Re: My web page

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, Grandsire, C.A. wrote:

>         I've just looked at your web page. I like the language, especially the
> feature that all intransitive sentences must have a reduplication or
> extension of the subject at the object slot, giving the feeling of an
> "all-transitive" language where all verbs must have two core arguments.
Yes, that's one of the things I like too, but I wasn't sure how
naturalistic it was.

It will also come in handy for identification sentences now that I'm
pretty sure there will be no copula. :)

> The tense prefix on nouns is also a feature I like (and use in
> Tj'a-ts'a~n).
>
>         I only have a few comments:
>
> - I can't see the images of the script in my browser (Netscape 4 on a
> HP-UX terminal). They appear as broken links, but when I click on them
> when the mouse and try "view image", they appear without a problem. Can
> anyone tell me where the problem comes from?
Hmm.  I haven't tried it on Netscape, only IE4.  Is anyone else having
this problem?

> - Your script has equivalents for the English letters q and x, but they
> don't appear in the phonology chart. Are they special letters?
Oops. :)  That comes partly from developing the script without a copy of
my phonetic inventory.  I don't know what will happen with q.  X I do want
to keep, but hadn't been able to figure out where to fit it on a phonology
chart--it seems like two seperate sounds.  Or does that make it an
affricate?  (It will be pronounced as in English.)

> - The fact that modifiers and postpositions are inflected the same way
> is interesting, but it makes me wonder: do they come from the same class
> of words? And can any modifier take any of the endings, and in which
> sense? Those modifier affixes are a little bit opaque to me. Can you
> explain them, with examples, and in both cases of modifiers and
> postpositions?
I have been worrying about this myself.  I really don't want to assign
each noun a permanent class, but I don't know whether basing the
inflection on the actual meaning has any natlang precedents.  And that
approach also introduces ambiguities--is a stream a place or a thing?  So
far I have been thinking of these affixes as somewhat arbitrary and at the
speaker's discretion, since they aren't usually necessary to understanding
the sentence.  I will try to get some examples up soon.

> - I like particularly the way you make relative clauses. Do they have a
> particular marking or do they function exactly like independent
> sentences?
No particular marking, at least not yet.

>         That's all. I have no particular advice to give you, except to go on,
> as the language seems very interesting.
Thank you, and thanks for taking the time.

    ___
   )_|_)   Eli Naeher - enaeher@emma.troy.ny.us
  )__|__)
 )___|___)   "A whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard."
\-,__|_,---/                             --Herman Melville
 \________/