> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Henry
> > For example nouns having a pattern of 135 would be
> nominative and 531 accusative while the dative may be 411,
> and the locative 252, etc.
> >
> > Verbs could have their own patterns to indicate tense and
> aspect, maybe a 135 to indicate the present continuous for
> example, while 13 might be past continuous, and 35 for the
future.
>
> Ithkuil uses tone for several inflectional categories
including
> degree of comparison and mood.
>
> How many syllables are your noun and verb roots liable to
have?
> It seems like those might be too many/complex tone
distinctions
> to make over a single syllable. But I'm not particularly
good
> with tones so maybe not the person you should ask about this.
What I wrote there were just examples of how it might work.
What I have of a language is still pretty much in the conceptual
stages. I'm thinking though that with a huge phonology, I can
probably get away with a lot of monosyllabic roots. If not, I
may just duplicate the tonal pattern for each syllable but I
suppose I could also spread it across the entire word as a
single unit.
I like the idea of tones for the comparatives. I could do that
too maybe though I'm leaning toward not having adjectives and
using stative verbs.
This whole thing is just an idea I'm playing with, I don't
realistically expect the language to be something speakable,
especially with the huge number of distinctions I'm making. I'm
experimenting with the idea of economizing speech. I figure
tonal contours, roundedness and position alone will give me a
huge number of possible vowels, then I expect I may have as many
as 60-80 consonants too, unless I decide to use some features as
suprasegmentals.