Re: Syntactic and morphological sugar in engelangs

On 3/29/07, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
> I reckon one might use the term in an analogous sense
> with respect to conlangs, especially engelangs where
> parsimony is a goal in tension with a goal of usability or
> concision; and similarly "morphological sugar" to
> describe affixes or mutations that serve the same purpose
> as some simpler syntactic device, but more concisely.
> They don't add to the language's expressive power
> in a strict sense but they make it easier to use
> or more concise.
I've seen this proposed for Lojban, where single words would be used
as an abbreviation for structure words that are frequently used
together, such as {la'e di'u} "the referent of the last utterance" or
{lo nu} "(the) abstraction of ...".

I don't think it was ever employed, or even seriously considered, though.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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