Re: Kamakawi Comments

David Peterson sikayal:

> some regular, some irregular results.  I also kind of sit down and decide
> which words I want to be derived, which I don't, and what that does.  And, of
> course, just because you have one word that means x, doesn't mean you can't
> have two or three.  ;)
:-)  Synonyms are something I used to avoid, for some reason.  Now I love
them.

>     I'll answer the last part of this first.  After having this pointed out
> to me, I thought about it, and decided to adopt the idea that all words that
> begin with a vowel in Kamakawi must begin with a glottal stop.  Now, for the
> first point.  Let's take the word "aeiu" (to go into).  Looks pretty hairy.
> However, if you think of it as a combination of "ae" (to be inside) and "iu"
> (to go through), I think it's not that bad.  I also don't have trouble
> pronouncing it without glottal stops or  breathiness, and that pretty much
> goes for all the words I've drafted up.
Yeah, I guess it's possible, though it strains my vocal cords.  Oh, well.

> <<Speaking of h, I dislike your orthographic decision for indicating it.>>
>
>     :(...  Now you've hurt poor "h"'s feelings!  She's run off to her room
> and has shut the door and is crying.  I hope you realize this is *your* mess,
> and I'm not cleaning it up.
Hmph.  If she's going to be so sensitive, then I don't see why *I* have to
make her happy.  After all, all of the other letters seem to pull their
fair share of the weight.

> <<It works for the learner's grammar, I suppose, but in general I think that
> conlang orthographies should strive to be phonemic except where
> historically justified.>>
>
>     This isn't an orthography; this is a romanization system (hence the use
> of the Roman alphabet).
Aaaaahhhh.  That makes a big difference, of course.

> it.  :)  Also, doesn't Japanese have different characters for allophones?  I
> know Hindi does.
So does Polish, and (embarrassed) so does Yivríndil--but I'm following the
native script, so there :-P.  Anyway, this wasn't an absolute principle,
just a sort of wish-list.

>     Well, only "e" and "u" are articles.  They share forms with "e" and "u",
> which are subject markers, but there are also a ton of others, including "a",
> "au", "ka", "ae", "kau", etc.
Ah.  So there *are* articles, and they just happen to be homophonous with
the discourse markers.  Neato.  Can they co-occur, then:
   E tikili e mokomoko.
   "The starfish, the same was as was the subject in the last sentence, is
orange."

It's redundant, of course, but is it allowed?

> new and the same--aka, it came from somewhere else in the sentence).  Now,
> what I'm debating is being able to drop the pronoun, in cases like this where
> it's completely understood (if you were to say "I hugged a fish in a house",
> then it wouldn't be--it could be the fish or the house--, but in this case it
> is).  I still haven't decided.
That seems most logical.  Pro-dropping is fun.

> <<The whining verbs are fabulous.  A bitch to learn, I'm sure, but a great,
> creative, natural feature.  You're a tad unclear though--are the
> accompanying adverbs absolutely necessary or simply preferred by speakers?
> You say "Using these adverbs isn't absolutely necessary, as far as meaning
> goes," but aside from this the adverbs look pretty mandatory.>>
>
>     When I say "not absolutely necessary", I'm thinking about how tense isn't
> absolutely necessary in English to get meaning across: "I go to the store
> yesterday".  You understand what's meant, but it's clearly ungrammatical.
OK.  I have to say that I really like this.  It's like nothing I've seen
before, but it just makes so much sense.  Very cool.

> <<Kinship terms.  Ugh.  I had to learn these bastards for Thai, and I didn't
> like it any better then, either.  Plenty naturalistic, so I can't really
> complain there, but it's not to my taste.>>
>
>     HA, HA, HA, HA!!!  Yeah...  I know someone who speaks Thai.  I should ask
> him what the system's like.  That is, unless you'd like to outline it for me.
>  ;)  You could think of it like a quiz! ~:D
Oh, I wouldn't do that.  Here's what I can remember (leaving off tone)--

phAA - father
mEE - mother

phii chai - older brother
phii sau - older sister
nong chai - younger brother
nong sau - younger sister

puu - father's father
yaa - father's mother
taa - mother's father
yai - mother's mother

paa - older sister of either parent
sung - older brother of either parent
aa - younger sibling (either gender) of father
naa - younger sibling (either gender) of mother

And there's more, like husband/wife, cousins of various sides and genders,
grandchildren, etc.  I don't know them all.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton

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