Re: Futurese

On 28 Apr 02, at 17:59, Javier BF wrote:

> 4) Syllable structure: (C)V(C)
> (glottal stop inherent in syllable-initial vowels)
>
> 5) Basic vocabulary: MONOSYLLABIC
Um, there aren't that many possible words that can be formed from
monosyllables of the form (C)V(C).

I suppose that means either (a) tones to differentiate syllables that
sound otherwise alike, or (b) multi-syllable combinations (as in modern
Chinese, e.g. shen "body" + ti "body" --> shenti "body", to distinguish
from the other characters pronounced "shen" or "ti"). In which case,
why not call "shenti" one word? But then your language would not be
monosyllabic any more.

I don't think a language with a "pure" monosyllabic structure is ever
going to work, since its vocabulary will, by necessity, be far too
limited unless it forms fixed phrases of two or more monosyllabic words
which will have to be learned as separate lexical items -- and which
thus become new "words", for all intents and purposes from the point of
view of the language learner. (Think of "make good" from Basic
English.) No point in limiting yourself if you're going to inflate
artifically later.

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>