Re: Error rate, Circumlocution, and Cappucino

In what I've seen, conlangs are usually very regular, so that
exceptions result in different meanings.

One way to solve this would be having a redundancy system like
English, so that if there are issues, they can be worked around.

On 9/26/05, Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...> wrote:
> 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
>