Re: 501 Verbs

In a message dated 1/16/03 11:48:14 PM, arthaey@HOTPOP.COM writes:

>Emaelivpar Nik Taylor:
>>Sally Caves wrote:
>>> Heh heh heh... that's been one of my goals, too, for Teonaht!  Actually,
>501
>>> nouns would be better, because they are more irregular.
>>
>>A single fully inflected verb in Uatakassi would take up several
>>*pages*  :-)  The last time I calculated it out, I think I came up with
>>5,000-some possible inflections.
>
><boggle>  Could you give us a taste of what a semi-fully inflected verb
>would look like?  I can't imagine a verb taking up so much space.
An Eloshtan verb could have, I believe, 52,728 forms. Here's an example of a
maximally inflected verb:

yerehenecketifkeskev - (something like) 'and may they have been taught to you
[plural] by [other] them'

It's not really more complicated than the corresponding English, but all the
morphemes are together in one word.

>I have to admit to never having looked at any of the "501 Verbs" series,
>though I've noticed them at Barnes & Noble while browsing the language
>section.  I looked at the sample pages through Amazon.com (why doesn't
>B&N
>have this feature?) and it does look like it would be a good model to
>follow to spur a conlanger to invent more words.  But are these books
>really helpful to foreign language learners past the 101 stage?  Unless
>irregularity is the rule <coughmaggelcough> I don't see how having
>pre-conjugated verbs is helpful since so much is predictable repetition.
I haven't used the others, but my 501 for Hebrew is priceless. I don't know
what I'd do without it. It has not only conjugations of a given root in the
appropriate binyanim ("paradigms", kinda), but examples of usage, and related
words, and idioms. Wow. I just wish it had more verbs.

>That said, I do think it'd be cool to have "501 Asha'illen Verbs".  :)
Absolutely! That's something to strive for. :-) Eloshtan certainly doesn't
need one, as it's all regular. Kar Marinam verbs, while often irregular in
some sense, are truly figure out-able, and there are (at least so far) only
about 16 or 17 really irregular verbs, all of whose basic forms can be listed
on a page. If you're not familiar with the phonotactics, the actual surface
realization of even a regular verb could be a challenge, but you'd need to
know KM's phonotactics anyway if you'd be speaking the language, and it's not
that hard to learn.

>Arg!  That reminds me of an issue I'm currently having.  In English, you
>have the noun "English," the language itself.  The noun can also mean the
>people of England, who typically speak English.  Then there's the adjective
>"English," as in English language.  I have trouble keeping straight in
>my
>head the system I've set up to communicate the same meanings:
>
>In English:
>   Asha'ille  - (n) the language itself
>   Asha'illen - (n) one who speaks Asha'ille
>   Asha'illen - (adj) pertaining to Asha'ille
>
>In Asha'ille:
>   asha'ille   - (n) the language itself
>   isha'illih  - (n) one who speaks Asha'ille*
>   dasha'ille  - (adj) pertaining to Asha'ille
>   asha'illeth - (adj) pertaining to Asha'ille
>
>(Pronunciation)
>  /ASA"i:l/
>  /ISA"i:lI/
>  /dASA"i:l/
>  /ASA"i:lET/
>
>There are two forms of the adjective form.  This first one listed is the
>older form, from Sarenshille (Old Asha'ille) via the parent language,
>Gharchove.  The second one follows the modern productive rules of
>adjective-formation.  There's not historical-linguistics reasons why the
>two forms can't coexist, is there?
I don't think so. One might be more common than the other though, or they may
be used in different contexts - or not.

>Note too that an "Asha'illen" is equivalent to a Spanish "hispanohablante"
>-- it's just a person who can speak the language, not necessary a person
>of
>a specific nationality (or species, in my case).
>
>* I just made up this term now.  I realized while typing this e-mail that
>I
>didn't have a native term that encompassed all Asha'ille speakers**, only
>"dacresaea" which is specific to the Cresaean species (and has a second
>sense meaning anything from the planet Cresaea; but I'm willing to live
>with this secondary ambiguity).
>
>** See my problem??  Hmm... it's really "English-speakers," not "English
>speakers," isn't it.  The "English" is part of a compound noun, not an
>adjective modifying "speakers."  Perhaps that's been my source of confusion.
Looks like you've got it figured out. :-)

>
>--
>AA
Josh