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

Isaac Penzev wrote:
> R A Brown grapsa:
>
>
>>Hanuman Zhang wrote:
>>
>>>on 2/2/06 8:52 PM, R A Brown at ray@CAROLANDRAY.PLUS.COM wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>taliesin the storyteller wrote:
>>>>[snip]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Graeca sine flexione, now that's a language that needs to be made!
>>>>>Any takers?
>
>
> Ah, how lovely! May I play in this sandbox too?
I assume it's open to everyone.

>>>EEK! Eh?, Graeca sine flexione sounds bit too much like Glosa, the
>>>auxlang...
>>
>>    :-D
>>
>>That was my first reaction also!
>
>
> Non-euroclonic auxlangs may be fun too, if people do not occupy with
> proselytizing, but treat them as artlangs...
They could be, but I don't think GSF is really non-euroclonic, but it
would not be of the overdone Romano-germanic type  ;)

>
>>>then again Glosa's roots are about 1/3 Latin.
>>
>>Yes, there is quite a bit of Latin derived stuff there as well. Also it
>>doesn't always treat Greek derivations with respect; for example _onyma_
>>(gen. onymatos) becomes the almost unrecognizable _nima_ with arbitrary
>>loss of initial vowel.
>
>
> Now, that's sad... Then I think GSF should be more consistent.
I agree on both points.

> ==============
[snip]
>
>>Obviously if there are no flexions, we have no grammatical gender
>>agreement,
>
>
> What about number then, if there are no flexions?
Indeed, 'sine flexione' means without any flexion. I believe, however,
Peano did allow a plural -s if plurality was not clear from context.
Glosa uses a preposited particle 'plu' (obviously from Latin).

IMO Plurality should be left to context as in Chinese. If it necessary
to make it clear then words like 'oligo' (few) or 'poly' (many) can be
employed.

[snip]
>
>>However, I can see some possible problems over agreeing on an
>>orthography & phonology     ;)
>
>
> Phonology? Why? Can't it be Byzantine, if people can read e.g. the NT texts,
> using it?
That's OK if people have no objections to:
- including sounds such as [T], [D] and [G];
- having several different ways of spelling the same sound, in
particular having half a dozen or so ways of spelling /i/;
- allowing the same letter to have different pronunciations according to
context (e.g. upsilon which may be /i/ or /f/ or /v/ or simply combine
with |o| to give /u/.

> Orthography - skip the aspirations and unify the stresses, and here you are   ;)
Sounds like modern Greek.

But what I meant was, using the Greek or Roman alphabet. Greek has been
written in the latter alphabet, particularly on Crete. It makes for a
more regular spelling than the modern & Byzantine orthography.

On the other hand, if a more Erasmian pronunciation were adopted, the
Greek alphabet would give a more regular orthography   ;)

> The *real* problem is - what shall we do with the Genitive???
I do not see the problem.

> Don't take all the said above too seriously,
> it's only a game :)))))))
Quite so.
=================================

Philip Newton wrote:
[snip]
 >>The *real* problem is - what shall we do with the Genitive???
 >
 >
 > Well, taking the lead from Romance, replace it with preposition +
 > flexion-less form. I propose "apo" (from, away from).
 >
 > So "the teacher's book" would become "to biblio apo to daskalo".

Exactly - no problem  :)
==================================

Jim Henry wrote:
 > On 2/3/06, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
 >
 >>On 2/3/06, Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...> wrote:
 >
 >
 >>>Orthography - skip the aspirations and unify the stresses, and here
you are   ;)
 >>
 >>Which happens to be exactly what Modern Greek has done :)
 >
 >
 > Are we talking about just replacing the three stress marks
 > with one (say, acute), or actually unifying the stress
 > rule so stress marks need not be written because
 > the stress is always predictable?

Yes, I was not clear what Isaac meant, and rather fancied he meant the
latter.

 >I think the latter
 > would be a better plan for a fauxlang like this,
 > though the rule need not be as simple as the always-penult
 > rule of Esperanto.

I hope not! In fact at least one of the ancient dialects did regularize
the accent so that it was predictable and need not be written - tho in
facts texts always put them one. That dialect was Lesbian. But the rule
was determined, exactly as for ancient Greek verbs in Attic & Koine
Greek, according to the length of the vowel in the final syllable. But
to introduce the Lesbian accent would mean using an Erasmian
pronunciation  ;)

Indeed, for ancient Greek we simply do not know the accentuation rules
for any dialects except Epic, Attic & Lesbian. Koine & Byzantine Greek
simply inherited the Attic system (which was much the same as Epic).
This does not, however, prevent editors printing texts of other dialects
with the accent marks - they simply assume the Attic system.

 >
 >>>The *real* problem is - what shall we do with the Genitive???
 >>
 >>Well, taking the lead from Romance, replace it with preposition +
 >>flexion-less form. I propose "apo" (from, away from).
 >>
 >>So "the teacher's book" would become "to biblio apo to daskalo".
 >
 >
 > Or ek/eks?

ek/eks means "out of", not just "from" - and in the modern language its
'kse'. Which, of course, raises another problem - do we take the ancient
or modern forms where they differ?

 >Or maybe some uses of the plain genitive are
 > replaced by one preposition, some by another.

Indeed, they must be.

 > We need to think about what prepositions will replace
 > various uses of the plain dative as well.  "eis" could work
 > for some of them.

Too late!! The Greeks have already done this themselves several
centuries ago       ;)

There is no dative in modern Greek and, yes, they have employed "es/eis"
for some its uses, except that in the modern language the preposition
has become 'se'.

Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
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