Conlang beginnings (was Re: GROUPLANG: cases (was: noun and verb roots))

Herman Miller wrote:
> Hmm... That brings up an interesting question. How do other conlangers
> build their languages? I've always done it by starting with short phrases
> and building up from there. I figure out how a language says "bats fly" or
> "the cat saw the mouse" or "the moon is made of green cheese" before
> working up to more complex sentences. If I don't have quite the right noun
> case or verb aspect for what I want to express, I'll add, rearrange, or
> expand others to fit.
I start out with phonemes.  Do I want a lot?  Few?  Should I have uvular
sounds?  Etc.  Then, I go on to some basic morphology (cases, if any,
some verb forms), and a few basic words.  Then, I experiment around with
some sentences like "He hit his brother", or "I fell", simple transitive
and intransitive sentences.  Verbs always take the longest, since I'm
never sure exactly what I want verbs to inflect for until I've worked on
it for some time.  Nouns are occasionally changed too.  As I experiment
around, I work out the syntax I want.

However, I've recently started a new project where that doesn't work.
I'm working on an isolating language, so I have to start "backwards"
from my usual system - I need to start with syntax, since there will be
little or no derivation and no inflections.
--
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was hanged." - Irish proverb
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