Re: Error rate, Circumlocution, and Cappucino

In a message dated 9/26/2005 5:40:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
paul-bennett@NC.RR.COM writes:

>What can you say about the acceptable error rate within your conlang(s)?
>Does it easily tolerate sloppy grammar, or unusual accents, or poor
>articulation?
My own languages, sad to say, are far too sketchy for me to answer this
question.

I do have the impression that very often conlangs are less error-tolerant
than natlangs, because the creators get a bit carried away with making the
grammar neat and compact, or with having similar words for similar meanings.

Here are three examples:

1.  The Esperanto sufixes -inta, -anta, -onta, -ita, -ata, -ota have always
struck me as being entirely too similar to each other (though having
penultimate stress must help, since the crucial syllable is penultimate).

2. In Laadan,  the four compass directions are:

North = hun
South = han
East = hene
West = hon

Those also seem too similar.  (Even in English, it's annoying that "north"
and "south" both look like "*O*TH" on road signs when visibility is poor, and
the Laadan forms are less distinct. )

3. Alan Libert's book _A Priori Artifical Languages_ gives a chart comparing
verb forms in something called "Sotos Ochando's Language" with those in Latin
and Spanish:

Tense/Aspect           S.O.L.                Latin                 Spanish
preterito absoluto     ucelarbal            amavi                  ame
preterito anterior       ucelarbaal         amaveram           habia amado
preterito simultaneo   ucelarbael        amabam             amaba
preterito posterior      ucelarbail         amaturus eram    habia de amar
preterito proximo      ucelarbaol         ------------              he amado
presente                  ucelarbel           amo                    amo
futuro absoluto         ucelarbil            amabo                 amare
futuro anterior           ucelarbial          amavero              habre amado
futuro posterior          ucelarbiil          amaturus ero        habre de
amar

(Accent marks omitted.  Apologies to Spanish.)

There are numerous instances where changing or dropping a single letter
(presumably phoneme) in S.O.L. will accidentally change one form into another,
while this does not happen in the given Latin & Spanish forms.

Doug

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