Re: many and varied questions

Etak wrote:

>    Firstly, I'm inventing a syllabery for my conlang,
> and I've run into a couple of problems.  The
> romanization of my conlang has capitals, but my
> syllabery doesn't.  Does anyone have any suggestions
	[---CUT---]

having capitals isn't mandatory. when someone translates for the syllabary
to the romanized script or to a another nat/con-lang, he'll use capitals
according to the rules of the language. and that's it.

if you really want capitals but don't want big letters like in our
natscript, you can use a diacritic mark in your syllabary or, like in
]shaquelingua[ (my conlang), use special characters to surround the word
that should have a capital.

>    Another thing I'm wondering about is that my
> Romanization has different letters for 't' and 'd',
> 's' and 'z', and the other plosives and fricatives in
> my language, but the native syllabery doesn't because
> plosives and fricatives can only be voiceless at the
> beginning of words and so are automatically read that
> way.  My question, do you think this will make
> transliterating stuff into my syllabery overly
> difficult and/or confusing?
No, you just need to explain that the symbols <d*> are pronounced [d*]
except at the beginning of a where they are pronounced [t*] and that they
must be romanized accordingly. And the same for z*/s*. The syllabary and the
romanization are totally unrelated; they just appear to be used for the same
language.

My syllabary/romanization connection is worst! All standalone consonants
have a different prononciation depending on if they are in the middle or at
the end of the word and the romanization doesn't reflect all these
subtleties. It has subtleties of its own.  ;-)

	[---CUT---]
>    And lastly I have a not really conlang related
> question which I've been wondering about.  In French,
> as I understand it, you generally use the imperfect of
> 'to be' because whatever was is still being.
On the contrary! The french "imparfait" is more or less equivalent to
english preterit.

Il était vivant. = He was alive.

> But what do you do if you are talking about someone who has
> died, and thus, has stopped being?
= Mais comment faites-vous si vous parlez de quelqu'un qui *est mort* et,
par conséquent, *a cessé d'être.*

We have nothing like the present perfect but we use the "passé composé"
which is built the same way except that we must use the auxilary "to be" or
"to have" according to the verb.

Il est mort. = He has died.
Il a cessé d'être. = He has stopped being.

>    Thank you all for the many and varied answers to my
> many and varied questions which I hope to receive. :)
Je t'en prie...  ;-)

================
Remi Villatel
maxilys@tele2.fr
================