Re: Legratec

On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 01:42:53PM -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
[...]
> Arthaey, what do your P and S stand for?  These categories weren't
> included in the post that I saw, only the first four: Lexicon,
> Grammar, Texts, and Conculture.
If you look up the thread where Arthaey's linked post was, you'll see
that P stands for Phonology and S stands for Script. For posterity,
I'll list all the Legratec ratings in one place here: :-)

L = Lexicon    (5/30)
G = Grammar    (5/30)
T = Texts      (5/30)
C = Conculture (5/30)
P = Phonology  (5/30)
S = Script     (5/30)


[...]
> Teonaht:  L4 (but I have a very high standard of lexicon use: I want
> to be able to approach the fecundity of expression I find, say, in a
> pocketbook dictionary of Welsh.  So I would have to drop that score
> to L3),
Hmm, in that case Ebisédian's rating for L would have to be 2. :-/


> G5 (except that I find myself still tweaking the grammar: I've
> changed the use of vo- before a verb to mean the "conversive" just a
> few days ago, so I would have to drop that score to G4),
I think G5 doesn't necessarily mean the grammar can't change anymore,
but that it's "near perfection", so it's basically the way it is
except for small tweaks here and there.


> T4 (but then again, my standards for textual representation of
> Teonaht have to be judged against, say, Klingon's translation of
> Hamlet and the Bible.  I have a fair number of poems and texts I've
> written in Teonaht, and a fair number of translations, but nothing
> so voluminous as the Klingon achievement: so again, the score must
> be dropped to T3).
Do translations count? The standard I'd like to hold myself to is the
total body of native texts, rather than translations. Although this
does make it a lot harder, and it's not like I'm not already very
unproductive at making texts.


> C4: since there is ALWAYS something you can add to Teonaht history,
> culture, architecture, city planning, government, military
> expeditions, heroic literature, mythos, etc.
True, conculture is something so immense I don't think anyone can ever
approach 5.


> In fact, I don't think you can count anything a 5 unless you have decided
> deliberately that you don't want to add anything more to it.
I think the original interpretation of 5 was "in the ballpark of
perfection", not necessarily "at perfection". As Tom Lehrer once sung,
"If you could count for a year, would you get to infinity, or
somewhere in that vicinity?" It's not possible to get to infinity, but
at least you can get somewhere in its vicinity, figuratively speaking.
:-)

> The way I see it, conlang construction in all its aspects is as
> infinite as imagination.  It's like making a map of a little world.
> The harder you look at it the more you fill in.  The more categories
> I think I make, the more subcategories I find need refining.  Take
> "window" for instance.  What about the sash? casement? shutters?
> curtains? blinds? screens? round window?
True, that. Although I've never gone that far to have to worry about
word refinements yet. I guess that means Ebisédian's lexicon rating is
really somewhere down near 1, and Tatari Faran barely above 0. :-/

[...]
> (Which is why the Taxonomy is so unfinished; I already have words
> for many of the ones I've left blank; it's just the sheer labor of
> plugging them in and cross-referencing them.  I have other things I
> want and need to do.)
Which gives me an idea... I've already written a Perl script to
automatically do cross-referencing for Tatari Faran's lexicon; I
wonder if I could, by suitable insertion of keywords into the lexicon,
have it automatically generate a taxonomy as well so that I can see
what are the lexical gaps that still need filling. Ah well, lemme
finish that Web search thing first. :-) (Sorry, another shameless
plug. Sometimes conlanging is just so cool you *have* to talk about
it, else you'd burst. :-)

> So Teonaht is infinitely unfinished for me, which is why it's so
> hard for me to start another conlang project.
[...]

As for me, I was forced to part with Ebisédian because flaws in its
initial design (due to my inexperience when I started it) made it
impossible for me to take it much farther, nor to go in the direction
I want it to go. Which is the reason for Tamahí, although that didn't
get very far either. Hence, Tatari Faran, and why that it still
retains Ebisédian's case system. :-)


T

--
The computer is only a tool. Unfortunately, so is the user. -- Armaphine, K5

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