Re: THEORY: poetic devices [was: Hiatus in Artlangs]

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000, And Rosta wrote:

> In Livagian, any well-formed phonological string can unambiguously
> be segmented into a sequence of phonological words, but sometimes
> with non-word fragments between them. These non-word fragments
> can be identical to words, in everything except for tone, and
> so can be used either for pure sound effect or for half saying
> something and half not saying it, a bit like saying in English
> "that is ______ disgusting", with a silent gap, and during the
> silent gap making the lip movements for, say, "fucking". I mention
> these non-word fragments because Livagian poetry makes use of them
> to fill out a metrical pattern.
This sort of reminds me of how the _Kalevala_ has some lines where
some of the words don't mean anything: they are modified versions
of other words in the line that do mean something.  Sorry to be
so vague, but I think JRRT talks about this somewhere.

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
        --Douglas Hofstadter