Re: CHAT: The [+foreign] attribute

On 4 Sep 02, at 10:45, John Cowan wrote:

> ObConlang: how do people's conlangs handle foreign words?
Verdurian pretty much borrows words, mangles them into the native
phonology if applicable, and gives them an appropriate ending if
necessary (for example, for verbs). See, for example,
http://www.zompist.com/secret.htm , the Secret Dictionary of Verdurian,
which has names for modern technology etc. Some words are derived from
language-internal sources, but some words (espeically for names of
Countries) are simply borrowed, mostly from Swedish (due to the
establishment of a Verdurian embassy in Linköping).

With nouns, it helps that every possible letter of the alphabet (except
ü and ö) can terminate a noun -- consontal endings are masculine, as
are -o -u -y, while -a (-ä) -e -ë -i are feminine. Verbs would
generally get -an, I'd think, if no other ending was obvious (the
possibilities are -an -en -er -ir -ec).

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>

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