Re: LONG: Latest Wenetaic Stuff

Christophe writes:
>>>>>>
Paul Bennett wrote:

> >>>>>>
> > The actual fricatives they become are:
> >   {ph} -> [f]
> >   {th} -> [T]
> >   {kh} -> [C](SAMPA) the sound in German "ich"
> >
>
>         Personnally I'd better see {ph}->[P] (unvoiced bilabial fricative),
> {th}->[T] and {kh}->[x] (invoiced velar fricative) to keep the PoAs of
> the original phonemes (and it's more common to represent [P] by {ph} and
> [x] by {kh} then the sounds you proposed).
> <<<<<<
>
> Nik said something like that.  I'd tend to agree, except those phones are what
I
> instinctively produced when I was trying different readings of my examples.  I
> may or may not comply.
>
        Maybe it's due to a property of aspiration in Wenetaic that would
"centralise" the aspirated stop, so that {kh} is a little palatal (that
would explain its realisation [C]) and {ph} a little retracted, so that
its fricative form would be labiodental instead of dental. {th} would be
more or less in the middle in this process, so its fricative form stays
in the same PoA. I like the explaination, it has a nat-linguistic
flavour :) . What do you think of that?
<<<<<<
I like this.  A lot.  It means that <t> is more dental than I had in mind, but
it's so alluring that I'll go for it.  Thanks!

>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> > These rules apply (in that order) when going from {...} to [...], ie
> > {ethnge} -> [eTge]
> >
>
>         So you can have clusters of different voicing? interesting...
> <<<<<<
>
> There are precedents, and I had a good reason for doing it.  I just don't
recall
> exactly what at the moment.  It's an artlang, and therefore as long as it's
> pronounceable, I don't see why any culture wouldn't come up with it.
>
        I know that there are precedents, but I've always been told that they
tend to be very unstable (and how many people complained about the {kv}
of Esperanto!).
<<<<<<

One of my alternate readings was {ethnge} > [eTN_0e] (voiceless nasal), but it
made the "rules" harder to state.

>>>>>>
> I haven't made enough Lexicon.  The trouble with doing as you suggest is that
> 'so(ru)' and 'soru' would only be distinguishable as nouns, the verbal forms
> would be the same.  I'm not sure I like this.
>
        When you have a verb, you can come with various nouns, corresponding to
the concept described, the agent, the experiencer if existant, the act
itself, etc... So it's perfectly possible to have various nouns
corresponding to the same verb.
<<<<<<
Well, I handle most of these with gender:

     Self-transitive death = mortu.s = die.you = you die
     Transitive death = mortu.s.yi.t = die.(you.toward).him = he kills you
     Stative(?) death = (a.s) moru.s = (0.you) dead.you = you are dead
     Experiential forms use evidentials

>>>>>>
> >
> > E.g., moru.p is "a corpse", moru.k is "a death", moru.t.s'e.k is "his
> > death", mortu.k is the infinitive "to die", and morotu.s is "you are
> > dying".
> >
>
>         So what is 'moru.m'? "my death"? Is it possible to do that?
> <<<<<<
> Kinda.  "my death" would be "moru.m.s'e.k" (an abstract verb belonging to me),
> "morum" would be used if the first person was dead.  Odd, but technically
> possible within both the language and its metaphysics.
>
        Wow! I wonder what metaphysics :) .
<<<<<<
There's a whole shamanistic spiritualistic ancestor-worship thing going on.

>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> > >Essive /*provisional term, the first term from Trask that I used*/
> > taa - Essive
> >
> > Wenetaic is essentially zero-copula; <taa> is used to make some forms
> > that take copula in other languages and that aren't marked in any
> > other way in Wenetaic.  In the translation of the English <being tired,
> > he slept> (meaning <he slept because he was tired>), <being tired>
> > is formed using the essive, and could be translated back to english as
> > <the tired (one) slept>.
>
>         I like it. Is it a kind of suffixed "to be" kind of "verb"?
> <<<<<<
>
> Kinda.  Ish.  The example Trask give is that in "as a boy, I used to read a
> lot", <as a boy> is the Essive of <boy>.  I guess I've extended the usage a
bit,
> but tried to do it fairly intuitively and consistently.
>
        It is. After all, "as a boy" can be seen as "when I was a boy", so the
connection with a kind of "to be" is there.
<<<<<<

I guess so.  I have a slightly different, but much harder to articulate
definition of the case as it occurs in Wenetaic.  If I can put it into words,
expect a minor essay on the subject.


>>>>>>
>         What do you know about the people who speak Wenetaic by the way?
> <<<<<<
>
> Their latest incarnation is as Hunter/Gatherers sharing pre-IE north-western
> europe with two of my other concultures.  The Wewnetaar have indeed moved all
> over conspace and contime in my attempt to find them a suitable homeland, so I
> suppose it wouldn't take much more than a cognitive "leap of faith" on my part
> to put their history into their conhistory.  Hmmm....
>
        That could indeed make a people of time-travellers, like kinds of
nomadic time-travellers. Instead of going from place to place, they
would go from time to time. Strange nomads...
<<<<<<

The picture I'm starting to form in my head states that their ancestors are
originally from a far future where time-travel is a reality.  After using it
mainly for recreational purposes (well, you would, wouldn't you?), they saw the
variety of human life and became dissatisfied with their lifestyle.  In an
effort to find a more satisfying way of life, a group of them emigrated through
space-time several times to eventually become the original inhabitants of their
current location, some time before the arrival of the Indo-European culture(s).
There was some kind of deliberate "dumbing down" over a few generations, and
their civilisation continued as a neolithic culture, with the memory of their
previous existence remaining only in folk-memory and mythology.

>>>>>>
> > >Location /*long and complex history, basically inspired by hearing about a
> > similar feature in some North American natlangs*/
> > yi  - directional (roughly equivalent to Dative Case)
> > ru  - locational (roughly equivalent to Accusative Case)
> >
> > These combine with Positionals in obvious ways, except for -e- and -i-,
about
> > which more research is required.
>
> Well, I'll throw it to the floor for open discussion:
>
> What could the forms -iyi-, -eyi-, -iru- and -eru- possibly mean?
>
        I understand the difficulty. -iyi- and -iru- could correspond to
unexistent places and directions, to mean that you don't believe in the
existence of something by putting it in a non-existent place or
direction. A kind of euphemism maybe. -eyi- and -eru- would be the
opposite, an euphemism to show that you believe in the existence of
something. Could be used to make presentation of an opinion more
polite...
<<<<<<

This is interesting.  I think you may be "there", or if not "there", then at
least "facing the right direction".  I'll go and reinterpret previous research
<G> from this viewpoint and see what I can come up with.

>>>>>>
> I think I may need more cases in this "subset".  Cases meaning "in", "on", and
> other postpositions would really help.
>
        There, using simply nouns with one of the genitives (like in Japanese)
would be enough I think.
<<<<<<

I toyed with this.  It does make good sense, I can't recall why I abandonned it
before.  I shall think about it.

>>>>>>
>         Wow! Those three things promise a great many shadings possible. It
> promises very hot religious and philisophical debates when someone makes
> a mistake in them... :)
> <<<<<<
>
> Thanks to the "<a> elision" rule, 90% of colloquial usage only distinguishes
> <(a)khu> from <(a)thu> and <awe"> from <{absence of we"}>.  All these markers
> (like all the others) are completely optional.  Philosophical discourse is a
> popular activity among teens and adults, and (equivalently) riddle-telling is
> very popular among teens and pre-teens.
>
        Why not having a kind of oratory exercise where they would be
mandatory? That could be a kind of exercise like making poetry for us,
and very good in a people where philosophical discourse is popular (like
Antique Roma).
<<<<<<

Some time ago, on an impulse, I picked up a book of the Gi~cana (?) a set of
formalised and abstract riddles of the Gikuyu (?) (a Bantu people).  This volume
also contains the Ndai~, a set of less formal riddles.  I think the Wewnetaar
will have something similar.  It's an interesting "inverse" trans challenge, as
it has English & Italian translations, neither of which are very literal (by the
authors own admission), and lacks any definition of the language itself or
interlinears.  I'm trying to use it to learn the as much of language as
possible, which is actually a rather interesting challenge.  I'll try and get
the ISBN if anyone's interested in it.






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