Re: Poetic sentence structure?

David Peterson sikayal:

> In a message dated 04/4/02 12:23:00 AM, joe@WANTAGE.COM writes:
>
> << Do any of your conlangs have a poetic/classical sentence structure,
> as in Zitwbata: >>
Well, I don't have much of a sentence structure.  All I know is that
poetic sentence structure is much freer than in prose.

>     I actually created one for my first language.  Not a sentence structure
> so much as meter.  I called it a bell meter.  Each line had 21 syllables,
> which went (- =  unstressed ' = stressed): ' - - ' - - ' - - ' - ' -- ' -- '
> -- ' .  Over course, thus far, I haven't been good enough to produce anything
> in this style...  I really am no good at poetry.
This I did to, and it's still in use for Yivríndil.  It's based on the
number of stressed syllables in the line, although there are no actual
feet. Instead, the line may have four, five, or six stressed syllables,
with no more than three unstressed syllables between them. Then there's a
few restrictions on syllables at the ends and beginnings of lines.  It
creates a reasonably free combination of dactyls, trochees, and iambs.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
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--G.K. Chesterton