Re: New Ideas... group project?

On Tue, 6 Oct 1998 21:37:54 -0000, "Mathias M. Lassailly"
<lassailly@...> wrote:

>The famous monosyllabic Guaspi language works like that. Also some
>'Mizarian' language of Herman Miller I think, but I may be wrong. I also
>made once a monosyllabic language like that but without affixes : only
>plain words becoming modifyiers with a specific=20
Cispa, one of the Mizarian languages, does have many verbs that are =
related
to nouns (e.g., "rassa" =3D "eye", "rasta" =3D "to see"), but you're =
probably
thinking of Eklektu. Eklektu roots can be used interchangeably as nouns =
or
verbs; thus "graf" is used to translate both "writing" (an act of =
writing)
and "to write". Verbs are preceded by a "verb marker", which is a sort of
preposition that indicates the tense and aspect of the verb.

My latest project, Hlererhoi, is turning out to be a language that uses
verb roots for everything instead of noun roots. Thus, for instance,
instead of a word for "mouse", there is a word that means "to be a mouse"
(tirim). To translate "The mouse is gray", Hlererhoi would say "zarhi e
tira" [is-gray that-which is-a-mouse]. If an intransitive verb such as
"gray" is used transitively, it has a causative meaning, "to make gray".
Although it would be strange to use a transitive form of "mouse", it's
certainly possible (at least as a metaphor if nothing else).