Re: New Language: Zhyler (Noun Classes)

En réponse à David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

>     So, I really liked Turkish, so I thought I'd create a Turkic like
> language.  I drafted one up, kind of got bored with it, and left it.
> The
> other day I took a look at it again, found many things I didn't like, so
> I
> had to "change" them, and ended up making an almost totally different
> language.  One of the things I incorporated (don't ask me why)
Don't say that to me or I'll ask why :)) .

>
 [oe] is a close-mid, front rounded vowel (I don't know
> the
> symbol :(  Sorry).
In X-SAMPA it's [2], representing IPA o-slash. IPA oe-ligature is X-SAMPA [9]
and is open-mid front rounded vowel.

>
> The suffixes associated with the noun classes attach to all nouns, and
> also
> appear in subject or object position in verbs, where relevant.  The
> other
> form is the pronominal form, which is rare, but there.  Here be the
> classes,
> yarr:
>
The pronominal forms would be basically 3rd person pronouns? Do your 1st and
second person pronouns and/or affixes mark class too? (they could, since for
instance there are at least two classes humans could fit in)

<snip interesting list of classes>

Well, on the whole the system doesn't seem that unnatural for me. Eastern
counter systems classify things according to even more restrictive conditions
sometimes. I especially find the distinction between "human with title"
and "human without title" very naturalistic (and seems to indicate a society
where title is quite important). The rest doesn't look unnatural, except that
it supposes a society quite advanced in its knowledge of its environment (since
they seem to know a very broad range of animals and plants, from every
environment possible). Maybe a future society?

I only have a few suggestions:
- make some exceptions, that can be culturally explained. There are languages
where all animals have male nouns, except birds which have female nouns because
they are thought to be the souls of dead women. I think it would be neat.
- leave out the "and all else" from the last class. I think it would be more
realistic if things that don't really fit in any class would be distributed in
all classes anyway, for cultural reasons again.
- a nice thing is to have productive class changes. For instance, the same word
could take the suffix -mUs to refer to a living crab and -bAn to refer to the
crab in my plate which has been cooked and is gonna finish in my stomach :)) .
- Where do you put things like rivers and roads? Though a road can be
considered to be a thing a human cannot lift (though it doesn't fit very well
in this category in my opinion...), what is a river? An indestructible natural
object? Well, the riverbed may be one, but the river itself is nothing else
than moving water (while a lake or an ocean have a more tangible quality).
Maybe a class for flowing things and paths would be an idea. And you could add
funny things in it like language names (since a language is metaphorically
something flowing from a person to another :)) ).

Just my two Eurocents :)).

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.