Re: Obrenje and Schwiizertüütsch

Christophe Grandsire wrote:


> Especially the use of 'c' for /h/. That's the first time I see such a value for
> it :) (poor ol' c, it already has so many values. I think it's gonna get the
> award of the most versatile letter in the alphabet :) ).
I also considered using it for /T/ at one point.  There are so woefully
few latin letters that can represent dental sounds, and so many velar
ones...  anyway, I decided to dump /T/ altogether and install the /s/ in
its place.  IMHO, /s/ is a more natural fricative version of /t/ than
/T/ is.


> I'm just wondering what is exactly the difference between implicit and explicit
> 3rd persons. The page explains things rather well but I failed to see an
> explanation of the difference between those two persons and the examples don't
> help either. Could you explain please?
Let me quote a line from my old latin schoolbook "Ostia":

Domitilla tacet.  Non iam cantat.
"Domitilla is silent.  She doesn't sing anymore."

In the first sentence, there is an explicit subject: Domitilla.  In the
second sentence, the subject is still Domitilla, but it's no longer
explicitly stated in the sentence.  Instead, the 3rd sg ending -t of the
verb implies the subject.

In Obrenje, the first verb would be in the IIIe person, while in the
second sentence, it would be IIIi.

One might argue that this distinction is superfluous, but I think it
does serve its purpose, since Obrenje is VSO.  Marking an implied
subject on the verb tells the listener right away that the subject is
the same as before, thus relieving him from the insecurity that there
may be a new subject following in the sentence.  It takes some
responsibility from the syntax and makes retro-active parsing unnecessary.


> > PS:  The archive indicates that someone discussed Swiss German on this
> > group lately.  I'm Swiss myself.  Is that discussion still pending?
> >
>
> It was a discussion about the fact that non-official languages and dialects
> usually don't have a standard orthography, so that you see them written in many
> different ways.
I was referring to the discussion about the Mani Matter song lyrics
"Hemmige", which is among the last posts visible on the Yahoo!Group archive.


> At least my
> Narbonósc has an official orthography. But hey, it's an official language after
> all :) .
Where do I find info about Narbonósc?  Your homepage lists five other
conlangs, but Narbonósc seems to be your main lang, considering how
often you mention it on this list.  ;-)


-- Christian Thalmann

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