Re: Lahabic Syntax

On Sat, Sep 30, 2000 at 08:26:26AM -0400, The Gray Wizard wrote:
[snip]
> <mount-soapbox>
> Nothing beats translations to prove out the syntax of your conlang.  Even
> the simple Aesopean Morals that I have been doing can reveal subtle holes.
Are they on a website somewhere? I've finally been convinced that I need
to participate in the daily translations, even though my conlang's lexis
is pitifully small (only 35 entries!)

> I recommend that everyone do as much translation as possible.  Even if your
> lexicon is not up to the challenge, use English morpheme place-holders.
*bows humbly to this suggestion* :-P

> While lexis is tedious and time consuming (although requiring a creative
> mind), syntax is the real difficult part of conlanging, IMNSHO.  Coming up
> with a theoretically sound syntactic system is one thing, but making it work
> can be a lot harder than most people imagine.  I can remember struggling for
> nearly a year trying to get a satisfactory relative clause system to work
> for me.  Nothing proves whether your syntactic systems work better than
> exercising them through translation.
Yeah... maybe I should start translating the description of my conlang
into the conlang itself :-P

>  Try expressing predicate adjectives and nominals,
What's a predicate adjective? :-P

> various genitive/possessive constructions, subordinate clause
> including subject and object complements as well as relative clauses,
Hmm. What's the difference between a subordinate clause and a relative
clause?

> attributive clauses, locative clauses, possessive clauses, existential
> clauses, et.al.  There's more to syntax than simple sentences.  Translate,
> translate, translate and when you're done, translate some more.  Your
> conlang will improve with every translation.
> </dismount-soapbox>
[snip]

Currently I'm having trouble doing more than single-sentence translations,
because my conlang requires a "syntax" (if you may call it that) at a
level higher than sentences, and right now, it's still very preliminary.
I hope to get enough of it working soon, so that I can "exercise" the
language by doing translations, or perhaps even writing native text.


T