Re: My conlang: opinions welcome

2005-04-11 inx, lju-txaj-zox {Gregory-ram Gadow-sqam} tu-i pqoq:

>>>2.1.4 Locative / dölha dünis
>>>This case is often used idiomatically to show "where."
>> I'm not sure what you mean by this.
>As in one of the examples I gave with that case (2.1.3):
>  klarü pilta' xhünï-tav "Clara writes with Hawk."
But this is an example of the associative; I was asking about
the _locative_ being "used idiomatically to show 'where'".

>> Interesting.  Normally cases show the role a noun has in a sentence, and
>> are mutually exclusive, but you note that a noun can be in both the
>> associative and intimate cases at once, and I expect the collective case
>> would often combine with some other case marker as well.  What about the
>The word _dölha_, which I translate as "case", is a type of modifier
>(_ande·is_) that is physically attached to the noun. Other types of
>modifiers -- the number of a noun and all the modifiers for verbs -- are
>not attached to the word they modify. I use "case" to make that
I think the word for a modifier that attaches to the word (acting with
it as a single word for purposes of stress, vowel harmony, and other
phonological phenomena) is "clitic".  You have some clitics that
act like case endings (determining the role of a noun relative to the
verb) and some that don't.  Of your quantity modifiers,
one is a clitic and the others are not.

>> Interesting, too, how your set of declensions is orthogonal
>> to the set of genders.
>I studied mathematics in college. I don't think what I understand as
>orthogonal is the same as you mean.
My metaphorical extension of the word was unclear, then.
I meant that the genders are not associated with particular
declensions or vice versa, as is common in some other
languages with both case and gender; any gender noun can have
any declension, as far as I could tell from that page.

>This is simplified somewhat in that if you give an explicit number, you do
>not need to use a generic quantifier.
OK, you should probably say that in the document.

>Very likely, I'm misusing the terminology. I describe them as
>postpositions because A) the word indicating the spacial relationship
>concludes the phrase rather than introduces it, and B) the phrase itself
>is placed after the phrase it is modifying. I'm open to changing the way
>this relationship is described.
Your use of the word "postposition" is correct.  I believe that
"postpositional phrase" means "a noun, maybe with some adjectives,
followed by a postposition" -- not "a phrase that is positioned
after the word or phrase it modifies".  In theory a postpositional phrase
could go before or after the word or phrase it modifies; I was just
pointing out that, based on (what I vaguely remember of) what I've read,
postpositional phrases usually go before the word or phrase they modify,
just as prepositional phrases usually go after their head word.  But what
I read may have referred only to certain types of postpositional phrase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postposition
http://www.applet-magic.com/langtyp.htm
(scroll down to the section heading "Head Directionality", giving
Japanese examples of postpositional phrases)



>> More comments later, maybe.
>Thanks :-) I look forward to hearing them.
Here they are.

http://www.gregory-gadow.info/conlangs/glorsa/Verbs.asp

> 4.1.2 Indefinite / gilon filde
Should have a forward-reference to section 4.5.3.

>4.1.3 Passive / gilon ghirev
It would be nice to have a couple of examples here,
or at least a forward-reference to section 4.5.2.


> 4.1.4 Conjugate / gilon dileva
>There are six conjugate inflections, each expressing both a person and a specific.
A specific what?  Be more specific. :)

Seriously, when I started reading this I had forgotten your using the word "specific"
as a special grammatical term for Glörsa earlier on.  Or someone
might read thse pages out of order.  You should either define it here again,
or give a cross-reference to section 3.1.

>4.3.2 Definitiveness / ande·is paxhi
absense  --> absence

>4.3.4 Nowness / ande·is te·ona
This is nifty.  I may steal this for gjax-zym-byn, which uses
a similar system of postpositive adverbs for "past tense"
and "future tense" but currently expresses "present tense" by a
postpositional phrase ("nu koq i", at this moment; "viqj koq i",
during this period; "geq'diqm koq i", today [where day = the speaker's
personal sleep/wake cycle], etc.) situated at the beginning of the sentence,
before the object (gzb is normally OVS).  I would currently
express the kind of ongoingness you describe here by combining
a "since" or "until" type of postopositional phrase with a verb modified
by "mje" (past) or "ler" (future), but adding a modifier meaning
"from now until..." or "...until now" depending on context would
make such expressions much terser.

Currently:
viqj    koq  dxon  {The Old Curiosity Shop} kax-i          lju-zox    mje.
period  this until [book title]             attentive-case read-V.ACT past
I have been reading _The Old Curiosity Shop_ [and am still reading it].

Hypothetically:
{The Old Curiosity Shop} kax-i          lju-zox    mje  zqoq.
                         attentive-case read-V.ACT past nowness

Or maybe I will extend the current usage of {de}, "nowadays",
to cover this as well.


>4.3.5.2 Iterative / ande·is dwali chiram
>4.3.5.3 Habitual / ande·is dwali zëthe
This distinction is cool, too.  In the present tense I would express
the habitual with {de}; in any tense, the iterative with {ra}.
I don't currently have a terse way to express a future or past habitual.

>4.5.3 Existential voice / zhahin te
This is good.  More examples would be better.  How else is it used besides
describing the weather?

Esperanto uses subjectless active-voice verbs for this kind of thing.
At first I was going to do the same in gjax-zym-byn, but I realized that
would conflict with the rule that a verb with no explicit subject is
assumed to be first-person (or have the same subject as the previous sentence).
So I wound up expressing weather situations with unfortunate verbosity.

purj        srq         bly-van      pwiqm goq.
environment from-top-of fall-V.STATE water behold
It's raining.

> It also occurs in some proverbs and can be used to
>express some religious and philosophical concepts.
OK, cool; let's see more examples of that ("nösawle bisenda" is good).


---
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry

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