Re: Inverse relay: quality of documentation

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 12:09 PM, taliesin the storyteller <
taliesin-conlang@...> wrote:

> * 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 :)

Just to say a little bit about this, remember the task at hand.  For
example, in ordinary relays, whenever I write up a vocabulary list,
I try as much as possible to give one word glosses--even if the
word calls for something a bit different.  I include no derivational
information, unless it's a neologism relevant to the translation, and,
essentially, cut out all the "behind the scenes" stuff because a
relay is a timed exercise, and not necessarily the time to go into
the minutiae of creation.

With an inverse relay, the task is slightly different, in that someone
else is going to have to *use* the language, so what you should do
is, first, trust that the text won't be too terribly difficult (which,
generally,
it won't be, since the task is difficult enough on its own), and then
think of what types of things one might encounter translating a
short, somewhat less than complex text.  It's a guessing game,
of course, but an attempt at figuring what will be most useful, with,
perhaps, a way for the user to find more information if necessary,
is probably most appropriate.