Re: conlang servey

Heather Rice <florarroz@...> wrote:
>
> Language name,
    Gladilatian

> creator's name,
    Dennis Paul Himes

> realative date of creation
    1996 or 1997

> country and first language of creator,
    USA; English

> purpose of conlang
> (auxlang, conlang, loglang, . . . ).
    fictional language

> Phonetics:
    The true phonetics of Gladilatian have not even been designed.  It is a
language spoken by aliens (called gladifers) using sounds which can be hard
for humans to reproduce.  However, there is a standard gladifer to human
phonemic mapping, which is what I'll really be discussing in this section.

> number of consonants, number of vowels,
    There are 19 phonemes, 15 of which can act as consonants and 7 of which
can act as vowels.  Of course, 15 + 7 != 19.  However, 3 phonemes can act as
either consonants or vowels.  A case could be made that those 3 are really
6, but that's not how the gladifers analyse it.

> presence of nasalization, tone and how many,
    none and none

> where the accent generally falls.
    on the first syllable of the root

> Morphemes:
> presence of allomorphs, mutation, assimilation,
    none, if I understand what these mean

> prefixes, suffixes, infixes,
    many prefixes, a few suffixes, no infixes

> suprafixation, dicontinuation, exclusion, total
> fusion, subtraction,
    probably not, since I don't know what any of these mean

> reduplication.
    none

> Is the conlang agglutinating, isolating or fusional?
    agglutinating, mostly

> Nouns and such:
> subclasses of nouns (common/proper, abstract, things that may not be
> expressed explicitly in affixes),
    none (except semantically, of course)

> presence of cases and how many and what kind,
    none

> kind of possession (alienable, inalienable, no distinction, etc.)
    There are at least eight prepositions which can be translated as "of".

> presence of gender, number, articles, demostratives,
    Gladilatian has a part of speech called an "attribute" which can be
prefixed to a noun.  Attributes can serve all of these purposes.

> adjectives,
    yes

> quantatives.
    meaning numbers?  Yes.  The base form of a natural number is an
adjective.

> Are comparatives expressed by affix, word order or both?
    An attribute is used to form a comparative.  It's combined with a
preposition to form a comparison.

> Do pronouns express gender, number, declension?
> Are there indefinite pronouns, possessed pronouns?  Others?
    Grammatically pronouns are just nouns.

> Are prepositions bound, unbound?
    bound

> How many prepositons (approximate).
    I count 25 in my lexicon file (not including entries which are really
another preposition with a prefix).

> Presence of clitics.
    none

> Is derivational morphology mostly by compounding words or
> by affix or both?
    affix, specifically prefix

> Verbs and such:
> Are person, number, object expressed with the verb?
> Are there static verbs (to be)?  Is the object
> incorporated into the person marker (making a
> phonetically different affix like in the Native
> American languages)?  Is transitivity marked for
> transitive, intransitive, bitransitive or other?  Is
> the person inclusive, exclusive, no distiction?  Kind
> of gender.  Are past, present, future expressed?
> Recent, remote?  Is mode express, what kind?  Is voice
> expressed?  What kind?  Manner?  Aspect?  Please list
> what kinds of manner and aspect the conlang expresses
> in its verbs.  Presence of adverbs, pro-drop.  Can
> nouns, adjectives, adverbs be changed to verbs and
> vice versa?
    Gladilatian has no verbs.  Every sentence has an understood "to be".
Things like tense and [whatever "habitually" is an example of] are marked on
nouns (or sometimes other parts of speech) with attributes and states.  A
state is another part of speech which exists only as a prefix.

> Presence of adjective, adverbial clauses and relative
> pronouns.
    Gladilatian has both prepositional phrases and relative phrases.

> Sentences:
    As noted above, every sentence is a copula.

> Does the conlang have an ergative or accusative system?
    no

> Word order and is it free or strict?
    strict

> Are adjectives, adverbs and prepositions before or after
> the modified word?
    before

> Is the word order changed in a question?
    no

> How many (approximately) conjugations are there?
    none

> Other:
> What is the number base for the numeral system (10?  12?)?
    6

> Presence of idioms,
    not as many as in human languages -- In fact, I can't think of any
offhand, although there are some common metaphoric uses of words.

> irregular forms of nouns and verbs.
    none

> Is the language syntax very predictable, or are there many exceptions?
    very predictable

> How much literature has been produced and what kind (I'm not talking about
> translations, but stuff you wrote yourself).
    I've written a novella, A Diamond Found on Paradise
(http://home.cshore.com/himes/dennis/diamond.htm) in which Gladilatian
appears both as Gladilatian and (more commonly) as English translations of
Gladilatian.  For the English translations of Gladilatian, which is mostly
dialog, I first wrote the Gladilatian, and then translated it into the
English which appears in the story.

> Is there a history
    no, but there's a conculture.

> and dictionary of the conlang?
    of sorts (http://home.cshore.com/himes/glad/lex.txt)

> Script invented?
    yes (http://home.cshore.com/himes/glad/ortho.htm)

> Other conlangs produced by the creator of this one.
    none to this extent

> If you could summarize your conlang in a sentence, what would you write?
    "It verbless."

> On my servey, I knew I couldn't possibly cover
> everything that conlangs will be, so I included a long
> notes section.  If you want to provide any other
> information about the conlang, just keep typing!
    Gladilatian is an a priori language.  It has seven parts of speech,
nouns, adjectives, relatives, conjunctions, prepositions, attributes,
and states.  A noun, adjective, or relative can stand alone as a word. A
conjuction consists of two or more words. Prepositions, attributes, and
states are prefixes.  There are also some suffixes, which can convert one
part of speech to another.

    The main Gladilatian webpage is:
http://home.cshore.com/himes/glad/lang.htm

 ===========================================================================

                 Dennis Paul Himes    <>    himes@cshore.com
                   http://home.cshore.com/himes/dennis.htm
        Gladilatian page: http://home.cshore.com/himes/glad/lang.htm

Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as
the air."                      - Romeo & Juliet, Act I Scene iv Verse 96-99