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Re: How to write down a language design?

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Sunday, November 9, 2003, 11:56
At 22:23 1.11.2003, Harald Stoiber wrote:

>How do you keep notes of your creations? Especially I am talking about >the case of an unusual grammar and/or syntax. Which way do you prefer - >tons of examples plus explanations? Or some more abstract description?
With my Great Apriori Family Project I have a huge Filemaker Pro file known as "The Glossary" where all words and morphemes are listed in the Protolanguage as well as in the various dialects, and their use (primarily in Sohlob) are explained in "Usage" and "Comment" fields. The Idea is to eventually work out a Reference Grammar, but this Idea mainly stays in the realm of Ideas. (No, I'm a Mentalist rather than a Realist, in case anyone wonders :) In addition there are scattered Charts of Inflection, various Charts and perl programs containing Sound Changes, and sketches of phonemic systems of different dialects at different stages. (Note that all the Capitalized Nouns imply Concepts that are not as Glorified as I make them seem. That's why I like that the first person singular pronoun is capitale tantum in English :-) With my aposteriori projects I am for some reason more prone to flesh things out with essays on various grammatical topics, which all theoretically are drafts of chapters-to-be of the Ref Grammar. The difference is probably because I have a clearer idea of the language system as a whole than I have with the apriori stuff. I have radical changes of mind more often with the apriori stuff too, which makes it even harder to unify all the usage notes and comments into a coherent description. /BP 8^) -- B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__ A h-ammen ledin i phith! \ \ __ ____ ____ _____________ ____ __ __ __ / / \ \/___ \\__ \ /___ _____/\ \\__ \\ \ \ \\ \ / / / / / / / \ / /Melroch\ \_/ // / / // / / / / /___/ /_ / /\ \ / /'Aestan ~\_ // /__/ // /__/ / /_________//_/ \_\/ /Eowine __ / / \___/\_\\___/\_\ Gwaedhvenn Angeliniel\ \______/ /a/ /_h-adar Merthol naun ~~~~~~~~~Kuinondil~~~\________/~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~ || Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda kuivie aiya! || "A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)