Re: Made some progress...

En réponse à Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>:

>
> Well, isn't it the exceptions that make the language?
>
Partly yes. But I'm also trying to make the rules so contradictory that even
the regularities will look like exceptions ;))))) .

> What does the name "Maggel" mean, by the way? In my Dutch ears it sounds
> a bit
> like a name for a duck ;)))
>
LOL. Well, Maggel doesn't mean anything... yet. What I know of it is that it's
a feminine word with a singular meaning but grammatically plural (thus part of
the class of "plurals", like the masculine mesha ['mEh*@]: house, which is
grammatically plural - and triggers plural agreement - but semantically
singular), which is quite common for abstract feminine nouns (for the simple
reason that the base form of feminine nouns is the plural indefinite ;))) ).
It's probably a worn-down phrase, but I have yet to discover its components (if
they even still exist today :))) ). By the way, would you call a duck [m@'gE:l]?

>
> Not yet. It still depends a bit. Are you going to come up with a 48
> case
> system, partly ergativity, in combination with OSV word order system?
> Not to
> mention 309 noun classes and 81 verb conjugations...
>
Well, Maggel is evil in other ways. It has Celtic-like initial modifications
(often with final modifications too) to mark the construct state, the
complement form, plenty of instances of umlaut (a-, i- and u-umlaut are known,
others probably exist) which are not as straightforward as in German (for
instance, the i-umlauted form of [E] is [Ui] ;)))) ) accompanying the different
plural marks (it has four numbers: singular, dual, unnumbered plural and
numbered plural :))) ), masculines and neuters' base form is singular, but
feminines' base form is unnumbered plural, adjectives take different forms
depending on whether they are placed after the noun they complete or before it
(and since the noun and the article and/or preposition cannot be separated, the
adjective has to come in front of the article and/or preposition, in a position
which asks for other modifications, some of them being purely graphical :)) ),
numbers use a base 20 and nouns agree in number with the unit only (so 21
triggers singular agreement, and 32 dual :))))) ), possessives are purely
objective (meaning that the possessor is equivalent to an object of verb,
rather than a subject) and never subjective, the conjugation often asks for two
conjugated verbs to be present together in the sentence, the basic word order
is VSO but VOS and AuxOVS are quite common... Do you want me to carry on or is
it evil enough? ;)))))

>
> I'll answer that question a bit later... Keep your shirt on!
>
Well, I'm at work so it's basically better that I keep it on anyway ;))) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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