Re: Categorical (was Re: Typologic survey, part I)

On Sat, 27 Jan 2001, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > Dumb question: what exactly is meant by "categorical vocabulary"?
>
> A conlang like Ro, where the form of the word is determined by its
> meaning.  Umm, that's not very clear, is it?  :-)  In Ro, the first
> letter was determined by a broad category.  I can't remember details, so
> I'm just making up details.  Say, D- means "human", then -e- might mean
> "adult female", -a- "adult male", -o- "male female child", -u- "male
> child", so that words having to do with women would start with de-, men
> would be da-, and so on.  The third letter would be determined by a
> further subcategorization of the "woman" category, and so on.  Thus,
> words with similar meaning look similar ... a major flaw, IMO.  Words
> with very different meanings can safely be similar or even identical
> (the two meanings of "bat" can easily be distinguished by context),
> while words with similar meanings should be different ... imagine the
> problems that could arise if you misheard in a chemistry classroom, say,
> "kaladante" meaning nitrogen as "kaladanti" meaning oxygen!  :-)
Funkiness.  :-p  I guess it could be fun to play with, but it's a bit too
restrictive for my personal tastes.  I *like* quirky word-shapes, and
ambiguity is fun.  (What is life without the ability to make bad puns in
a conlang?  <G>)  Thanks for the explanation!

Cheers,
YHL