Finally delurking, and some info on Ciktal

On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:
> > Andi dosam eloske, ön ngimam elos.
>
> So, to write _dosam_ one writes do-so(rev)-ma(rev)?
That's right.

> Any reason why its
> not do-sa-ma(rev)?  That would seem more logical to me, as it would
> minimize the necessity of using that diacritic, and it reflects the
> syllabification better, as _dosam_ would be do-sam.
Well, it's an orthographical rule, and therefore doesn't have to make
sense. :)

The idea is that the writing system to a certain degree reflects
morphological boundaries.  "Dos" is the word root for "man", which
must be written "do-so(rev)" when standing on its own.  "-am"
is a suffix which indicates the plural and the "animate" gender.  Thus,
the roots retain their basic syllable symbols ("arem") independent of
its place in compounds.

In fact, "dosam" could be written as "do-so-ma", completely without
reversers, and this is actually what is most often done, where this
doesn't lead to any misunderstandings.

> > I'd be happy to give you interlinears, but I'm not quite sure how to do
> > it.  Do anybody have any webpages that describe it, including such things
> > as common abbreviations of case names?
>
> Interlinears are usually done just by showing what the morphemes are,
> and giving a key to the abbreviations.  There are a few common
> abbreviations, like acc for accusative or pl for plural. [...]
Thank you very much!  Hope you can understand this:

Subj = subjunctive
An   = animate gender
Imp  = imperative
All  = allative

Andi dosam eloske, ön ngimam elos.
Andi     dos-am    e-       los- ke, ön  ngim-       am    e-       los.
Everyone man-pl.an be.3rdPl-subj-if, not human being-pl.an be.3rdPl-subj
If everyone were men, there would be no people.

Ön ökitan caavamëni!
Ön  ök-    i- tan caava- më-             ni!
Not vomit  -  imp bed    1stSing.present all
Don't puke in my bed!

Teni Olko varë maselos?
Teni     Olko varë         masel-os?
What.all Olko 2nd.sing.gen give  3rd.sing.an.past
Who did Olko give yours to?

By the way, thanks to taliesin and Nik Taylor for informing me that the
Conlanger Code is in version 1.1.  Here is my new and (slightly) improved
Code:
CLI/CS v1.1 lpv+ cN:R:S:H a++ y n19:1d B?+++ A E L++++ N2 Iv k-- ia:+ p+
s- m- o P---- S- Ciktal

--
Best regards,
Arnt Richard Johansen

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