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Re: Ce[i]n

From:daniel andreasson <daniel.andreasson@...>
Date:Wednesday, May 30, 2001, 12:47
Aidan Grey wrote:

> Let me start by saying that this is one of my top 5 > faveorite langs, already.
Why thank you! Very flattering, although I must say that Tolkien has already done the work of inventing the vocab. I just happened to come up with the idea of combining it with the GMP (and Tolkien came up with a similar idea for Sindarin). Hopefully, the grammar will be even more interesting than Sindarin's grammar (the syntax at least). I'm quite fond of Cein myself, though. :)
> Probably because it's very > similar to Aelya (or what Aelya will be when I get off > my ass and do something with it). I'm intending for > Aelya to be a Quee language (quee = both q- and > p-celtic) with a heavy influx of terms from Quenya and > Sindarin, particularly to remove latinate terminology > in Irish.
That sounds very interesting too! "Quee", very interesting.
> > Well, I had big problems with _hiisie_. [h] -> 0, > > leaving _iisie_. > > Then the vowels shortens -> _isie_. Then the vowels > > are supposed > > to drop, but I didn't really know what to do with > > [ie]. So I > > thought, why not let s+i -> [S]? But then I kept the > > final [e].
> One of my early solutions to this problem was to > have final vowel weakening instead of loss. This was, > long vowels and diphthongs would only become short, > and only short vowels would drop. Frex, -i: > e, but > -i > 0. A possible development of hiisie could be: > > hiisie > > hi:Sie ' palatization before front vowels > i:Sie ' loss of h initially > i:Se ' weakening of final vowels, ie > e > orthographically, isce.
Hmmm. That's an interesting solution. I'll have to consider that option more closely. Frex adjectives ending in -ea could keep the {a}: hoorea -> oorea -> urea -> ura. (The -e- might be interpreted as [j], making the u -> y. Most adjectives will look exactly like the nouns since all final vowels drop and Tolkien makes good use of final -e, -a, -o, and -i (and sometimes even -u). I thought that would make for a lot of homonyms, but scanning through the wordlist tells me that's not a problem.
> > _Era_ is actually from _haira_ 'remote'. ai -> e > > and [h] and final vowel drop.
> But the final vowel didn't drop. If it had, the > word would be 'er' wouldn't it. This could be > explained as analogy at work, or differentiation from > another word with which it would otherwise clash.
Yet another way of explaining it is me being stupid. It should of course be just _er_. I even wrote "final vowel drop[s]". D'oh! :) Of course, it could be analogy as you say. If many adjectives end in -a, then _er_ might get an -a as well. We'll see what I decide. I fail to see where the common Sindarin adjective ending -eb, -en and -ui come from. Does anyone know? It's probably a development from Eldarin in which case I should ignore them since Cein is based on Quenya.
> > No, {ch} is the mutated form of {c}, which I decided > > should occur after the definite article. I'm still not sure > > if there should be mutation or not after _i_ (sg) and _ir_ > > (pl).
> Well, if you had a word 'icess', would it become > 'igess'? I'm pretty sure that you would have some > mutation with the plural though, since r+stop creates > fricatives: ircess > irchess or ir chess.
Ah, yes. That's true. rc -> rch, just like lc -> lch. So _ir_ would trigger spirant mutation and _i_ would trigger soft mutation. I like that. Tho, since there are so many words beginning with a vowel, the only thing saying a word is in plural is the definite article. Though, I'd like some nasal mutation too. Perhaps I could make the sg. def.art. _in_ which would trigger nasal mutation: cen [tSEn] 'elf' i nghen [I N_0En] 'the elf' (with def.art. _in_) i gen [I gEn] 'the elf' (with def.art. _i_) chen [xEn] 'elves' ir chen [Ir xEn] 'the elves' Two questions: (1) If I go with _in_, how would {ngh} be pronounced before [e] and [i]? {c} is [tS], so the nasal would be the equivalent. The closest I come is some sort of palatal nasal. (2) How do I explain the spirant mutation of indef. plural? And do I need to explain why c -> ch becomes [x] even though it is an [E] afterwards and the original {c} is [tS]?
> > I'm thinking of doing something similar with Cein. > > Perhaps by using the Mystery Case "respective" which ends > > in _-s_ and thus would trigger "spirant mutation". Then the > > _s_ could fall and leave only the mutation. I.e. the A > > argument would be marked by mutation only.
> Sounds good. It would be like the Welsh for 'my' > often indicated by nasal mustation only: nhad 'my > father' < tad, or nghariad 'my love' < cariad.
Aha. Nice to see there is precedent. This is probably what I will do.
> > Another idea is to use the preposition _allo_ which > > could wear down to _llo_ and then _o_ plus spirant > > mutation or something.
> I like the use of the "respective" myself.
Yes, me too. Plus _o_ would clash with genitive _o_.
> Either way, it's sure to be excellent. I really can't say > how much I like Cein. When are you gonna have some more > stuff for us? I am excited to see what you do with > verbs, for example...
I'm gonna be very busy the coming week. (In fact, I shouldn't even have worked on Cein at all the last days, but I couldn't resist.) I begin my summer job on June 6th - as an account manager transferring stocks back and forth in Europe - which will probably not be very hard work. I might even have time to do some conlanging at work. I know I could last summer. :) ||| daniel -- <> Kattawiknik pimaktasal! <> daniel.andreasson@telia.com <> <> Katsayuknik pimak! <> www.geocities.com/conlangus <>

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Aidan Grey <frterminus@...>