Re: OT: Asking for help

Sai Emrys wrote:
> On Nov 16, 2007 9:05 PM, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
>> While the Zireen are more like mammals than any other class, they also
>> have features of other kinds of animals. So some kind of pheromone
>> system is certainly possible. But for the reasons you mention, its
>> potential uses would be fairly limited.
>
> Mind, the reasons I gave are valid for humans.
>
> There's no reason in principle why pheromones couldn't have chemical
> identifiers for both sender and recipient, for example. Or have
> variable degradation. Or be projected (a la spit)...
>
>>> Well, think about the ways in which we can convey emotion (and the
>>> various hypothetical "free variation"s) other than through sheer
>>> pragmatics. Suppose all that was actually grammatical? What might it
>>> carry?
>> On the one hand, it could be some aspect of meaning that affects an
>> entire utterance. So it would still be a modifier, but possibly
>> something like an evidential modifier. Alternatively, you could end up
>> with a language where the speaker (to human ears) would be giving off a
>> different emotion with each word: "zar" with an angry voice would mean
>> one thing, but "zar" with a weary voice would mean something completely
>> different. That could be interesting, and potentially more realistic
>> (alien-sounding), but when it comes down to it, I don't really want a
>> language that sounds like what a realistic alien language might sound
>> like. The chances of anything like human consonants and vowels being a
>> part of an alien language must be really low.
>
> Mm. That's probably right; it'd also make reading their emotions that
> much more confusing, and possibly lead to all sorts of diplomatic
> hilarity. :-P
>
> I guess that asks a fundamental question, then - what *do* you want
> the language to sound like? And do you want it to be human-usable?
>
>> Signed languages are interesting, but writing becomes a problem. I'm
>> sure there must be signed languages, but I've got enough to keep me busy
>> with just the vocal languages.
>
> Take a look at David Peterson's "sign language IPA" (SLIPA).
>
> Not saying it's not still a fair endeavor to attempt, but there are
> resources to make it smoother. ;)
>
> - Sai
>
>