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Re: A BrSc a?

From:Kala Tunu <kalatunu@...>
Date:Wednesday, May 1, 2002, 2:39
Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

>>>
Yes, I know - and it'll be with some reluctance that I abandon the CVCv scheme, if indeed I do. My main concerns about the CVCv scheme are: (a) in order to use all 26 letters of the current Roman alphabet, I have to include some sounds and/or contrasts that I would rather avoid in an IAL; (b) it puts a constraint on the number of root morphemes and will probably mean compounding more often than natlangs - and that runs counter to brevity. If only I dare use tones a la Chinoise. If being an IAL were not one of the three goals, I'd do so without a moment's hesitation. <<< ok, so why not first consider languages with a finite register of root words, which you certainly have already perused? arabic triconsowhatever, hebrew shoresh, common sinojapanese kanjis, sumerian epigraphy, etc. may give you an idea of the needed number of root words. japanese is around 3000 (1845 main ones + the ones you need know to read specialized literature), sumerian is around 750, etc. sumerian ideograms and kanjis may have many different meanings, but still, we may consider that millenaries have selected the reasonable number of them needed to express these langs. then you could expand the number of CVCv roots by making them C(S)VCv: |tuat|, |kien|, |luop| etc. that would certainly double the number of root words. or else, you could tell pleremes from cenemes with a "signal" such as a reserved vowel or semi-vowel or whatever else. maybe determining the grammar first may help you fix the required number of primary roots: "con-tain-er" vs. "bowl", "hunt-ed-one" vs. "prey", etc. it's amazing how many useful compound words root nouns like "species", "building", "tool", "master", "content", "container", etc. can yield. however, it feels weird to coin such root nouns when you already have root verbs like "to pertain", "to build", "to master", "to contain", etc. yet esperanto did the same to some extent with suffixes like -isto, -ero, -ilo, etc. which you would think should derive themselves from verbs like "to practice", "to do" and "to use". anyway, there are plenty of options.
>>>
The present ideas are, however, _experimental_. As our politicians are so fond of saying: "At this stage, nothing is ruled in and nothing is being ruled out." <<< sounds interesting. Mathias http://takatunu.free.fr

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Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>