it, it
seemed to mean that a final English "ee" sound changed into a French "u"
sound ;)))) . Not quite what you meant (which phonetically is [i] > [j] :)) ).

>
> "mna diaco zantha raca," "the yellow sphere overhead"--
> it is clear that the adjective "raca," "upper" or
> "located above," cannot be completing the adjective
> "zantha," "yellow."
>
Hehe, I'm gonna make sure that in Maggel it can ;)))) .

> However, adjectives can be related by conjunctions, and
> it is always possible to form a compound adjective using
> "-g-" (adjoining a consonsant, "-gh-"), meaning "and."
>
> "mna diaco zanthaghraca," "the yellow sphere overhead"--
> in this instance, it is made explicit that both
> adjectives are completing the same noun.
>
Nice compounding. Maggel uses the clitic |jn| pronounced [zd(I)] to connect
adjectives together. The clitic is written as part of the preceeding word, but
the adjectives stay separated in script. Indeed, it's used even if the
adjectives are on both sides of the noun (in Maggel, adjectives can go before
or after the noun. But they have different grammatical forms depending on where
they go :)) ).

> One can form very long compound adjectives of many
> elements in this manner-- also compound verbs, etc. When
> I was a youngster and first came up with this
> construction, somehow it made me think of long words as
> in Sanskrit.  :)
>
You already knew Sanskrit as a youngster?!!!!! But I agree with you :)) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

It takes a straight mind to create a twisted conlang.

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