Re: Workin' on some stuff.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2000, Barry Garcia wrote:

> >Then I decided to go back to the ancestor--I hadn't known about *that*
> >method of language-generation when I started writing the thing--and it
> >screwed up all my verb conjugations.  Thanks to people on this list,
> >though, I ran a bunch of Aragis verbs through Mark Rosenfeld's sounds
> >program and managed to massage everything into two conjugation classes,
> >plus a bunch of interestingly weird irregularities.
>
> Interesting. I'm not sure if i'm going to build up a culture around this
> conlnag or not (still working on Saalangal. This one may just remain as
> one for me to play around with, or not. Perhaps I can situate them in
> another part of the world? :))
The culture came first, and is motivating the conlang.  :-)  They're
non-Earth, but on an Earthlike world with "real" though limited magic.
Actually, having culture first is making all sorts of design decisions
easier.

OTOH I want to someday build a conlang called "meep" based on my habit of
meeping at people (literally).  Yes, I'm weird, but a little humor puts
(some) people at ease...and why not?  So far I've gotten 16 people to
meep back.  I think it'll be tonal, when I get around to it, and entirely
based on whimsy.

> >BTW, is there a rule-of-thumb figure for how much of a language could be
> >irregular?  I want it to be naturalistic but not a total pain in the butt
> >to learn.  As I figure out patterns some of the "irregulars" may actually
> >turn out to be special cases, but there are a few too many in a run of 20
> >verb/nouns/adjectives for my liking.
>
> I'd like some irregularities as well. As it is, ALL basic nouns have the
> same pattern, CaCaCi - RTM - ratami, GNS - ganasi, TsRL - tsarali, etc.
> Might make ease of learning simple though.
Yeah--that's why I'm happy I got everything into two conjugation classes,
which you can tell from each other from the root imperative/infinitive,
and the conjugations are the same except in a couple places.

> >> reflexive infinitive - CiCuCi - zimuri
> >
> >Neat.  :-)  I'm probably going to handle reflexives with a pronoun
> >construction.
>
> Thanks! I liked the thought of a reflexive infinitive, and kind of added
> it at the spur of the moment.  The conjugations for it re:
>
> past: zimuriam
> pres: zimuriul
> fut: zimuriad
> pst. prticip: zimuriez
> pres. prticip.: zimuriiv (two i's said separately)
> conditional: zimuriiya
> imperative: zimuriaz
<wry g>  The only problem with this sort of morphology, as far as I can
tell, is that it makes rhyming poetry trivial and uninteresting (for my
world, perhaps not for yours!).  But I'm going with syllable-based
poetry, something haiku or sijo style maybe, so it's all good.  One
test-poem I tried (to get some morphemes generated) came out, with a
little work, as 11-7-5, so I might dump in something about poets and
mathematicians and prime-number mysticism.

Conlanging also motivates culture building...it's a wonderful process
both ways.

> >I like.  :-)  OC my verb system's sort of made-up (it uses evidentiality
> >and a lot of aspects, and no future), but hey.  I use dynamic and static
> >mainly because I saw the description in the LCK and thought, Neat!
>
> Thanks again! There's still a lot of stuff to do for it of course. I'd
> need to figure out how I want the grammar to be (probably just basic SOV
> word order, not sure).
I'm using SOV because, well, why not.  I figure there will be other
conlangs, other word orders....

> No problem with that at all. I've done much the same with Saalangal (like
> using a trigger system because I thought it was cool).
I'd use a trigger system if I understood how it worked better.  :-)

I figure hey--I'm still learning.  There will be other times, other
conlangs, and more opportunities to learn.

YHL