Re: A Conlang, created by the group?

At 00:12 10/10/98 -0300, you wrote:
>I'll try to sum up some of the proposals and opinions so far.
>
>* The part of speech, case, and gender marks:
>
>1. Cases postfixed, PoS tags prefixed
>2. Cases prefixed, PoS and gender tags postfixed
>3. Case system:
>>  agent
>>  patient
>>  undergoer
>>  theme
>>  static predicate
>>  dinamic predicate
>>  modifier
>>  clasifier
>>  determinant
>
>Could we have English examples of those, please?
>I have an idea about this too, tho only for nouns: a mixed ergative
>system:
>
> . 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)
>
        I was thinking of something like this. I like the fact we split at
the same time the subject and the object into different cases (why
intransitive subject and transitive object must have the same case as in
ergative languages?)

>
>>
>>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).
>
        Why not? But what do you think of a system of cases and subcases?
You extend the prefix to extend the meaning of the case (just an idea, I
think we are in a type of brainstorming. I like it).

>
>* Number: how many of them? Any of them, or just separate words like "many",
>"various" or numerals?
>
        Finally I think we don't need numbers, but we could have an
adjective for the meaning 'indefinite plural' to use it only when we want,
and to make it parallel to the numerals and the words as 'many', 'various', etc.

>
>* Word order: SOV seems to be ahead so far, provided some Japanese-like
>syntax and suspensive verbs. Agent-Patient-Theme-Predicate, Modifier-Main
>proposed. Also a quite interesting free order scheme (see Mathias's post).
>
        SOV shouldn't be mandatory (what if the predicate is also the
theme?). Also, I think the theme should be the first phrase of the sentence.

>
>* 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.
>
        Yes! I like tense markers on nouns (imagine, a noun in some tense
and a verb in another, it could allow many new meanings we're not used to).

>* 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.
>
        Thank you. I put all my strength on this idea. Also, I think it
could help for instance when we'll have to do relative propositions. We'll
make them as adjectives.

>* 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 think regular accent on the root (not on the entire word) should
be a good idea. If cases are prefixed, I'd prefer first-syllabe-root accent.

>* 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
>>
>
>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)
>
        Something like (genders mandatory, subgenders optional):
Animated:       Human (optional masculine and feminine),
                Corpo (good idea),
                Animal (optional masculine and feminine),
                Conlanger (optional masculine and feminine),
                Everything else.

Inanimated:     Parts of animated things,
                Plants,
                pseudo-animated (fire, earthquakes, planets),
                concepts, qualities,
                tangible things.

        Gender would have a semantic role. For instance, with man (neuter):
        - man-human-masculine: man.
        - man-human-feminine: woman.
        - man-corpo: humanity (homaro in Esperanto).
        - man-animal: the species 'man'.
        - man-concept: humanity (quality).
It would allow many derivations very easily.

>
>* Gender agreement: where do we mark gender? Possible ones:
>1. nouns
>2. nouns and adjectives (whatever they are)
>3. nouns and verbs
        I vote for nouns and adjectives. For nouns and verbs, with which
nouns the verb could agree?

>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?
>
>
>* 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.
>
>* Phonology:
>1. Vowels: i y e a o u (agreed so far I think)
        What is 'y' exactly? If we have six vowels, we could use vowel
harmony like a<->e, o<->u and i<->y.

>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
>
        I really don't like q and qg (I can pronounce them but I find it
hard to hear them clearly). I like the rest.

>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.
>
        Okay.

>* 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.
        I'd prefer C[w, j, r, l]V[:, V][F] with [F] = a generic nasal, a
fricative or an approximant (why giving 'l' another role respect to the
other approximants). V: would be written VV and could be pronounced [V:] or
[VV] (if we allow V1V2, we should allow V1V1 which can be also V1:).

>
>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.
>
        Good idea. I vote for it.

>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
>
>
                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html