Re: a new person on the list

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:02:14 -0400, Eduard Ralph <conlang@...>
wrote:

> I've been lurking on this list for the past 2-3 weeks and thought it
> time to
> introduce myself shortly. My interest in conlanging stems from my
> bilingual
> upbringing and the interest in writing a fantasy book. Of course I want
> it
> to be as full of life as can be. Working in the IT field, I have to work
> with very simple con languages every day. I was surprised how much
> programming and writing have in common. I'll admit that I don't have much
> linguistic background and as such I'm still fighting with some of the
> terminology used on this list, so I hope you'll bear with me if I ask
> questions which seem simple.
Welcome!

Here are a few books you ought to consider buying:

A Dictionary Of Grammatical Terms In Linguistics, Trask
Language Universals And Linguistic Typology, Comrie
Describing Morphosyntax, Payne
The World's Writing Systems, Daniels & Bright

Those four provide what I think of as the core canon of what's possible
and what's likely within human language, as well as describing in great
detail the terminology you're likely to find on this list, and should form
part of the bookshelf of any conlanger. They can be quite dry, and heavy
going, especially Comrie, but the payoff is well worth it.

In the meantime, SIL maintain a glossary of linguistics terms that should
help unmuddy the waters somewhat:

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/index.htm

You also ought to become familiar with the IPA (International Phonetic
Alphabet) and CXS, which is how we represent the IPA in ASCII.

For an overview of CXS, see http://www.theiling.de/ipa/

Also of use are the Leipzig glossing rules, useful in presenting
line-by-line, word-by-word translations of texts:

http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/files/morpheme.html




Paul

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