Re: Artyom Kouzminykh: Answes&proposal

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

>         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"?
One of the IALs (Jesperson's Novial) distinguished neuter, feminine,
masculine, AND epicene by -a -e -o -um endings, "art" vs. "artist", etc.
The entire design document for Novial is on-line, most highly recommended:
http://yi.com/home/ChandlerJames/AIL.html

>         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.
Romance is funny (!) in using both pre- and post-verb tense markers.
Either would/does work; I think I prefer pre- (ha, va, es)
because they match the style of prepositions. Perhaps Romance is moving
all the way from OV with inflections, to VO with prefixes/clitics.
Now it's "naturally" stuck in the middle. But I like Eo/Ido POS marking too.

> > Fabian wrote:
> > >Personally, I suspect analytical tenses are simpler than inflected tenses.
Yeah, and they're easier to omit that way. Same for plural ...

> > >German looks shocking and repulsive. Not to the Germans! Who's to say
> > what looks bad to whom?
>         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.
Who said shocking was bad? ... Klingon went the opposite way and became popular.

> > But cases in IAL - is it so necessary?
>         Not less necessary than gender-marked endings, plural endings or
> tense-endings. Why having some and not the others. Be analytic or be
> synthetic, but don't be both or you won't have an IAL (though I am
> Esperantist and find it a beautiful language, I think it is one of its
> flaws that makes it too European for an IAL. And it's yet the less
> European IAL I know!).
Lingua Franca seems to have had only one case, plus the use of prepositional
"per" to mark anything other than the subject (which need not be nominative).
Very weird, even "worse" than Spanish "a" for both accusative and dative.

> > Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > il ne es u lingua qi pote krea u no-guera. (There is no language that
> > can create peace)
Right, we need constructed culture (and genes) for that.

> > In conclusion I'd like to say that may be it would better to create
> > THREE related conlangs instead of one.
"Let a thousand flowers bloom." But for a real-world IAL, I recommend
locking every auxlanger in a single big room and not allowing them out
until they all agree ... The result would be compromise, not idealism.

>         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. All I am interested in is about their beauty, through my own eyes.
> 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.
Yes.

>         Maybe because the Anglophones are sadic people that like seeing
> foreigners having so much difficulties learning their language :) .
That's why I have so many immigrant friends.