Re: probably a bloody obvious question...

1st:    Post as much as you want, Yoon Ha.   Your posts are as germaine and
important as anyone else's.

2nd:    Oh, I don't think your question is too obvious.   I never made an
explicit checklist myself, but I have been meaning to.   I've asked myself
"if I were teaching conlanging, what would I tell the learner about the
features that their language should contain?"

My bias is toward syntax;   my phonologies are all skimpy and devoid of
historical context, since my fantasy languages are either artificial in
fantasy as well as reality, or (in fantasy) spoken by beings from beyond.
(Insert eerie music on the word 'beyond.')

I figure that the core grammar should be fleshed out enough to include the
subject, agent, and object relationships, along with things that do the work
of copular and existential constructions.   Don't forget constructions that
do the work of ditransitive verb constructions.   Don't forget some way of
conveying reciprocal and reflexive relationships.

Notice that I say "do the work of" e.g. ditransitive verb constructions.
This doesn't mean that your language has to have ditransitive verbs.   "I
gave Mary the money," could be something like "This money of Mary's came
from me."    "I sent Richard a letter" could be something like "This letter
in-the-possession-of Richard came from me."   But there has to be some way
of expressing the ideas that we use ditransitive verbs to express in
English.

AFAIK, embedded clauses, which most languages have, can be broadly
categorized as noun-modifying, adverbial, and complement.   Not all
languages have a clear distinction between coordinated and embedded
structures, but other listers know that better than I do;   so far, all of
my projects mark embedded sentences clearly.

As for learning how to organize your grammars, using natlang reference
grammars is a good idea.  In addition to books on ergativity, phonetics, and
"language typology & syntactic description," I've got some books on specific
natlangs.   I use these, not only to find ideas for my projects, but also
for tips on how to organize the descriptions of what I've invented.

Most of my natlang grammars start off with the phonology, move on to
morphology, then to core grammar (i.e. all the kinds of sentences that are
only one clause long) and then to more complex topics like coordination,
embedding, and discourse.   Anyway, if you're already looking at published
reference grammars, you're already doing the right thing.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful;   good luck in your search,

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yoon Ha Lee" <yl112@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2000 6:28 PM
Subject: probably a bloody obvious question...


> (Sorry I seem to be spamming the list.  Please, please feel free to tell
> me to shut up.  In my experience it takes over a month before one gets a
> feel for the dynamics of a particular mailing list....)
>
> When y'all design languages, do you have a checklist or template you work
> from?  I'm using the Language Construction Kit and Pablo Flores' pages
> for now--I find them an easy-to-use starting point due to my lack of
> experience.
>
> But someday I'd like to make sort of a reader/learning grammar for
> Chevraqis, once I have more of the syntax hammered out (I'm evolving
> postpositions from serial-verb constructions in Aragis, which is fun but
> exhausting), but I'm not sure what's a good way to organize it.  I've
> seen a number of conlang pages that have grammars, but not so many that
> have coherent learning guides with examples, exercises, maybe even
> pictures.  Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough?
>
> I'm looking at my own natlang grammars, and the one I like best is
> _Living German_ by R.W Buckley, copyright 1965 and probably very out of
> print.  The organization makes beautiful sense--it made transition into
> an actual college intro German class absolutely trivial.  But I think
> this also depends on the two languages (to-be-learned and learner's)
> you're working with.  Another I liked is C.J. Cherryh's intro to Latin
> (which she claims is unorthodox, but I wouldn't know; I picked up a
> Wheelock today but haven't had a chance to start reading), which I also
> found very natural to learn from, though I'm sure it's glossing over all
> kinds of things.  (You can find it at http://www.cherryh.com.)
>
> Has this been discussed before?  Is there a website on
> teaching-grammar-construction that I missed?  A FAQ I can look at?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> YHL