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Re: OT: Punctuation

From:Jeffrey Henning <jeffrey@...>
Date:Monday, December 6, 1999, 4:29
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 subscribe-dublexgame@onelist.com - Win $100 in the DublexGame contest! "If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed.... Oh, wait, he does!"