Re: A Conlang, created by the group?

Okay.

If my ideas sound close to the ideas of Mathias is because I'm reading all
de postings and try to apport taking everything and my proposal in account.

The things I have in mind: not to mimic NGL, not to mimic West IE languages,
experiment and being able to read it loud.

It means I don't want nominative-acusative-dative cases... some others are
okay.

As Pablo ask me, my proposal is the following (explain and exemplified):
* agent: anything causing or controlling a predicate (ergative) THE DOG bit
me, THE STOPPED CAR is blocking the highway.
* patient: anything being modified or hold by a predicate (absolutive)  The
stopped car is blocking THE HIGHWAY, the dog bit ME
* undergoer: anything pasively being modified or hold by a predicate caused
for itself.  THE DOG sleeps.
* theme: anything extending the meaning of a predicate: I read THE BOOK
* static predicate: a predicate applied but not changing: The stopped car IS
BLOCKING the highway, the dog SLEEPS
* dinamic predicate: a predicate meaning a change of state: A car STOPPED
the highway, The dog BIT me.
* modifier: any adjective, adverb, etc.
* clasifier: a modifier which add further information on the modified: the
BAD dog bit me.
* determinant: a modifier which help disdinguish the modified (examples:
posesives) THE STOPPED car is blocking the highway.  the dog OF MY NEIGHBOUR
bit me

I wasn't pretty sure what was I meaning with modifier alone, but I guess it
was something refferent to compunds.

Compared to Pablo proposal:

> . ergative: a subject controlling an action (THE DOG bit me)
> . unergative: a subject causing a state or not controlling its own actions
>  (THE STOPPED CAR is blocking the highway) but partly responsible
> . absolutive: a subject not doing anything to an object, or an object
>  not receiving an action or entering a state (THE DOG sleeps, I read THE
BOOK)
> . accusative: an object receiving an action or changing its state
>  (I burned THE BOOK)
> . copulative: an object or subject being equated, compared or directly
>  modified by another thing (THE DOG is BROWN, HE got TIRED)
>>and some small particles (prepositions?) to extend some meanings.
>Pre- or post-? I think they should be in the opposite end of the noun
>with respect to case markers (i. e. cases postfixed > prepositions,
>cases prefixed > postpositions).
I agree! :-)

>* Number: how many of them? Any of them, or just separate words like
"many",
>"various" or numerals?
In my previous post I proposed a singular, plural optional number as a glide
between the root and the aspect or gender disctintion.

>* Mixing speech parts:
>>A way of mixing them?
>>Tense could be used in either nominal phrases (Agent, Patient, etc) or
>>predicates.
>>Aspect: perfect aspect mark = definite article mark?, how about other
>>aspects?
>>Gender: animate/inanimate gender = dinamic/static predicates?
>
>I agree with the idea of perfect (verb) = definite (noun). It's original
>and sounds excellent. I don't like that gender idea...
>We could have tense markers on nouns.
I also proposed (in the examples), that the number could be applied to a
predicate/verb marked root, with the meaning of iterations:
  John hits.SING Paul: It is happening one time: not a usual situation
  John hits.PLU Paul:  it happens many times: a usual situation
  John hits Paul:     ambigous, context would give a clue

If the proposal of no verb/noun disctintion is accepted, gender (if any)
would be applied to a verb... of course, if we have not yet decide which
genders we will use, we could no be sure what they would mean.

Tipical noun inflections: gender, number, determination, case, reference
level
Tipical verb inflections: tense, aspect, mode, evidence, reference level

Tense and number would be used for any root, with nominal or predicative
value (I mean: acting as noun or as verb).  Determination and aspect could
be merged.

Any proposal about reference levels (think thats called: way the speaker
refferes to the listeners/readers).  I'm pro an igualitarian language, but
politeness would be usefull. ?

I propose marking mode of verbs the same way as case of substantives (i.e.
prefixes if all other marks postfixed) this way:

cases/modes: absolutive, accusative, conditional, copulative, ergative,
imperative, indicative, subjunctive, unergative.

Well, I would like to rework the modes so they don't mimic Spanish... but I
cannot come into another deffinition.

Maybe we could merge gender with evidence?

>* Adjectives: the only proposal so far is to have them behave like verbs,
>which also gets rid of copulative "to be" and allows many derivations.
>I agree on the proposal.
Of course, if verbs and nouns are the same, only recognized by the mode/case
tag, such disctintions would be irrelevant.

>* Tone, stress, length: tone is difficult (we could use pitch, but
>that would definitely make this a Japanese clone ;). Vowel length is
>easy for me. For English speakers, we could certainly allow variants
>such as long /e:/ being both [e:] and [eI]. Someone proposes stress
>rules? Possible ones are: final-syllable, first-syllable, Latin-style
>(before penult if short syllables, penult otherwise), irregular (more
>difficult to remember, but could be used to mark roots or to make
>grammatical distinctions). Votes?
I vote for lengthening syllabe, either vouel or consonant (geminate).
Accenting allways the root at the oposite direction of the case/mode tag
(final root syllabe in my propossal).

>* Grammatical gender: none, logical, or arbitrary? Proposals:
>1. masculine, feminine, neuter (extensible)
>2. north, south, east, west
>3. thought, feeling, material phenomenon, action, physical state, yellow
>strawberry, conlanger (*very* extensible ;)
>4. sounding, yelling, white, wet and sourronding (interesting!)
>5. (thorough classification, withdrawn as a proposal, but still useful
>for semantic fields:
<<------------
>> Animate
>>   Person (any thing able to speak, wath ever speak would mean)
>>     Human being
>>     Deity
>>     Corporation
>>     Alien
>>   Animal
>>     Domestic compaining animal
>>     Cattle
>>     Wild animal
>>     Insect and other small animals
>>     Microscopic animals
>>   Weather and natural phenomena
>> Inanimate
>>   Living inanimate things
>>     Parts of animate beings
>>     Plants
>>   Tangible non-living things
>>   Intangible things
---------->> I voted for droping the propossal above.
>My idea:
>6. round, square(d), flat, convex, concave, smooth, rough, big, small,
>tall, short, wide, narrow, etc. (a logical physical gender, at least for
>inanimate things, with several dimensions; maybe only optionally marked)
Too many for me.  I would like something very weird.  If we want many
genders, I would like the subgender system (but not as classificatiorial as
the first I posted) with only the first level compulsory.

>* Gender agreement: where do we mark gender? Possible ones:
>1. nouns
>2. nouns and adjectives (whatever they are)
>3. nouns and verbs
>4. everything modifying a noun
>Rhyme, rhythm and alliteration are easier with agreement.
>This is important for me -- I like singy-songy sentences and
>spontaneous (as well as planned) rhyme. Do we have a poet in
>this group by any chance?
But less agreement would render rhyme, rhythm and alliteration more
interesting.
Not voting yet

>* Harmony: nobody mentioned vowel harmony so far. I mentioned nasal
>harmony (for consonants, not for vowels), i. e. some affixes could
>have two allophones, one nasal and one oral (for example -pi and -mi)
>according to the neighbouring consonants.
Or voiced/unvoiced harmony.  Let's try consonant harmony in some way.

>* Phonology:
>1. Vowels: i y e a o u (agreed so far I think)
>2. Consonants:
>stops   p b t d k  g  q qg
>frics   f v s z kh gh       h
>nasals  m   n   ng
>approx  w   j
>others      l r
>
>where <qg> = /G"/ (voiced uvular stop) (my transliteration). /q/ and /G"/
can be
>left out if someone really can't manage to pronounce them (speak now or
forever
>hold your complaints :). Clusters /tj/, /sj/ also [tS], [S]. /h/ is
inconsistent
>with the rest, I think. <r> pronounced trilled, flapped, retroflex or
whatever
>you please.
>
>* Syllable structure: C[w, y, r]V[V][F], where [F] = a generic nasal, a
fricative,
>or /l/ or /r/. A generic nasal should assimilate to the next place of
articulation,
>thus /m/ before a labial, /N/ <ng> before a velar, /n/ otherwise.
For consonant harmony's sake let's [F] voiced/voiceless disctinction
unnecesary (then krif and kriv would be the same).  And h would not be used
in syllabe final position.  I would vote for letting only /l/ and not /r/ in
the [F] position.

>I think that's about it. Anybody can make corrections now... If something
here
>is not discussed any further, I think we should consider it approved and
settled,
>do you agree?
>
>
>Just to finish this, we haven't said much about verbs. The Japanese
>-te verbal forms Mathias explained seem fascinating, as well as the
>other verb inflections. In my opinion, there should be a way to
>derive these aspects:
>
>"I do"
>"If I do"
>"Regardless that I do"
>"I'm done"
>"I make do"
>"I'm made to do"
>"As a result, I do"
>"Because I do"
>"At the same time I do"
>
>etc. (plus perfective, progressive, etc. in all tenses). Some of
>these should be combinable by simple agglutination.
>
>BTW, I've been reading some Georgian grammar and I found a term
>that maybe you don't know and would be useful for all of us:
>_screeve_ (English pronunciation, /skri:v/), from a Georgian
>word meaning "row". A screeve is a unique combination of aspect,
>tense, and whatever inflections you attach to a verb. Just
>FYI (I'm taking it up from now on ;)
>
>
>--Pablo Flores
>