Re: 2nd email - Introducing Bakoyu: Language highlights

En réponse à Heather Rice <florarroz@...>:

> Language highlights
>
> It finally has a name!!!!!!  Bakoyu is what it is
> called.  Ba- as in “Baa baa black sheep”.  -koyu
> rhymes with the malaysian pronunciation of soya.  From
> "Bae" meaning speach, speaking, and "koyu" meaning
> pumpkin.
>
"Speech-pumpkin"?!! And I thought Itakian coming from a word meaning "big
mouth" was bad enough! :))))

>
> 5 long vowels, 4 short vowels, 5 diphthongs, and 3
> timed vowels.  Sorry, my vowels are marked by accents
> marks and I couldn’t show this in my babel text.  Most
> are long vowels anyway.
>
What are timed vowels? Vowels which are not pronounced when the speaker's too
late? :)))

>
> No articles, quantifiers and most adjectives before
> the noun, extensive pronoun system of formal, general,
> informal and honorific pronouns and their declensions.
>  Five declensions: spatial, temporal, causal,
> attributive, manner. (This is one of the coolest parts
> of my conlang)
Please explain!

 Prepositional phrases always headed by
> a preposition, then head noun.  Adverbs before verbs.
> S O V*.  Three basic tenses - past, present, future.
> Ten moods: indicative, soft imperative, hard
> imperative, friendly exclamatory, hostile exclamatory,
> wish, entreaty, uncertainty, sorrow, irrealis.
Nice inventory! :)) Friendly and hostile exclamatory mean "how nice!" and "how
bad!"?

>
> Another interesting aspect of Bakoyu:  Hand verbs.  I
> got this idea from Cherokee.  Instead of expressing
> person and number by the pronouns (lo, mo, no, los,
> mos, nos; 1ps, 2ps, 3ps, 1pp, 2pp, 3pp) I have a
> system for a few select verbs (24) that expresses
> Subject and INdirect object all in one affix.
> Gra = write, regular verb     Do = give, hand verb.
> La gra               I write
> Tsido                   I give
> La a no gra     I write to him
> Sido                    I give to him
> La bakoyu a no gra              I write bakoyu to him
> Bakoyu sido                   I give bakoyu to him.
> La no nu gra                   I write it to him.
> Sidonu                          I give it to him.
>
Interesting... So basically you have two sets of verbs: the regular ones using
pronouns, and the few hand verbs using affixes instead, with the particularity
that they conflate subject and indirect object into one affix... Where does the
name "hand verb" come from? Do all hand verbs need to be verbs that normally
take an indirect object (like give or take), or are there other verbs in that
list (which would thus take an indirect object as beneficiary for instance)?

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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