Re: Artyom Kouzminykh: Answes&proposal

OK, sorry for my bad temper in my answer, I really want to apologize.

Artem Kouzminykh wrote:
>
> ural_li-@hotmail.com wrote:
> original article:http://www.egroups.com/group/conlang/?start=29193
> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
> >         But then why do you use this adjective "natural"? It means
> nothing! If
> > you want a Romance conlang, use the adjective "Romance", not the
> > adjective "natural", because what seems natural for you may be
> unnatural
> > for others.
> >
> I agree, I used a wrong word! Don't kill me for that:-(...
>
        I won't. But still be careful :)

> >         I agree that the distinction animate-inanimate is interesting
> and more
> > useful than the distinction masculine-feminine and even
> > masculine-feminine-neuter. But why using mandatory endings for that?
> > can't you use adjective like in English "male" and "female"?
>
> I prefer to use mandatory endings in order to create a Romance conlang
> (not IAl really). By the way endings -o and -a already indicates that
> the word meens something animate, and which is important too - they
> indicate the sex of this "something animate"!
>
        Not so important, if so many languages (even Romance languages) lack
it. Knowing the sex of the "something animate" is often useless and
sometimes creates bad reactions (think of sexism). No, for such a
useless category, an adjective is enough.

> >         The problem with your example is that it misses your goal.
> Giving
> > "patres" the same origin than "patro" vs. "matra" shows no neuter
> gender
> > for me. It is just like other languages where the masculine gender is
> > the default one.
>
> It shows! The ending -e IS (as I propose) the ending of neuter !
> Therefore patre (ex.) is one of the parents, and patro - is father. The
> neuter should be
>  default gender.
>
        You misunderstood me here. What I meant is the use of patr- for both
the neuter and the masculine, whereas you used madr- for the feminine.
If you have endings for the masculine and the feminine, using different
roots is useless (and even, using the same root for masculine and
neuter, opposed to a different rule for the feminine is somewhat sexist
- and I am an anti-politically correct -). So if you really want gender
endings, use only one root (maybe patr-) meaning "parent" and put the
endings on it. Using different roots for different genders add a
gender-distinction in the roots themselves and renders the gender
endings even more useless.

> >         The problem was not about necessity of tense or not, but
> about the
> > necessity of tense endings on verbs. If you want to have tense, why
> not
> > using auxiliaries, like spoken French that using "avoir+participe" for
> > the past tense.
>
> Using "have" for creating tenses is ridiculous even for Romance! What
> _logical_ connection is between having something and (past) tense!
>
        I think Fabian has well answered to that. There _is_ a logical
connection, and at least as logical as using mandatory gender endings.

> >         It is not because you don't see why imperative or infinitive
> can be
> > difficult for someone else that it cannot be! Ask a native Arab
> knowing
> > no other language and he will have much difficulties to understand
> what
> > is the infinitive. If you want a real IAL, you must take care of that
> > and remember that there are NO universal categories in speech
> (whatever
> > others can have told you) apart maybe for the opposition between nouns
> > and verbs (and sometimes it is not so easy to make). Moreover, you
> used
> > a bad example as imperative is not difficult. But mandatory tenses can
> > be for speakers of Chinese.
> >
> >
> >         But then it is not an IAL. Don't forget that a phonetic
> writing is a
> > condition sine qua non to define an IAL.
>
> Sorry, saying that I didn't meant IAL, I meant just an artlang (of my
> own).
>
        OK, forget what I said so.

> >         Sorry but your judgement is meaningless. Who are you to
> decide what is
> > shocking or not? I am French, so I certainly can decide better than
> you
> > about Romance languages.
>
> NOT ABOUT MY ROMANCE ARTLANG ! I meant only it!
>
        But you talked about a IAL at that time. Don't use your argument of a
bad English, the words IAL and artlang are really different enough, so
that if you were talking of an artlang I would have seen it.

> >         But if you say you want a conlang for you, why do you say you
> want an
> > IAL? Those are two completely different things. A personal conlangs
> > doesn't have any requirement of internationality or even regularity!
>
> I understand that, but I still believe that IAL (good or bad...)can be
> constracted  on a base of a romance artlang.
>
        For more than a hundred years, people have tried to make IALs based on
Romance languages, and the most successful was Esperanto which is the
least Romance one. Don't you think it means something?

> >         It is more important than you think. Often ununderstanding
> between
> > people speaking the same language come from different accentuations (I
> > myself lived such case).
>
> OK, but it is still possible to create rather simple accentuation rules
> without  exclusion.
>
        Yes, if you have regular accent falling always on the same syllable.

> >
> >         Not less necessary than gender-marked endings, plural endings
> or
> > tense-endings. Why having some and not the others.
>
> Bec. cases are much seldom in contemporary world's langs than genders,
> and genders are much rare than plural endings.
>
        I think you don't know the statistics well. If I remember correctly,
those categories are as often present as each other.

> >
> >         No need? But no need for whom? And if I want MY conlang that
> fulfills
> > MY aesthetic requirements? Stop talking as if you were talking for
> > everybody. You're talking about your own preferences, that's all.
>
> I was misuderstood.
>
        Yes you were, sorry for my bad mood.

> > > 2) The second is "law" or "popular" speech, based on the first one,
> but
> > > grammatically strict as Esp-Ido, Novial etc. Well, "one grammatical
> > > ending for one part of speech", no any cases of nouns and pronouns,
> > > only 3 tenses (+participles, inf., imper.), perhaps a priori
> > > auxiliaries, affixes and so on. It is "orthographical" lang, too.
> This
> > > conlang must really be created by simplifying the "noble" speech.
> >
> >         Here again, who needs it? What is your purpose?
>
> I do. Fun (not creating peace on Earth).
>
        Now I see your point. But please, be more precise!

> > > 3) The third lang is the same that the 2) but this is strictly
> > > "phonetical", regular and logical lang, as ex. Esp-o-Ido, so it can
> be
> > > proposed as an IAL, too.
> > >
> >
> >         With such basis, I doubt it can be considered a candidate for
> IAL.
>
> Probably not such bad as Esp-o.
>
        Oh yes! (I am the French conlanger who finds Esperanto beautiful, so
let me be as partial as I want :) )

> > > As I still don't see much difference between auxlang and conlang
> lists,
> > > so I send this letter to all lists just to be sure.
>
> >         To give you an example, I myself created six languages (and
> am in the
> > state of creating a seventh one), with no intention at all to make
> them
> > IAL.
> So do I!
>
> >All I am interested in is about their beauty, through my own eyes.
> So do I!
>
> > And when I share what I do to the list, I don't ask them to like what
> I
> > do, but at least to find it interesting.
> So do I!
>
> Why are you so evil here? We're still samlistani (samlistanoj) if not
> samideani. We have one hobby - conlangs. Don't be so unkind, I'm just a
> novice and speak English quite bad. I don't even know that this IMHA
> is! Somethimes I use wrong words and am being misunderstood.  Uff, an
> IAL is really needed!
>
        You speak English as good as I do, but your use of the wrong words was
far more important than a simple lack of knowledge of English (natural
and Romance are certainly not synonyms, nor IAL and artlang, and even
someone with a poor English can see that). And don't forget that your
view of the world can be very different from someone else's one. But
well, let me apologize again. Next time I'll know how to read your
posts.

> Artyom Kouzminykh
>
> P.S. Sorry for my poor English - I have not any practice here!
> P.P.S. Why is it the way it is?
--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
        5656 AA Eindhoven
        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com