Re: First Post and Proto-Conlang rough sketch

On Mar 14, 2007, at 8:04 AM, Joseph Fatula wrote:

> Jason Monti wrote:
>>> I suppose it all depends on two things: how much like PIE you
>>> want it to
>>> be, and how much work you want to put in on the background.  If I
>>> were
>>> making "a creole from the ancient past" that had changed "giving
>>> rise to
>>> this e/o/0 gradation", I would just make the creole, then put it
>>> through
>>> sound changes to get the gradation.  It'll look a lot more realistic
>>> that way!
>>>
>>
>> The problem is that while I know more about historical linguistics
>> than your
>> average layman, I'm by no means a linguist. I would have NO clue
>> how to give
>> rise to such a gradiation system as precise as the one I have here
>> from an
>> almost completely isolating creole (of the ancient past ;-) ).
>>
> ----- Here's one way you could make a gradation system through
> historical sound change.  It's not your language, as I don't know
> much of it, but it might give you some ideas as to how to do this
> with your own.  Let's start with some vocabulary for the proto-
> language.
[snip]

It might also be helpful to check out _The Unfolding of Language_,
which talks about a hypothetical way the Semitic verb could have
gotten its vowel alternation.