Re: P.S.: Yivrindil

In a message dated 03/14/02 12:26:43 AM, jaspax@JUNO.COM writes:

<< Yivríndil has
plenty of words that aren't glossable by single English words, and the
semantics of compounds are not necessarily the same as would be intuitive
to an English speaker >>

    I didn't quite mean this, exactly.  If English has a word that means
"table", and another language has a word meaning "table", why shouldn't you
gloss it as table?  What I was saying is that there's no reason why "table"
has to be morphologically simple in every language--get my drift?  So there
are lots of places in my dictionary for Kamakawi where the word has one
simple English gloss, but the word itself is highly derived.  Take the word
"luck".  In English, that's as broken down as you can get.  The word for
"luck" in Kamakawi is "imi", which is /i + mi/, where /mi/ is "butterfly" and
/i/ is a semi-productive affix (about as productive as /-y/ is to derive
adjectives in English.  It's not productive, per se, but people will under
stand you if they look at a beat-up, old computer, and say, "It's not very
computer-y") which derives radial, "object" categories, where the "object"
idea is a fuzzy set.  Sometimes it's the common direct object of a normally
transitive verb; sometimes a quality of an idea; sometimes an instrument.  In
this case, it's the quality of being carefree, or achieving such a state of
carefreedom (ha!  What a word!  "Carefreedom").  This is so derived because
the word "butterfly" can also be used as a verb to mean "to be carefree",
which is a visual metaphorical extension: Butterflies don't look like they're
worrying that much.
    This, of course, is a metaphor, and so, one can claim it's valid, while
others can claim it isn't.  Such is the way with metaphors.  Yet, what I do
with my languages, is to imagine different ways of dividing up the world
semantically.  Each language has a kind of theme by which I decide how to
divide up the semantics; this fits in with the theme or idea I dreamt up for
Kamakawi.  This is what I meant when I was talking about the nouns of
Yivrindil.  I'd be interested in seeing a wordlist, but, again, I know this
is something that's really, really hard to kind of webify and keep stable,
even if you've got one.

<<*  I adore the use of humour on your site.  It contrasts well with my
site (and most other conlang sites), which are pretty dry.  The purposes
are different--yours is an informal learner's grammar, while mine is a
reference grammar--but it's still something to admire.>>

    :)  Thanks.  Yeah, what I have on the web is definitely not a reference
grammar, and not intended to be, and I'll get to that later.

<<*  The four-way number distinction is interesting.  Does it apply
outside of pronouns?  The extremely regular formation of these is suspect
to me.  There are natlang precedents, but the general patterns is for
pronouns to be highly irregular (and highly conservative), to the point
where I say that if you're going to have a regular system of pronouns,
you'd better have a damn good reason.  So what are the con-historical
reasons for this regularity?>>

    Well, it's not that pronouns are highly irregular; commonly used pronouns
are highly irregular.  This is why you see the irregularity in the first
person plurals in the dual and trial, but not with any of the others.  The
others are not common, and almost aren't really thought of as pronouns, in my
mind, but conscience combinations, every time you use them.  So it is "you +
three", rather than "a pronoun meaning the three of you to whom I'm
speaking".  After this you mentioned how I mentioned the number distinctions
are dying out.  Well, this is why there's regularity in some, but not in
others.  Also, though, I think I made a mistake in the grammar that's posted
up there...  "eia" should be "eya" [ej@], and "uia" should be "uya" [uj@].
Not very irregular, but enough.  Also, with the phonology I
selected--especially for the pronouns--there's not much that would lend
itself to irregularity.  There are the VV parts, but that's were "eya" and
"uya" come into play.  But I've seen high irregularity in pronouns, and high
regularity; it can go either way.  In this case, I wasn't so much interested
in it; it didn't serve.

<<*  The change of _i ei_ to _i'i_ is explained in the grammar as if it
were a case alternation.  However, given the lack of cases in the rest of
the language, it looks to me a lot more like a phonological shortening.
Why do you analyze it as case?  Or was that just a device to help the
learner?  And if so, why do you think the learner is helped by obscuring
the real nature of the alternation?>>

    Yeah, it's not a case alternation; it's phonological.  And yes, it was to
the help learner.  Helped me.  :)  I don't know.  I find it easier (and, now
that I think about it, it might seem counterintuitive to some) to memorize
morphological alternations then memorize phonetic/phonological
rules--especially one that's so specialized.  And, hey; teaching a language
is all about obscuring the real nature of a language to the learner! ;)  Like
how they told us that accent was completely unpredictable in the first year
of Spanish.  Education is about lying.  ;)  Hee, hee, hee...  I think if you
don't know a lot about linguistics, it can actually be helpful to except a
simplification at the earlier stages of language learning in order to
facilitate immediate communication.  For instance, if they gave us the four
rules on how to determine where stress goes in Spanish right in the
beginning, people would either get confused, or spend all their time sitting
their trying to figure what goes where rather than just diving in and
speaking or writing and making mistakes.  But anyway, that's a bit off topic.
    Thank you for your comments.  :)

-David

"fawiT, Gug&g, tSagZil-a-Gariz, waj min DidZejsat wazid..."
"Soft, driven, slow and mad, like some new language..."
                    -Jim Morrison