Re: Has anyone made a real conlang?

Christoher Wright wrote:

(Dan Jones)
> >Consider: nuper autogyro Aquas Sulis volavi[1] "recently I flew
> >> by helicopter to Bath".
(moi)
 >Right.  Not only a new word (apparently a neuter), but unless I'm
> mistaken,
> >a syntactic change as well-- volare  used transitively
Well, NOT.  Blast! I misread the translation as if it were "I flew an
autogyro to....." and assumed autogyro was an accusative.  So you're right,
it is an ablative (which can be used as instrumental); still it could be
either Masc. or Neut., and since it's a Greek derivative, I wonder if it has
pseudo-Greek declension-- acc. autogyron???

> Why is "autogyro" neuter? Might not it be masculine ablative? That would
> make the verb intransitive again (and it's happy-land), and it would also
> make the translation more exact. Though I thought ablative would be used
> for "by" as in "near" rather than "using, by means of".
>
> ObStupidAmericanComment: where is Bath? Is it about an hour south of
> Rochester, New York? Or is it on the Mediterranean Sea, or in England?
Probably all the above, but I'm sure Dan meant the one in England; it's
quite fashionable, and an architectural gem, at least in parts....

BTW, dimly remembering old pictures of autogyros from the 30s, I'm not sure
they're quite the same beast as the modern helicopter, which IIRC was
invented(?) by Sikorsky sometime after WW II.

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