Off-topic survey questions

Please remember to change the header, Roberto, if you are replying to this
survey off-topic!  Otherwise, please answer the questions of the survey as
if they were directed at you.

Celtic languages have conjugated prepositions, not unknown among other
languages.  This requires a special "conjugation" of the preposition, which
is a fusion of preposition and a pronoun.  In Middle Welsh, for instance,
you have ragof, "before me," but racdaw, "before him."  These are confusing
to the new student, who must also learn that the independent pronouns often
look nothing like the endings on the conjugated prepositions.  They must
also learn that "object" pronouns in Middle Welsh are expressed by the
possessive pronouns: vyg karu, "my loving," i.e., "loves me," and that there
are infixed pronouns, affixed pronouns, and stressed and unstressed
possessiove pronouns.  Aidan will explain all this to you in a post that I
hope has a different header from mine. :)

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."



----- Original Message -----
From: "Roberto Suarez Soto" <ask4it@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2003 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: New Survey: Celtic Conlangs (and other lunatic pursuits)


> On Jan/05/2003, Aidan Grey wrote:
>
> >   Mutations, conjugated prepositions,
>
>         Conjugated prepositions?! =:-m Could you (or anyone) elaborate
> on this?
>
> >   Conlangers are artists, in particular poets.
>
>         Tangentially, I'm not sure if I agree with this. Not that I
> qualify as conlanger, but anyway I do it mostly because there's a big
> rational effort in making all the pieces of the language mix in a logic
> manner :-) So, for me at least, there's a part of pure artistical
> impetus (the sound and "look" of the language), and then a very
> entertaining (and sometimes mind-boggling :-)) part of almost
> mathemathic (sp?) precision (the grammar itself).
>
>         Though, thinking more about it ... I suppose it's very similar
> to any art :-m There are both a rational part and an inspirational part
> involved. So maybe I have to agree with you, after all this r:-)
>
> --
>         Roberto Suarez Soto
>
>

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