Re: Bírhrhalin gramar1

Tim Judge wrote:
>Verbs in Bírhrhalin are all regular exept for to be (I wanted a regular
>language but couldn't resist). This is a result of contact with the
>Kondalrim (and alien race native to Bírhrhal) whose grammer is almost
>devoid
>of gramatical and lexographical (is that a word?) irregularity.
Hehe. In my lang (Tairezazh) I've got the opposite problem - I want some
irregular forms, but have trouble conjuring 'em up. A special problem is the
word for "be", namly _ai_. I want the other forms for this to be irregular
but recognizeable (ie, I don't want forms as dissimilar as English "is",
"be" and "were").

My latest idea is that the stem is actually merely _a-_. The present tense
_ai_ could then descend from an earlier _áje_ or _â´je_, featuring the
present ending _-e_ (circumflex marks long vowel, acute accent stress in the
primitive forms). The past a future would then regularly become _ak_ and
_ast_ respectively. The imperative is _air_ Still very unsure one the other
forms.
>
>The Bellow examples are all in the Indicative mood. To put a verb into the
>Subjunctive ad the sufix "-elh" to the verb after all other participles.
>
>An example:
>
>dam (to forgive)
>
>Present:
>Hi damesh
>Dac damarsh
>Sá damerh
>hirim damarsh
>Dacrim damersh
>Sárim damarh
The trick of deriving the plural pronouns by simply attaching a plural
ending to the corresponding sg pronoun is used in my lang too. The actual
verb is not inflected for person, however.

[snip]
>Adjectives follow a very English enflouenced system as far as gender is
>concerned, in that they are NOT inflected for it or for any thing else.
>However unlike English they follow the noun they modify.
This is also similar to Tairezazh. Tairezazh adjectives are only inflected
for comparation, and in the ancestor language they weren't inflected at all.
Tairezazh adjectives also follow their noun.

Speaking of comparation, in Tairezazh the comparative is formed with the
prefix _da-_ and the superlative with _tshe-_ (eg _taiks_ "big", _dataiks_
"bigger", _tshetaiks_ "biggest"). These are descended from originally
independent adverbs _dagh_ ([daG]) and _tshê_ ([tSe:]), that worked pretty
much exactly like English "more" and "most".

Now, a cool idea for a "Future English" conlang would be to have
comparatives and superlatives regularly formed using reduced prefxed forms
of these; something like /mo"big/ and /muz"big/ for "bigger" and "biggest".
Anybody who've done anything like this?

                                                     Andreas
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