Towards a less Preliminary Sketch (was Re: Preliminary Sketch)

On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 11:12:57 -0800, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 05:16:42PM -0500, Paul Bennett wrote:
>> This afternoon, during a slightly slack period at work, I jotted down
>> some
>> notes of a language unlike my previous projects.
>>
>> Here are my notes in full. Any thoughts, questions or suggestions?
>>
>> br /B\/
>
> Interesting. I don't know of any lang that uses the bilabial trill
> phonemically. Cool! :-)
There are some, or else the IPA is lying. Either way, I'm bloody well
using it, in part because it's so much fun to say ;-)

>> dr /r/
>> gr /R\/
>
> Nice idea to transcribe different trills by their place of
> articulation.
I thought so.

> [...]
>> tj /c_+C_+)/
>> ch /tS)/
>
> Whoa, this is a hard distinction for me to pronounce.
One is apical, the other is laminal. One has the teeth closed, the other
doesn't.

> [...]
>> ee /i/
>
> This looks a bit too English, IMHO.
>
> [...]
>> oo /u/
>
> Again, this looks a bit too English to me. You could have other ways
> of writing [u]: e.g., /ou/ ala Greek. Just MHO of course.
The whole point of the alphabet is specifically to look as though it were
devised by a person encountering it for the first time for whom
linguistics is not the main field of study. It might become a Lostlangs
candidate.

> [...]
>> Language is modifier-head,
>
> You mean modifier-initial?
Yeah. I've encountered Head-Modifier and Modifier-Head for Head-First and
Head-Last, or modifier-last and modifier-first. For some reason, it sticks
in my head better.

>> with some fusional agglutinative elements, and prefixing
>> incorporation of primary(?) objects. Check the definition of
>> dechticaetiative.
>
> Interesting. Any examples?
Meh. Some. I did a bit more playing this afternoon. Here are some more
unedited notes. I've given up on notions of Dativity vs
Dechticaetiativity, and I've fallen back on my stalwart "A case for
everything and everything in its case" philosophy. I will change this as I
get more ideas.

Verbs of motion supplete for path instead of manner, with adverbs for
manner.
e.g. br'gar "go along", ngana "go toward", shoo ngana "go walkingly
towards", drork ngana "go stealthily towards", drork chovbr'gar
"stealthily traverse a beach", warde ngana "go runningly towards",
cheptjen "go through", tuk' "meander within"

drork digetuk' "stealthily meander through a jungle"

Chon drork digetuk' Bobdoo
/tS)on rOk ,dIge'tVk@ 'bobdu/
chon drork      dige  -tuk'    bob-doo
john stealthily jungle-meander bob-TGT
"John hunts Bob in the jungle"

Chon shoo chovbr'gar Bobdoo
"John walks following Bob along the beach"

Chon warde chovtuk' Bobdoo
"John runs around on the beach following Bob"

meek "move" (transitive) / "give"

Chon peegrimeek Bobna "John ball-gives Bob-RCP"



Paul

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