Re: CHAT: Another NatLang i like

Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
>
> What do either of you mean, exactly, about wrong words getting into
> the lexicon?  I'm curious.  I know that vowel harmony in Turkish
> requires
> that vowels in a previous syllable match the following syllable, or
> something like that, but how would that situation (more than any other
> morphology) affect your problem with "wrong words"?
>
I like to create words with no constraints. I decide on
a loose pattern for a language (I somehow know what it must
sound) and then I create words. But vowel harmony is not a
natural process for me; I have to consciously avoid
disharmonic <sp?> vowels, and sometimes I forget and
then I have to correct. And maybe I don't want to :).
I mean, suppose you have vowel harmony with front-back
distinction. Let's say I want to create a word. A word
that passes my mind right NOW: _lelu_. Nice word. But
it can't exist in my language because /e/ is front and
/u/ is back! After several "disappointments" like those,
vowel harmony usually ends in my dustbin.

This is not a good thing, of course. If I want to form
words with shapes that seem natural to me, I may tend to
unconsciously copy natlangs I know...


--Pablo Flores