Re: Creating a metaconlang; anyone want to join?
| From: | Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, December 1, 2007, 17:21 |
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On Nov 30, 2007 6:26 PM, Sai Emrys <sai@...> wrote:
> Recently I've been giving more serious thought to creating a
> metaconlang. That is, a sort of grammar that can ride on top of an
> existing language (English as a default, given its status as lingua
> franca). It'd have a few features:
>
> * use semantic space* that isn't denotatively used by the language
> itself (e.g. English doesn't have tone, clicks, facial gestures,
> signing, so we could use any of that)
English does use tone, though not phonemically as
"tonal" languages do. I suspect using suprasegmental
tone as your extra channel will make English sound
not just
> * be anywhere from almost undetectable to unobtrusive (on the level of
> an odd mannerism / speech impediment)
but _really weird_. Relatively quiet clicks, and
subtle alterations of facial expression, gesture,
and posture are probably better things to explore.
> I see (b) as the most interesting variant, though (c) could also be useful...
I agree. Evidentiality, validationality, distinction of
exclusivity for we/us/our and number for you/your;
perhaps number marking for nouns that are
invariant in English (deer, sheep, fish)...
Things like that could be useful.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/review/log.htm
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