Re: Building up a FAQ: Please reply

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 15:22:30 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

>En réponse à taliesin the storyteller <taliesin@...>:
>
>> Lets build a wordlist for this mailing list!
[...]

>> romance-lang (social): conlang with words derived from latin
>>     for instance Brithenig and its ilk
I thought this term also applies to Romance natlangs. No?

>> the vice, the secret vice, or Tolkien's secret vice (social):
>>     making languages
I'd add that this usage is strongly opposed to by some conlangers (that
is, by me) :)

>> lexicon, vocabulary (linguistic); the set of words in a language
>>
There seems to be some difference (but I'm not sure).
>
>morphology (linguistic): the rules that govern the structure of a syllable,
and
>how can sounds be put together in speech.
Wait... for me, that's "phonotactics" (which seems to be a bit broader than
"sound combinatorics"). And "morphology" refers to the rules for building
"forms of words" (cases, tenses, &like); for some people (me), also word
formation; the boundary between this and "syntax" may depend on how one
define "words" (which I mostly prefer not to touch).

BTW, there's an area between "morphology" and
"phonetics/phonemics/phonotactics"; it's called "morpho(pho)nology" and
includes "sandhi" &like (some people call "sandhi" all morphonological
processes). I think memorizing the grammars of some languages (e. g. Hebrew)
would be hardly possible without this level of analysis.

BTW, it seems that the units of morphonology analogous to "phone" and
"phoneme" are "underlying phonemes" (I'm not sure how much this term
overlaps with "archiphonemes").

>syntax (linguistic): the set of rules of a language. Often used as a quasi-
>synonym of 'grammar'. More restrictively the set of rules that governs the
>structure of the sentence, how can words can be put together in speech.
I'm more suited to the latter usage. And there's another intermediary
level: "morphosyntax" (syntactical properties of morphological categories;
I think many issues related to "parts of speech" also belong here).

>> a priori language (social): the words are not derived from any natlang
>>     or well-established conlang
>> a posteriori language (social): the words are derived (recognizable or
>>     not) from an already existing language; like all romance-langs
>>     and most auxlangs
I've always missed a few narrower terms here. I just hate seeing Brithenig
and Esperanto in one category ;)  Any suggestions?

[...]
>> AFMCL, AFMC (social): As For My ConLang
[...]
>ObConlang (social): Obligatory Conlang (added to an off-topic message to
end it
>with some conlang information, so that it doesn't look *that much*
off-topic).

Don't forget YANC(L) = Yet Another New Conlang ;)

>OK, but then, define 'agglutinating' :))) :
>isolating (linguistic): language, or structure in which words stand alone
>without affixes (typical isolating languages: Chinese languages).
I'd say: Old Chinese. Also Vietnamese, Standard Thai.

>agglutinating, agglutinative (linguistic): language, structure in which
roots
>are added affixes which, though dependent, keep a definite individuality
>(typical agglutinative languages: Turkish, Finnish).
Again, I think the examples are not the best possible ones: I believe
consonant gradation and, in more restrictive understanding, _vowel harmony_
= _synharmonism_ (definition?) to be deviations from pure agglutination.

My definitions:

Agglutination: A morphological technique where _morphemes_ (definition?),
each representing one morphological category (or function), are combined
without any significant modification (in more restrictive understanding:
"any phonologically significant modifications"; less restrictively: "any
modifications not predictable from the regular _sandhi_ rules").

(Important note: it seems that languages totally avoiding this technique
don't exist, or even are logically impossible in at least some theoretical
frameworks. Hence my next definition)

Agglutinative language: a language with relatively rich _morphology_ which
predominantly uses _agglutination_ without resorting to more complex
morphological techniques.

>synthetic (linguistic): language, structure in which the limits between
root
>and affix becomes uncertain,
I think, this should be spread to all kinds of morphological boundaries
(not only between root and affix). It seems that this is termed _fusion_
(which marks certain languages as _fusional_).

>and affixes often stand for more than one function
I'd say: "and/or"

There seems to be a standard term for this, which I forget. "Affix polysemy"
or "polyfunctionality" or something.

>Well, let's begin the list of cases then :) :
[...]

I think it would be good to list also the undrlying (Fillmorean)
cases/roles, maybe according to several authoritative sources (Filmore,
Apresjan, etc.; they overlap a lot). Unfortunately, I know no good
reference in English. Any suggestions?


Basilius