Re: A brief sketch of the Ga language

En réponse à Rik :


>I've just posted a sketch of the Ga language to my website- it can be found at
>http://www.kalieda.org/planet/telik/index.html
>
>Below is the text of the introduction page, together with some simple examples
>of the language. The website includes pages on phonology, verb and nouns. A
>further page of more complex examples will follow in due course.
>
>Comments and criticisms are always welcome.
I finally got a chance to look at your page. I haven't much to say about 
the language itself, except that I like the idea of volatile vs. stable 
consonants. The only thing that bothers me is the distribution of base and 
strong forms of the volatile consonants. Some have the voiced form as base, 
the other ones the voiceless forms. It's even stranger at the alveolar 
position where the fricative has its voiceless form as base form, while the 
stop has its voiced form as base form. Unless you have a very good 
explanation (maybe etymological, like the reason why in Japanese 
syllabaries the syllables in /b/ are written as the syllables in /h/ with 
the "voiced" diacritics. That's because Modern Japanese /h/ descends from 
*/p/), I'd rather expect strongness to be completely aligned with 
voicelessness or voicedness, not the strange distribution you have now.

My only other criticisms concern the descriptions you give. First, I really 
think you should include IPA or at least X-SAMPA to your sound definitions. 
That's because the transcription you use for the vowels for instance is 
anything *but* obvious. For instance, you describe "i" as "close front 
round". Do you really mean that "i" corresponds to [y], or French "u" in 
"lune"? And what about "o" and "u"? Are they rounded or unrounded? And "û" 
seems to correspond to [Q], rather far from its usual domain of 
application. Also, the transcription lacks consistency. "î" is the rounded 
equivalent of "e"!!! Unless there is a good reason for the transcription 
(again, maybe etymologically), I think you should rework it, because as it 
is right now it's rather confusing.

Finally, you seem not to understand what words like "morpheme" and "infix" 
mean. A morpheme is simply a unit of meaning, usually grammatical (lexical 
ones are usually called lexemes or roots). It doesn't say anything about 
the optionality of such morpheme. An infix is an affix, i.e. a grammatical 
morpheme only! You cannot talk about a "verb root infix" without stretching 
the meaning of "infix" rather far. I usually don't mind redefining lexicon 
when necessary, but all you do is making it rather confusing. Terms like 
"morpheme" and "infix" already have accepted definitions. You should stick 
to them because otherwise you're causing more confusion than anything else. 
It's so much clearer to talk about mandatory and optional affixes, added to 
the verb root (which is *not* an affix, since it's on it that affixes are 
added to, so you cannot reasonably call it an infix. It gives the 
impression the verb root is an peripheral part rather than the center of 
the word). By the way, an infix is an affix which goes *inside* a root by 
breaking it in two parts. Your description makes it clear that you don't 
have any infixes, only prefixes and suffixes that can be chained together. 
That you can put an affix between two other affixes doesn't make it into an 
infix. Only the realtion with the main root (here the verbal root) tells 
which kind of affix you're using. In the end, because of your confusing 
vocabulary, it took me a while to realise that your verbs allow subject 
incorporation.

Apart from those small imperfections, I must say I liked what I saw. You 
put together demonstrative and personal pronouns, which I did too in Maggel 
(except that in Maggel it extends even to the second and even the first 
person! :) ). And I like the noun morphology (nicely complex with its 
various classes and different morpheme shapes :)) ). I like the idea of the 
focus suffix. I may steal it for Maggel (although in Maggel if I have such 
a thing it will be obviously more complicated than just a suffix :))) ).

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang. 

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