Re: Skerre

Doug Ball:

>I'm finally getting around to what I should have done when I first joine=
d
>the list, posting a grammatical sketch of my conlang, Skerre (especially
>since there's no website to visit).  Comments are more than welcome.
Congrats!  Let's see what you got so far...

(Note:
>I have tried to be brief, that explains why some things are sketchy)
>Phonology (using my transliteration system, not the IPA)
>               labial     interdental   dental    post-alveolar  palatal
>velar   glottal
>Stops                                   t,d
>k,g
>   (unaspirated)
>Fricatives                  th           s              sh              =
 =20
>kh
>h
>Nasals                                   n
>Laterals                                 l
>Tap                                      r
>Semivowels      w                                                  j
You know, you did something most of us do, but I find it much more helpfu=
l=20
than using ASCII IPA -- use your own transliteration/transcription system=
,=20
and if you're discussing a large number of words, roots and/or morphemes =
in=20
your language, just chart out or key your conventions as you did above.  =
I=20
lean toward Kirschenbaum myself (I formerly endorsed X-SAMPA), but I'm no=
t=20
even satisfied with the system used, so I'm working on my own=20
bastardization.

>Vowels:  Front  Central   Back
>Close      i               u
>Mid         e      =E4      o
>              =E6
>Low             a              Diphthongs: ai, au
Another thing you can do is: make ae ligature a-umlaut, and make your=20
a-umlaut an e-umlaut, since it's the traditional shva.  That would be mor=
e=20
'regular' -- but it's up to you, just making a suggestion...

>Nouns:
>No gender, no article
>plural suffix -ek
>Cases are marked by particles preceding the noun
>0 absolutive/vocative
>a ergative
>o causer (used mainly in causative construction-I need a technical name =
for
>it)
>i genitive
>je dative
The _-ek_ suffix for plurals, that's from Hungarian right?  (It's also _-=
ak_=20
according to vowel harmony rules.)

And I'm working on causativity in Tech; it will probably be indicated by =
a=20
_s-_ (or similar) prefix; this sibilant is assimilateable (is that a word=
?)=20
to the initial consonant, so _s-_ before initial _tS_ makes the sound of =
the=20
Russian letter /StS/ in 'borscht'.  Or I might make an internal vowel lon=
g=20
on other cases.  All depends on the verb, nothing is uniform across all w=
ord=20
stems.

>other relations are marked with prepositions whose actual difference fro=
m
>the particles is non-existent.
Hmm, explain...

>Adjectives-invariable and after noun (along with genitives).
>
>Pronouns-obligatory usage.  They 'decline' as nouns. There is
>animate/inanimate distinction in 3rd person and there is obviation in th=
ird
>person animates.
French influence perhaps?

>I have an unfortunately small vocabulary of about 500 words.
>This language was begun in summer of 1994, but most of the grammar chang=
es
>are either from this school year or last.
Oh it's okay, you got four times as many words as I do, and I've been=20
working on Tech off and on since 1987 -- maybe sooner (I just recently=20
recalled an 'alien' language from circa 1982-3 or 4 which ended a lot of=20
words with 'itz' /Its/.  Your typical hackneyed alien conlang, with twist=
ed=20
English-style words.  It would be a few years since I experimented with m=
y=20
own phonology and a modified Latin script, using reversed letters and=20
letters with vertical and horizontal lines through them; I had an asteris=
k *=20
for a voiced <x>, i.e. /gz/ and a backwards N (Cyrillic <i>) for 'ng' /N/=
...

Danny

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