Re: Difficult language ideas

On 9/19/06, Leigh Richards <palomaverde@...> wrote:

> 1. As unambiguous as possible, especially in full sentences; it's easy to
> clarify any ambiguities.
I would suggest studying some existing conlangs intended
to be unambiguous, such as Lojban.

> 2. Hard to learn, and easy to say the wrong thing. Small and subtle changes
> have a large impact on the meaning, and it's unpredictable in that guessing
> something new from what you already know will rarely work.
Some things to try:

- a high lexicalization density, so that most of the possible
words with a given phonological shape are actually instantiated

- a large phoneme inventory, with many actual words distinguished
by only one distinctive feature

- a large number of verb and noun paradigms, with the appropriate
one for a given word not predictable from the form or semantics of
the root

- a large number of grammatical categories to be marked
mandatorily in certain circumstances, the exact categories
required/allowed differing for different paradigms.

- some categories marked in multiple ways; e.g. distant past
tense might be marked with a prefix, recent past tense
with an initial consonant mutation, present tense with a
suffix and future tense with a modal auxiliary.  Direct experience
evidentiality might be marked with a suffix, hearsay
evidentiality with an adverb, & inferential evidentiality gets
null/default marking.

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

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