Re: (LONG) Sketch by a novice, please criticize/help/flame/etc

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As with my reply to Nik, I'll try and address youre points in the order they
occur, as I can't "quote" replies properly (yet).

Root "mutation" (the transformation of a root for different grammatical roles)
is roughly based on:

Basic root (conceptually) : C1 V1 C2 V2 (also the LX form)
NS: The same
NP: C1 V1 C1 C2 V2
VI: C1 V1 C2 C1 V2
VC: C1 V1 C2 V1 C1 V2

For minimal roots, C2 and V2 are omitted from the NS form
Reduced roots work in essentially the same way as Regular roots, except the
first consonant is ommited
Regular roots are as above
Extended roots follow the same pattern, except non-initial C1 is replaced by a
"C3"

I deliberately tried to go for a phonology where any two-consonant cluster would
be pronouncable

"Mutated" is as defined above, and I probably didn't need to list it in the
paradigm.
"Immediate" is a term I pulled out of my rear, to distinguish "root-based" words
from "non-root-based" words for my own clumsy purposes.  I felt that to call
them "particles" would be misleading, as "root-based" words can also contain
particles.

The flexions are inspired by the "nominal inflections" of Elamite, which has a
mixed person/gender system, ie "Speaker" and "addressee" are clearly
person-oriented, but "Human", "Animal" are more like genders (but are all
technically 3rd Person (I s'pose)).  The actual Elamite system is a little bit
nastier than this, though.  Only one flexion is ever used at any given point in
a word.

Indenumerable means "not countable"  Water is indenumerable (it makes no sense
to say *"one water", but "some water" is ok)

The particle "taa" slipped into the genetives by accident, it should possibly
have a category of its' own, although "phoks'erataat" (iirc) is literally
"person of speaking" which to me kinda means "speaker"

My "ke" (it without flexion) is preposed to a sentance for "is it the case that
... ?", rather than postposed, but it does sound very similar.

The problem with the examples is that some of them show several features of the
language at once, so I was a bit wobbly about exactly where to put them.

As to sounding harsh, frankly the more brutal people can be, the faster I'll
learn!





FFlores <fflores@...> on 09/14/99 03:22:54 AM

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Subject:  Re: (LONG) Sketch by a novice, please criticize/help/flame/etc



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Paul Bennett <Paul.Bennett@...> wrote:

[snip]

> Examples of each of the types of root.
>
>          NS   NP      VI      VC       LX
> Minimal  su   susnge" sungse" sunguse" su(nge")
> Reduced  ame  arme    amre    amare    ame(r)
> Regular  taki tatki   takti   takati   taki
> Extended moru motru   mortu   morotu   moru(t)
It'd be nice to see exactly what the rules are for transforming
root, since I see elision, vowel alternation, metathesis, but
I'm not sure how they would react in other environments. This
however is probably best to leave for a more advanced stage of
construction of the lang. What you *should* do is try and produce
some phonetic restrictions (syllable structure, which consonants
can form clusters, etc.)

[snip]

> Affixes and Word Order
>
> The three methods of forming words are:
>
> 1)   (mutated)[root]+[root flexion] alone
> 2)   [location]+(optional)[particle]+[particle flexion] alone (known =
as an
> "immediate")
> 3)   (1)+(2) in that order
I really don't get this. Could you give some examples? What does
'mutated' mean, and what are 'immediates' used for?


> Flexions are used to represent either or both of the person and/or ge=
nder of a
> word.
Are they both marked when needed? Compulsorily? Where, in what order?

[snip]

> tuu - partative (a section of an "indenumerable" object, or made of s=
omething)
> taa - nominalising (used to form verbal nouns)
These two I don't get... I seem to know what partitive is, but
'indenumerable' beats me. And what's nominalising got to do with
genitive?


> ke - "yes/no" questions.  ("ket?" means "is it him?")
Niiice! And zero-copula too, which seems to be a trend...
(I'm even falling for it from time to time :)
And what a coincidence, (my) Drasel=E9q uses _ke_ exactly
for the same function! You can prefix it to a verb, or
postpose it to the rest of the sentence (which in turn
seems suspiciously similar to Japanese _ka_).


>
> tatkiraces - your hands
> lekhepas'es atuup - some of your milk
> lekhepayas atuup - (the same, to someone who's stock-in-trade was mil=
k)
etc.

These examples look nice, but I'd suggest (when you write a grammar
or something) placing them right next to the formal explanation, so
that your readers can grasp the concept _in situ_.

I hope I didn't sound harsh... I'm in a hurry and I took your
inviting words literally. :)


--Pablo Flores
  http://draseleq.conlang.org/pablo-david/




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