Re: Keeping Track of Ambiguity in your Conlang?

On 30 Aug 02, at 17:37, Amanda Babcock wrote:

> I was thinking more of accidentally creating an inflection
> that makes an *inflected* form that is the same as a different
> *root* form (or, for that matter, as a totally different
> inflected form).  Keeping track of homonyms in the base
> lexicon is much easier :)
You mean like English "lie, past lay" vs "lay, past laid"? :)

This one causes a *lot* of speakers to use "lay" in the sense of "lie"
(and say things such as "I laid on the bed", to which a pedant might
answer "What did you lay on the bed?").

German, because of vowel changes in strong verbs, also has the
following interesting cases, where no two forms are exactly the same,
but it can be difficult for learners to remember which goes with which:

(infinitive, imperfect, past participle)
bitten, bat, gebeten
beten, betete, gebetet
bieten, bot, geboten

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

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