Re: CHAT Graeca sine flexione (was: Greek plosives)

Isaac Penzev wrote:
> Paul Bennett chi gráfi:
>
>
>>Can I recommend, if you're going to romanize, that you rationalize the
>>romanization a bit?
>
>
> We have not yet come to consensus wrt pronunciation and, as a result of it,
> spelling.
Very true - even if we do reach more or less consensus, there'll be one
or dissatisfied. That seems to be the problem with langs developed by
ad_hoc groups.

> So I use spontaneous presentation of the words while I'm thinking
> about this or that issue: sometimes it is transcription, sometimes it is
> transliteration, sometime a wild mix of both - the key is that the person who
> knows Greek, will recognize the word.
I think, altho this is not helpful for those who know little or no
Greek, it is almost inevitable with GSF in the state it is.

>>You could, for instance have b, d, g for μπ, ντ, γκ
>>and bh, dh, gh for β, δ, γ.
>
> As Ray has explained, the phonemic status of voiced stops in MG is controversal.
> My proposals wrt consonants in GSL was explained in one of the previous msgs.
Quite so. Using |b d g| in this way might imply taking sides so to
speak. Moreover, it is not helpful IMO to write _dyo_ if we're thinking
AG, and _dhyo_ if we're thinking MG, especially as the word is written
the same way! More over if |d| sometimes represents MG [(n)d], there is
considerable scope for confusion.

I don't think there is a satisfactory solution at present unless we
adopt a strict system of transliteration.
==========================================

Isaac Penzev wrote:
[snip]
 >>In the Attic dialect it was /E:n/, but in Koine we find both /e:n/ and
 >>/e:to/. Personally I would have preferred a CV shape particle, but _to_
 >>has already been used as the definite article.
 >
 > Some prepositions will be VC, anyway: _en_, _ek_, _is_. The particle
_in_ would fit the picture.

If the AG forms are retained. Even then it is not so simple as both _es_
and _eis_ are used in the ancient language. Which do we pick, and why.

In MG _en_ and _ek_ have gone, and _es_ has become _se_ with a much
extended range of use similar to that of _a(d)_ in the modern Romance langs.

[snip]
 >>I just feel that this would be compromising the 'sine flexione' notion.
 >>BTW How does 'Latino sine flexione' handle the passive?
 >
 > Don't know about the passive, but the site I found one day (don't
remember the
 > URL, but I have it downloaded and saved on my comp) clearly shows LSF
is *not*
 > purely isolating:
 >
 > <quoting>
 > Verbs are conjugated as follows:
 > salta jumps
 > saltare to jump
 > saltato jumped
 > saltante jumping
 > salta! jump!
 > </quoting>

Um - sine flexione??? Or may be it's agglutination - but if so, we shall
surely get some odd forms:
scribe, scribere, *scribeto*, scribente, scribe!
dormi, dormire, dormito, *dorminte*, dormi!
etc.

_scribeto_ is particularly odd. If LSF had _scripto_ then it ain't 'sine
flexione'.

 >>>A side note - I still miss plurals. The word _polý_ seems a bit
overloaded.

The Chinese, who are not an inconsiderable number of speakers, get on
fine without it. As do the Japanese, and many others - seems to me that
possible 1/3 of the world's population manage without a grammatical
plural ending. Personally I do not see the problem.

I agree _poly_ would be overloaded if it came to be used as _plu_ seems
to be used in all the Glosa texts I've read. But that is _not_ something
I would advocate.

[snip]
 >>If GSF is flexionless this has to be re-thought.
 >
 > Well, agglutinativity is not flexion, is it? ;)

I guess not. Agglutinativity was the way Volapük and Esperanto went.
Those who have devised versions of 'Esperanto sine flexione' obviously
think that E-o is sort of flexional. BTW, I do not ever recall seeing a
'Volapük sine flexione'. Does any such beast exist?

[snip]
 >
 > Yes, I was not clear enough. I knew those were two different groups.
 > So, strike out mi-verbs, and take deponent in 3rd form? Like _dínate_?

Not me - I would assume an active form.
[snip]
 >
 >>Oh, yes - before someone writes in - yes, I do know there is a
 >>transliteration system adopted by those who spend all their time
 >>discussing Greek, but AFAIK it has not been used on this list.
 >
 > Beta-code?

Yes, it has, i understand, become the de_facto standard for ASCII
notation among classicists.

 >Can you enlighten us about this system?

See:
http://www.tlg.uci.edu/BetaCode.html
=========================================

Philip Newton wrote:
 > (Re-sent to the list because Ray didn't put a reply-to warning and I
 > didn't check before sending!)

Mea culpa! Sent it off in too much of a rush - I normally make sure my
mailer has set the reply-to correctly, hence no warning. But I forgot to
this time    :=(

[snip]
 >>
 >>If the modern accentuation is used, then it will be necessary, just as
 >>it is in the modern Greek spelling.
 >
 >
 > Bah. I think the position of accent is unambiguous enough -

Not sure everyone would agree with you.

 > and the
 > ambiguous words are probably not worse than e.g. having both "invalid"
 > and "invalid" in English. (For example, "khoros" being either "dance"
 > or "place" in modern Greek, or "pisti" being either "faith" or the
 > subjunctive of "to be convinced".)

Umm - one could do as in Russian where the acute accent in used in texts
for learners, but omitted in normal printing.

[snip]
 >>MG also has a series of perfect forms, formed by using the verb "to
 >>have" followed by an invariant verb form (which is the same as the 3rd
 >>sing. of the present).
 >
 > Eh? No, it's the 3rd person singular, sure, but of what used to be
 > called the aorist subjunctive, not the normal subjunctive. "Exei
 > grapsei", not "Exei grafei", for example.

You're right, of course. I said I wrote the mail in a hurry   :=(

 > Though for GSF, the simple present form could be used instead -- I
 > just wanted to correct the misconception about GCF.

OK.

 >>The Tsakonian dialect forms the imperfect by using the past tense of "to
 >>be" with the present participle. A flexionless language does not have
 >>participles, of course. "was" in MG is /itan/; I suppose we could
 >>shorten it to /tan/ as a preverbal particle.
 >>
 >>For the invariable verb form, the obvious thing is surely to use exactly
 >>the same as MG does with "have", i.e. 3rd sing. of pres. indicative.
 >
 >
 > Or just ditch imperfect altogether and simply have a
 > future/present/past distinction. Heck, my German idiolect does without
 > the imperfect in quite a few cases, substituting the perfect instead.

Yes, many German dialects do, i understand, and IIRC so does Afrikaans.
Yes, I go along with that suggestion.

 >
 >>INFINITIVES & PARTICIPLES
 >>MG, as many know, has dispensed with the infinitive, using a clause
 >>beginning with _na_ instead.
 >
 > And either the present subjunctive or the aorist subjunctive,
 > depending on aspect (with aorist subjunctive being more common).

Not if it's 'sine flexion' - we'll have to forget aspect, or show it
some other way, methinks.


 >>Participles are strictly unnecessary as we can always use a relative
 >>clause instead - and the MG relative pronoun _pou_ /pu/ is invariable  :)
 >
 > And the present participle is fairly dead in MG as well, at least in
 > adjectival use -- I think it's only used adverbially, as in "singing,
 > the boy entered the room" but not "the singing boy".

It is dead as far as adjectival use is concerned (except perhaps in some
'purer than purest' Katharevousa). Personally I think the active
adverbial form would better term 'gerund' than 'participle' - but that
doesn't affect GSF.

 >
 >>ACTIVE & PASSIVE
 >>here I am stuck. MG still uses synthetic passives. Obviously GSF cannot.
 >>All the above, of course, is indicative - no problem. Could the passive
 >>be formed using an auxiliary verb such as 'receive' or 'suffer'?
 >
 > Or "become", as in German?

Yes, indeed. I quite like it.

 > On 2/4/06, Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...> wrote:
[snip]

 >
 >>Shall we have different forms for subject and object?
 >
 > I say yes, on the analogy of, say, English and French.

Neither language is 'sine flexione', especially French!

 > As for position, though, I'd probably put personal pronouns after the
 > verb, as with normal nouns -- "ego vlepi afton" rather than "ego ton
 > vlepi"; "ego dini afto se sena" rather than "ego sou to dini".

I agree with that - but _not_ with separate nominative & oblique forms.
Even Latino sine flexione does not do that - nor does Welsh  :)

It seems an unnecessary use of flexions, to me.
=================================

I wonder how much more milage (or kilometrage) there is to be gained
from continuing the thread in this form. I think it is unlikely we would
actually agree on all points. I think Isaac was right when he wrote:
{quote}
 >Now, I find this thread particularly inspiring for those who are
interested in
 > aposteriori conlanging. My own ideas are already rapidly driving away
from GSF
 > to something other, like, e.g. a Greco-Romance-whatever mish-mash
fantasy,
 > preserving minimal flexion as, e.g. Spanish does... I may elaborate
it further.
.......
> I feel the same. It was fun, it was inspiring, now I feel I need a break. Maybe
> I'll try the develop the idea mentioned above: a mashed toylang, stealing most
> of its vocabulary from Greek: I love creating grammar much more than pulling
> words from the air...
{unquote}

I feel we've give this quite an airing, shown how the sort of way it
could go and also thrown up some of the problems involved. I feel we
have, may be, given ideas for possible conlangs.

Like Isaac, I feel I now need a break - besides my Brsc/Piashi is
becoming more and more neglected    :=(

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

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