Re: OT: Punctuation

On Sun, 5 Dec 1999 11:35:43 -0200, Gustavo Eulalio <guga@...>
wrote:

>        How do you guys deal with punctuation in your conlangs? How
>do languages that don't have punct. marks express the same thing? How
>could we possibly improve or simplify our punctuation system?
Most Dublex sentences end with a period (.), but sentences beginning* with
the word 'porsio' end in a question mark, and sentences beginning* with the
word 'sentio' end in an exclamation mark.  The -io is a clause modifier POS
ending;  a clause modifier modifies the whole independent clause:  'pors'
means "question" and 'sent' is for "emotion".  For a listener, it should be
clear simply from the presence or absence of 'porsio' or 'sentio' how to
punctuate a sentence.
*Beginning most sentences, but they may be preceded by an optional vocative.

Note:  the first letter of each sentence, and of quoted speech, is
capitalized; no other letter is capitalized in Dublex.

Examples:

Porsio o dargvic lavu von?
"Did you wash the car?"

Sentio nontio o nino dargvic nonte lavu von!
"No, I did not wash *your* car!"

As I look at this, I realize it would be nice to have punctuation that
marked emphasized words, as I did with the asterisks in the English
translation.  Oh, well.


The comma is used before 'iom' ('io' signifying "clause" and -m used in
conjunctions), a clause conjunction:

O dargvic lavu von, iom o calot lavu nin.
"I washed the car, and you washed the dog."


The comma is also used before and after 'io' by itself, where it marks the
relative clause.

Vona dargvicu o dargvic, io hir calu u seb io, u viclavmest.
"I drove the car the bird excreted on to the
carwash(vehicle-washing-place)."

(Sorry for the scatalogical nature of the text.  Our minivan was recently
attacked by a flak of seagulls.)


The comma is also used before (and, optionally, after), quoted speech, which
is delimited by << and >>.

U von comunu nin o, <<Von nonte malcu dargvic.>>.
You said to me, "I do not own a car."

The text within the brackets is punctuated as if it were its own sentence:
note the two periods in the example above.  Another example:

Von comunu o, <<U von comunu tan, <<Von nonte malcu dargvic.>>.>>.
I said, "He said to me, 'I do not own a car.'"

Less confusing (to me, anyway) than the English alternation of double and
single quotes.


Borrowed terms are preceded by 'al' and enclosed in double quotes.  They may
optionally be defined, with the definition in parenthesis.  The definition
is unusual in that it begins with :=, which marks a context id, followed by
a =, which precedes the description of the context id.  Best shown by
example:

Hir calu u vona dargvic (motora vic
muvu:=en=car:=nl=auto:=vic=http://www.cars.com/auto.jpg).
"The bird excreted on my road-vehicle (motorized vehicle that moves:=English
car:=Dutch auto:=vehicle at http://www.cars.com/auto.jpg)."

This is clearly a very unusual convention, but was created to make it easier
for speakers of different languages to communicate, especially when compound
words are used.  Remember, in Dublex only the 400 roots (and some misc.
grammatical words) are canonical;  everything else is defined as needed, in
order to keep the lexicon small and easily remembered.


Numbers represented as digits take a part-of-speech marker:

O vona 1993a dargvic fabu al "Ford".
"My 1993 road-vehicle(car) was made by Ford."

If you dislike this, you can always transpose the digits with the Dublex
words:

O vona vannennentera dargvic fabu al "Ford".
"My 1993 road-vehicle(car) was made by Ford."



Viangarm,

Jeffrey Henning
http://www.LangMaker.com/ - Invent Your Own Language
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