Re: Play the *junctions-game!

On 3/20/06, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...> wrote:
> * Jim Henry said on 2006-03-20 21:01:51 +0100
> > On 3/20/06, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...> wrote:
> > > * to come up with a minimum set of words per line: do we really need
> > >  both "however" and "although"?
> >
> > It's best to give the full set of English words that correspond to
> > the conlang junction-word you're defining, so a search for any
> > relevant English conjunction or adverb etc. will find the conlang's
> > appropriate junction-word.
>
> I'm not a native English speaker, I don't know the full set. I made the
> lists below by using a thesaurus. While I gloss my words in English (in
OK, for "English" read "whatever language you're using to document
your conlang", etc.

> When looking for a minimum set it often helps to look at the maximum set
> - of all languages you know - and pare down from there. Now, of course a
> minimum set will have lost some of the meanings covered by the maximum
> set. There are no perfect synonyms after all, it's just that some
> meanings are more prominent, and more necessary to keep, than others.
True.

> IIRC I read a glossing-guide somewhere that recommended *not* listing
> all the relevant words of the glosser's native language in the gloss...
> blasted memory, where was it? SIL?
Interesting.  This is probably helpful advice to people who tend
to provide excessively long glosses/definitions (like me), but many
conlangers tend to err in the opposite direction (glossing a conlang
word with one polysymous, ambiguous word in their native
language (or language of documentation), and need to provide
more glosses -- not every possible gloss, but two or three different
ones, in order to avoid the ambiguity often present when
glossing with a single word.

I like the long lists of equivalent English words in my
Langenscheidt Pocket Classical Greek Dictionary,
and the not quite so long lists in the Cassell's French-
English Dictionary I use most often.  I have a Hippocrene
Concise Finnish-English dictionary that is of little use
because the glosses are so terse in many cases
that it isn't clear which sense of the English word is really
supposed to define the Finnish word.  And I've seen
online conlang glossaries that are even worse.  My own
gzb lexicon is maybe excessive in the other direction,
though, especially since the glosses aren't separated
by language.  My excuse is that listing all possible glosses
saves the trouble of maintaining a separate English-gzb
dictionary, because I can just grep for English words
in the glosses of the gzb lexicon and usually find what I
need that way, if it exists yet.


Going back to your list,

> 1) anyway, anyhow, at any rate, in any case, in any event
> 2) as a result, consequently
> 3) besides, also, as well, in any case, likewise, too
> 4) furthermore, in addition, also
> 5) hence, therefore, thus
> 6) indeed, so, and so, and then
> 7) instead, alternatively, as an alternative, or else, rather
> 8) in the meantime, meanwhile
> 9) moreover, what is more
I think we need to add another group or two:

10a)  that, such that
10b) in case, if, in the event that [I will set an extra place if he comes.]
10c) whether, if [Do you know whether/if he will come?]
11) for, in order to, for the purpose of

gzb uses one conjunction for all of 10a, 10b and 10c with
different marking on the subordinate clause to
distinguish them.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm

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