Re: Dictionary formats

Hello!

Right now, I'm cooking up a list of verbs for Palo, which I'm revising in a
big way.  I'm creating a lot of verbs first, because writing the grammar has
confronted me with a number of issues regarding transitivity vs.
intransitivity.

I'm using WORDNET to derive many verbs from a few extremely polysemous
common English verbs, like "go," "come," "take," and "run."

I'm also using a LIST OF ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS:   Palo has no phrasal verbs,
so I need to be sure  that I'm not missing any meanings that are apt to be
useful across many contexts.   Sometimes I translate the English phrasal
verb into a single-word Palo verb, and gloss it with a single-word English
synonym if possible.   e.g.  take off becomes "va'ci" (remove);  at other
times, I add the meaning of the English phrasal verb to a list of meanings
that some other Palo verb has.

The creation of new verbs is also heavily influenced by the CON-GRAMMAR.
Note these three examples:

1.      Palo uses phonemic tone and vowel insertion to differentiate grammatical
classes of words, which makes for elegant derivation and many cross-class
cognates.   For example, there are many verbs derived from nouns, with the
meaning of the verb determined by the meaning of the noun.  For example,
nouns for immature or nacient life forms; like those meaning "baby,"
"puppy," "seed," and "egg";  have cognate verbs that denote the production
of such life forms.  For instance, the noun "cru;do" meaning "child" becomes
the verb "cru'do" meaning "have children."

2.      Palo derivation also makes cognates out of copular verbs, other verbs,
and postpositions.  For instance, "ciu'hi" is a postposition meaning "in."
The cognate copular verb is "cia'hi" which means "be in."   The cognate
action verb is "ci'hu," which means "go into" or "enter" as a transitive
verb, and "put X into Y" as a ditransitive verb.

1. & 2.  I'm experimenting with dictionary formats in which all the cognates
are listed together in each entry.

3.      Palo has clause-initial particles that convey certain syntactic and
semantic information.   Two of these are "ha" and "be."   "ha" makes the
verb active when it is transitive, and indicates that the subject controls
the action denoted by the verb when said verb is intransitive.  "be" makes
the verb passive when the verb is transitive, and indicates that the subject
does not control the action denoted by the verb when said verb is
intransitive.   This affects the translation of some verbs.  For example,
intransitive "pu'qo" means "drop deliberately to the ground" with
clause-initial "ha," but "fall" with clause-initial "be."

Another particle, "so" indicates reflexive voice.  So, the verb "ha'fe"
means "lay" with active "ha," but "lie down" with reflexive "so."

I used nonce Palo verbs in these examples, BTW:  I haven't settled on the
forms of the Palo verbs yet.

Hope this helps,

Jim G.


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Aiden wrote:

Just wondering:

Those of you with detailed dictionaries (are there any of you?), how do
you list everything in your notes? Everyone here can't be making one-to-one
wordlists. So how do you make comments indicating various usages,
compounds, and so on?

For example, looking in my Latin dictionary here,

bed: lectus, cubile; (in a garden) areola; (of a river) alveus ; to go
to _: cubitum ire; to make the _: lectum sternere

Do you do anything to make sure that you're not relexifying, e.g. use
WordNet, or another language's dictionary?

Aidan