Re: how many cases is too many?

On 11/27/05, John Quijada <jq_ithkuil@...> wrote:
> Jim Henry wrote:
> >gjâ-zym-byn has over 350 spacetime postpositions, plus an open-ended
> >set of derived abstract postpositions.
> >The gzb spacetime postpostions are composed of
> >an orientation morpheme, a directional morpheme, and a proximity
> >morpheme.  See:
> >
> >http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/grammar.htm#postp
> This is one of the most comprehensive and elegant parts of gzb in my
> opinion.     It's like systematizing the Dagestanian languages'
> spatial/local system  to its logical, idealized extreme, all with
> mono-phonemic morphemes. A very nice system! If I were to design a
Thanks.  If I were starting over, I would probably have
the most common abstract postpositions (some
of the theta role markers) be monosyllabic, giving them
a single-phoneme prefix, and have some of the less
commonly used spacetime orientation prefixes
be whole syllables instead of single phonemes,
so the postpositions would be disyllabic.  gzb's
system is very precise and symmetrical, but it could
be more concise without losing much if any precision.

However, I'm not changing parts of gzb that I've
already learned to use fluently, and the postposition
system is certainly such a part.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
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