Re: Inverse relay: quality of documentation

* Jim Henry said on 2008-11-28 21:55:46 +0100
> On 11/27/08, kaleissin <kaleissin@...> wrote:
> > I'd love to be in the next inverse relay but I doubt the
> > documentation I have on Taruven is sufficient. Therefore,
> > I'd like a more in-depth discussion of what level and
> > breadth of documentation is needed to participate:
> >
> > * Descriptions of which features of the language?
>
> As David said, a description of basic and some more complex
> clause types, and word classes and how/whether each of them
> inflect.
That is a ickle bit vague... I've been stuck for two years
thinking about/describing secondary predication (if any) in
Taruven for instance. The cost of having trained as a
professional linguist I guess.

To me, a reference grammar has more than a thousand pages :)

> >  I propose a test for sufficient-ness, a short text that
> >  someone else than the author of the language was capable of
> >  translating into the language, that is: a non-relay
> >  translation game. Then the translator can vouch for the
> >  quality of the documentation at least.
>
> Let's say we know that the five languages used in Inverse
> Relay #1 are well-documented enough.
For the record, that is:
David J. Peterson: Kamakawi
Jim Henry: gjâ-zym-byn
Lars Finsen: Urianian
Elliott Lash: Silindion
Arthaey Angosii: Asha'ille

> So we might want this kind of test for languages that weren't used in
> that relay and which look like they might be well-enough documented
> but might not.
Exactly. Also, it is a nice test of a language's completeness.

> What about point me to the Taruven website, if any,
http://taliesin.nvg.org/taruven/index.html

> /../, and I'll see what I can do about writing something in Taruven?
Considering how badly balanced the lexicon is, finding a suitable text
might be hard. Especially as I haven't written anything at all on
derivation yet. The Babel-text is not yet done, for one.

> pick one of the languages offered by other people who
> want to participate if this kind of pre-relay documentedness
> test seems necessary for them.
>
> Again: who all is interested in participating?  I think so far
> David, Arthaey, Amanda, Kaleissin, Eugene, Ina, Jim Taylor
> and I are all that have said they're interested.  That gives
> us five languages (at least) that haven't been tested by
> someone else translating into them (at least not in this
> kind of game).
So the "not yet verified's" are:
Amanda Babcock: Mirexu? Merechi?
http://www.quandary.org/~langs/merechi/
meself: Taruven
http://taliesin.nvg.org/taruven/index.html
Eugene Oh: (classical) Arithide? Dethric?
http://wiki.frath.net/Classical_Arithide
http://wiki.frath.net/Dethric
Ina van der Vegt: Old Draconic?
Site gone
Jim Taylor: Limciela? Xara?
http://www.limciela.freeservers.com/
http://www.xara.20m.com/

..to get things started.

I'll add the text used in Inverse relay #1 to my list of
texts to translate, anyway :)


t.

Reply