Re: On the design of an ideal language

Hi all,

On Thu, 4 May 2006, Jackson Moore wrote:
>
> On May 3, 2006, at 12:21 PM, Jim Henry wrote:
>
> > I am inclined to balance part of speech
> > and semantic category marking against
> > noise resistance and aim for an optimal
> > mix of their good qualities, rather than
> > maximizing one at the expense of the
> > other.
>
>
> Fair enough...on second thought, limit cases are an eccentric breed -
> their value is that they break down in informative ways, ...
Good point.


> ... so anybody
> who wanted  something they could use at the end of the day would
> probably avoid them.  I am planning an essentially impractical limit-
> case language that incorporates the full range of grammatical meaning
> found in natural languages with as much phonological consistency and
> specialization as possible, but whose lexical meaning is entirely
> evacuated - thus, "the dog bit a man"  and "the bear licked a boy"
> will be phonologically identical,  and unambiguously denote no more
> than "before now, a specific animate/animal agent performed and
> completed a discrete action upon a non-specific animate/human/male
> patient" et cetera.  Quite dysfunctional, maybe good for
> charades...except that I'm not designing the language for fluent
> speakers, but for non-fluent listeners, the idea being that
> grammatical paradigms and the relations between them will be as
> acoustically salient as possible - will be 'transduced' to sound with
> minimum interference.  The only thing that will distinguish it from
> any conlang with generic roots is that in this case any given portion
> of phonological space will be monopolized by a single grammatical
> device (that and the fact that the 'channel' will be an orchestra,
> not a mouth, making the language purely textual/non-extemporaneous).
Oh, good!  The much proclaimed, but never explicated,
"language of music" made actual! ;-)  I can't wait to hear
the *canonical* version of "The Sleeping Beauty"!


> Of course, limit-case languages could be practical at one remove -
> languages which are minimum or null in some respect can function as
> modules which are convoluted with other languages that are well-
> defined in that respect...so for instance, a null lexicon language
> could be imported as an affix system to supplement or substitute for
> the one in effect in given language, or could be supplemented with
> lexical meaning using any dimension that isn't already utilized -
> tone, stress, manual signs, eyebrow movements, whatever.  Such
> convolution would probably lead to very inefficient languages, but
> would also allow for a very facile blending of desirable design
> features.
This factoring of a language into a number of modular
systems is, on the face of it, a very attractive idea.
I once thought I had a great idea along such lines:
"How about letting consonants handle denotation, and
vowels handle connotation?"  Then I remembered that
people have been speaking Semitic tongues for millennia
... !!!

In another sense, any language that derives and inflects
using extensive affixation is modular, with particular
sets of syllables (the affixes) serving as modules for
particular types of derivation or inflexion, and the set
of roots as the base module that usually carries the
chief load of denotation, of naming things or acts.

Still, I agree with Jackson that a modular design is a
practical way to begin implementing the desiderata of
one's design.  If the result be too unwieldy, let "nature"
take its course, in the form of various plausible sound
change rules, technological changes etc, until such time
as the results become manageable enough for ordinary
speakers.  This seems to me to be the actual working
plan behind the engineering of many a conlang.

Regards,
Yahya

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/329 - Release Date: 2/5/06