Re: basic morphemes of a loglang

On Thursday, November 27, 2003, at 12:15 PM, fr-chauvet wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 20:33:56 -0500, Robert Jung > wrote:
> >Hi folks,
> >
> >I'm stuck.
> >
> >I'm making a logical language (not online yet), and I would like to know
> how many basic morphemes you > need for a conlang that's actually useable.
Some have claimed less than 500 - see below.  But I seriously question
whether
the resulting languages are really usable.

> What are those words? Any suggestions or (preferably online) resources?
>
> Almost everybody seems to agree that about 1000 basic morphemes are
> needed (and enough).
Do they?  I'm been pondering this for many years now. One gets quite a few
different
guestimates IME.  1000 might, I guess, be OK to get the language going -
so, yes,
usable in that sense. But whether you'd eventually find that too limiting
is another
matter. My guess is that if the language is a loglan you will need a
larger vocablary.

The phonotactics of my BrSc version A gives the language an upper limit of
about 2400
morphemes.  If I could be persuaded that was adequate (or more than
adequate) I'd stick
with it.  But I have moved to develop BrSc version B in order that the
language can
develop a fuller range of morphemes.

> The examples of Basic English (ca. 800 words),
A bit of a cheat IMHO.  To keep the word count down to 800, Basic English
has to resort
to the _idiomatic_ use of so-called phrasal verbs and other
circumlocutions. I do not
think idioms help paricularly; one might be better having separate
morphemes.

> Esperanto and Volap¸k (no idea of word count, but probably slightly over
> 1000) confirm this.
But Esperanto has been increasing its vocabulary over the past century - I
don't know what
the current morpheme count is.

> The 881 "essential characters" of Japanese also go that way, while not
> being European-biased.
Reginald Dutton endowed his Speedwords with only 511 morphemes - 491
'radicals' and 20 'particles'. He claimed:
"It is readily deducible that the total obtainable by combining every
radical and
its derivates with every other would be 491 x 20 x 490 x 20; that is
millions of words, and
all without additional memory effort once the few fundamental have been
learnt."

In practice this leads to so many idiomatic compounds that additional
memory is most
certainly needed.  Better a new morpheme than an arbitrary idiomatic
compounding.

Jeffrey Henning's Dublex claims to need only some 400 (IIRC) basic
morphemes - but from
what I've seen of it, it has to resort to some kludgey and potentially
ambiguous compounding.
Indeed, I cannot see how this can be avoided if vocabulary is so
restricted.

> As a loglan, Lojban has about 1400 root words, but allows some redundancy.
>  This is unavoidable, unless you accept to be absurdly analytic. E.g.,
> Lojban has all 16 logical connectors, while it is well known that only
> one (e.g. NOR) suffices. What about, "neither (neither my sister nor
> herself) nor (neither me nor myself)", meaning "my sister and I"? :-)))
If I recall my Boolean algebra classes of many years ago, I think you can
also get by with
just NAND   :)

But I agree that some redundancy is unavoidable - one and half thousand
root words seems a
more likely guestimate to me than just 1000.

> Also, IMHO, the semantic role of derivations is often underestimated.
> Consider Arabic, with about 400 derivation schemes applied to a quite
> limited set of three-consonant roots. Of course, this introduces bias.
Very true.

> It is not obvious to me that a tree is "something that grows" (kreskajho
> in Esperanto, IIRC),
?? Esperanto for 'tree' is _arbo_

> although it is so in many conlangs;
Such as?  All the conlangs I've met actually have a word for tree.  Even
Dutton included
one among his 491 root words: _bo_

> why not focus on "bearing fruits", probably more useful in real life?
Other plants besides trees bear fruit.  Why not have a morpheme that means
"tree"?
There seems to be some misunderstanding here.

> I profit being here to ask for experienced advice on a few points:
>
> (1) How to get enough roots, while keeping a simple syllabic structure?
> (this is of course related to the above). I wish to keep basic roots
> monosyllabic, in order to have "final" words with typically two or three
> syllables. But, to keep things pronunceable, I restrict things to VC, CVC,
>  CCVC or CVCC (some CC pairs are of course forbidden). With 3 vowels and
> 11 consonants (I have good reasons to do that), it is a bit short, and
> all possible syllables quickly get used up. Some suggestions?
This is something I've spent about 40 years or more trying to resolve  :-)

My BrScA has the written structure just CVC (none of this CC business!) -
but I did allow it
7 vowels (the 5 'canonical' vowels + two diphthongs) - three seems very
restrictive.  I've
concluded that I cannot get enough roots; that's why I've been developing
BrScB recently.

> (2) Diacritics are not welcome on mail software, as I could see browsing
> the list.
Very true  :)

> I tried restrincting the initial first 8 (yes, plus three special letters,
>  if you care to know), but the use of di- and tri-graphs eventually seems
> unavoidable. Thus _hs_ for [C], _sh_ for [S]; and hence _hhs_ for [C:]
> and _ssh_ for [S:]. And what about _h_ [X] + _s_ [s]??? Urgent help neede!
> !!
Ach - avoid digraphs and eschew trigraphs!  If you have only 11 consonants,
  there should
be a few spare ones.  How are you using letters like |c| and |x|, for
example?

Maybe you could mail your orthography to the list.  I'm sure some here
will be only too ready
to give suggestions  :)

> I have my own, 17-character font, of course, largely and
> purposely ambiguous, but, aha, it is written vertically and I am *sure*
> that I am the only and proud possessor of this font on the planet :-)
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> FranÁois (BTW, I'm new here,
I guess that's François - bienvenu!

> some of my questions may have been answered before - not found in the
> archives anyway).
Nope - they haven't.  These questions still tax us.  That's what makes
conlanging interesting.

Good luck with your loglang - it sounds interesting. You must tell us more
   :)

Ray
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