Re: `oñga`arl'- The pre-Celtic Language

On Fri, Sep 22, 2000 at 09:09:36PM +0100, Dan Jones wrote:
[snip]
> how some natlangs do it, any suggestions would be welcomed. I don't want a
> suffix or an infix, though, it's too run-of-the-mill. Thanks a lot.
[snip]

Try consonant or vowel gradation. Vowel gradation is somewhat common in
natlangs, so I suggest you go for consonant gradation :-) Of course, this
is just a shameless plug for my own conlang, which uses consonant
gradation to indicate gender:

Masculine:      pii'z3di        "man"
Feminine:       biz3tai'        "woman"
Epicene:        bis33'di        "person"
Double:         piiz3'dai       "couple"
Neuter:         biz3'di         "statue"

The idea behind it, of course, is to have a sequence of "related"
consonants arranged in some way, and given a word stem, you inflect the
word by varying the consonants within the same related group.

My system is quite straightforward: I group together consonants according
to type -- dentals, labials, palatals, velars, etc., so, as you can see
above, different forms are actually the same sequence of consonants if you
strip away voice/unvoiced/aspirate/nasal, etc..


T