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

Isaac Penzev wrote:
> Now, I find this thread particulary 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.
That may be a more satisfactory creation. I cannot say I am really sold
on Greek with no flexions. I have just been thinking what it might look
like & what I would do if I really had to produced such a language.

[snip]
>
> Makes sense. When I said "ancient variants", I meant first of all nouns, verbs
> et al., not the structural particles. I would prefer _to (o)íno_, _to (o)íko_,
> instead of _to krasi_, _to spiti_ etc.
Something similar went on in Greek itself last century as Katharevousa
competed with Demotiki. On the words above, Demotiki has won out. I
think the reduction of so many ancient vowels to /i/ has been partly
responsible for creating forms that avoid homophones.

[snip]
>
>>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.
>
>
> I feel pity for the participles :( Russian has 4 of them, plus 2 converbs. But
> since Ukrainian has only 1 particple ("past passive"), I can live with the way
> you suggest. "Was" in AG was _e:n_, so I would keep the form _in_.
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.

[snip]
>
>>INFINITIVES & PARTICIPLES
>>MG, as many know, has dispensed with the infinitive, using a clause
>>beginning with _na_ instead. Clearly, if we are to remain flexionless,
>>we must do the same.
>
>
> OK. Shall we use the particle after modal verbs?
I guess so.

>
>>Participles are strictly unnecessary as we can always use a relative
>>clause instead - and the MG relative pronoun _pou_ /pu/ is invariable  :)
>
>
> Great.
>
>
>>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'?
>
>
> To add a particle _méno_ from the participial suffix?
Doesn't that make _méno_ a flexion? Introducing participle by the back
door. If it were added to the 'invariant' form, we would get some very
un-Greek formation, e.g. grafimeno = written. OK, GSF is already quite
un-Greek looking, but.....

I just feel that this would be compromising the 'sine flexione' notion.
BTW How does 'Latrino sine flexione' handle the passive?

[snip]
>
> Ray, you did a great job! The outline seems very reasonable. I feel it may work
> (for fun, of course). The term "fauxlang" fits it.
Definitely only for fun.

> A side note - I still miss plurals. The word _polý_ seems a bit overloaded. Any
> alternative suggestions? Maybe to indicate it with a different form of the
> article, e.g. _tus_?
to ~ ta - but that's another move away from 'sine flexione'.

> Oh yes, if we stick to modern pronunciation, 1pl and 2pl pronouns collapse.
> Shall we follow the laid path of MG?
That thought occurred to me also. But I have kept quiet. yes, in the
modern language, the plurals are derived from the singular _by flexion_  ;)

If GSF is flexionless this has to be re-thought.

>Shall we have different forms for subject and object?
Why? Many eurolclone auxlangs do not do so, nor do the modern Celtic
langs   ;)

============================================
Isaac Penzev wrote:
 > Oh yes, what about deponential verbs and verbs in -mi?

Deponent verbs ended in -mai, as they still do in modern Greek. The -mi
verbs were a very small group and clearly destined to be reformed as,
indeed, they have been. It would IMO be perverse to re-introduce after
they've disappeared for some 2 thousand years.

[snip]
 > Also the 3rd declension nouns have often changed to something more
usable in MG:
 > _polis_, gen. _poleos_ > _poli_. Shall we use the modern form, or the
ancient
 > one?

We take the accusative with the final -n, i.e. _poli_. The question is
whether the final -i is spelled with iota in the ancient fashion or eta
in the modern fashion. Also are we happy with _poli_ and _poly_ being
homophones?    ;)
==============================

Paul Bennett wrote:
[snip]
 >
 > Can I recommend, if you're going to romanize, that you rationalize the
 > romanization a bit?

The problem is, of course, that we're still fluctuating between ancient
spelling and modern pronunciation. I think if we were doing this as a
serious exercise we would be better adopting a strict system of
_transliteration_ with notes on the (probable) ancient pronunciation and
the modern one.

[snip]
 >
 > I don't know whether to recommend rationalizing the vowels. I just
 > don't  know Greek to know how much it would screw up paradigms and
whatnot.

Exactly - for example, in Isaac's 'polis' example, it really would be
preferable IMO to have a system whereby eta and iota are not both
written as |i| as we discuss which form to adopt.

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.

Maybe if the GSF thread continues, we might use it rather than continue
with our sort of ancient-modern compromise?

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

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