Re: Help desiging a minimal conlang?

Paul Bennett <Paul.Bennett@...> comunu:

> The langauge has to fullfill the following requirements:
>
> Higly agglutinating/compounding
> Almost entirely all-verb, plus noun-forming, case-like words
> The standard 6-pronoun layout (1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular & plural,
all
> epicene), plus a reflexive marker
> As small a lexicon as possible, roughly 20 roots, plus the case markers
> All roots are monosyllablic, with open syllables.
This is very qualitatively similar to Dublex, if different in some ways:
[x] Higly agglutinating/compounding
[  ] Almost entirely all-verb, plus noun-forming, case-like words
    Instead, Dublex's roots are all noun, with verbs representations as acts
(e.g., 'comun', "communication")
[x] The standard 6-pronoun layout (1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular &
plural, all epicene), plus a reflexive marker
    Dublex has all this, though the normal pronoun system doesn't mark
number. The advanced system has singular, dual, plural and unnumbered, as
well as sex-reference and honorifics/pejoratives.  Because its
agglutinative, you can come up with quite unusual pronouns.
[  ] As small a lexicon as possible, roughly 20 roots, plus the case markers
    The original goal was 300 roots, then 360 roots, but I finally ended up
with 400 roots.
[  ] All roots are monosyllablic, with open syllables.
    All roots are {CV}CV(C)C, making it possible to analyze a compound word
at a glance into its roots.

> Anyone care to help meet the challenge of making a smallish list of
morphemes /
> lexicon entries suitable for a semi-nomadic people with some simple
farming?
> It'll probably serve as something like a trade-pidgin, within the rules as
> above.
You are welcome to use the Dublex lexicon as a starting point and begin
trimming roots from it. The Dublex lexicon is placed in the public domain
and will form the basis for a new version of LangMaker.

> Not directly related to the task, but if it helps you visualise, the
phonology
> is probably going to be:
>
> Nasals (N): m, n, q (= /N/) -- all voiced
Dublex lacks /N/.

> Stops (C): p,b; t,d; k,g;
Dublex writes /k/ as 'c'.

> Fricatives (F): f,v; s,z; c,j (= /S/, /Z/) -- all take the same voicing as
the
> adjacent Stop
Dublex has all of these, but writes /S/ as 'h' (/Z/ is 'j', as in your
system).

> Approximatants, liquids and so forth (A): y, w, h, r, l
Dublex lacks /y/, /w/ and /h/.

> Vowels (V): standard 5-vowel system; tone, stress and length are not
phonemic

Dublex matches this.

> Valid rootforms are:
In Dublex, only a subset of CC combinations are permissable in roots ending
in doubled consonants.  I actually have the full list, if anyone is
interested.

Unrelated to Dublex, the langmaker2 list recently had a discussion,
initiated by me, about which words the first human language might have had,
assuming it had only a dozen words.  You can find it in the archives:
http://www.onelist.com/archive/langmaker2  -- if the web page says this is
only open to members, it's easy to subscribe but request "Web Only", which
won't clutter your e-mail box but will allow you to browse the archive.

Best regards,

Jeffrey Henning
http://www.LangMaker.com/ - Invent Your Own Language
subscribe-dublexgame@onelist.com - Win $100 in the DublexGame contest!

"If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed....  Oh, wait, he
does!"