archives of the CONLANG mailing list
------------------------------------


>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Sun May  1 15:08:40 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <117050.9405011308@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Lojban terminators
Date: Sun, 01 May 94 14:08:40 +0100

Lojbab gave examples where commas/intonations gives strong clues to
what the grammatical structure of an utterance is, and continued:

> In both of these cases, spoken language as well as written language indicates
> the grammatical structure differences.  Whether you call the difference
> pohrasing, intonation, or whatever, a grammar of Ennglish is not complete
> with that information.  Lojban's terminators correspond to the whatever-you-
> want-to-call-it that reflects the difference between the above pairs.

In English commas/intonation reflect the difference between vocatives,
restrictive v. nonrestrictive relative clauses, and so on. But you can
write a generative grammar of English that ignores punctation and
intonation & has no problems generating the desired syntactic structures
(the only problem is that it fails to generate punctuation & intonation).
But you can't write an adequate grammar of Lojban that ignores terminators:
they are an integral part of syntactic structure, not a reflector of it.
In this respect, terminators are like English 'that': you can think of
'that' as a mere punctuation-like marker of the beginning of a clause, 
but it is well known that its presence or absence is syntactically 
significant:
    Who do you reckon went?
   *Who do you reckon that went?
The presence of absence of Lojban terminators could also make differences
in grammaticality.
------
And


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From lojbab@access.digex.net Sun May  1 20:11:28 1994
Date: Mon, 2 May 1994 00:11:28 -0400
From: Logical Language Group 
Message-Id: <199405020411.AA25584@access1.digex.net>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re:  Lojban terminators
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net

UC> In English commas/intonation reflect the difference between vocatives,
UC> restrictive v. nonrestrictive relative clauses, and so on. But you can
UC> write a generative grammar of English that ignores punctation and
UC> intonation & has no problems generating the desired syntactic structures
UC> (the only problem is that it fails to generate punctuation & intonation).
UC> But you can't write an adequate grammar of Lojban that ignores
UC> terminators: they are an integral part of syntactic structure, not a
UC> reflector of it.

I think I see the confusion/disagreement/whatever.  You seem to be saying
that there is an algorithm that will*form* the given sentences interpreted
either as vocatives or non-vocatives, restrictive or non-restrictive 
sentences.  In other words the same sentence, minus intonation, has two
grammatically distinctive parses, and either is 'generable'.

Of course this is possibly meaningless, and at best an incomplete set of
rules, since you say it does not generate the intonation/punctuation.  We also
have no idea whether any particular set of generative rules have any real
relation to the way our brains process language - these rules are just a
model of the black box.

But even more important, that sense of a 'generative' grammar doesn't tell
anything about how someone LISTENING to the sentence breaks it down and
understands it.  The intonation is vital to understanding the English, from
the point of view of a listener.

The Lojban rules are designed to not only be generative, but complete in the
other direction of parsing/breaking down AND to hgave the same structure
in either direction.

BTW, I find your example cute:
UC>     Who do you reckon went?
UC>    *Who do you reckon that went?

because a near synonym of 'reckon' gives to me the exact opposite judgement:

       *Who do you know went?
        Who do you know that went?

lojbab


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Mon May  2 22:08:53 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <243259.9405022008@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Lojban terminators
Date: Mon, 02 May 94 21:08:53 +0100

> In other words the same sentence, minus intonation, has two
> grammatically distinctive parses, and either is 'generable'.

Right. And it's easy to conceive of English working okay, albeit more
ambiguously, without intonation or punctuation.

> Of course this is possibly meaningless, and at best an incomplete set of
> rules, since you say it does not generate the intonation/punctuation.  We also
> have no idea whether any particular set of generative rules have any real
> relation to the way our brains process language - these rules are just a
> model of the black box.

True, but some models are more principled and less arbitrary than others,
& one may hypothesize that this will better model the black box.

> But even more important, that sense of a 'generative' grammar doesn't tell
> anything about how someone LISTENING to the sentence breaks it down and
> understands it.  The intonation is vital to understanding the English, from
> the point of view of a listener.

The intonation facilitates; it isn't vital. A generative grammar doesn't
necessarily tell you anything about production or comprehension unless
it's formulated in procedural terms (i.e. unless it models processes
rather than static knowledge).
 
I meant 'generative' in the technical sense of being sufficiently explicit
to describe all and only the well formed strings of the language. I agree
that one would like the processes of production and comprehension/parsing
to operate on the same structures.

> BTW, I find your example cute:
> UC>     Who do you reckon went?
> UC>    *Who do you reckon that went?
> 
> because a near synonym of 'reckon' gives to me the exact opposite judgement:
> 
>        *Who do you know went?
>         Who do you know that went?

I don't believe that 'Who do you know went?' is * for you. It's a
question from 'You do know X went'.

In 'Who do you know that went', 'that went' is an extraposed relative
clause modifiying 'who': 'Who that went do you know?', 'I know someone
that went'. In 'Who do you reckon (*that) went' 'who' is extracted out
of a clausal complement of 'reckon': 'You reckon (that) X went'.

Apparently in the Ozarks, 'Who do you reckon that went' is okay, This
is the only thing I know about the Ozarks, except that they're somewhere
in the USA.

-----
And


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From lojbab@access.digex.net Mon May  2 23:30:54 1994
Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 03:30:54 -0400
From: Logical Language Group 
Message-Id: <199405030730.AA28535@access3.digex.net>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Lojban terminators
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net

LL> > because a near synonym of 'reckon' gives to me the exact opposite judgeme
LL> > 
LL> >        *Who do you know went?
LL> >         Who do you know that went?
LL> 
LL> I don't believe that 'Who do you know went?' is * for you. It's a
LL> question from 'You do know X went'.
LL> 
LL> In 'Who do you know that went', 'that went' is an extraposed relative
LL> clause modifiying 'who': 'Who that went do you know?', 'I know someone
LL> that went'. In 'Who do you reckon (*that) went' 'who' is extracted out
LL> of a clausal complement of 'reckon': 'You reckon (that) X went'.

I can't get 'Who do you know wnt?" to work, even based on your sample - which
itself only works for me with emphatic stress on 'do'.  In the question, I need
either a 'who' or a 'that' before 'went', even with emphatic stress, unless I
am missing something.

In any event, you comment confirmed my hypothesis regarding 'generative'.
I do not believe that there is necessaarily any such thing as 'language
knowledge' distinct from the processes used to generate or interpret it.
How can you have static knowledge about a dynamic thing like language - even
my personal idiolect changes (for example, you *lmight* convince me that
"Who do you know went?" SHOULD be acceptible to me, in which case my set
of well-formed strings will be different than it was a couple of days ago.

One nice thing abotu working with a conlang is that at least at this stage,
we get to dictate what is a well-formed string, and thus avoid the argument
that seems to divide the field of linguistics as to whether such a thing
really means anything independent of the theory used.

lojbab
Bob LeChevalier


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Tue May  3 21:00:51 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <191868.9405031900@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Re: Lojban terminators (Logical Language Group )
Date: Tue, 03 May 94 20:00:51 +0100

> From: Logical Language Group 
> I can't get 'Who do you know wnt?" to work, even based on your sample - which
> itself only works for me with emphatic stress on 'do'. In the question, I need
> either a 'who' or a 'that' before 'went', even with emphatic stress, unless I
> am missing something.

I'm gobsmacked. What about 'Who do you think likes bananas?'? Will
changing the example help?

> In any event, you comment confirmed my hypothesis regarding 'generative'.
> I do not believe that there is necessaarily any such thing as 'language
> knowledge' distinct from the processes used to generate or interpret it.
> How can you have static knowledge about a dynamic thing like language - even
> my personal idiolect changes (for example, you *lmight* convince me that
> "Who do you know went?" SHOULD be acceptible to me, in which case my set
> of well-formed strings will be different than it was a couple of days ago.

Generative grammars aren't necessarily declarative (non-procedural),
though in practise most are. Nowadays a fair number of people are
trying to develop generative grammars that are procedural (i.e.
grammatical structure is the procedures used to produce/comprehend it).

The declarative view is entirely compatible with a change in knowledge;
your knowledge of trees is declarative, but I can easily teach you
new things about trees. Similarly you can learn new things about 
English grammar.

> One nice thing abotu working with a conlang is that at least at this stage,
> we get to dictate what is a well-formed string, and thus avoid the argument
> that seems to divide the field of linguistics as to whether such a thing
> really means anything independent of the theory used.

A nice thing about *Lojban* is that a generative grammar has been developed
for it, & as far as I know this is the only language of which that can
be said. I am filled with admiration for the people who created this
grammar.

It is true that deciding whether a string is 'well-formed' is 
theory-dependent, but I don't see this as a weakness of the generative
approach to linguistics. The argument for the generative approach is
that the only explanation for the utterances we are capable of
producing is that we do indeed know/possess a set of rules that
'generate' sentences. And it is these rules that necessarily
determine whether a string is well-formed. The rules either do
or don't generate a sentence.

----
And


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From lojbab@access.digex.net Tue May  3 21:30:25 1994
Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 01:30:25 -0400
From: Logical Language Group 
Message-Id: <199405040530.AA15398@access3.digex.net>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re:  
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net

And:LL> > From: Logical Language Group 
LL> > I can't get 'Who do you know wnt?" to work, even based on your sample - w
LL> > itself only works for me with emphatic stress on 'do'. In the question, I
LL> > either a 'who' or a 'that' before 'went', even with emphatic stress, unle
LL> > am missing something.
LL> 
LL> I'm gobsmacked. What about 'Who do you think likes bananas?'? Will
LL> changing the example help?

No problem with that one - but it also fails for me with 'know' instead of
'think'.  This may be a peculiarity of the verb which of course is ambiguous
between 'know that', and 'know about', that may make it somewhat more 
restrictive in grammar for me.  But I think there is a phenomenon in English
which may or may not be described as 'telegraphing' (abbreviating by leaving
out some words), that is very specific on which words it can be done with.

Who do you think likes bananas?
*Who do you know likes bananas?
I decide who likes bananas.
*Who do you decide likes bananas? [at least it is awful strained to me, but]
Who did you decide liked bananas? [works fine for me, but still]
*Who did you know liked bananas?
Who do you think has a car?
Who do you know has a car? [no problems there]
Who do you think has cars?
*Who do you know has cars? [again sounds too strained to me]
But interestingly enough, if the plural is a false one, the sentence
suddenly works for me, I just realized.  Imagine a set of playing cards
of unusual faces:
One of them has a bunch of bananas pictured on them which is aesthetically
pleasant. The card has the name 'Bananas'  (If you want traditional playing cards, you can just use one of the standard suit names here).  Likewise another
suit has pictures of cars on it, and is labelled "Cars".  Then no problem
with
Who do you think likes Bananas/Cars?
Who do you think has Bananas/Cars?
Who do you know has Bananas/Cars?  [but still not]
*Who do you know likes Bananas/Cars? [though I am less sure that this would
be unacceptable in a card-playing context - it is certainly beating at the
margins of acceptability.]

Enough useless grammatical judgements - I don;t trust them anyway unless
I actually do hear them in a natural context and get to react to them without
my grammarian hat on.

LL> It is true that deciding whether a string is 'well-formed' is 
LL> theory-dependent, but I don't see this as a weakness of the generative
LL> approach to linguistics. The argument for the generative approach is
LL> that the only explanation for the utterances we are capable of
LL> producing is that we do indeed know/possess a set of rules that
LL> 'generate' sentences. And it is these rules that necessarily
LL> determine whether a string is well-formed. The rules either do
LL> or don't generate a sentence.

But this isn't much of an explanation in my book, since the rules are an
artifact of the particular theory, and there is no evidence that any particular
theory is complete and correct.  Only if someone says that a given rule set is
or is isomorphic to a COMPLETE set of rules embedded in our brains could I
even start to accept that it might be an 'explanation', and then God forbid
that there be discovered a rule changing or I no longer will trust that
theory or theorist.

Otherwise, the proper word to me is 'model' or even better 'incomplete model'.
Theories need to explain something, and generative theories explain nothing
that is a real phenomenon.

lojbab
----
lojbab                           Note new address:    lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
           Ask me about the artificial language Loglan/Lojban.


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Thu May  5 21:38:07 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <180796.9405051938@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: theories of grammar
Date: Thu, 05 May 94 20:38:07 +0100

> From: Logical Language Group 
> 
> Enough useless grammatical judgements - I don;t trust them anyway unless
> I actually do hear them in a natural context and get to react to them without
> my grammarian hat on.
 
As you probably realize, one really makes acceptability judgements
rather than grammaticality judgements. If a sentence is acceptable
then we presume it's grammatical, but if it's unacceptable this
cd be because it is ungrammatical, or has a weird meaning, or is
tough to process, & in the case of your judgements I think the 'tough
to process' (because of interfering readings' is probably the
right one.

> LL> It is true that deciding whether a string is 'well-formed' is 
> LL> theory-dependent, but I don't see this as a weakness of the generative
> LL> approach to linguistics. The argument for the generative approach is
> LL> that the only explanation for the utterances we are capable of
> LL> producing is that we do indeed know/possess a set of rules that
> LL> 'generate' sentences. And it is these rules that necessarily
> LL> determine whether a string is well-formed. The rules either do
> LL> or don't generate a sentence.
> 
> But this isn't much of an explanation in my book, since the rules are an
> artifact of the particular theory, and there is no evidence that any particular
> theory is complete and correct.  Only if someone says that a given rule set is
> or is isomorphic to a COMPLETE set of rules embedded in our brains could I
> even start to accept that it might be an 'explanation', and then God forbid
> that there be discovered a rule changing or I no longer will trust that
> theory or theorist.
> 
> Otherwise, the proper word to me is 'model' or even better 'incomplete model'.
> Theories need to explain something, and generative theories explain nothing
> that is a real phenomenon.

I think it's a bit demanding to ask for it to be complete. surely every
theory is incomplete, except for some ultimate theory of absolutely
everything. I don't really mind using 'model' instead of 'theory',
but I wd dispute the notion that it explains nothing. The grammar
explains why we don't say certain things (i.e. because the grammar
doesn't generate them). Okay, we then have to explain how it is
we acquire this grammar, so it's not self-explanatory, but nevertheless
it constitutes a partial explanation.

Perhaps I misread you, but you seem to be suggesting that for the
theory to be explanatory is has to be true. I don't see why this
should be so: Creationism is explanatory, but apparently not true.

I think that this discussion is well and truly off-topic by now,
so I propose that it proceed by private e-mail (and thank readers
for their forebearance).
----
And



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Tue May 31 23:02:40 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9405311702.AA24849@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: My experiences in fictional language creation
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 20:02:40 +0300 (EET DST)

I've been creating languages of my own for several years now, and most
of them were used in fictional worlds.

My first attempts were quite simple. I used a technique that I would
nowadays call very raw: I had some source text somewhere (in Finnish).
Then I made a kind of "translation" into the language I was creating.
And I did all this completely without any grammatic/vocabular notes,
completely from my imagination. During this process, however, the
vocabulary and grammar were constructed kind of "automatically" or
"naturally" in the brain. But there usually was a vast amount of
borrowings and interference from other languages, even if I didn't want
them.

The invention of one of my most succesful languages, Jurs (about
'89-'91) begun with this technique. Some time later, the grammar
stabilized in my subconsciousness, and the vocabulary was written down.
What is notable in this language is that it is the only language that I
really 'know', so I can make up sentences without real efforts (my
vocabulary, though, is something I've mostly forgotten). I've explored
my intuition for this language many times, and I've even managed to
write grammar for it (a month or so ago). I've found out many
interesting things. I'll post the English version of my grammar file to
conlang, if there's interest for it.

Later, as I got more information about languages and different aspects
for life and world, the language and world of Jurs became a bit naive
for me and I tried to start a new style of language construction. The
creation process started from single ideas that I had (for example)
sucked into my brain from some book. Most of the languages I constructed
this way were not very succesful, and I never reached the fluency I
reached in Jurs. I hope I have corrected the clitches of this kind of
technique in the new languages that are currently under work.

After all this experience, I could now list the factors I require from
an ideal fictional language:

Weirdness. Especially on alien languages. I personally don't consider a
fictional language very unique if it directly mimics some already
existing language. A fictional language, as an opposite of an auxilary
language, must have some exotic new ideas, though if its vocabulary was
borrowed or so. (What this is all about, is art, isn't it?)

Simpliness: The language must not be so exotic and weird that it's
impossible to master. Strange, illogical and strict rules force the user
of a language to have the notes ahead all the time, which really doesn't
help in the development of the language. If the language is "too" simple
or logical, it may reduce the important factors of weirdness and life.

Life: A major problem that occurs in a big number of constructed
languages is a kind of "mechanic ugliness". Natural languages live in
the mouths of their users to perfectly fit their purpose, whatever it
is: e.g. the basic words tend to become easier to pronounce etc.
One may create a strict rule that says that the plural of a noun, in
terms of simpliness, is always created using -go suffix. So the plurals
of the words ending in -k would be so hard to pronounce that a living
language could use this kind of plural only if it were a disappearing or
rarely used form. One must not be too sure if the rules of his/her
language work or not, and he/she always has to prepare to modify or
eliminate them with a rude hand.

In an ideal fictional language, the factors I listed must live together,
without conflicts.

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi
  77700 Rautalampi
  Finland


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Tue May 31 23:03:22 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9405311703.AA24940@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: Fictional languages
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 20:03:22 +0300 (EET DST)

> From conlang@diku.dk  Sun May 29 23:24:17 1994

Lars Mathiesen writes:

> There has been some discussion of fictional languages/languages for
> fiction, but is does seem that the people who want to discuss `useful'
> languages (i.e., languages designed to be useful) are the ones who
> have found the most energy to post lately.
> Perhaps languages for fiction tend to be more private projects?

Personally, I have always wanted to contact other language creators but
there has been some kind of barrier: perhaps the problem with the lack
of input is that the culture of creating fictional languages is really
quite private for now (no good ways for information/experience
interchange with other odd ones... ;)

Those international auxilary languages, however, have been known
publicly for decades (at least). The idea of creating fictional
languages for "useless" purposes must be very new compared to the idea
of IALs.

> In fact, I originally joined this list to read about neat invented
> languages. (Personally, I don't believe in the quest for a perfect
> international auxiliary language (IAL). If the opportunity should
> arise to get one adopted, I'll say leave well enough alone and go for
> Esperanto. However, a lot of interesting ideas and even data come up
> in the course of these discussions, so I'm glad that they are here.)

I've also noticed this. As I subscribed this list, I noticed that some
discussions (about pidgins and creoles, for example) could give me new
and perhaps important ideas for developing languages of my own.
What I've always seeked in my inventing process, is kind of simpliness
to learn and memorize the language, and pidgins really seem to have this
feature, so their structures interest me.

J"org Knappen writes:

> Personally, I'm interested in both topics, constructed languages for
> international communication and constructed languages for fictional worlds.
>
> However, the input on the second topic is rather low here. Do you have
> something to contribute?

I've been discussing the topic with a couple of persons via email. We've
swapped text files about grammars etc.

And yes, I do have something to contribute. But that's worth another
posting...

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi
  77700 Rautalampi
  Finland


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Wed Jun  1 02:38:25 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <140637.9406010038@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: CONLANG digest 51
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 01:38:25 +0100

[A reply to several messages, here. Is this a bad thing to do?]

From: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
> It was And Rosta who mentioned that Alan Butcher had been working on Dwys. 
> And posted a translation of "The North Wind and the Sun".  I believe Alan
> Butcher was working on a booklet describing Dwys, but I haven't heard
> anything for a while.

Alan gets credit for posting the translation. As far as I know he's
still on the conlang list, but he's probably busy with exams at the
mo. Try posting queries to alan.butcher@ucl.ac.uk.

From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
> Subject: Fictional languages
> Personally, I have always wanted to contact other language creators but
> there has been some kind of barrier: perhaps the problem with the lack
> of input is that the culture of creating fictional languages is really
> quite private for now (no good ways for information/experience
> interchange with other odd ones... ;)

It is my impression that hidden away, dotted about the globe, many
people labour with quixotic dedication upon what Tolkien called
A Secret Vice. Come the internet, we discover that each of us was
not after all the only such person; in fact there are lots of us,
but proportionately few with respect to the population of the
whole world, and randomly distributed within it. When Conlang
was first set up I was agog with excitement.
 
> Those international auxilary languages, however, have been known
> publicly for decades (at least). The idea of creating fictional
> languages for "useless" purposes must be very new compared to the idea
> of IALs.

As far as I know the first fully-fledged lg invented for art's
sake was by Tolkien. Marina Yaguello's _Foux de langage_ cites
some earlier examples (e.g. Edward Bulwer Lytton last century)
but these appear not to be fully-fledged. IALs go back to when
- 17th century?

Mind you, in all probability people have been inventing lgs for
their own sake for centuries, but just carrying them to the
grave with them.

> I've been discussing the topic with a couple of persons via email. We've
> swapped text files about grammars etc.

How about posting these to the list?

Colin:
> Subject: Fictional languages
> I agree, but there are two problems. One is that real earth languages 
> are so amazingly varied that you'll have to be really way-out to 
> out-weird some of them. On the other hand if you went  even half-way 
> to some of the real languages, you'd leave most of your readership behind.

Chomsky asserts that all languages are basically the same, with
the differences between them being rather trivial. You probably
find this rather provocative, but - as inventors of languages
in particular should be aware - it is interesting to consider
the ways languages could work but don't. For instance, Chomsky
points out that humans have an ability to count, but that the
language faculty does not have access to this ability: that is,
no grammatical rule could apply to the third word of the sentence,
for instance; anaphora could not work by numbering each word
and then referring back to the number of the antecedent.

One of my interests in invented lgs is to see whether very
unnatural lgs have been invented and how people cope with
them.

> I think I agree with your general point, but you have chosen an 
> unfortunate example. From the viewpoint of a Finn, with next to no 
> consonant clusters in your language, no doubt plurals is '-kgo' seems 
> strange and wierd. But if you look at (say) many Amerind languages 
> you'll find plenty of consonant clusters that seem quite unachievable 
> even to us poor English speakers. 
> You can argue forever about what constitutes euphony, but the 
> fact is that one language's normal sound patterns may be ugly or 
> even unthinkable in another language.

Nevertheless, there are cross-linguistic preferences for some
phonological structures over others, and there is accordingly
a scale of naturalness. -td- for instance will be rarer and
less natural than -nd-. A major goal of phonological theory
is to account for this. 

I think this is what Ville/Viznut was intuiting & trying to
explain.

-----
And


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Wed Jun  1 00:49:57 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Re: A new list needed for language creation?
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 00:49:57 GMT
Message-Id: 

>> So, may language creators discuss about our experiences here, or do 
>> we have to create a new list for this purpose?

>Please do tell us about it. Speak up, lurkers all.

I was attracted to this mailing list by one of the replies to Viznut's (Ville 
Heikkila's) original message on sci.lang.  After reading for a while, the list 
seemed to be generally about Esperanto, Glosa, & similar languages.  
(Interesting stuff in itself, but not the sort of people who would likely be 
interested in a fictional language.  Or so I thought.)

BTW, where can I get some information on Glosa?  It sounds interesting.

In any case, I have been creating languages since -- oh, sometime around the 
late 70's, I would guess.  Not too long after "Star Wars" came out.  I think 
it was the combination of the alien languages in "Star Wars", and the 
influence of reading Tolkien at the time, that gave me the impulse to organize 
some of my random made-up words into a real language.  I have very few records 
from that time, but sometime around 1980, I had two languages that were fairly 
well developed:  Olaetyan and Neesklaaz.

In the meantime, a lot has happened:  Olaetyan has grown to a vocabulary of 
somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 words.  Neesklaaz has mostly dropped out of 
use.  I started many languages during this period, but few got beyond the 
initial stages.  Still, I can count Olaetyan, Neesklaaz, Deve'rrin, Sythin, 
Rynnan, and Cispa Zaik, as well as a few borderline cases like Shirra and 
Kazat ?akkorou.  None of the others are as fully developed as Olaetyan.

I also developed the Gargoyle language for "Ultima 6: The Black Gate", based 
mostly on abbreviated Latin roots, along with some of the words used in 
previous Ultimas.  I did all of the translation of the signs and books in the 
world into Gargish.

Most of my successful languages are associated with my fictional world.  
Originally this was the world of my AD&D role-playing campaign, but it has 
changed almost beyond recognition since those days.  Perhaps one day I will 
have the time to write stories for publication.  Having a full time job leaves 
little time for writing and creating new languages, but somehow I still manage.

If anyone is interested, I have more details and grammatical notes available, 
mostly for Olaetyan (o-LYE-tyahn) and Cispa (CHIS-pa) Zaik.  Is there an 
anonymous FTP site for uploading this sort of thing?

A Nenskian Creation Myth

     A lina'n, ypha' oxe'nik;      asela'n s-ekplentu nensko.
     Ot y xyya-ne' xakhe'nik:      kh-u y ohas', kh-u y tensko.
     Xes xa proxyrg nextaredhli    xyika ninska le' unilatya
     Xy ne'z xyli e nararedhli     sepe'an ilats y il' redhlatya.

     In the beginning, nothing existed.  Then Nensko described itself.
It is a thing made by life, not of ordinary matter, but an immense
being of energy, a living force that is everywhere.  The life-power 
of animals and plants is the theme of the music of the cosmos.

Edhlyt Narlend Rillintel (Herman Miller)




______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Wed Jun  1 00:58:11 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: errata
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 00:58:11 GMT
Message-Id: 

Oops, for "Ultima 6: The Black Gate" in my previous post, read "Ultima 6: The 
False Prophet".  After a while I tend to forget these things...

hmm


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From j.guy@trl.oz.au Wed Jun  1 22:22:17 1994
From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9406010222.AA27522@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: CONLANG digest 51
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 12:22:17 +1000 (EST)

> Chomsky asserts that all languages are basically the same, with
> the differences between them being rather trivial. You probably
> find this rather provocative, but - as inventors of languages
> in particular should be aware - it is interesting to consider
> the ways languages could work but don't. For instance, Chomsky
> points out that humans have an ability to count, but that the
> language faculty does not have access to this ability: that is,
> no grammatical rule could apply to the third word of the sentence,
> for instance; 

Nasioi (spoken in Papua-New Guinea) provides a counter-example.
It has a rule according to which a syllable of the verbal prefixes
is doubled depending on whether the verb has an even or odd number
of syllables. 

I see the reason why there is fully fledged indexing of the
words of a sentence in the very recent, and local, development
of counting systems. Many languages do not have anything like
numbers.  Chomsky's argument is based on the notion of the
innateness of fundamental language abilities, which denies
language evolution (by which I do not mean language change),
but e-volvere: to go from the simple to the complex.

We even witness the beginning of what Chomsky deems impossible
in many Ameridian languages which have a "fourth" person, i.e.
second-mentioned third person. 


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk Wed Jun  1 12:20:50 1994
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 11:20:50 +0100
Message-Id: <2938.199406011020@discovery.brad.ac.uk>
From: Colin Fine 
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Chomsky, Phonology, counting

And says:
+++>
 Chomsky asserts that all languages are basically the same, with
the differences between them being rather trivial.
>++++

This is like the mathematician's meaning of 'trivial' - something 
like 'can be constructed mechanically'. Chomsky may well be right - 
but the fact that you got English, Samoan or Onondaga structure 
simply by plugging a few different parameters into a common set 
of rules would not make the perceived strangeness of each of these 
languages to speakers of the others any less. 
 
And continues:
++++>
 You probably
find this rather provocative, but - as inventors of languages
in particular should be aware - it is interesting to consider
the ways languages could work but don't. For instance, Chomsky
points out that humans have an ability to count, but that the
language faculty does not have access to this ability: that is,
no grammatical rule could apply to the third word of the sentence,
for instance; anaphora could not work by numbering each word
and then referring back to the number of the antecedent.
++++>
It is indeed interesting to speculate on this. There are certainly 
elements in some languages which must come second in a clause.
But when Jacques Guy comments:
++++>
Nasioi (spoken in Papua-New Guinea) provides a counter-example.
It has a rule according to which a syllable of the verbal prefixes
is doubled depending on whether the verb has an even or odd number
of syllables. 
>+++++
this is simply not to the point. It is an easy mistake of our 
over-numerate upbringing to assume that odd-even in this sense is a 
manipulation about number. Consider a piece of regular metric verse, 
like Hiawatha (or the Kalevala). You would immediately know if the 
final syllable were omitted from a line, but most people would not 
know without laborious counting how many syllables there were 
in the line.

It is rather like the assumption that people whose language does not 
contain words for numbers above three cannot know whether one of 
their goats is missing. Counting is a process of matching, and does 
not necessarily require words - or even mental representations - 
for numbers.

On phonology, And says:
>+++++
 Nevertheless, there are cross-linguistic preferences for some
phonological structures over others, and there is accordingly
a scale of naturalness. -td- for instance will be rarer and
less natural than -nd-. A major goal of phonological theory
is to account for this. 
>++++
Granted. But people often express intuitions about what would be 
a stable sound that are simply false. I remember doing so myself 
when I noticed the sequence /close-e open-e/ in Volapu"k and 
suggested that that seemed unnatural and unstable. A friend
 pointed to the French word 'nucle/aire', which is attested 
certainly from early last century. 

Jacques Guy again:
++++>
 Chomsky's argument is based on the notion of the
innateness of fundamental language abilities, which denies
language evolution (by which I do not mean language change),
but e-volvere: to go from the simple to the complex.

We even witness the beginning of what Chomsky deems impossible
in many Ameridian languages which have a "fourth" person, i.e.
second-mentioned third person.
>++++
I don't understand this point. Certainly Chomsky's argument denies 
language evolution, in the sense that there is in his view some basic 
hard-wired substratum (and I suspect even then he would have to 
allow this to evolve as the species evolved). So what? Your comment 
about 'from the simple to the complex' strikes me rather like the 
arguments advanced last century (and still, in some quarters) AGAINST
biological evolution: 'that the complex cannot evolve from the simple'. 
I do not know what you mean by these terms, and so what your 
argument amounts to.

Does Chomsky really deem a 'fourth person' impossible? I would be 
surprised. And in any case as I understand it obviatives are well 
established in many Amerindian languages (Algonkian particularly, 
I think, but I'm not sure): what justification have you for 'we ... 
witness the beginning'? I am sure Chomsky would be the first to 
admit that he hasn't got all the answers (yet).

	Colin Fine 


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Thu Jun  2 22:06:24 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <130611.9406022006@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Jacques's obviatives
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 94 21:06:24 +0100

Jacques says:
> We even witness the beginning of what Chomsky deems impossible
> in many Ameridian languages which have a "fourth" person, i.e.
> second-mentioned third person. 

I sympathize (though only slightly) with certain reasons for 
casting Noam as bad guy, but it is a bit unfair on him to 
conclude the above solely from my remarks. [I don't know
if Jacques is joking: on the one hand he jokes a lot, but
on the other hand he Chomsky-bashes a lot too.]

The point is that syntax can't count, even though people can. 
'Seven' is not a possible component of a syntactic rule.
Even if obviatives were proved to have a numerical basis
(and I think there are languages that do use pronouns
meaning things like 'third character to enter narrative')
this wdn't be part of syntax; it wd be part of semantics.
And semantics of course can cope with numbers, since we
can talk about them.

[I am inclined to agree with Chomsky's observation/claim.
If one tries to invent a flexible yet unabiguous syntax
for a conlang, one is naturally drawn to use numbering,
yet the result is impossible to use - it's unprocessable,
& you can only parse by using pen & paper, just as with
multiple centre embeddings (e.g. Fish cats dogs enjoy
chasing like to eat live in water).]

Colin's reply deals with the Nasioi example.

------
And


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From j.guy@trl.oz.au Fri Jun  3 18:00:16 1994
From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9406022200.AA13932@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Jacques's obviatives
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 08:00:16 +1000 (EST)

> [I don't know
> if Jacques is joking: on the one hand he jokes a lot, but
> on the other hand he Chomsky-bashes a lot too.]

No, I was not joking this time. I was pointing out what might
(emphasize: *might*) be witness to the emergence of a new
... syntactic relationship for want of a better word. I know
languages which have nothing like relative clauses for instance.
Oh sure, you can call this and that "relative clause". But those
"relative clauses" also function as temporal and conditional, 
so it's calling upon Procrustes and his bed for a fit. Have those
languages lost relative clauses? Or is ours which have innovated
(evolved) them? I do not know. But the fact is: we have here
evidence for language evolution (evolution this time in the
sense of evolution theory: it can be devolution as well).

Chomsky bashing. Yes. I have been there and back. I have read
Maurice Gross, who also was there and back. And, to repeat myself,
I hold TG, GB, the kaboodle to be on par with pre-Newtonian, no,
pre-Copernican astronomy: epicycles, deferents. And ether and
phlogiston. No wonder language seems so complex with such an
inept model. No, I do not know what the correct model is. I have
caught glimpses, some of them from this interest group. Some
from my tinkering with strange languages, or tackling weird
problems. Some from other sources. Mainly that Russian fellow,
B.V. Sukhotin. And there was an article, 2 years ago, which I
just discovered, in the research journal of French Telecom,
"L'echo des Recherches", No.146, 4th quarter 1991 pp.51-60:
"Interrogation en langage naturel du Minitel Guide des Services"
(M.Gilloux, E.Lassalle, J-M. Ombrouck). The methodology they 
developed to process customer queries strangely parallels a
model I have been developing from a totally different angle:
machine translation of English into..... Klingon!

> The point is that syntax can't count, even though people can. 

Syntax can't count? What does that mean? People can? Not unless
they have been taught. Counting is not only enumerating, but
computing. 

Me: Lote, how many pigs have you got?
Lote (proudly): I have *left clavicle* pigs!
Me: If I gave you as many again, how many would you have?
Lote: ...

In fact, I could not even say "as many again". But this:

Me: If I gave you *left clavicle* pigs, how many would you
have?

Take a guess at the answer before you look.











Lote: I would have *left clavicle* pigs and *left clavicle* pigs!

> 'Seven' is not a possible component of a syntactic rule.

What? Can singular be a component of a syntactic rule? Or
plural? If they cannot, then what is allowed to be a component
of a syntactic rule? Are we not entering a tautology there?
And if they can, so can dual, trial, paucal, and plural:
one, two, three, four to around ten, more. 

> Even if obviatives were proved to have a numerical basis
> (and I think there are languages that do use pronouns
> meaning things like 'third character to enter narrative')

It is the other way around. Number developed later.
There are many traces of this still. Take Latin even: "alter"
means "second" as well as "other".

> this wdn't be part of syntax; it wd be part of semantics.
> And semantics of course can cope with numbers, since we
> can talk about them.

So what? Semantics can cope with obviatives, since we can talk 
about them. And deictics (here, there, yon: one, two, three,
or: zero, one, two away). Come to think of it, semantics can
cope with syntax since were are talking about it. So? Nothing
follows.

> [I am inclined to agree with Chomsky's observation/claim.
> If one tries to invent a flexible yet unabiguous syntax
> for a conlang, one is naturally drawn to use numbering,
> yet the result is impossible to use - it's unprocessable,
> & you can only parse by using pen & paper, just as with
> multiple centre embeddings (e.g. Fish cats dogs enjoy
> chasing like to eat live in water).]

Ah!!!! Internal contradiction there! That kind of embedding
which never occurs in real language is given as grammatical
by Chomsky, whence the theory of competence versus performance.
If we accept such sentences as grammatical, i.e. as part of
language, we have no basis for refusing that other type, even
though the result is impossible to use. That touches the very
bone of contention, the reason for my Chomsky-bashing. His
theories have no more scientific value than astrology.

-- Persons born with Venus in Taurus have blue eyes.
-- I am born with Venus in Taurus and I have brown eyes!
-- You are possessed with the competence of having blue 
   eyes but your competence is manifested by brown eyes.

Or:

-- Planets move in circular orbits.
-- No, they don't. Look at Pluto!
-- Its performance isn't up to its competence. But if
   we observe Venus....

Charlatanry.

(By the way, I have neither Venus in Taurus, nor blue nor
brown eyes. So astrology is proved correct. QED)



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk Fri Jun  3 11:50:01 1994
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 10:50:01 +0100
Message-Id: <5432.199406030950@discovery.brad.ac.uk>
From: Colin Fine 
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: embedding

And remarks:
++++>
 If one tries to invent a flexible yet unabiguous syntax
for a conlang, one is naturally drawn to use numbering,
yet the result is impossible to use - it's unprocessable,
& you can only parse by using pen & paper, just as with
multiple centre embeddings (e.g. Fish cats dogs enjoy
chasing like to eat live in water).
>++++

Are people familiar with Ian Watson's thought-provoking
novel 'The Embedding'? It's all about the astonishing mental
effects of a language in which such constructions could be
commonplace - or rather, the psyche of people who could
actually use such a language.

It's a long time since I read it, so it's rather confused in
my mind, but I think there's two parallel story-lines, one
in some experimental facility where they're bringing 
children up with some sort of wierd mentality (by the
use of drugs?) and the other in the Amazonian forest,
where the locals use drugs and have a supposedly very
embedded language anyway.

	Colin



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Fri Jun  3 23:45:49 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9406031745.AA28841@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: Fictional languages
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 20:45:49 +0300 (EET DST)

Quoting Colin Fine..

> Having said that, I think you're being naive on the 'factors':

Yes, yes, I was desperately seeking a way to put my thoughts into text.
So it's very probable that the readers didn't fully understand this...
;)

>  ++++>
>  Weirdness. Especially on alien languages. I personally don't consider a
> fictional language very unique if it directly mimics some already
> existing language. A fictional language, as an opposite of an auxilary
> language, must have some exotic new ideas, though if its vocabulary was
> borrowed or so. (What this is all about, is art, isn't it?)
> >++++

> I agree, but there are two problems. One is that real earth languages
> are so amazingly varied that you'll have to be really way-out to
> out-weird some of them. On the other hand if you went  even half-way
> to some of the real languages, you'd leave most of your readership behind.

Yes, real languages are amazingly varied. A constructor of a fictional
language can never understand every weird element of every strange real
language - so I think an invented language always has some
'interference' or 'cliches' from the languages that are already known to
its constructor.

The "weirdness factor" may indicate the amount of "artist's imagination"
used in the language invention process, the ability to avoid that
'interference' or those 'cliches'.

> ++++>
> Simpliness: The language must not be so exotic and weird that it's
> impossible to master. Strange, illogical and strict rules force the user
> of a language to have the notes ahead all the time, which really doesn't
> help in the development of the language. If the language is "too" simple
> or logical, it may reduce the important factors of weirdness and life.
> >++++

> I don't entirely understand what you mean here: are you talking about
> a serious learner, or a reader of fiction in which the language occurs?

I wrote from language creator's point of view. I've never actually got
so far in my "fiction" that it would be even close to get published or
something.

The one who invents a language is the first one who knows it, and if the
inventor doesn't have his/her language in the intuition, he/she actually
can't develop it further. To further readers/users learning of the
language will be easier because it is already 'tested', and there is
written material available for it.

> One may create a strict rule that says that the plural of a noun, in
> terms of simpliness, is always created using -go suffix. So the plurals
> of the words ending in -k would be so hard to pronounce that a living
> language could use this kind of plural only if it were a disappearing or
> rarely used form. One must not be too sure if the rules of his/her
> language work or not, and he/she always has to prepare to modify or
> eliminate them with a rude hand.
> >++++

> I think I agree with your general point, but you have chosen an
> unfortunate example. From the viewpoint of a Finn, with next to no
> consonant clusters in your language, no doubt plurals is '-kgo' seems
> strange and wierd. But if you look at (say) many Amerind languages
> you'll find plenty of consonant clusters that seem quite unachievable
> even to us poor English speakers.

I agree, but an universal rule really is that the pronounciation of any
language gets easier (in the terms of getting understood and not
confused). If the '-kgo' plural is used frequently enough and there's no
risk of confusion, the other of the two clusiles will disappear or the
pronounciation get easier some other way. (If that kind of cluster is
against the phonetic rules of a language, the process will be extremly
rapid... ;)

> You can argue forever about what constitutes euphony, but the
> fact is that one language's normal sound patterns may be ugly or
> even unthinkable in another language.

A universal fact is that, for example, pronouncing "kg" requires more
work from the phonetic organs than pronouncing "nt". But the difficulty
in pronouncing them depends on how the speaker has got used to it.

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi
  77700 Rautalampi
  Finland


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Fri Jun  3 23:47:49 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9406031747.AA28927@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: Fictional lgs & lg universals
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 20:47:49 +0300 (EET DST)

Quoting ucleaar  :

> whole world, and randomly distributed within it. When Conlang
> was first set up I was agog with excitement.

BTW: Is there any archive of conlang postings?
It would be very interesting to see such.

> > I've been discussing the topic with a couple of persons via email. We've
> > swapped text files about grammars etc.

> How about posting these to the list?

If the net just is not going to jam of huge text files... ;)

> Chomsky asserts that all languages are basically the same, with the
> differences between them being rather trivial. You probably find this
> rather provocative, but - as inventors of languages in particular should
> be aware - it is interesting to consider the ways languages could work
> but don't.

I've read of "language universals" in some science magazine - is this
about the same thing?

Who knows, how will an invented language 'survive' if some of the
universals is violated? Some of those universals really seem very
strange, at first seeming to 'limit' the possible 'weirdness' of a
language:

For example, every language, according to the universals, has a word for
"me". This is, after all, very reasonable. People _could_ refer to
themselves using their name instead of a first-person pronoun, but there
are some problems. Let's think about a discussion in such language:
      Bub: Bub is going to leave.
      Qob: Who is Bub?
      Bub: ....
The only way Bub would be able to answer now, is sign language, because
there is no word for "me". To avoid confusion, the name, for example,
could be pronounced differently when it is referring to the speaker:
      Bub: Bub` is going to leave.
But there we are again: we have a way to distinguish "me" from "he" or
"she".

This seems to be caused by universal human psychology: we've got a need
for self-identity and individuality, so this feature appears in all
languages.

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi
  77700 Rautalampi
  Finland


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Sat Jun  4 00:17:22 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Re: fictional languages
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 00:17:22 GMT
Message-Id: 

In article  irina@rempt.hacktic.nl (Irina Rempt) writes:

>In your article on the conlang mailing list (how exactly does one reply
>to something on a mailing list that's been forwarded into a local
>newsgroup? I had to address and paste it by hand) you wrote:

I presume from this comment that you intended to forward this to the conlang 
mailing group.  I hope you don't mind...

To answer your question, I don't know how to do this.  I get this mailing 
list by subscription.  If anyone out there has this list on a newsgroup and 
knows how to reply to it, please tell us how.

>> If anyone is interested, I have more details and grammatical notes available, 
>> mostly for Olaetyan (o-LYE-tyahn) and Cispa (CHIS-pa) Zaik.  Is there an 
>> anonymous FTP site for uploading this sort of thing?

>[and then something that I'd love to see fully glossed]

A Nenskian Creation Myth

     A lina'n, ypha' oxe'nik;      asela'n s-ekplentu nensko.
     Ot y xyya-ne' xakhe'nik:      kh-u y ohas', kh-u y tensko.
     Xes xa proxyrg nextaredhli    xyika ninska le' unilatya
     Xy ne'z xyli e nararedhli     sepe'an ilats y il' redhlatya.

(pasted from my outgoing mail.)

a              at (in this context, "in")
lina'n         beginning (< lin "first" + a'n "time")
ypha'          there was (3s. past tense of yphaw)
oxe'nik        nothing (< ox "no" + e'nik, from same root as ynik "thing")
asela'n        then (a "at" sel "that" a'n "time")
s-ekplentu     self-described (3s. past tense of ekplenty "to describe")
nensko         Nensko, a mythical being (sim. to "Great Spirit")
ot             gender-neutral animate 3rd person singular nominative pronoun
y              is (3s. present of y "to be")
xyya           living things (plural of xyyal "living thing")
ne'            made (past participle of ny "to make")
xakhe'nik      something
kh-u           neither
y              of
ohas'          (a mythical substance)
kh-u           nor
y              of
tensko         (another mythical substance)
xes            but
xa             an
proxyrg        immense (pro "great" + xyrg "large")
nextaredhli    being of energy
xyika          living (lit. "able to live", < xyy "to live" + ika "able")
ninska         energy field
le'            being (pres. part. of y "to be")
unilatya       everywhere
xy             life
ne'z           power
xyli           animal
e              and
nararedhli     plant (active)
sepe'an        of space (gen. of sepe'a "space")
ilats          music
y              is
il'            the
redhlatya      theme (archaic for redhlat "theme", to rhyme with unilatya)

More notes about this piece in an upcoming post that I originally sent to 
Viznut.

>Yes, we're interested! If you can't post or upload it, will you please
>send it to us? Either by e-mail, no matter if it's long, or by snail mail
>to 
>        Boudewijn & Irina Rempt
>        Kloosterstraat 34 1.2
>        2021 VN  HAARLEM
>        Netherlands

I'll start by posting a few of the things I originally sent to Viznut.  If the 
conlang group as a whole doesn't want to see that much detail, I can send 
files directly to individuals who are interested.

>> Edhlyt Narlend Rillintel (Herman Miller)

The "Edhlyt Narlend" part, as many names, no longer has a meaning in the 
source language.  I have adopted his name since he is one of my fictional 
characters who creates languages himself.  "Rillintel" is the name of one of 
his own invented languages: it means "love of dragons."

>(please gloss your name as well)

>-- 
>----
>--------                                    
>---------------- ================================= Irina Rempt-Drijfhout

hmm



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Sat Jun  4 02:34:15 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Revised Kolagian Orthography (my phonetic alphabet)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 19:34:23 UNDEFINED
Message-Id: 

I have recently standardized the spelling of my invented languages.  Before 
this it was a real mess, with a different spelling for each language.  If 
anyone cares about the correct pronunciation of the languages of Kolagia (my 
fictional world), keep this list around as a reference.

-hmm


The Revised Kolagian Orthography

     There have been many attempts to standardize spelling for
Kolagian languages, but Kolagian Orthography is still in a state of
change.  The main elements, though, have probably reached a certain
stability.  Revised Kolagian Orthography (RKO), as shown here, is a
Kolagian Orthography representation of the basic symbols of the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA):


                           CONSONANTS

              |   bi- | labio-| dental,| retro-| palato-|
              | labial| dental|alveolar| flex  |alveolar|palatal       
--------------+-------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------
Nasal         |     m |    mh |      n |    n3 |        |    nh
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Plosive       |  p  b |       |   t  d | t3 d3 |        | ck cg
              |       |       |        |       |        |
(Median)      |       |       |        |       |        |
Fricative     | ph bh |  f  v |  th dh | s3 z3 |  sh zh | ch jh
              |       |       |   s  z |       |        |
(Median)      |       |       |        |       |        |
Approximant   |       |    vh |      r |    r3 |        |     y
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Lateral       |       |       |        |       |        |
Fricative     |       |       | thl dhl|       |        |
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Lateral       |       |       |      l |    l3 |        |    lh
(Approximant) |       |       |        |       |        |
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Trill         |       |       |     rr |       |        |
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Tap or Flap   |       |       |     r' |   r'3 |        |
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Ejective      | p'    |       |  t'    |       |        |
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Implosive     |    b' |       |     d' |       |        |
              |       |       |        |       |        |
(Median) Click| cp    |       |  cT ct |       |        |
              |       |       |        |       |        |
Lateral Click |       |       |     ctl|       |        |



              |       |       |labial-|labial-|pharyn-|
              | velar | uvular|palatal| velar | geal  |glottal
--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------
Nasal         |    ng |     N |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Plosive       |  k  g |  q  G |       | kp gb |       |   ?
              |       |       |       |       |       |
(Median)      |       |       |       |       |       |
Fricative     | kh gh | qh rh |       | hw    | x  9  | 'h `h
              |       |       |       |       |       |
(Median)      |       |       |       |       |       |
Approximant   |    wr |       |   y"  |    w  |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Lateral       |       |       |       |       |       |
Fricative     |       |       |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Lateral       |       |       |       |       |       |
(Approximant) |       |       |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Trill         |    RR |       |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Tap or Flap   |    R  |       |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Ejective      | k'    |       |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Implosive     |    g' |       |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
(Median) Click|       |       |       |       |       |
              |       |       |       |       |       |
Lateral Click |       |       |       |       |       |



                              VOWELS

 Front               Back               Front               Back
+-------------------------+            +-------------------------+
| i'        i`        u`  |    Close   | u"        y'        u'  |
|      i^                 |            |      i"         u^      |
|  e'                 o`  | Half-close |  o"                 o'  |
|            e`           |            |            o~           |
|    e^       e"      a^  |  Half-open |    oe               o^  |
|     ae        a`        |            |                         |
|       a"            a'  |    Open    |       a~            a*  |
+-------------------------+            +-------------------------+
         Unrounded                               Rounded 



Others:

c       voiceless alveopalatal affricate [tsh]
j       voiced alveopalatal affricate [dzh]
bb      voiced bilabial trill
pp      voiceless bilabial trill
dt      sound intermediate between [d] and [t]
rj      fricative trill
rl      combination of [r] and [l]
xh      combination of [sh] and [kh]
wl      voiced velar lateral (not in IPA, but found in Deve'rrin)
T, D, N dental t, d, n
..       separates consonants [n.g].
c-      clicks [cp], [cT], [ct], [ctl], [ct3], etc.
cn-     nasalized clicks
h-      voiceless [hn], [hm], etc.
-'h     aspirated [t'h], [k'h], etc.
-0      labialized [t0], [d0], [n0], etc.
-1      palatalized [t1], [d1], [n1], etc.
-2      velarized or pharyngealized [t2], [d2], [n2], etc.
-3      retroflex [t3], [d3], [n3], etc.; r-colored vowels [a3], [e"3], etc.
-n~     nasalized [an~], [en~], [on~], etc.
-j      alveopalatal [tj], [dj], [nj], [sj], [zj], etc.
'       primary stress
"       secondary stress
:       long [a:], [i:], etc.

        [tone symbols omitted]


     This new definition is a massive simplification of the chaotic
mess of previous Kolagian Orthography standards, which themselves
were much simpler than the dozen or so different standards for
different languages that had existed previously.  Straight RKO, in
general, is preferable to a number of ad hoc variations for each
language.  This does not change the actual native spelling of the
Kolagian languages, of course, only their English transcription.
     Still, a number of unusual sounds (the laminals of Olaetyan, for
instance) do not fit well within this system, and many languages will
need a modified form of RKO for various reasons.  1) "R" sounds. RKO
distinguishes seven different kinds of "r" (more if voiceless
variants are counted).  Most languages have one, two, or rarely three
"r" sounds, but the more common variety of "r" may be represented 
awkwardly in RKO.  Spanish, for example, has [r'] and [rr].  For the
purposes of a Modified Kolagian Orthography (MKO), the most common
variety of "r" may be simply written [r].  2) Vowels.  If a language
has only one form of a vowel, the unaccented form of the letter may
be used.  Note that all RKO vowel symbols are either accented letters
or ligatures.  If a language has two or more vowels that use the same
basic vowel letter, then at most one of them can be represented by
the unaccented form of that letter.  3) Suprasegmentals.  Tones and
stress marks are very poorly represented in RKO.  An MKO may have to
supply its own special symbols for these phonemes.  4) Unique sounds
or phonemes not found in RKO.  Some of these, such as "dt" for the
ambiguous sound in American English _metal_ or _meddle_, may be
represented in future versions of the RKO standard.  5) Non-human
sounds.  These may be represented by arbitrary symbols, such as the
Neyasai "whistles" [omitted].

     Older versions of KO:

[omitted]


     Examples:

m    English "m" in "mat"
mh   *
n    English "n" in "need"
n3   Sanskrit "n" in "karnah"
nh   Spanish "n~" in "man~ana"
ng   English "ng" in "sing"
N    *
p    English "p" in "speak"
b    English "b" in "boy"
t    English "t" in "stop"
d    English "d" in "do"
t3   Sanskrit "t" in "ghatah"
d3   Sanskrit "d" in "pandita"
ck   Olaetyan "ck" in "kli'ck"
cg   *
k    English "k" in "skip"
g    English "g" in "go"
q    Arabic "q" in "qalb"
G    *
kp   *
gb   *
?    English "-" in "uh-oh!"
ph   Olaetyan "ph" in "phirime"
bh   Spanish "v" in "uva"
f    English "f" in "fox"
v    English "v" in "vine"
th   English "th" in "thick"
dh   English "th" in "that"
s3   Sanskrit "s" in "krsna"
z3   *
sh   English "sh" in "shout"
zh   English "s" in "measure"
ch   German "ch" in "ich"
jh   *
kh   German "ch" in "Bach"
gh   Spanish "g" in "lago"
qh   *
rh   *
hw   *
x    Arabic "h" in "tuffaah"
9    Arabic "`" in "arba`a"
'h   English "h" in "help"
`h   *
s    English "s" in "see"
z    English "z" in "zoo"
vh   *
r    (American) English "r" in "row"
r3   *
y    English "y" in "year"
wr   *
y"   French "hu" in "huit"
w    English "w" in "word"
thl  Welsh "ll" in "llan"
dhl  Zulu "dl" in "indlela"
l    English "l" in "leaf"
l3   *
lh   Portuguese "lh" in "olho"
rr   Spanish "rr" in "perro"
RR   *
r'   Spanish "r" in "pero"
r'3  *
R    *
p'   *
t'   Navajo "t'" in "t'iis"
k'   Navajo "k'" in "k'ad"
b'   *
d'   *
g'   *
cp   *
cT   Zulu "c" in "ngiyacela"
ct   Zulu "q" in "uqonde"
ctl  Zulu "x" in "uxolo"



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Sat Jun  4 00:37:27 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Some notes on Olaetyan grammar
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 00:37:27 GMT
Message-Id: 

This is a copy of the Olaetyan grammar notes I originally sent to Viznut 
before I subscribed to conlang.

-hmm


The Olaetyan Language

[Olaetyan spelling omitted.]

Notes:  Olaetyan is not yet completely updated to the Revised Kolagian
Orthography (RKO).  The letter "y" (or "y'") is used as a vowel,
sounding like [i'].  The letter "i" can represent either [i^] or [i'].
Olaetyan also has two "laminal" sounds which aren't represented in the
RKO.  These are pronounced similar to [s] and [z], except that the
tip of the tongue touches the lower teeth, and the sound is 
articulated with the blade of the tongue.  In Olaetyan, these sounds
are spelled "c," and "x".  In addition, double consonants in Olaetyan
are pronounced as a single sound.

MORPHOLOGY

     Olaetyan words are made by adding prefixes and suffixes to
root words.  The assimilation that goes on is often quite complex. In
addition, many words have shortened forms which may be used only in
certain forms of the word.
     An example of assimilation occurs in the singular/dual
possessive noun suffix -dra, as shown by the following examples:

aer     aerdra (dual: aerambra) (normal pattern)
kayat   kayatra                 (-ra after b, bh, v, dh, t, d, ck, g,
                                 gh)
e'niram e'nirambra              (-bra after m)
oizak   oizaktra                (-tra after p, ph, f, th, s, thl, c,,
                                 sh, k, kh, q, h)


     Note the different phenomena which interact to create this situation:
     1) A voiceless consonant cannot be followed by a voiced stop. 
For this reason, d is realized as /t/ after most voiceless
consonants.
     2) Labial consonants cannot be followed by non-labial stops. 
This is why d -> b after m.
     3) Double consonants are not allowed.  For this reason, td -> t
(not tt), bd -> b (not bb), and dd -> d.
     4) Certain combinations of two or three consonants are not
allowed.  In this case, the disallowed combinations are cktr, bhbr,
vbr, dhdr, gdr, and ghdr.  The middle consonant is not pronounced.

     More rules for assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis, and other
phenomena will be given as needed.  Olaetyan morphology is still not
very well understood, and many of the existing examples are 
unreliable.
     Particularly complex is the system of abbreviation which is such
an important part of the Olaetyan language.  This grammar, and future
editions of the Olaetyan Dictionary, will include notes on all
standard abbreviations, particularly the dropping of -at and -an in
plural nouns, and -se'l in singular nouns.  All nouns which drop
letters to form the plural will have their plurals noted.

NOUNS

     Nouns are generally recognized as having eight cases: 
nominative/accusative, possessive, material, genitive, dative,
instrumental, comitative, and ergative.  Of these, the first three are
the only ones in common use for all nouns.  Prepositions have made
most of the other cases unnecessary, although the similar form of
these prepositions makes it necessary to use the cases once in a while
to resolve ambiguities.  Specific cases of some nouns have become
established as adjectives or adverbs, and given their own place in
the dictionary.
     Besides case, nouns are also inflected for number:  singular,
dual, and plural.  Dual is normally reserved for those things that
come in pairs.  It is now considered somewhat archaic.
     Other forms of nouns include diminutive and augmentative. 
Diminutives are very idiosyncratic, but augmentatives are easily
formed by adding prefixes and suffixes.

Nominative Case:
     The most widely used case, nominative/accusative is used as the
subject or object of a verb, and as the object of a preposition.  (In
the archaic ergative-absolutive system of Ancient Olaetyan, this was 
the absolutive case.)  It is usually the same as the root of the word,
but sometimes this is shortened even further.  For example, many
nouns ending in -se'l drop this ending in the entire singular
declension (and change it to -se' in the dual and plural).

Possessive:
     This case indicates ownership or membership.  For example, "a
person's hand" would be put in the possessive because the person owns
the hand, but "a person's family" would be possessive because the
person is a member of the family.  Other kinds of relationships which
would be possessive in English (brothers, sisters, friends,
neighbors, enemies, etc.) are genitive in Olaetyan.
     The singular ending is -dra, which assimilates as explained
above.  The same ending is used in the dual, after the dual ending. A
potential problem, though unlikely to occur, happens when the dual 
ending is -sp (see below).  The unwieldy -sptra ending is reduced to
-spra.
     The plural ending, added to the plural form of the noun, is
-(d)rit.  The d in parentheses is only added when the plural ends in
-n, to avoid the undesirable "nr" combination.

Material:
     This case tells what material something is made of.  It is
almost always used in the singular, even with nouns such as "tonan"
which are normally found only in the plural.  The ending is -al.
     Many nouns use a shortened form with the material and genitive
endings.  Unaccented final vowels are usually dropped.  The endings
-al, -an, and -at (also -ad?) are also frequently dropped.  Such 
words will be noted in future editions of the dictionary.

Genitive:
     The genitive case covers most other uses of the English "of" that
are not covered by the possessive and material cases.  The
preposition y is equivalent to this case.  The ending is -an, which is
identical to the plural -(a)n ending for many nouns.  The difference
is that shortened forms of nouns are often used with this case.

Dative:
     This case has practically disappeared from the language.  The
preposition a is equivalent to this case.  The ending is -(d)rel.

Instrumental:
     Although rarely used, this case is the source of some common
adjectives.  The preposition en is equivalent to this case.  The
ending is -ailh.  Similar to the genitive and material cases, this
case may also use shortened forms of nouns.

Comitative
     Similar to Italian "con" in "con brio", this case is a fertile
source of new adjectives.  The preposition ac is equivalent to this
case.  Note that if the literal meaning "with fire" is intended, the 
instrumental case would be more appropriate.  The literal meaning of
ac is "together with" or "associated with".  Compare to en, which
means "using".  The ending is -elh.

Dual:
     Dual nouns are generally the same as plural, with "m" added to
the plural or taking the place of the plural -n ending.  Exceptions
will be noted below.

Plural:
     The standard plural ending is -(a)n.  The (a) is added after
consonants.  Many nouns, however, have a short plural form.  If a
noun of more than one syllable ends in a single consonant, it is
common to drop that consonant to form the plural.  For historical
reasons, th and dh are considered couble consonants (they were tf and
dv in earlier languages).  Examples:  kayat -> kaya, nayakh -> naya,
wilagh -> wila.  Note the possibility for confusion.
     Some plurals are nonstandard.  All nouns ending in -ck change -ck
to -s in the plural (and -sp in the dual).  Nouns ending in -ks
change to -c,a in the plural.  (The dual, though also nonstandard,
follows regularly from the plural in this case:  -c,am.)  Examples: 
mycina^ck -> mycina^s, mo~rks -> mo~rc,a.  (The more regular mo~rksan
is becoming more common.)
     Some nouns do not have plural forms.  Most of these are foreign
borrowings such as rysh or materials such as ber.  A very few words
(such as tonan) are used primarily in their plural forms.
     The plural of xakh is irregular:  xann.

Accent Marks:

     This is as good a place as any to mention the complex function of
accent marks in the Olaetyan language.  When short, unstressed
endings are added to words, an accent mark is often added to keep the
stress on the right syllable.  The effect of stressing that syllable
is to alter some vowel sounds.  The phonemic change is that normal
vowels become long vowels.  Short and modified vowels remain 
unchanged.  In the written language, the ze'qox accent ' is added to
the "normal" vowels a, e, y, w, and a*, and the "modified" vowel o~
(in which case it merely marks stress).  The tev accent ^ is added to
other vowels.  (Although w' is more accurate for a long /u'/, u^ is
used to show that it was originally a normal u.  There is no
unambiguous way to mark a long /o'/, so o^ is used.)
     Examples of this phenomenon:

     kaleth, nom. pl. ka'lethan
     reuni, gen. pl. re'uninan
     ydhlary, future ydhla'ryra, ydhla'ryro~, etc.
     siros, gen. si^rosan

Ergative Case:
     Almost too rare to consider, this ancient case is only used in
poetry, where the word order has been changed.  Its ending is
-redhli.  See "poetry" section below.

PRONOUNS

     Pronouns only have three cases:  nominative, accusative/dative,
and possessive/genitive.  The accusative/dative case also has
reflexive forms.  Nominative pronouns are hardly ever used except for
emphasis.

          ACC/           POSS/
          NOM.    DAT    REFL.    GEN
singular:
1st       ar      ka     ko       kasO
2nd (f)   klo`y   fo`    fa       fo`sO
2nd (p)   xei     me     mo       mesO
3rd       Ot      tO     sO       tOsO
plural:
1st       an      gu     go / ga  gusO
2nd (f)   klo`n   so`    sa / su  so`sO
2nd (p)   xe'n    re     ro / ra  resO
3rd       tOn     vo     c,o / va vOsO

     (ga/su/ra/va = "each other".)

     The symbol O is a gender-specific vowel.  A is masculine, e
feminine, o animate, and i inanimate.  U is indefinite, as in ut =
"what".  The final O of the possessive/genitive pronouns indicates 
the gender of the thing possessed.  All other cases of O here indicate
the gender of the entity which the pronoun stands for.
     Gender in Olaetyan is natural.  Parts of an animate being (hands,
eyes, hair, etc.) are considered animate, and of the same gender as
their owner.  (A man's hand is masculine, a woman's hand is 
feminine.)  The "animate" category is used by default.


VERBS

Conjugation of  y (to be):

uzlykh          ko~rkat         xarren          thlyngga
(imperfective)  (perfective)    (subjunctive)   (imperative)
present past    present past    present past    positive negative

ae      em      oi      a       aye     ana     o       khy yo
o"n     er      a*      o"k     o"in    o"nk    i       khy ya
zi      ongg    ya'     ez      zii     o"z     zi^     khy zi^a
y       yr      ui      u       u"      u`      u"      khy yu"a
aen     am      oin     as      ayen    ans     ayen    khy ayena
o"      ar      a*n     o"ks    o"i     o"nks   it      khy ita'
zin     engg    ya'n    es      ziin    o"s     zi^n    khy zina
yn      ur      uin     us      u"n     u`s     u"n     khy yu"na

     Future forms are made by inserting  -yr- before the ending:  
yrae,  yrem,  yroi,  yra,  yraye,  yrana,  yro,  khy yryo, etc.  This
is realized as  -yz- before  -z:   yzzi,  yzzin, etc.

Active participles:   le' (present), ic,o` (future)
Passive participles:  e' (past),     ic,e' (future)

Other verb conjugations:

     The forms of -y verbs (those ending in an unaccented  -y ending)
follow the conjugation of "to be" by simply replacing the -y ending
with the appropriate form of  y.  The forms of -y' verbs (with an 
accented  -y' ending) alter some of these endings by adding a ze'qox
['] or tev [^] accent depending on the vowel.  (The letters i, o, u,
and a* take a tev accent; all others take a ze'qox.)  Here is the
conjugation of the verb  seny' "to give" as an example:

uzlykh    uzlykh    ko~rkat   ko~rkat
present   past      present   past

sena'e    sene'm    seno'i    sena'
seno"n    sene'r    sena*     seno"k
senzi^    seno'ngg  senya'    sene'z
seny'     seny'r    senu'i    senu'
sena'en   sena'm    seno'in   sena's
seno"     sena'r    sena*n    seno"ks
senzi^n   sene'ngg  senya'n   sene's
seny'n    senu'r    senu'in   senu's

xarren    xarren    thlyngga  thlyngga
present   past      positive  negative

senaye    senana    seno      khy senyo
seno"in   seno"nk   seni      khy senya
senzi^y   seno"z    senzi^    khy senzi^a
senu"     senu`     senu"     khy senyu"a
senayen   sena'ns   senayen   khy senayena
seno"i    seno"nks  senit     khy senita'
senzi^yn  seno"s    senzi^n   khy senzina
senu"n    senu`s    senu"n    khy senyu"na

Note that the future endings are unaffected, but that the infix  -y'r-
is used instead of  -yr-:

uzlykh      uzlykh      ko~rkat     ko~rkat
future      conditional future      conditional

seny'rae    seny'rem    seny'roi    seny'ra
seny'ro"n   seny'rer    seny'ra*    seny'ro"k
seny'zzi    seny'rongg  seny'rya'   seny'rez
seny'ry     seny'ryr    seny'rui    seny'ru
seny'raen   seny'ram    seny'roin   seny'ras
seny'ro"    seny'rar    seny'ra*n   seny'ro"ks
seny'zzin   seny'rengg  seny'rya'n  seny'res
seny'ryn    seny'rur    seny'ruin   seny'rus

xarren      xarren
future      conditional

seny'raye   seny'rana
seny'ro"in  seny'ro"nk
seny'zzii   seny'ro"z
seny'ru"    seny'ru`
seny'rayen  seny'rans
seny'ro"i   seny'ro"nks
seny'zziin  seny'ro"s
seny'ru"n   seny'ru`s

     Some verb stems undergo phonological changes before certain
endings.  Many verbs with a stem ending in a sibilant, for example,
add the unaccented short vowel  e` before the ending  -zi (to avoid a
cluster that is impossible to pronounce).  As an example, here is the
conjugation of  c,y "to have", which also illustrates the rule of
spelling the sound "c," in Olaetyan [Olaetyan spelling deleted].

uzlykh   uzlykh   ko~rkat  ko~rkat
present  past     present  past

c,ae     c,em     c,oi     c,a
c,o"n    c,er     c,a*     c,o"k
c,e`zi   c,ongg   c,ya'    c,ez
c,y      c,yr     c,ui     c,u
c,aen    c,am     c,oin    c,as
c,o"     c,ar     c,a*n    c,o"ks
c,e`zin  c,engg   c,ya'n   c,es
c,yn     c,ur     c,uin    c,us

xarren   xarren   thlyngga thlyngga
present  past     positive negative

c,aye    c,ana    c,o      khy c,yo
c,o"in   c,o"nk   c,i      khy c,ya
c,e`zii  c,o"z    c,e`zi^  khy c,e`zi^a
c,u"     c,u`     c,u"     khy c,yu"a
c,ayen   c,ans    c,ayen   khy c,ayena
c,o"i    c,o"nks  c,it     khy c,ita'
c,e`ziin c,o"s    c,e`zi^n khy c,e`zina
c,u"n    c,u`s    c,u"n    khy c,yu"na

     Triple consonants are not allowed, so the stem kazz- of  (kazzy')
reduces to kaz- before endings beginning with z:   kazzi^ "you say". 
Verb stems ending in -x optionally assimilate to -z before -z- 
endings:   rexy' "to greet",  rexzi^ or  rezzi^ "you greet".  Other
verbs dissimilate an -l or -dhl before the - le' ending of the
present active participle, for example:   kaly' "to write",  kadhle'
"writing";  elakhadhly "to help",  elakhadh.le' "helping".  These
historical irregularities were preserved (and spread to new verb 
forms) because they help to distinguish the active from the passive
participle.
     The verbs ey "to sense" and oy "to see" are slightly irregular:
to avoid forms like * eem and * oongg, which are impossible, they
change the vowel of the ending to a neutral e`:  ee`m "I was
sensing", oe`ngg (or oa`ngg) "you were seeing".  Verbs with accented
-e'y and -o'y endings do not have this problem.

Use of the verb tenses:

     The present imperfective is used to indicate that something is
happening at the present time:  _kaly' ayeklak sela'n_ "he/she is
writing a letter now".  It can also indicate something that is done 
repeatedly or habitually, or something that is planned for the near
future:  _xalis kaly' ayeklak lina'n ry trytyme_ "he/she always
writes a letter once a week", _tae a Nysa atpure'_ "I am going to
Neesa tomorrow".

     The past imperfective is used to describe an action already in
progress when something else happened:  _La'ni olzy'r sela'n tina'
khangg_ "La'ni was reading when I entered the room".  It is also 
commonly used to describe things that were done continuously or
repeatedly in the past, even if these actions were completed: 
_Eskonnayed xalis serata'syr nizak ilats_ "Eskonnayed always composed
excellent music".  It also tends to be more frequently used than the
past perfective forms of the verb "to be", particularly when the
latter would be confusing:  _em a selityo ati'lh nuka_ "I was at the
theater last night" (not "a a selityo")

     The future imperfective is used for any action that will happen
in the future:  _tyrae a nreilhs atpure'_ "I will go to school
tomorrow".  The perfective form is not generally used in the future,
even if the action is expected to be completed:  _c,e'kwisae a'ndhly
olzle' taec,ya prex trytyme_ "I want to finish reading the book next
week"; _a'ndhlyra t-olzle' taec,ya prex trytyme_ "I will finish
reading that book by next week".

     The present perfective is rarely used, except in a few
traditional phrases where it expresses a meaning similar to the
subjunctive (but with a sense of completion):  _ypha xann prennaya un
xar c,yzzii serikh ftisa' yil m-adsac,uin_ "there are some dragons
who would find you if you had the right crystal"; _ko~rka'tyme xann
prennaya ano~ xyyru'in a Lyene_ "someday dragons again may live on
the Earth".  Occasionally it is used to express a completed act in
the immediate past:  _a'dinast ko a'ndhloi_ "I just finished".

     The past perfective is used for any completed action in the
past, or any past situation that has not continued into the present:
_ralez Zrishek talnaru sein_ "a hundred Zrishek fell to the ground";
_x-a'ny lez ypha' a Lyene prennaya_ "at a time in the past there were
dragons on the Earth".

     The subjunctive tenses indicate something that may or may not
happen.  They are usually used with words such as _xar_ "if",
_xinxekh_ "maybe", or _osye`ra_ "possibly".  The subjunctive present
tense is also used to express a wish:  _u" ak me Nensko_ "may Nensko
be with you".  The subjunctive future tenses are often used to
express conditional or counterfactual statements such as _xar yraye
me_ "if I were you".

     Commands are expressed by the imperative, or by a form of the
verb _wu_ with a subjunctive form of the command verb.  For example,
_kali li ayeklak_ and _u kalo"in li ayeklak_ both mean "write the
letter".

     Participles are used as adjectives, or combined with forms of
the verb _c,y_ or _y_ to form compound tenses.  When a present
passive or past active participle is needed, the past passive
participle can be used if confusion is not possible:  for example,
_xalis y seladxa me'_ "it is always done that way".  Otherwise, a
form equivalent to _le' me'_ "being done" or _c,le' me'_ "having
done" is necessary. Note the common phrase _kaz mic,e'_ "your
voice-command shall be done", used by computers and robots to
acknowledge receipt of a command.



A Nenskian Creation Myth

     A lina'n, ypha' oxe'nik;      asela'n s-ekplentu nensko.
     Ot y xyya-ne' xakhe'nik:      kh-u y ohac,, kh-u y tensko.
     Xes xa proxyrg nextaredhli    xyika ninska le' unilatya
     Xy ne'z xyli e nararedhli     sepe'an ilats y il' redhlatya.

     In the beginning, nothing existed.  Then Nensko described itself.
It is a thing made by life, not of ordinary matter, but an immense
being of energy, a living force that is everywhere.  The life-power 
of animals and plants is the theme of the music of the cosmos.

Interpretation:

A lina'n, ypha' oxe'nik;      "In the beginning [literally, at the
                              first time], nothing existed."  The use
                              of ypha' rather than the negative
                              kh-ypha' seems to imply that this
                              "nothing" was a real physical thing
                              that could be said to "exist," not just
                              the absence of matter.  This point is
                              somewhat controversial.

asela'n s-ekplentu nensko.    "Then Nensko described itself."  Nensko
                              is the major Olaetyan god, the creative
                              force responsible for the existence of
                              all things.  When Nensko "describes"
                              anything, it comes into being.

Ot y xyya-ne' xakhe'nik:      "It is a thing made by life,"  Ot is a
                              pronoun of neutral animate gender.  The
                              word xakhe'nik means "thing, object,"
                              clearly implying that Nensko is a
                              physical thing (xakhe'nik arkeizzal),
                              not just a spiritual thing (xakh
                              surine'al).  It is "made by life,"
                              which implies that its cause follows
                              itself, since life did not exist at the
                              "first time."

kh-u y ohac,, kh-u y tensko.  "not of ohac, or tensko,"  This seems
                              to mean that Nensko is not made of
                              ohac, or tensko, or by extension, of
                              any ordinary matter, but of a different
                              kind of matter.

Xes xa proxyrg nextaredhli    "but [it is] an immense being of
                              energy," Ye'skone once remarked that the
                              idea of a being that is at the same time
                              matter (xakhe'nik) and energy
                              (nextaredhli) anticipated the
                              equivalence of matter and energy
                              according to the theory of relativity by
                              over three thousand years.

xyika ninska le' unilatya     "a living force that is everywhere." 
                              The position of the adjective xyika
                              before the noun ninska emphasizes the
                              extraordinary nature of a living force
                              (sometimes translated, misleadingly, as
                              "spirit").  The word ninska is more
                              often used for forces like gravity and
                              electromagnetism.

Xy ne'z xyli e nararedhli     "The life-power of animals and plants,"
                              The unusual use of the instrumental
                              case is intended to emphasize that the
                              "life-power" is created by animals and
                              plants, not just an attribute of them.

sepe'an ilats y il redhlatya. "is the theme of the music of the
                              cosmos."  Note the unusual word order
                              (y il redhlatya y ilats sepe'an is
                              normal; in less archaic language, y
                              redhlat y ilats sepe'an).  Like most
                              uses of unusual word order, the idea
                              here is to emphasize a particular word,
                              but in this case the word is redhlatya.




______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From j.guy@trl.oz.au Sat Jun  4 07:06:21 1994
From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9406040506.AA17432@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs & lg universals
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 15:06:15 +1000 (EST)

> For example, every language, according to the universals, has a word for
> "me". 

A lot of languages have no true personal pronouns. They do not have words
for "me" but nouns, or deictics, which are used to express the meaning
"me". This is not the same thing. Take modern Japanese for instance.
"Me" is "boku" (a Chinese word meaning "servant") or "watakushi"
(a Japanese word meaning "selfishmess"). Medieval Japanese had many
more, one of them being "omae", literally "honorable in-front". If
you spoke to an inferior, the honorable one in front being you, it
meant "me". Speaking to a superior, the honorable person was of course
the person in front of you, so that in that case "omae" meant "you".
The common words for "me" in Cambodian (khn~om) and in Vietnamese
(to^'i) both mean "slave". 


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Sat Jun  4 16:12:08 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <52601.9406041412@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs & lg universals
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 94 15:12:08 +0100

viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila) wrote:

> > Chomsky asserts that all languages are basically the same, with the
> > differences between them being rather trivial. You probably find this
> > rather provocative, but - as inventors of languages in particular should
> > be aware - it is interesting to consider the ways languages could work
> > but don't.
> I've read of "language universals" in some science magazine - is this
> about the same thing?

Partly. One might distinguish 'formal' universals from 'functional'
universals. 'Functional' universals are universal because all lgs
get put to similar uses; they do the same job. I guess the universality
of 'me' is such a universal - a lg can't efficiently get by without
such a word. But formal universals (if they exist), a.k.a. Universal
Grammar are due to the nature of the innate language faculty. It's
as if human beings are linguistically like PCs, able to run a
great variety of DOS-based applications, but not Unix-based ones.

> Who knows, how will an invented language 'survive' if some of the
> universals is violated? 

The prediction wd be that you couldn't use a language that violates
Universal Grammar - the mind/brain just couldn't cope. It is a
question of particular interest to conlangers, I suppose. Is
Lojban compatible with UG? I'd love to know.

Lojban is especially interesting because it is not modelled on
natural languages. Noone has learnt it as a native tongue,
but Lojbab's kids are learning it as a second language, and
Lojbab is keeping us posted about how things turn out. It's rather
exciting to see whether they're going to creolize it.

----
And


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Sat Jun  4 16:35:24 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <27015.9406041435@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Jacques's obviatives
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 94 15:35:24 +0100

From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy)
> > The point is that syntax can't count, even though people can. 
> Syntax can't count? What does that mean? People can? Not unless
> they have been taught. Counting is not only enumerating, but
> computing. 

Our general cognitive faculties can cope with counting. But
we couldn't have a syntactic rule "insert a particle after
the seventh word of the clause". It's easy to invent a lg
that works like that, but it is not natural, & one would
not be able to speak it as a natural language, & no child
wd acquire the rule.

> > 'Seven' is not a possible component of a syntactic rule.
> What? Can singular be a component of a syntactic rule? Or
> plural? If they cannot, then what is allowed to be a component
> of a syntactic rule? Are we not entering a tautology there?
> And if they can, so can dual, trial, paucal, and plural:
> one, two, three, four to around ten, more. 

To the extent that these participate in syntactic rules,
they are mere morphosyntactic features. A word has the
feature 'trial' and certain rules could pertain to such 
features. But the connection to three-ness is irrelevant
to syntax; the link between [trial] and 'three' is at
the interface between syntax and semantics (or in
Chomskyan terms, at the conceptual-intentional interface
with LogicAL Form). As far as syntax is concerned the
[trial] feature cd be semantically vacuous, or cd
be linked to the concept 'blue', or whatever.

> > [I am inclined to agree with Chomsky's observation/claim.
> > If one tries to invent a flexible yet unabiguous syntax
> > for a conlang, one is naturally drawn to use numbering,
> > yet the result is impossible to use - it's unprocessable,
> > & you can only parse by using pen & paper, just as with
> > multiple centre embeddings (e.g. Fish cats dogs enjoy
> > chasing like to eat live in water).]
> 
> Ah!!!! Internal contradiction there! That kind of embedding
> which never occurs in real language is given as grammatical
> by Chomsky, whence the theory of competence versus performance.
> If we accept such sentences as grammatical, i.e. as part of
> language, we have no basis for refusing that other type, even
> though the result is impossible to use. That touches the very
> bone of contention, the reason for my Chomsky-bashing. 

We say that the multiple embeddings are generated by the
grammar because the grammar generates relative clauses
and because rules are typically recursive. The theory
of generative grammar doesn't need to rule out multiple
embeddings, because a theory of processing can (one trusts)
do it. You are probably right that if somehow the grammar
generated sentences such that particles follow the
seventh word of the clause we wdn't be able to process
or compute this, but in fact there is no way to generate
such sentences in the first place, given the machinery
assumed by theories of generative grammar.

----
And



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE Sun Jun  5 17:41:32 1994
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 1994 16:41:32 +0100
From: KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.kph.Uni-Mainz.DE
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs & lg universals
To: conlang@diku.dk
Message-Id: <01HD6TVAR0TE936VCB@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE>

Maybe there was some time, when language universals where regarded as some 
kinds of constraints our brain puts on language. However, most, if not all,
stated universals I have heard of are not of that kind. They are described 
better as ,,sinks'' of language evolution: I.e. you are able to construct a 
language violating the given universal and to learn it, however, in course 
of language evolution it would move to the universal; and there is no 
evolutionary way away from the state where the universal holds.

Some authors have argued, that language evolution tended towards an 
isolating language, and isolating languages therefore represent the highest 
state of language evolution. However, this argument must be wrong, because 
then all languages of the world _must_ be isolating and isolationism would 
be an universal. Incidentally, these authors were 
speaking an isolating language (english).

It might be well, that lojban (and even loglan) violate some language 
universals, but are still learnable, even as a first language. Try and 
imagine a natural evolution of all the features of lojban!

Yours, J"org Knappen.


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From BobMichael@aol.com Sun Jun  5 16:27:28 1994
From: BobMichael@aol.com
Sender: "BobMichael" 
Message-Id: <9406052027.tn860124@aol.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 94 20:27:28 EDT
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs & lg universals

J"org Knappen says:
<From C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk Mon Jun  6 12:14:35 1994
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 11:14:35 +0100
Message-Id: <23115.199406061014@discovery.brad.ac.uk>
From: Colin Fine 
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Fictional languages: phonetics, 'me', Babel-17

Viznut continues our exchange on phonetic complexity:
++>
I agree, but an universal rule really is that the pronounciation of any
language gets easier (in the terms of getting understood and not
confused). If the '-kgo' plural is used frequently enough and there's no
risk of confusion, the other of the two clusiles will disappear or the
pronounciation get easier some other way. (If that kind of cluster is
against the phonetic rules of a language, the process will be extremly
rapid... ;)
>++

In the sense that processes of phonetic change such as assimilation, 
dissimilation, syncope, epenthesis, metathesis, raising, lowering, 
palatalisation, vowel-fracture etc.  demonstrably occur in languages 
over the course of time one has to assume that in a sense 'the 
pronunciation ... gets easier; and furthermore some of these 
processes seem to have occurred more frequently than others, 
and so in some universal sense these correspond to 'easier'. However, 
we fall into a trap if we assume that we know what constitutes 'easy' 
universally. To borrow a point somebody just made about language 
typology, if some particular kind of configuration were universally 
'more difficult', then you wouldn't find it. Unfortunately for this 
argument, if you go looking round the languages of the world you 
find the most amazing (to Europeans) collections of phonetics. 
I happen to find the sequence 'aspirated stop - unaspirated stop' 
extremely difficult to produce (eg Sanskrit 'dekhta') and might 
naively assume that such a collocation would not long survive. 
Unfortunately, it did survive (and lest you think that Sanskrit 
was a special case, being a literary conlang, such sequences 
occur in modern Georgian, where there is also a third type of 
stop: glottalised).

There must be limits to the sound-sequences that humans can 
utter, but it is risky to assert what they are on the basis of a 
small sample.

Viznut's argument contains a non-sequitur: he explains 'easier' as 
'in the terms of getting understood and not confused',
 but then argues the specific case in terms of ease of production. 
These are two very different areas.

He continues:
++>
 A universal fact is that, for example, pronouncing "kg" requires more
work from the phonetic organs than pronouncing "nt". But the difficulty
in pronouncing them depends on how the speaker has got used to it.
>+++
I don't accept this as fact. /kg/ requires a (probably extended) stop, 
with the vocal cords activated part way through - for everything 
above the larynx, there is no more work than /k/ (or at least than 
/kk/). /nt/ requires a movement of the velum to open and then close 
the nasal passage, synchronised with the cessation of voice for 
the unvoiced plosive.

Here we see subjective judgments elevated to 'universal fact'.

/kg/ is not common in English, but it occurs - consider 'oak-gall',
'black gum'. It does not show any tendency to change into anything 
else (it *might* if the sequence were more common, but I don't think 
you can assume that it necessarily would.) (I think 'blackguard' 
/blagard/ is a folk-etymology, not a case in point).

On universals, Viznut says:
++++>
 For example, every language, according to the universals, has a word for
"me". This is, after all, very reasonable. People _could_ refer to
themselves using their name instead of a first-person pronoun, but there
are some problems. Let's think about a discussion in such language:
      Bub: Bub is going to leave.
      Qob: Who is Bub?
      Bub: ....
The only way Bub would be able to answer now, is sign language, because
there is no word for "me". To avoid confusion, the name, for example,
could be pronounced differently when it is referring to the speaker:
      Bub: Bub` is going to leave.
But there we are again: we have a way to distinguish "me" from "he" or
"she".
>++++
Jacques Guy has already criticised this claim as a matter of fact. I want 
to point out the glottocentrism in the claim. Can you imagine a language 
lacking the distinction of 'questa' and 'quella' (Italian I think - I'm a bit 
hazy on Italian), 'sore' and 'are' (Japanese), 'ta' and 'tu' (Lojban)? Let's 
think about a discussion in such a language:

	Bub: I want that one.
	Qob: Which one?
	Bub: That one
	Qob: That one?
	Bub: No, not that one, that one!
The only way Bub could make him/herself clear now is 'sign language' 
('pointing' to you and me) because the language (which we'll call 
'English') has no word for 'are' as opposed to 'sore'!
[In fact, this final claim is false, because English does have linguistic 
ways to convey the difference - such as 'that one over there'. But 
Viznut's claim is equally false, because a language can have linguistic 
ways of designating the speaker short of personal pronouns, such as 
'the unworthy one who has the honour of addressing the exalted']

Viznut goes on to say:
+++>
This seems to be caused by universal human psychology: we've got a need
for self-identity and individuality, so this feature appears in all
languages.
>+++
I dispute this as well. The construction of the 'individual' is distinctly 
in the European rationalist-liberal tradition. I am not saying that other 
cultures do not have a concept of individuals, but how the concept 
relates to other concepts such as 'community' is very variable - 
you are again making universal claims (in this case about psychology) 
from a narrow basis

One final point about a language without 'me' (and getting back to 
fictional languages): are people familiar with Delany's "Babel-17" 
a novel about a language which lacked any concept of 'I'? Delany is 
an engaging fraud, who has the knack, like Frank Herbert, of making 
it look as if he is talking high-grade sense when he's actually bullshitting 
(there's a pseudo-linguistic tour-de-force in Babel-17 when somebody 
realises how to escape from a physical restraint just by naming it 
properly - nominalism with a vengeance!), and the consequences to 
people who learn to think in Babel-17 are preposterous. But it was 
an interesting idea.

	Colin Fine


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Mon Jun  6 18:10:37 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Re: Fictional languages: phonetics, 'me', Babel-17
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 18:10:37 GMT
Message-Id: 

In article  Colin Fine  writes:

>There must be limits to the sound-sequences that humans can 
>utter, but it is risky to assert what they are on the basis of a 
>small sample.

In my invented language Deve'rrin, there are words with consonant
clusters that are "difficult" for English-speakers, for example,
in the words "mna*renm" and "smnitsy".  After a lot of practice I
can pronounce these almost as well as a "native" speaker, but I
still have problems with "isv". The combination of a voiceless
fricative followed by a voiced fricative at the end of the word
is not one that I've seen in any other language, either. (Please
send counterexamples if you know of any.)  In isolation, I
pronounce "isv" as "isf", but in the inflected forms "isvitiz"
and "isvrei" the "v" gets its correct value.

The Nikta language is one that I created to be extremely
difficult to pronounce.  (It is the language of an alien
species.)  It has combinations of clicks and glottalized stops
that, even after much practice, are very hard to get right.



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Tue Jun  7 00:21:45 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9406061821.AA25114@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: Something about Jurs language
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 21:21:45 +0300 (EET DST)

I've been inventing own languages for several years, a language named
"Jurs" [yoors] being one of them. What is notable in it is that it's the
language that has gained most place in my subconsciousness; I actually
"know" it, as I know foreign languages. Jurs is an old language and many
languages have come and gone after it. But with them I've never reached
something I reached with Jurs.

I created Jurs for a scifi world of my own (called Zurs [choors]) when I
was about twelve years old, and I worked on it actively till I was
fourteen or so. The technique which I used was the one I would now call
"subconscious creation technique" and as far as I can remember, Jurs was
the last language I created using this technique. In the first stages of
creation, I just wrote something and gave it meaning. I never actually
made up all kinds of mechanical rules for grammar and vocabulary - I
just let the language grow in the "natural way".

Later, though, I disbanded the "subsconscious creation technique", but
I'm trying to return to it in a more 'controlled' way. Perhaps that'll
be the secret of inventing languages that really work. The other element
is that I need a permanent world for my language...

There is also a text file analysis of Jurs language available in
English: it contains pronounciation rules, sample texts, some
vocabulary, and the syntax and grammar I've analyzed afterwards. If
you're interested, please mail me to get it.


                        - VOCABULARY -

I had some kind of pattern that I used to make up the words. It
indicated the way that the words should sound like: estimudasti,
emestimudal, etc.

Further, the grammar and the vocabulary stabilized. The new words were
not created with the old pattern. I made lots of compound words. The new
words were partly borrowed from other languages, such as 'i' and 'u'
(from English I and you). I also had Finnish borrowings, e.g. 'ma' and
'gu' from Finnish 'maa' and 'kuu' (Earth and Moon). I think it was some
kind of analogy; these words meant good and bad. I tried to hide the
most 'transparent' borrowings: 'ma' and 'gu' turned into 'ezma' and
'ezgu'. I also tried to hide 'lus' (from 'plus') by turning it into
'los' in my vocabulary, but I had got too used to the old version...

The other part of the words was created onomathopoetically, such as
"tuit" (= off, from, out of) that sounds like something is going away.
Or "dik" (originally meaning time) that sounds like clock's ticking.
There are also some words of which I can't tell the origin, e.g. "gis"
(= work, to work), "o'" (= called, named).

Tanking hundreds or thousands words into the active vocabulary would
have been too hard for me. I had small active vocabulary containing
"root words". I mixed them together into compound words, or put suffixes
or prefixes into them to change the meaning. Some of these inventions
became too "clumsy" for me and I tried to hide their origins. The word
for holiday, for example, was put up from "al" and "gis" into "algis",
"not-work". I turned it into "algest" or something like that. There was
still a word "algis" but it was an adjective that was used when
referring to devices that didn't work.

Some of the words were in very common use and they gathered lots of
meanings. "Kni" for example, had adjective meanings for 'hard' and
'united', noun meanings for 'diamond', 'uniting', and 'joining', verb
meanings for 'to join', 'to unite', 'to keep', 'to hold',  and
prepositional meaning for 'together'. Many of the meanings of the words
of this kind were splitted into two separate words. E.g. "gis" had
originally verb meanings 'to do', 'to work' or 'to make'. I created a
new word, "gits" that took the meaning 'to make' from the original
"gis".

All of these words were read as Finnish words with a couple of
expections. I haven't studied Jurs phonology very much, but it seems
that it's a funny combination of "Finnish" and "foreign" elements.
The whole language, for example, doesn't use doubled letters. All the
sounds are similarly long or short (except 'i' and 'u' in singular),
when in Finnish the length of vowels and consonants is very important
thing. Most of the words of Jurs end in consonant when in Finnish they
tend to end in vowel. In addition of Finnish sounds I used some
"strange" sounds that don't appear in normal Finnish words, such as b,
g, f or z. But, on the other hand, there were not very complex consonant
clusters in Jurs; most of the ones I used in Jurs appear both in Finnish
and English. If I had used "pure Finnish" clusters such as 'ht' or 'lp',
the language would not have been as 'foreign' as I wanted it to be.


                        - GRAMMAR -

Because of the subconscious technique I used in the creation process,
the grammar of Jurs appeared during writing texts in it. The grammar was
closer to the one of English than to the one of Finnish; creating
complex morphology, such as in Finnish, would have required very much
work with grammar or so. While creation, I actually "threw words in
line" using standard Finnish word order and turning locative cases into
preposition+mainword combinations. There was also very much interference
from my first foreign language, English. I e.g. borrowed almost every
suffix from English: plural was -se or -es and past tense suffix was
-set. The genitive was also -se as in plural for some time, but I
changed it to -ste to avoid confusion. Later, Jurs grammar become more
unique and complex.

Jurs had very few irregularities and its basic syntax/grammar was very
simple in every aspect: there was no predicate suffix in the verbs, no
object/subject suffixes in the nouns, etc. Every word could be used as
a noun, a verb, an adjective, even as an preposition - wherever the
usage seemed "suitable". There are no actual articles in Jurs language
(it's because Finnish lacks them - I still have problems with articles
in English!). Perhaps the toughest thing in the whole language was
understanding the sentences... ;)

Analyzing the structure of the language afterwards, though, has been
interesting and I actually have found new grammatical rules all the time
during the analysis.

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi
  77700 Rautalampi
  Finland




______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From j.guy@trl.oz.au Wed Jun  8 20:42:14 1994
From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy)
Message-Id: <9406080042.AA00915@medici.trl.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs & lg universals (Logical Language Group
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 10:42:14 +1000 (EST)

> 
A.Kotsikonas;
> Isn't it a rather arbitrary assumption that the underlying structure is always 
> SVO?  For every non-SVO language, you would have to assume the existence of a 
> rule that automatically transforms this into SOV, or VSO, or whatever the 
> particular language's structure happens to be.  How would one test this 
> hypothesis?  I could just as easily argue that the underlying form of English 
> is VSO, which is then transformed to SVO.

Same here.

> Unless there is other evidence to the contrary, I prefer assuming that the VSO 
> languages actually have a VSO underlying structure.

No. This amounts to the same mistake: the confusion of signifie' and
signifiant, and winds back the state of linguistics a good hundred
years, before Saussure. The confusion of signifie' and signifiant
is pervasive in generative theory. We had a bit recently on
recursiveness in language, and this gave me some food for thought.
It is in fact another instance of confusion (I am putting together
a very short paper on this which I will send off to... I do not
think I should bother with Language, except to collect a rejection
slip). It goes about like this:

Consider this grammar:

program ::= begin  end.
statement list ::= |
statement ::= ;
variable ::= a|b|c
operator ::= |
assignment ::= :=
operator ::= or|and
constant ::= true|false

This grammar generates stuff like this:

begin  a:=true; b:=a; c:=a or b; a:=b and true; 
       (* and so on, ad nauseam *)
end.

This (primitive, to say the least) computer language is not 
recursive. But its description is. Recursiveness is a property
of the Backus-Naur form, not of what is describable in BNF.

Here is the fallacy: because the description uses recursive
procedures, what it describes uses recursive procedures.
Because "red" is made up of three letters, the colour red
which it describes is made up of three letters. 

Confusion of the signifiant ("red") with the signifie'
(the colour red). Deep structure, affix-hopping, in fact
the whole of generative theory stems from this confusion.
I wrote that this wound the clock back 100 years before
Saussure? Wrong. It winds in back 700 years, before Roger
Bacon.

Now Lojbab writes:

>And's comments give one reason why I am skeptical of much modern linguistic
>theory.  What does it mean to say that every language has a phoneme /a/?
>The exact phones that correspond to each phoneme in a language will differ
>from language to language.  Only in languages that can be historically related
>do I see that it is implicitly appropriate to say that particular phonemes
>in different languages are 'related', and even then are not 'the same'.

>Once you get to this point, then, you realize that phonemes are a mental
						   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>Construct and the labels for them are arbitrary.  What phoneme in Chinese
 ^^^^^^^^^
>is /a/, and why is it labelled /a/ and not something else?


Precisely! Here we have a confusion between a phoneme and its realizations.
A phoneme is a *set* of conditionally-defined phones. The confusion here
is between sets and their members. If "every language has a phoneme /a/"
is to mean anything at all you must give the membership of set A. This
assertion then collapses. To keep it true, either you must considerable
the membership rules, or you must say "every language has a phoneme, which
we call /a/, at least one member of which is the phone [a]". This is false
of Hungarian, wich has only [a:] (long [a]). Back to the drawing board 
then: "every language has a phoneme, which we call /a/, at least one
member of which is the phone [a], or [a:], or...". This leads nowhere and
is no basis for any linguistic theory nor methodology.


>I am also skeptical of course of anything that reaches the conclusion that
>SVO is universal, as much as that all languages are isolating, for the reason
>that the linguists who came up with the theory are generally speakers of
>such a language.

Indeed. You will have notice that S is *always* interpreted as NP+VP. This
is none but the influence of traditional English grammar which analyzes
the sentence as Subject+Predicate. Nothing like what I was taught in
French primary school (yes, we were taught parsing; it was called "analyse
logique"). We were taught that the verb is the centre, the pivot, the
linchpin of the sentence, around which revolve subject, direct object,
indirect object, circumstancal complements, all on the same "level".
The notion of "order" did not come into that. If it had, I expect it
would have been shattered as soon as we were introduced to Latin.
Deep-structure SVO, VOS, whatever, is not only an effect of confusing
lexemes with their grammatical categories and the notions which they
represent, but also an effect of .. what shall I call this? glotto-
centrism is too learned a word for what, ultimately, is ignorance
and linguistic blindness. More Chomsky-bashing I suppose this will
be called. So? "On ne doit e'reinter que les suppo^ts de l'erreur"
and Chomsky is one.



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Thu Jun  9 00:32:02 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9406081832.AA25475@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: Fictional lgs: phonetics, universals etc.
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 21:32:02 +0300 (EET DST)

Quoting Colin Fine  ....

> ++>
> I agree, but an universal rule really is that the pronounciation of any
> language gets easier (in the terms of getting understood and not
> confused). If the '-kgo' plural is used frequently enough and there's no
> risk of confusion, the other of the two clusiles will disappear or the
> pronounciation get easier some other way. (If that kind of cluster is
> against the phonetic rules of a language, the process will be extremly
> rapid... ;)
> >++
> In the sense that processes of phonetic change such as assimilation,
> dissimilation, syncope, epenthesis, metathesis, raising, lowering,
> palatalisation, vowel-fracture etc.  demonstrably occur in languages
> over the course of time one has to assume that in a sense 'the
> pronunciation ... gets easier; and furthermore some of these
> processes seem to have occurred more frequently than others,
> and so in some universal sense these correspond to 'easier'.
....
> Viznut's argument contains a non-sequitur: he explains 'easier' as
> 'in the terms of getting understood and not confused',
>  but then argues the specific case in terms of ease of production.
> These are two very different areas.

Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough. "Easy" means that a word
can be pronounced with no much effort from the organs needed in speech.
I would claim that it's quite universal that pronouncing "nah" is far
'easier' than pronouncing "sprlechthklobm".
(please don't mess this up with different phoneme varieties in different
languages or something like that - the point here is most important..)
But if all words in a language were like "nah", its users would mix up
the words, without getting understood. But if a word such as
"sprlechthklobm" was used frequently enough, its pronounciation would
become 'easier' (probably, at least by getting shorter). And a suffix
such as 'kgo' would also become 'easier' to pronounce if it just was
used frequently enough. This is what I meant.

> ++>
>  A universal fact is that, for example, pronouncing "kg" requires more
> work from the phonetic organs than pronouncing "nt". But the difficulty
> in pronouncing them depends on how the speaker has got used to it.
> >+++
> I don't accept this as fact. /kg/ requires a (probably extended) stop,
> with the vocal cords activated part way through - for everything
> above the larynx, there is no more work than /k/ (or at least than
> /kk/).
> /nt/ requires a movement of the velum to open and then close
> the nasal passage, synchronised with the cessation of voice for
> the unvoiced plosive.

It seems that we're talking about different things... I was talking
about "kg" that explodes twice (is that correct term?). Like the ck-g
combination that occurs when pronouncing "black" and "guard" as separate
words but without pause between them. That consonant cluster requires
more work from the organs than simple cluster of nasal and corresponding
clusile (= plosal in English?) such as /nt/ or /nd/, doesn't it?

> Jacques Guy has already criticised this claim as a matter of fact. I want
> to point out the glottocentrism in the claim. Can you imagine a language
> lacking the distinction of 'questa' and 'quella' (Italian I think - I'm a bit
> hazy on Italian), 'sore' and 'are' (Japanese), 'ta' and 'tu' (Lojban)? Let's
> think about a discussion in such a language:
...
> The only way Bub could make him/herself clear now is 'sign language'
> ('pointing' to you and me) because the language (which we'll call
> 'English') has no word for 'are' as opposed to 'sore'!
> [In fact, this final claim is false, because English does have linguistic
> ways to convey the difference - such as 'that one over there'. But
> Viznut's claim is equally false, because a language can have linguistic
> ways of designating the speaker short of personal pronouns, such as
> 'the unworthy one who has the honour of addressing the exalted']

You're right.
But if there wasn't any way to communicate the idea of "me" using words,
it would be a little bit difficult to use sign language when having
hands full of work, or talking on a phone, wouldn't it?

Actually, we wouldn't need any names for different objects. We could
just point to them and say "that one"... ;)

> Viznut goes on to say:
> +++>
> This seems to be caused by universal human psychology: we've got a need
> for self-identity and individuality, so this feature appears in all
> languages.
> >+++

> I dispute this as well. The construction of the 'individual' is distinctly
> in the European rationalist-liberal tradition. I am not saying that other
> cultures do not have a concept of individuals, but how the concept
> relates to other concepts such as 'community' is very variable -
> you are again making universal claims (in this case about psychology)
> from a narrow basis

I'm again afraid of that we're not talking about exactly same thing. Let
us put it like this: when someone is using language, there's an
_individual_ human speaking out something that is production of his/her
own brain - and that is something that occurres also outside the range
of European culture, perhaps universally in all cultures:
      Bub: Cats are black.
      Zab: Cats are white.
      Qob: Who said that cats are black?
      Zab: Bub did.
Communication works like this (based on individual speakers) until there
is some way of communication (telepathics?) that has no limit of
individual minds. But if this kind of communication was developed, who
would need something like language anyway?

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi
  77700 Rautalampi
  Finland

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Wed Jun  8 18:39:17 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs & lg universals (Logical Language Group
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 18:39:17 GMT
Message-Id: 

In article  j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) writes:
>> 
>> Unless there is other evidence to the contrary, I prefer assuming that 
>> the VSO languages actually have a VSO underlying structure.
>> 
>No. This amounts to the same mistake: the confusion of signifie' and
>signifiant, and winds back the state of linguistics a good hundred
>years, before Saussure.

There is some confusion as to what I meant here.  Perhaps if I
put it in terms of computer languages, with specific examples,
you can see what I mean.  Let's assume that all computer
languages have an underlying structure that is postfix (such as
RPN).  We can invent whatever transformational rules we wish in
order to convert this hidden, "underlying" form (which is never
seen) to the "surface" form (which is, in fact, seen).  But if
someone were to invent such a grammar for Pascal, they would be
flunked out of class.  Pascal is not a postfix language, and it
never will be.  The fact that Pascal was a French mathematician,
or that "Pascal" has six letters, or any such thing, is not
relevant to the actual structure of the grammar.  Forth, on the
other hand, IS a postfix language, so it is perfectly reasonable
to construct a postfix grammar for it.

When I say that I believe "VSO languages actually have a VSO
underlying structure", that is actually a generalization, a
shorthand for saying "I believe that when a native speaker of
Irish says 'Olann an garsun an bainne' they don't have an
'underlying' representation of 'an garsun olann an bainne' which
is then transformed into the 'surface' manifestation", and
thousands of similar statements.  I find the "stratificational"
school of syntax more to my taste than the "transformational".



*--------------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Herman Miller             |   "For a successful technology, reality must |
| (hmiller@origin.ea.com)   |   take precedence over public relations, for |
| (thryomanes@aol.com)      |   Nature cannot be fooled." - R. P. Feynman  |
*--------No animals were harmed in the preparation of this message.--------*


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Thu Jun  9 00:40:24 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <40649.9406082240@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs & lg universals
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 23:40:24 +0100

Lojbab avers:
> And's comments give one reason why I am skeptical of much 
> modern linguistic theory.  What does it mean to say that 
> every language has a phoneme /a/? 

For the sake of poor unbeloved modern linguistic theory I'll
try to explain.

> The exact phones that correspond to each phoneme in a 
> language will differ from language to language.
> Once you get to this point, then, you realize that phonemes 
> are a mental construct and the labels for them are 
> arbitrary.

True.

Jacques concurs:
> Precisely! Here we have a confusion between a phoneme and 
> its realizations. 

Who is confused?

> A phoneme is a *set* of conditionally- defined phones. The 
> confusion here is between sets and their members. If "every 
> language has a phoneme /a/" is to mean anything at all you 
> must give the membership of set A. 

Not necessarily. You can instead state conditions on 
membership. One way of interpreting my conjectural universal
is that every language possesses a low/nonlow contrast. The 
lowest phone (e.g. [a]) used for the lg wd definitely belong 
to this category, and the highest phone (e.g. [i]) definitely
wouldn't.

One might consider as an analogue certain cultural universals:
every culture has concepts of Incest, Siblinghood, Motherhood,
and so on, and though they many vary somewhat from culture to
culture, the various versions of these concepts still have 
enough in common for us to say their is some universal 
cultural core to these concepts.

From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
> Isn't it a rather arbitrary assumption that the underlying 
> structure is always SVO?  For every non-SVO language, you 
> would have to assume the existence of a rule that 
> automatically transforms this into SOV, or VSO, or whatever 
> the particular language's structure happens to be.  How 
> would one test this hypothesis?  I could just as easily 
> argue that the underlying form of English is VSO, which is 
> then transformed to SVO.

As I tried to explain, in all languages clause structure at
minimum involves derivation from SVO to SOV (according to P&P 
theory), so if there is a bias it is not exclusively to SVO.
I don't know enough of the details to say how VSO (or OSV,
OVS or VOS) derive, but it would certainlt be from general
principles rather than specific rules - that would be contrary
to the spirit (and the letter) of the theory. The theory is 
sufficiently elaborated for the SVO to not be stipulated  it 
falls out from other principles (i.e. it is NOT arbitrary): S 
originates as aunt (specifier) of V, and O originates as 
sister (complement) of V; linear order with respect to X is 
the only way of distinguishing aunt/specifier of X from 
sister/complement of X, so the only underlying options are SVO 
or OVS. Perhaps OVS is a parametric option - I don't know the 
theory well enough.

I don't know how to test the hypothesis. Herman certainly 
could argue that English is VSO transforming into SVO, but
could he make this case for all languages, with the barest
minimum of stipulated derivational devices? That is the goal
of Principles & Parameters theory.

I don't believe any of this either, but I do have a lot of
respect for it.

From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
> Of course, the reverse process would also have to exist.  
> When parsing a sentence, it would have to be converted back 
> to an underlying form.

Chomsky is extremely vague about whether 'derivation' is the
same as production. I don't know anyone who is sure what his
position on this is. At any rate, it certainly isn't being
claimed explicitly that for parsing/comprehension you run
the system backwards.

> Unless there is other evidence to the contrary, I prefer 
> assuming that the VSO languages actually have a VSO 
> underlying structure.

Me too.

From: j.guy@trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy)
> No. This amounts to the same mistake: the confusion of 
> signifie' and signifiant, and winds back the state of 
> linguistics a good hundred years, before Saussure. The 
> confusion of signifie' and signifiant is pervasive in 
> generative theory. 
> Here is the fallacy: because the description uses recursive
> procedures, what it describes uses recursive procedures.
> Deep structure, affix-hopping, in fact
> the whole of generative theory stems from this confusion.

This misunderstands generative grammar. The claim that
grammar uses recursion is not made because the metalanguage
uses recursion; rather the claim is made that grammar uses
recursion and then a metalanguage that reflects this is
chosen.

> Indeed. You will have notice that S is *always* interpreted 
> as NP+VP. This is none but the influence of traditional 
> English grammar which analyzes the sentence as 
> Subject+Predicate. Nothing like what I was taught in French 
> primary school (yes, we were taught parsing; it was called 
> "analyse logique"). We were taught that the verb is the 
> centre, the pivot, the linchpin of the sentence, around 
> which revolve subject, direct object, indirect object, 
> circumstancal complements, all on the same "level".

I believe you are right about the historical origins of these
opposed analytical systems. But it would be wrong (fallacious)
to argue that because you discover the puerile origins of the
theory it must therefore be wrong.

> Deep-structure SVO, VOS, whatever, is not only an effect of 
> confusing lexemes with their grammatical categories and the 
> notions which they represent, 

What does this mean? Which grammatical categories are confused
with lexemes? And which notions that what represents gets
confused with what?

> but also an effect of .. what 
> shall I call this? glotto-centrism is too learned a word for 
> what, ultimately, is ignorance and linguistic blindness. 

We all of us are largely ignorant about how language works.

Remembering that this is Conlang List, I reiterate my view
that it is interesting to endeavour to ascertain whether
an invented language is compatible with theories of natural
language. If they're not compatible, but they turned out
to be as usable as natural languages, this should be of
much interest to linguistic theory.

---
And

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk Thu Jun  9 12:16:13 1994
From: C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 11:16:03 BST
Message-Id: <4574.9406091016@ccw305.brad.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs: phonetics, universals etc.


Viznut continues our exchange
 
> Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough. "Easy" means that a word
> can be pronounced with no much effort from the organs needed in speech.
> I would claim that it's quite universal that pronouncing "nah" is far
> 'easier' than pronouncing "sprlechthklobm".
> (please don't mess this up with different phoneme varieties in different
> languages or something like that - the point here is most important..)
> But if all words in a language were like "nah", its users would mix up
> the words, without getting understood. But if a word such as
> "sprlechthklobm" was used frequently enough, its pronounciation would
> become 'easier' (probably, at least by getting shorter). And a suffix
> such as 'kgo' would also become 'easier' to pronounce if it just was
> used frequently enough. This is what I meant.

It is obvious that all (or most) languages have a scale of 'easier'. It
is also obvious that there are large areas of agreement on these scales -
to take your example, I agree that it is universal that 'nah' is easier
than 'sprlechthklobm'. I also agree that the process of language change
usually increases the 'ease', as perceived by speakers of that language.
What I urge caution about is in assuming that we know in an absolute 
sense which patterns will be reduced or changed. 

Consider the sequence -lm in English.
In words like 'calm' and 'palm' Americans that I have heard generally
pronounce the 'l': /kalm/, whereas in England we do not: /ka:m/. On the
other hand, in 'film' we do pronounce the l: /film/ but in Ireland
and some parts of Scotland, they insert an epenthetic vowel: /fil@m/.
To me, /a:m/ seems easier than /alm/, but /ilm/ seems easier than /il@m/.

I dispute your bald assertion "would become easier to pronounce" - the
most I would allow is "would be likely to".

> It seems that we're talking about different things... I was talking
> about "kg" that explodes twice (is that correct term?). Like the ck-g
> combination that occurs when pronouncing "black" and "guard" as separate
> words but without pause between them. That consonant cluster requires
> more work from the organs than simple cluster of nasal and corresponding
> clusile (= plosal in English?) such as /nt/ or /nd/, doesn't it?

Fair enough, I didn't think of that possibility. Yes, such a combination
does take more work from the organs. My interpretation of 'easier' was
at work when I interpreted /kg/ as a single plosion. (The term we use is
'plosive' by the way).
But note (as I have mentioned recently somewhere - was it in my last message?)
Sanskrit forms such as 'dekhta' 'likhta', which I have always assumed must
be double plosive in order to be able to aspirate the first one.

> You're right.
> But if there wasn't any way to communicate the idea of "me" using words,
> it would be a little bit difficult to use sign language when having
> hands full of work, or talking on a phone, wouldn't it?
> 
> Actually, we wouldn't need any names for different objects. We could
> just point to them and say "that one"... ;)
> 

It probably is the case in fact that all languages have ways of designating
the speaker. But they do not necessarily get used the same amount in 
different languages. In Japanese (already discussed by Jacques), the 
fact is that many sentences lack an expressed subject.

> > Viznut goes on to say:
> > +++>
> > This seems to be caused by universal human psychology: we've got a need
> > for self-identity and individuality, so this feature appears in all
> > languages.
> > >+++
> 
> > I dispute this as well. The construction of the 'individual' is distinctly
> > in the European rationalist-liberal tradition. I am not saying that other
> > cultures do not have a concept of individuals, but how the concept
> > relates to other concepts such as 'community' is very variable -
> > you are again making universal claims (in this case about psychology)
> > from a narrow basis
> 
> I'm again afraid of that we're not talking about exactly same thing. Let
> us put it like this: when someone is using language, there's an
> _individual_ human speaking out something that is production of his/her
> own brain - and that is something that occurres also outside the range
> of European culture, perhaps universally in all cultures:
>       Bub: Cats are black.
>       Zab: Cats are white.
>       Qob: Who said that cats are black?
>       Zab: Bub did.
> Communication works like this (based on individual speakers) until there
> is some way of communication (telepathics?) that has no limit of
> individual minds. But if this kind of communication was developed, who
> would need something like language anyway?
> 
But we can at least imagine a people for whom the idea of the individual
is so slight that this kind of question could not arise - that "Who said that
cats are black" is as meaningless a question as "Which of the water did they
swim in?"

	Colin Fine

______________________________________________________________________
 
  
 
>From lojbab@access.digex.net Thu Jun  9 06:47:18 1994
From: Logical Language Group 
Message-Id: <199406091447.AA07241@access2.digex.net>
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs: phonetics, universals etc.
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 10:47:18 -0400 (ADT)
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group)

Colin Fine writes:

> Consider the sequence -lm in English.
> In words like 'calm' and 'palm' Americans that I have heard generally
> pronounce the 'l': /kalm/, whereas in England we do not: /ka:m/.

Really?  I have always said /ka:m/, and my dictionary (not a very good one,
alas) lists it as the only usual pronunciation.  Ditto for /pa:m/.

> On the
> other hand, in 'film' we do pronounce the l: /film/ but in Ireland
> and some parts of Scotland, they insert an epenthetic vowel: /fil@m/.

I suppose you mean /fIlm/ and /fIl@m/.

[deleted]

> But we can at least imagine a people for whom the idea of the individual
> is so slight that this kind of question could not arise - that "Who said that
> cats are black" is as meaningless a question as "Which of the water did they
> swim in?"

This is very hard for me to believe.  To shift the question, can you believe
in a culture in which the question "Who ate the meat?" is as meaningless as
"Which cloud just passed overhead?"  One cloud is the same as another, for
ordinary purposes; but it is not all one whether Bub ate the meat or Zab
ate the meat -- certainly not to Bub and Zab.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account  for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk Thu Jun  9 18:35:23 1994
From: C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 17:33:10 BST
Message-Id: <6153.9406091633@ccw305.brad.ac.uk>
To: LOJBAN@CUVMB.EARN, conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Apology - misdirected message

.u'u mi puzi srera mrilu fu le lojbo samymriste .enoi le rutni bangu
samymriste .i ko e'o fraxu mi doi se cfipu .i mi minra te mrilu gi'ebabo
krefu je drani mrilu vau le notci

	mi'e kolin fain

I've just accidentallysent a message to lojban list instead of Conlang.
Apologies to those confused by it. Once I get it back from the list,
I'll repost it to Conlang

	Colin Fine

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Thu Jun  9 17:50:14 1994
To: conlang@diku.dk
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Re: Fictional lgs: phonetics, universals etc.
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 17:50:14 GMT
Message-Id: 

>Really?  I have always said /ka:m/, and my dictionary (not a very good one,
>alas) lists it as the only usual pronunciation.  Ditto for /pa:m/.

I've always been a little curious about this word, since I pronounce it with 
the same vowel that I use in the word "call".  This contrasts with the vowel 
in "bomb".  I would write these in phonemic transcription as /kom/, /bam/.  I 
even have a minimal pair between "calm" /kom/ and "COM" /kam/ (as in .COM 
files or COM1, COM2, COM3 ports on the PC).  I will pronounce the l in careful 
pronunciation, but I think this is the influence of spelling.  I think the 
/ka:m/ /pa:m/ pronunciations are common in New England dialects, but I'm not 
sure how widespread they are.

>> On the
>> other hand, in 'film' we do pronounce the l: /film/ but in Ireland
>> and some parts of Scotland, they insert an epenthetic vowel: /fil@m/.

>I suppose you mean /fIlm/ and /fIl@m/.

I've seen both kinds of phonemic transcriptions.  Some use /i/ and /iy/, 
others use /I/ and /i/, or even /I/ and /i:/.  I suppose the @ is a 
representation of schwa.  Is there a standard for representing IPA in ASCII, 
or is this an informal thing that grew up on the conlang group?


*--------------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Herman Miller             |   "For a successful technology, reality must |
| (hmiller@origin.ea.com)   |   take precedence over public relations, for |
| (thryomanes@aol.com)      |   Nature cannot be fooled." - R. P. Feynman  |
*--------No animals were harmed in the preparation of this message.--------*


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From thorinn@diku.dk Fri Jun 10 13:13:33 1994
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 11:13:33 +0200
From: thorinn@diku.dk
Message-Id: <199406100913.AA18995@tyr.diku.dk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Phonetic transcription (ASCII IPA)

A couple of years ago, Evan Kirshenbaum from HP organized a project on
sci.lang to develop a convention for representing the IPA in ASCII.
(The result turned out to be a bit more general, including a system to
describe arbitrary phonemes by their features.) This convention has
been stable since January 1993, and I suggest that we should adopt it
as the default here as well.

I have put a set of articles describing the ASCII IPA in the conlang
archives; use 'get conlang ascii-ipa' to retrieve. (The stuff ought to
be online on any respectable NNTP server, but I don't see it on ours
right now; perhaps it is not being posted periodically (enough).)

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep)  (Humour NOT marked)

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk Fri Jun 10 12:41:55 1994
From: C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 11:05:44 BST
Message-Id: <8294.9406101005@ccw309.brad.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: '-lm' and non-individual languages

I accidentally sent this message to Lojban instead of Conlang. Here it is to
Conlang (though come to think of it, somebody's already answered it - can
it be that the intersection of Conlang and Lojban list members is large?

John Cowan answers me:
 
> Really?  I have always said /ka:m/, and my dictionary (not a very good one,
> alas) lists it as the only usual pronunciation.  Ditto for /pa:m/.
 
I suspected it might not be universal American, but I certainly know people
who regularly do pronounce the 'l'
>
> > On the
> > other hand, in 'film' we do pronounce the l: /film/ but in Ireland
> > and some parts of Scotland, they insert an epenthetic vowel: /fil@m/.
>
> I suppose you mean /fIlm/ and /fIl@m/.
 
Of course. I forgot there was a way of making the distinction in ASCII.
>
> [deleted]
>
> > But we can at least imagine a people for whom the idea of the individual
> > is so slight that this kind of question could not arise - that "Who said
 that
> > cats are black" is as meaningless a question as "Which of the water did they
> > swim in?"
>
> This is very hard for me to believe.  To shift the question, can you believe
> in a culture in which the question "Who ate the meat?" is as meaningless as
> "Which cloud just passed overhead?"  One cloud is the same as another, for
> ordinary purposes; but it is not all one whether Bub ate the meat or Zab
> ate the meat -- certainly not to Bub and Zab.
 
I can believe in such a people - but I am talking fiction (which is where
this thread started), not here and now reality on this planet.
If you start out with a hive-mind where individuals are no more significant
than the individual cells of your body, you can get this.
 
(Note by the way that 'Which cloud just passed overhead?' is not meaningless -
it may not be a significant question, but it's not meaningless. I was trying
(and failing, evidently) to get a question that actually was meaningless.
Unfortunately 'Which of the water did you swim in', though not quite normal,
has a reading which makes sense. My suggestion was that 'Who said that?'
would be not just a question whose answer was unimportant (like 'which of
your cells just divided') but one which would actually have no comprehensible
meaning to the people concerned. Perhaps a better attempt would be "Whup did
you go?' - where trials went on to reveal that the questioner did not mean
'when', 'where', 'why', 'how',  'how often', 'how quickly', 'resembling what
wild animal' or any other question we can get our minds round.)
 
 
        Colin Fine



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From allan@elvis.tamu.edu Fri Jun 10 04:49:08 1994
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 09:49:08 -0500
From: allan@elvis.tamu.edu (Allan Bailey)
Message-Id: <9406101449.AA04630@elvis.tamu.edu>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Interlingua, anyone know the address of an organization?

  Does anyone know the address for an existing Interlingua
organization?  I want to find a place where I can order
Interlingua materials (dictionaries, study books, reading materials, etc.)

  Any pointers would be much appreciated.

-- 
Allan Bailey, allan@elvis.tamu.edu          | "Freedom is not free."
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations | allan.bailey@tamu.edu
Esperanto: MondLingvo, lingvo internacia.


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Fri Jun 10 12:58:06 1994
From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson)
Received: (shoulson@localhost) by startide.ctr.columbia.edu (8.6.7/8.6.4.788743) id QAA06033; Fri, 10 Jun 1994 16:58:06 -0400
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 16:58:06 -0400
Message-Id: <199406102058.QAA06033@startide.ctr.columbia.edu>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Fictional lgs: phonetics, universals etc.

>Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 17:19:44 +0200
>Comment: Issues related to constructed languages
>From: Logical Language Group 

>Colin Fine writes:

>> Consider the sequence -lm in English.
>> In words like 'calm' and 'palm' Americans that I have heard generally
>> pronounce the 'l': /kalm/, whereas in England we do not: /ka:m/.

>Really?  I have always said /ka:m/, and my dictionary (not a very good one,
>alas) lists it as the only usual pronunciation.  Ditto for /pa:m/.

I never pronounced the l in calm and palm, and I'm also an American speaker
(as opposed to English...) Maybe the a: is a little rounded in the back,
and more so in a word like "almond", but that's about it.

>John Cowan		sharing account  for now
>	   e'osai ko sarji la lojban.

~mark


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From LYEAGER@business.auburn.edu Fri Jun 10 05:57:22 1994
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 11:57:22 CST
From: LYEAGER@business.auburn.edu
Subject: Re: Interlingua, anyone know the address of an organization
To: conlang@diku.dk
Message-Id: 
Priority: normal

Dear Mr. Bailey:
    The US address is Interlingua Institute, 332 Bleecker Street, 
#G34, New York, NY 10014, 212-929-0264.  An information kit is 
available free, and some books are for sale.
    An address in Denmark is Dansk Interlingua Union, c/o Thomas 
Breinstrup, Ho/je Taastrup Boulevard 49, lejl. 3, DK-2630 Taastrup, 
Denmark.  The most nearly complete source of publications is Servicio 
de Libros UMI, Zonnegloren 30, 7361 TL Beekbergen, Netherlands.
    I'd be glad to try to answer any of your questions about 
Interlingua.
                Sincerely,
                Leland B. Yeager

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From Thryomanes@aol.com Sun Jun 12 19:21:16 1994
From: Thryomanes@aol.com
Sender: "Thryomanes" 
Message-Id: <9406122321.tn1116181@aol.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 94 23:21:16 EDT
Subject: ASCII-IPA, Kolagian languages

This is still Herman Miller, hmiller@origin.ea.com, but I'm posting this from
home through my America Online account.

I got the ASCII-IPA document, and I will try to start using it to represent
the sounds of my invented languages.

Following the guidelines, I will reassign the symbol /R/ to represent
/{alv,trl}/ rather than /{mid,cnt,rzd,vwl}/.  I only have one language with
that vowel sound, and that language has a whole set of vowels with the
feature {rzd}.  This has the added benefit that I can represent
/{alv,frc,trl}/ (as in the name of the Czech composer Dvorak) more simply as
/R/ rather than /r/.

There doesn't seem to be an equivalent for the IPA symbol "turned a", but I
suppose I can use /V"/ for this without ambiguity.

I would like to have convenient symbols for /s/ and /z/, so I'll
use the unassigned diacritic "+" to represent {lat}.  I will leave "="
unassigned so that I can use it according to the needs of each language, but
I will probably end up using it mainly for {apr}.

So here is a first attempt at transcribing some Olaetyan and Mizarian
sentences into ASCII-IPA.

Olaetyan:

Ayene x-okten orinzya-sentath.le' zi xei.
['AjEnE 'z;oktEn o'*InzjV" sEntAT'le: zI z;Ej]
"You are at the edge of a breath-taking view."

Zanoiko, ry prenornel, ry as'ers'en y oran vlio.
[zA'nojko ri 'p*Eno*nEl *j a's;E*s;En j 'o*An vljo]
"O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain."

Sela'n lann ne' otsa'y, narne' ry Khorlag li Nyekaprennayakh, s'ur e' edhle'
a vosi ne'z ti Kassane'lan, lann Noyntai khyedu'r myca'y ry lann Prennaya
Lonnaral.
[sE'la:n lAn ne: o'tsa:j nA*'ne: *i 'xo*lAg lI ,njEkV"p*E'nAjV"x s;u* e:
E'z+e: A 'vosI 'ne:z tI kAsV"'ne:lan lAn 'nojntAj xjE'du:* mi'tSa:j *i lAn
p*E'nAjV" lo'nA*Al]
"When the forces of evil, led by Khorlag the Black Dragon, had been gaining
power in Kassanelan, the Elves began to be concerned about the Platinum
Dragons."

Note that the Olaetyan s' and x sounds are not really {pzd}, but that is the
closest feature I could find.  The distinctive feature that distinguishes
them from s and z is that they are laminal (as opposed to apical) fricatives.

Mizarian:

Chit yeepsa trip tchrackta taik.
/tSIt 'ji:psa trIp 'tS`rak`ta taik/
"No one else can hear me."

Chista zaishra chark.
/'tSIsta 'zaiSra tSark/
"I'm telling you the truth."

Za zeerkcha tricksa ta katcha chickpa.
/za 'zi:rktSa 'trIk`sa ta 'katS`a 'tSIk`pa/
"If you open the box it will give you power."

*--------------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Herman Miller             |   "For a successful technology, reality must |
| (hmiller@origin.ea.com)   |   take precedence over public relations, for |
| (thryomanes@aol.com)      |   Nature cannot be fooled." - R. P. Feynman  |
*--------No animals were harmed in the preparation of this message.--------*


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From jsp@betz.biostr.washington.edu Mon Jun 13 05:57:02 1994
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 94 12:57:02 -0700
From: jsp@betz.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)
Posted-Date: Mon, 13 Jun 94 12:57:02 -0700
Message-Id: <9406131957.AA10916@betz.biostr.washington.edu>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Counting

ucleaar writes:

| Our general cognitive faculties can cope with counting. But
| we couldn't have a syntactic rule "insert a particle after
| the seventh word of the clause". It's easy to invent a lg
| that works like that, but it is not natural, & one would
| not be able to speak it as a natural language, & no child
| wd acquire the rule.

This impinges on an interest of mine, actually, so I'll pipe
up out of curiosity:  Is your "... no child would acquire
the rule" purely citing the hypothethical prediction of
the language-universals folks, or is there actual evidence
supporting the assertion?  If the latter, I'd be interested
in references.

(History seems to show that what children can learn is often
a superset of what they are actually taught, in any given
era, and a desultory study of the history of "computing
prodigies" would seem to indicate in particular that humans
easily acquire arithmetic/counting skills far beyond the
current norm, given exposure and motivation.)



______________________________________________________________________
 
  
 
>From rempt!boudira@rempt.hacktic.nl Wed Jun 15 17:13:47 1994
From: boudira@rempt.hacktic.nl (Boudewijn & Irina Rempt)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 16:13:47 +0100
Message-Id: <7D2-tAzLBh107h@rempt.hacktic.nl>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Valdyan/English parallel text recipe

This is a recipe that really works. It's in Valdyan, the language
of the (imaginary) kingdom of Valdyas. 

Biryinin tacholsenan da folay      To make nut balls.
fere.                              
Biryinan nestyenan sa hyrnena      Take almonds or other nuts and
custay ali so myray az dayen       grind them with water or wine
sa sumen datay dayan hostea cul    until the liquid looks white
brythea lea chalet. Byren li       like milk. Put it in a
denay. Cyne samina nadayenan       pot. Then put in dried fruit,
crinena li denay so rustei so      cut up small, and enough bread
ostenin crosei ersinin irashean.   crumbs and sponge cake crumbs.
Lhasea dilynay dustie sa chelie    To make it taste good, add sugar
so carisinen. Ayali meray datay    or honey and spices. Simmer until
bruvie gori. Rhisay tacholsenan    it's nice and stiff. Let cool and
so folay.                          make little balls.

List of abbreviations at the end; read between the lines for notes.
I've glossed the pronouns extra for clarity.

biryinin  ta.cholsenan   da        folay       fere
nut-gen-p DIM.ball-acc-p in-order- make-2s-PRS -to
                         da V fere: "in order to V", "so that V"

biryinan  nestyenan  sa hyrnena     custay      ali    so  myray 
nut-acc-p eye-acc-p  or other-acc-p take-2s-PRS P3pN-O and grind-2s-PRS
(eye-nut = 'almond')                            "them"

az            dayen       sa sumen      datay dayan        hostea   
together.with water-dat-s or wine-dat-s until liquid-acc-s white-acc-s 

cul  brythea    lea chalet
like milk-acc-s LEA look-3s-IRR
                Impersonal construction (elaborate explanation
                forthcoming). *lea* is an "empty pronoun", only
                there because the verb needs a subject. The logical
                subject *dayan* is in the object form.

byren     li     denay
pot-ill-s P3sN-O put-2s-PRS
          "it"

cyne samina      nadayenan crinena       li     denay  
then fruit-acc-c dry-acc-p divided-acc-p P3sN-O put-2s-PRS
                                         "it"

so  rustei      so  ostenin   crosei     ersinin     irashean
and bread-gen-s and egg-gen-p cake-gen-s crumb-gen-c enough-acc-s

                irashen is a numeral really; it means "a count of
                ten" < "a double handful" (with dual prefix i-)

lhasea           dilynay      dustie      sa chelie 
taste.nice-acc-s cause-2s-PRS sugar-ins-s or honey-ins-s

so  carisinen
and spice-ins-c

ayali      meray         datay bruvie          gori
everything simmer-2s-PRS until look.nice-ins-s stiff-nom-p

rhisay    tacholsenan    so  folay
cool-2s-s DIM.ball-acc-p and make-2s-PRS

Abbreviations:

2     second person
3     third person
acc   accusative case
c     collective plural number
dat   dative case
DIM   diminutive prefix
gen   genitive case
ill   illative case
ins   instrumental case
IRR   irrealis aspect
LEA   pronoun "lea" in context where it can't be translated
N     neuter
nom   nominative case
O     object form of pronoun (oblique case)
P     pronoun
p     plural number
PRS   present tense
s     singular number

I tried and tried to say something general about Valdyan, but it all
came out so dull that I finally decided to start from the specific.
Hope some of you actually try the recipe. Use ground almond paste
(like peanut butter only made from almonds, in the health food shop)
diluted with about the same volume of white wine. Thicken with fresh
breadcrumbs and/or cake crumbs; if you started with half a jar of
almond paste you'll need a good double handful. Flavour with demerara
sugar, ground ginger and cinnamon. It's a traditional Valdyan sweet.

	Irina

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Fri Jun 17 02:09:09 1994
From: ucleaar 
Message-Id: <129636.9406170009@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Counting
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 94 01:09:09 +0100

From: jsp@betz.biostr.washington.edu (Jeff Prothero)

> This impinges on an interest of mine, actually, so I'll pipe
> up out of curiosity:  Is your "... no child would acquire
> the rule" purely citing the hypothethical prediction of
> the language-universals folks, or is there actual evidence
> supporting the assertion?  If the latter, I'd be interested
> in references.

So far as I know, experiments have not been conducted in which
children were exposed to 'impossible languages'. (Maybe
Avgust & Angela are pioneers, destined to be legends in the
annals of science...?)

Chomsky cited an experiment done by Neil Smith & Ianthi
Tsimpli ('Learning the impossible', published in Lingua, 
1993). They've done lots of work with a 'polyglot savant' 
(i.e. idiot-savant), whose general cogntive capacities are 
severely impaired but who is brilliant at learning languages 
(I think he's about 30). They tested him on languages  he'd 
not been exposed to before (e.g. Berber) and he acquired
them with vastly greater facility than any normal
adult. Then they tested him on an invented language in
which some crucial construction (maybe questions)
were marked by inserting a particle after the third
word of the sentence. Christopher (the subject) did
not learn this. He seemed to know intuitively that
languages don't work this way.

I don't know what would have happened if they'd
actively taught him the rule - I imagine he and
normal people could cope with it, just as we cope
with the 'unnatural' 'respectively'-construction,
but it's not something we can do naturally or with
ease. [I fear my own conlang is like this, so I've
given it the status of a classical language, like
Latin or Sanskrit, used only as a second language
by the educated.]

----
And

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From matthew@cpdapo.ntc.nokia.com Fri Jun 17 21:09:55 1994
Message-Id: <199406172123.AAA12497@nokia.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 21:09:55 GMT
From: matthew@cpdapo.ntc.nokia.com (Matthew Faupel)
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Non-aural constructed languages

I've just been catching up on over a month's worth of conlang
posts, having been away on holiday for a while, and noticed
someone mention an alien language that they had invented that was
"full of glottal stops etc. to deliberately make it hard, as it's
alien" or words to that effect.

This got me thinking about something I'd noticed about SF
treatment of alien languages in general: nearly every book I've
read has taken the same approach as this, i.e. come up with a
spoken language that has been made in some way "alien".  Very few
authors seem to have considered the fact that aliens probably
don't have monotonal voice-boxes generating sounds within the
audible human range; I can think of a few that mention
alternative communication systems but the only author that
springs to mind as having thought about what effect different
media of expression might have on a language is C.J.Cherryh (the
Chanur series has a snake-like species that thinks in patterns of
9 concepts at once I seem to remember).

So, to come to the point of the post, has anyone come across
and/or invented conlangs that are designed to be expressed in a
non-verbal form and which actually make use of this feature in an
interesting fashion?

Cheers,


Matthew


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From BobMichael@aol.com Fri Jun 17 15:27:05 1994
From: BobMichael@aol.com
Sender: "BobMichael" 
Message-Id: <9406171927.tn70988@aol.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 94 19:27:05 EDT
Subject: Rules of Accentuation

I've been working on a little conlang project for a while, and
I'm wondering about the various rules for stressing syllables in
a word others have used. I find the penultimate stess of say
Esperanto very tiresome, and often stresses relatively
insignificant elements of a word.  Initial stress works very
well, and tends to stress the most important element in a word,
but again is somewhat inflexible.  I'd reaaly like a system that
allows the stress to fall on different syllables depending on the
word's construction without the use of diacritics.  There's also
the "music" of the language to consider.  I want my lang to be
equally at home with any musical meter, from waltz to rock and
roll.  Can you share your experience with these issues?

Thanks!


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From rempt!irina@rempt.hacktic.nl Sat Jun 18 00:31:25 1994
From: irina@rempt.hacktic.nl (Irina Rempt)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 94 23:31:25 +0100
Message-Id: 
Reply-To: irina@rempt.hacktic.nl
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Valdyan/English bilingual recipe

Rolandt Tweehuysen sent me mail (or did it go to the whole list
after all? [1]) with inferences about Valdyan grammar, some of
which are correct. It's interesting enough to share. I'll comment
on them one by one and paraphrase any Dutch for non-Dutch readers.

[1] We have conlang dropped in a bottomless mailbox that goes
straight into a local newsgroup, so I can't tell. If any of you
want to send mail to either of us, please send it only to
boud@rempt.hacktic.nl or irina@rempt.hacktic.nl, *not* to boudira
(even though that may sometimes appear in the header).

Warning: this is quite long, about 7K before editing. It's full of
examples though, so I don't think it'll be too boring.

If you'd like to read more about the Valdyan language, *please* ask
me questions. I work much better when provoked.

>Uit het Valdyaanse recept meen ik de volgende [grammatica]regels te
>kunnen halen:
(infers the following from the Valdyan text:)

>NOMINATIEF:

Nominative singular is usually unmarked. Some endings are typical 
for classes of nouns/adjectives (not much difference between noun 
and adjective in Valdyan): for instance, -an is an agent marker 
(_tyl_ "metal, iron", _tylan_ "smith") and nouns in -e usually, but 
not always, designate animates (_nane_ "mother").

Nominative plural: the original vowel in the ending is replaced with
-i(-)

tylan "smith" - tylin "smiths"
nane "mother" - nani "mothers"

>GENITIEF: -i-

Actually -ei. Roughly, nouns ending in a vowel get -ei (instead of the
original vowel) and words ending in a consonant get -eiC, with some 
variations when there is a semivowel in the ending.

(I'll abbreviate -V#  = word ending in a vowel
                 -VC# = word ending in vowel + consonant)

tylein "a/the smith's"
nanei "a/the mother's"

This form is also used for the ablative case.

>DATIEF: -e-

Actually -en: tylen "to a/the smith"
              nanen "to a/the mother"

Dative plural: -ene (-V#) or -eneC (-VC#)

>ACCUSATIEF: -a-

Actually -ea-: tylean "a/the smith DIR.OBJ"
               nanea  "a/the mother DIR.OBJ"

The accusative is used (a) for the direct object (b) as the logical
subject of some impersonal constructions, e.g.

Ardyath    lea chylat      forean
Ardyth-acc LEA seem-3s-PRS priest-acc
"Ardyth seems to be a priestess" "it looks like A. is a priestess"

Accusative plural is -ena (-V#) or -enaC (-VC#)

>ILLATIEF: -e- (als datief? Of hoort -n erbij?)

Illative is the same as dative nowadays. They used to be separate, 
but a few successive vowel shifts reduced the number of forms for
the original nine cases to five or six in the singular and four or
five in the plural (some classes don't have a separate vocative
case). I still mark all cases separately for syntactic and historical 
reasons.

(Please will some Finn enlighten me on whether Finnish has prepositions
and/or postpositions at all, or is it all done with those glorious
eleven cases?)

>INSTRUMENT: -ie- (combinatie v. genitief en datief?)

-ie- is correct; with -VC endings you get -ieC. It's a separate case,
not a combination of genitive and dative.

tylien "by means of a/the smith"
nanie  "by means of a/the mother"

This form is also used for the locative case: _Valdies_ "in Valdis"
_Hostlie Criez_ "at the Black Swan (Inn)" and to form adverbs: _bruvie_
"nicely" from _bruve_ "nice".

Instrumental and locative plural are identical to dative/illative
plural.

>            -ine- (bij collectief?)
(see below)

>ENKELVOUD: -n   (bij vloeistof als 'water', 'wijn', 'vloeistof', maar niet
>                 bij 'melk'; ook bij 'pot')
(singular)

The singular ending has nothing to do with the meaning of the word,
just with form (word class). Singular as such is unmarked.

>MEERVOUD: -n   (soms ook 0, zoals bij hyrnena/hostea/brythea)
(plural)                                               ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
                                             (those are singular)

Plural oblique cases have an infix -en-. The ending depends on the
noun class; there are nouns in -V and in -VC, C usually being /n/ or
/s/ in words of more than one syllable. Words of one syllable are in
a class by themselves and can end in any consonant. (well, not quite
*any*, but I'll write about noun classes later)

>COLLECTIEF: 0  (zie ook bij MEERVOUD)

Collectives are plural in form but take singular verbs and adjectives.
Often (not always, depending on dialect) the plural infix -en- is
replaced by -in- in the collective.

A collective plural designates a number of things seen as a whole
or as a class:

ashen  "edible plant, vegetable" ashin "greens"
daysen "drop of water"           daysin "rain"
rhin   "ship"                    rhini (pl) "ships" (coll) "fleet"

Some words occur exclusively in the collective plural: _ansin_ "mind"
from _anie_ "person, spirit" + _-sen_ "thing", literally "collection of
things of the spirit"

>DIMINUTIEF: ta-

Absolutely correct. There's also an augmentative do- and a
comparative a-. These are used for degrees of comparison as well:

rhaslei     tamoy     "smaller than a sparrow"
sparrow-abl DIM.big

rhaslei     domoy     "bigger than a sparrow"
sparrow-abl AUG.big

rhaslei     amoy      "as big as a sparrow", "the size of a sparrow"
sparrow-abl CMP.big   ("compared to a sparrow, equally big")

the last prefix can also be used to compare two things:

inute      amoy       "the twins are the same size"
dual.child CMP.big

in contrast with

inute      imoy       "the twins are both big" (but not necessarily
dual.child dual.big                             the same size)

Note that in the last two examples _imoy_ implies a *large* size whereas
_amoy_ does not, and that Valdyan (like Russian) has no copula "to be".

>2e PERSOON: -a-
>3e PERSOON: -e-
>TEGENW.TIJD: -y           (present tense)
>IRREALIIS: -t

You've got it the wrong way round. The present tense marker is -a-,
irrealis (subjunctive) marker is -e-, -t is third person singular,
-y is second person singular, also used for the imperative.

>WOORDVOLGORDE: SOV met een dummy-O achter V           (word order)
>Ik kan niet nagaan in hoeverre die O vOOr V een 'echt' object is. Wellicht
>is die dummy achter V het echte object, en staat er een soort bepaling
>vOOr V.
(can't determine whether O before V is a real object, or whether the
dummy after V is the real object and the thing before V is an adjunct)

It's straight (S)OV, but I see how you could have got the idea:

Biryinan nestyenan sa hyrnena custay ali  so  myray ...
nuts      eye      or others  take   them and grind
"Take almonds or other nuts and grind them"

The problem lies with _so_ "and". If this connects two parts of a
constituent: _chelie so carisinen_ "with sugar and spices" it's
straightforward, but if it is used to connect phrases or sentences
it creeps behind the first constituent: _ali so myray_ "and grind
them". 

If the verb is marked for person already and there is no explicit
subject, a pronoun is only necessary for emphasis: _ali miray_
"you grind them" or "grind them!" vs. _tine ali myray_ "YOU grind
them (because I won't)".

If there *is* an explicit subject the SOV order is clear:

  S     O     V
nane   ali  myrat    "mother grinds them"
mother them grinds

>Werkwoorden lijken genominaliseerd te kunnen worden na een voorzetsel:
(it seems to be possible to nominalize verbs after a preposition)

>...datay bruvie
>   until look.nice-ins-s

_datay_ is not a preposition; _bruvie_ is not a verb. It may have been
confusing that I translated _bruvie_ with "look.nice", what I meant is
"nice-looking", "pleasant to see". 

>(als bruv... een ww is!)    (if bruv... is a verb)

It's an adjective in the instrumental case, the usual way to form
adverbs.

[Spocanian examples deleted, they're very interesting but it would take
me another 7K to comment on those...]

-- 
----
========
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Irina Rempt-Drijfhout

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Sat Jun 18 08:48:02 1994
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 94 13:48:02 -0500
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Message-Id: <9406181848.AA17483@origin.ea.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re:  Rules of Accentuation

Aside from penultimate and initial stress, one system that I like to
use is to stress the penultimate syllable if it is LONG, or the
syllable previous to that if it is SHORT.  Your definitions of
long and short syllables may vary.  Another is to stress the first
syllable of the main root word regardless of what affixes are added
to the word.  Of course, you could avoid this problem altogether
by constructing a monosyllabic isolating language! :)

Of course, other than problems with ASCII text on the computer, there's
no reason you need to avoid diacritics.  If stress is phonemic in
a language (as it is in English: perMIT vs. PERmit), it should be
written.  If it's not, the phonological rules of the language
should be able to predict it.

Stress in Olaetyan is phonemic: there is a minimal pair [A'ne:] vs.
['Ane:], but in many cases it is predictable, so I only mark it
in rare cases.



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@origin.ea.com Sat Jun 18 08:36:06 1994
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 94 13:36:06 -0500
From: hmiller@origin.ea.com (Herman Miller)
Message-Id: <9406181836.AA17333@origin.ea.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re:  Non-aural constructed languages

I've never gone beyond a very bare description of such a language
(for example, communicating by light, or ultrasonic pulses, or
some such thing).  I have some alien languages that include
whistles and other non-vocal sounds, but none that consist
*entirely* of non-vocal sounds.  The problem with alien languages
is the same as the problem with humanoid aliens in general -- why
would they exist?  But someone once said (was it Asimov?) that
science fiction writers are allowed one impossible assumption to
get a story going, as long as the rest of it fits together.  (I
hope this works, I'm having problems with Trumpet so I'm using
the unix Mail command.)



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From matthew@cpdapo.ntc.nokia.com Sat Jun 18 21:10:17 1994
Message-Id: <199406182124.AAA20553@nokia.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 1994 21:10:17 GMT
From: matthew@cpdapo.ntc.nokia.com (Matthew Faupel)
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: Rules of Accentuation

BM: I'm wondering about the various rules for stressing syllables in
BM: a word others have used.  I'd reaaly like a system that
BM: allows the stress to fall on different syllables depending on
BM: the word's construction without the use of diacritics.  There's
BM: also the "music" of the language to consider.  I want my lang to
BM: be equally at home with any musical meter, from waltz to rock
BM: and roll.  Can you share your experience with these issues?
BM: Thanks!

Various possibilities from real and constructed languages:

1.  Glosa's rule of "stress the last syllable before the last consonant"
    seems to produce a fairly euphoneous result.

2.  Another possibility if you want variable stress with fixed rules is to
    do something similar to Spanish, which stresses the penultimate syllable
    if the word ends in a vowel, n, or s, and the last syllable otherwise
    (Spanish of course has exceptions, which is where the written accents
    come in, but there's no reason why your conlang should have them).

3.  A third possibility is to base the stress on the grammatical function of
    the word.  Ido has a very simple form of this rule in that words are
    normally stressed on the penultimate syllable, but the infinitive form
    of verbs has final stress (or something like this, I think).


Matthew

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
 
>From Ken.Beesley@xerox.fr Sun Jun 19 15:29:06 1994
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 14:29:06 --100
From: Ken.Beesley@xerox.fr (Ken Beesley)
Message-Id: <9406191229.AA05861@grenoble.rxrc.xerox.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re:  Non-aural constructed languages

>>>
I
have some alien languages that include whistles and other non-vocal
sounds, but none that consist *entirely* of non-vocal sounds.<<<

Whistled languages, or at least completely whistled varieties of
language, are not unknown even on Earth.  The most famous example is
on the island of Gomera, where the local Spanish dialect has a whistled
form used for communication over long distances by isolated shepherds.
There are whistled forms of all the phonemes, and they can whistle
arbitrary messages.  The messages reportedly can carry for miles
through the rocky canyons.

There are similar reports of a whistled dialect in the French Pyranees and
another in Turkey, again used by shepherds over mountainous terrain.

The whistled form of Tojolabal, used by vendors in marketplaces, apparently 
whistles the tones only, making it like the better known "talking drum"
languages of Africa.

It is easy to imagine a SciFi world where the constraints of anatomy or
geography might lead credibly to whistled languages.  And, by the way,
whistled sounds ARE vocal sounds.

The various sign languages for the deaf are clear examples of
full-blown language communicated in a non-verbal/aural medium.

Ken

ken.beesley@xerox.fr

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From donh@netcom.com Sun Jun 19 02:26:32 1994
Message-Id: <199406191626.JAA23138@netcom4.netcom.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Cc: Don Harlow 
Subject: Re: Non-aural constructed languages 
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 94 09:26:32 -0700
From: Don Harlow 

> >>>
> I
> have some alien languages that include whistles and other non-vocal
> sounds, but none that consist *entirely* of non-vocal sounds.<<<
> 
> Whistled languages, or at least completely whistled varieties of
> language, are not unknown even on Earth.  The most famous example is
> on the island of Gomera, where the local Spanish dialect has a whistled
> form used for communication over long distances by isolated shepherds.
> There are whistled forms of all the phonemes, and they can whistle
> arbitrary messages.  The messages reportedly can carry for miles
> through the rocky canyons.
> 
According to something I read once -- I believe it was in Andrew Large, 
_The Artificial Language Movement_ -- the French military at one point 
considered using Sudre's Solresol. I suspect that this was for a similar 
reason -- because Solresol (which was a "musical" language) when played 
on trumpets could be heard and understood over very great distances.

Don Harlow			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/donh/donh.html 

______________________________________________________________________
 
 

>From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Mon Jun 20 12:18:40 1994
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 11:18:40 +0100
From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk
Message-Id: <9406201018.AA06562@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Rules of Accentuation

I thought it might be a good idea to mention a few examples of
languages with the mentioned stress rules.

In Polish and Esperanto the stress is always on the penultimate
syllable.

In Hungarian and Finnish the stress is always on the first syllable.

> Aside from penultimate and initial stress, one system that I like to
> use is to stress the penultimate syllable if it is LONG, or the
> syllable previous to that if it is SHORT.  Your definitions of
> long and short syllables may vary.  Another is to stress the first
> syllable of the main root word regardless of what affixes are added
> to the word.

The former is the rule in Latin.

The latter is the rule in Volapuk.

(Please correct me, if any of my examples are wrong. But don't bother
to mention pendantic and rare exceptions to the rules.)

By the way: Someone complained that they didn't like the rhythm of a
language stressed always on the penultimate syllable. I don't quite
understand this, because, unless you actually speak the langauge or are
comparing it with a written transcript it's hardly possible to hear
which syllables are being stressed. All you actually hear is a string
of syllables, some of which are stressed. The gaps between the words
are not usually marked other than by the stress.

Edmund

______________________________________________________________________
 
  
 
>From mlh@stud.unit.no Mon Jun 20 16:40:54 1994
From: "Magnus Lie Hetland" 
Message-Id: <9406201440.ZM16424@signy8.stud.unit.no>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 14:40:54 +0200
Subject: Re: Non-aural constructed languages

On Jun 19,  7:24pm, Don Harlow wrote:

> the French military at one point
> considered using Sudre's Solresol. I suspect that this was for a similar
> reason -- because Solresol (which was a "musical" language) when played
> on trumpets could be heard and understood over very great distances.

I have been looking for some info on Solresol, but I can't seem to find any;
does anybody know of any (more or less) specific info?

mlh


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From non12@cyber.net Mon Jun 20 06:26:32 1994
From: "John H. Chalmers" 
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: SF languages
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 13:26:32 PDT
Message-Id:  <9406201326.aa04427@cyber.cyber.net>

Speaking of non-vocal SF'nal languages, James Blish wrote about
a creature who communicated with colored light. "VOR" (aka RVOG)
is what I remember its being named (Violet Orange Red). I presume 
such a language would be similar to Solresol. In fact, it could be 
isomorphic if Solresol used only the 7 tones of the diatonic scale.

	The SF story Robin mentioned reminds me of Jack Vance's
"The Languages of Pao," a novel based on a weak form of the 
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis. Pao is a populous, but undeveloped
planet, at the mercy of its rapacious neighbors. Its ruler
hires a consultant to create 3 new languages for three new
sub-societies under the assumption that such languages will
facilitate, but not compel, new and necessary modes of thought.
The three languages are "Technicant, for industrialists and 
technologists, "Cogitant," for researchers, and "Valiant,"
for the newly organized military. A caste of language teachers
is trained to teach the new languages and act as interpreters
between the general population and the new groups. They create
their own language,"Pastiche" from the other 3 plus Paonese.
The plot gets rather involved when the consultant tries to take 
over Pao, the military revolt, etc., but the linguists prevail
as they alone can cummunicate with all parties.

	Charles Hockett wrote an essay in a slim volume titled
something like "Universals of Language." In it he listed some
properties of human language and desiderata for languages in
general. In addition to the vocal channel, he mentions "anal
spirants" en passant as an usused alternative.His analysis and
suggestions are relevant both to STF'nal languages and conlangs in
general. While I don't remember all the details and the book is
in storage in Texas, the universals/desiderata that I can recall
were the following:

	1). Non-directionality: Groups as well as individuals should
        be addressable, i.e., warning calls, etc. should be possible.
 
	2). Reflexivity: The sender should be able to receive and
        perceive its own messages. All members of the group
        should potentially be able to send and recieve messages.

    3). Fading: old messages should fade rapidly. THis would
        apppear to rule out odor trails, but perhaps not airborne

 deney's
        "Planiverse," a hypothetical 2-D world. Apparently sound
        waves in two dimensions do not fade rapidly, but have long
        "tails" which might interfere with new messages.

   4).  Multiple Patterning: Essentially, this means having a small
        number of "cenemes" organized into a much larger number of
       "pleremes" (or vice-versa). Cenemes are phonemes, letters,
		gestures, etc.; pleremes are morphemes, words etc. Cenemes
        and pleremes are arbitrary, though onomatopoeia, sound
        symbolism, and  imitation can also exist. Hockett also says 
        that unpatterned systems where "utterances" differ holistically 
        must have iconic semantics. Perhaps Dolphin language, if it 
        exists, is iconic and based on sonar signatures. If so, it 
        might be very difficult for humans to learn or even
        recognize.

   5).  Learnability: Language is learned, not inherited genetically. 
        Hockett once wrote an unpublished SF story about aliens whose 
        language was transmitted genetically and who therefore were 
        unable to learn terrestrial languages. 

 As for the channel, Roger Wescott has proposed the word 
"streptitation" to describe non-vocal sound production such as the 
stridulation of crickets, cicada's, etc. Hence any sound producing 
mechanism is potentially usable. 

	One might add bioluminescence, and electric fields, at least
for creatures living in dark and/or aqueous environments.

	In Jack Vance's "Gift of Gab" a previously non-linguistic alien
aquatic species is taught to use a gestural language. Other SF 
writers have postulated using any part of the body that is visible.
	
	I remember another language suggestion in which intonation 
(tonemes) expresed the basic root words as in Solresol while affect, 
assertion, and other sentential modifications were carried by more 
ordinary phonemes. 

	  Given a physiology that provides a channel with enough capacity,
any movement or emission modality could be used linguistically.
One can even imagine multichannel sources where part of the message
is generated by one mechanism and another by some other system. For
example, the vocal apparatus could carry basic information, while
a stridulatory organ could modify this according to emotional state,
assertion mode, reliability, etc. These might even send simultanewous
messages such as quotation and commentary, etc.

	One might expect 2-D scripts to be constructed for such languages 
rather than the essentially linear strings used by most human 
writing systems.


  -- John

I see a Garble in the above. It is Dewdeney's "Planiverse," discussed
in Scientific American and in one or two symposium volumes. Great fun.


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From BobMichael@aol.com Mon Jun 20 16:04:46 1994
From: BobMichael@aol.com
Message-Id: <9406202004.tn156136@aol.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 20:04:46 EDT
Subject: Re: Rules of Accentuation

Edmunds Says:

>> By the way: Someone complained that they didn't like the rhythm of a
language stressed always on the penultimate syllable. I don't quite
understand this <<

That was me!  I suppose being a native English speaker, I enjoy
the clang of adjacent accented syllables, and the emphatic nature
of final stressed syllables in a phrase.  By the way, Volapuk, I
believe, carried an invariable final stress.  Too bad it didn't
take off, it's a decent and colorful attempt at a universal
tongue.

Bob Michael



______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From donh@netcom.com Mon Jun 20 11:09:13 1994
Message-Id: <199406210109.SAA11164@netcom7.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: SF languages 
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 18:09:13 -0700
From: Don Harlow 

Scripsit John Chalmers:

> Speaking of non-vocal SF'nal languages, James Blish wrote about
> a creature who communicated with colored light. "VOR" (aka RVOG)
> is what I remember its being named (Violet Orange Red). I presume 
> such a language would be similar to Solresol. In fact, it could be 
> isomorphic if Solresol used only the 7 tones of the diatonic scale.

Apropos of which, see Valentina Zhuravleva's short story "Starlight 
Rhapsody", translated from Esperanto (into which it was originally 
translated from Russian) by yours truly and published in _The 
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction_ in 1963 (I forget the exact 
issue). Zhuravleva's gimmick was the use of the spectrum of visible 
light as a means of transmitting music across interstellar distances. 
The next year I saw a notice in the Sacramento _Bee_ that she had 
presented the same idea to a scientific conference in the USSR as 
a possible means of interstellar communication.


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From donh@netcom.com Mon Jun 20 11:22:15 1994
Message-Id: <199406210122.SAA12711@netcom7.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Rules of Accentuation 
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 18:22:15 -0700
From: Don Harlow 

Scripsit Bob Michael:

> That was me!  I suppose being a native English speaker, I enjoy the clang of
> adjacent accented syllables, and the emphatic nature of final stressed
> syllables in a phrase.  By the way, Volapuk, I believe, carried an invariable
> final stress.  Too bad it didn't take off, it's a decent and colorful attempt
> at a universal tongue.  

It did take off -- it just crashed not too far from the runway. After 
Esperanto, Volapu"k, in terms of number of speakers, was by far the most 
successful IAL; in terms of initial growth rate, it was more successful 
even than Esperanto. Its failure was due largely to non-linguistic factors, 
though these were often dressed up in linguistic arguments.

Don Harlow			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/donh/donh.html 

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Tue Jun 21 12:34:00 1994
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 11:34:00 +0100
From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk
Message-Id: <9406211034.AA27557@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: SF languages

There is said to be a Pacific island, where the local language makes
such great use of facial expressions that the language is barely
comprehensible on the phone or radio.

It might be a myth, of course. I have no further details.

Edmund

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk Tue Jun 21 12:51:07 1994
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 11:51:07 +0100
From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk
Message-Id: <9406211051.AA28020@nene.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Rules of Accentuation

> That was me!  I suppose being a native English speaker, I enjoy the clang of
> adjacent accented syllables, and the emphatic nature of final stressed
> syllables in a phrase.

To obtain final stressed syllables in a phrase in Esperanto you can
remove the ending "-o" from a noun. Or you can put a pronoun,
numerable, or certain particles at the end.

(for / kor', mi / harmoni', du / detru', ktp)

However it is true that in normal prose or speech Esperanto doesn't
often have the last syllable in a phrase stressed. That's possibly why
it's relatively difficult to translate songs from English into
Esperanto; it's presumably easier to translate from Polish.

>  By the way, Volapuk, I believe, carried an invariable
> final stress.  Too bad it didn't take off, it's a decent and colorful attempt
> at a universal tongue.  

I think Volapuk can still claim to be second most successful conlang in
history. It certainly took off quite rapidly in its time. There are
still some Volapuk speakers around, if you want to learn it.

But I am fairly certain that Volapuk's stress is not invariable. I
think that you have to morphologically analyse a word in order to know
how to stress it, as you have to recognise the prefixes and suffixes in
order to stress the last (or first?) syllable of the root, not of the
word.

Edmund

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From V119N57H@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Tue Jun 21 04:19:33 1994
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 08:19:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dragon 
Subject: Re: SF languages
To: conlang@diku.dk
Message-Id: <01HDSPNRPBLU934R8J@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>

>	I remember another language suggestion in which intonation
(tonemes) expressed the basic root words as in Solresol while affect,
assertion, and other sentential modifications were carried by more
ordinary phonemes.

What is the reference to this?  It sounds a lot like something
I've been tinkering with for a short story about a sentient species
on Earth 50 million years from now, long after evolution has left
the lifeforms we know of today with the dinosaurs.  Although the
language isn't central to the story, it is of interest.

Craig Kopris

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From JMAS@eui.uab.es Tue Jun 21 17:17:50 1994
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 17:17:50 GMT+0200
From: JMAS@eui.uab.es
Subject: a stupid question
To: conlang@diku.dk
Message-Id: <01HDT8AE01CI9LX3PU@cc.uab.es>

	Somewhere I heard that a human language should ideally have double
modulation, that means, a few phonemes are combined to form many words, 
instead of having a different sign for each word. 

	Then, could somebody explain me how come that the deaf-mute use
definitely not an alphabetic system? If you see in the TV somebody using
deaf-mute language, and at the same time the somebody speaks the same words,
you soon realize that most gestures are ideograms, except when it comes 
to proper names, wich are obviously spelled aout with gestures of one hand
wich are quite different from the normal, much wider, ideo-gestures. 

-- Jordi


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From Ken.Beesley@xerox.fr Tue Jun 21 19:52:18 1994
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 18:52:18 --100
From: Ken.Beesley@xerox.fr (Ken Beesley)
Message-Id: <9406211652.AA06400@grenoble.rxrc.xerox.com>
To: conlang@diku.dk
Subject: Re: a stupid question

>>>
Then, could somebody explain me how come that the deaf-mute use
definitely not an alphabetic system?<<

This is not a stupid question.  First of all, it is important to
realize that there are many sign languages, and they seem to
arise wherever you find a reasonable number of deaf people.  The
French system was apparently not so much invented but extracted
from various sign languages already in use in France.  It became
a standard by being taught in schools for the deaf, and it became
the basis for American Sign Language.  There is also a British
Sign Language, and no one knows where it came from.  There are
also Israeli and Swedish sign languages, and there are no doubt
many more.

Despite their obvious differences from spoken language
(especially their ability to transmit multiple signs
simultaneously) they share most of the features of spoken
languages, including having syntactic grammars, an essentially
arbitrary relationship between signs and referents, and a
"phonology".  That is, any sign language has certain particular
gestures and movements that are used to make up signs, and there
are notation systems for representing them.  Even written
alphabets.  It can easily be argued that the orthographies
proposed for ASL (where an orthography is a set of alphabetic
characters and conventions for using them) are inadequate, but so
are the orthographies for spoken languages.

So the signs of sign language are not ideograms--they have
internal structures composed of the equivalent of phonemes.  One
term I have heard used is chiremes.

>>>
except when it comes 
to proper names, wich are obviously spelled aout with gestures of one hand
wich are quite different from the normal, much wider, ideo-gestures.<<<

Some names have sign equivalents.  The resorting to hand-spelling
is often necessary and is somewhat equivalent to slipping a
French word into an English speech.

Ken

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From riolo@PICA.ARMY.MIL Tue Jun 21 09:06:35 1994
Date:     Tue, 21 Jun 1994 13:06:35 EDT
From: "Joseph P. Riolo" 
Subject:  Re: a stupid question 
Message-Id: <25797.772218395@pica.army.mil>

Jordi (JMAS@eui.uab.es) writes:

>	Then, could somebody explain me how come that the deaf-mute use
>definitely not an alphabetic system? 

While most of the deaf people do not write their native sign
languages, very few are learning to write their native sign
languages.  Two of the writing systems that I become familiar
with are a notation system developed by William C. Stokoe,
Dorothy C. Casterline, and Carl G. Croneberg, and a more
pictorial system developed by Valerie Sutton with the help from
deaf signers. The former is called Stokoe's Notation System and
the latter is called Sutton's Sign Writing.  These systems do
have their own alphabetical systems.  Each sign, as analyzed by
researchers, has three components - handshape, location, and
movement from which the writing systems were developed.  The
American Sign Language, as used in the U.S., has 44 (more or
less) different handshapes. You can visualize a handshape as a
sound or a letter and, using this image, it is easy to see that
an alphabet really exists.

>                                     If you see in the TV somebody using
>deaf-mute language, and at the same time the somebody speaks the same words,
>you soon realize that most gestures are ideograms, except when it comes 
>to proper names, wich are obviously spelled aout with gestures of one hand
>wich are quite different from the normal, much wider, ideo-gestures. 

This is called fingerspelling.  It is a part of the sign
language. Whenever there is a need to communicate a name or a
word whose sign does not exist, a deaf signer will spell it out
as it is written, not as how it sound for the obvious reason.

                                        Joseph P. Riolo
                                        


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From lojbab@access.digex.net Tue Jun 21 10:09:38 1994
From: Logical Language Group 
Message-Id: <199406211809.AA23198@access2.digex.net>
Subject: Sign languages (was: a stupid question)
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 14:09:38 -0400 (ADT)

Ken Beesley writes:

> First of all, it is important to realize
> that there are many sign languages, and they seem to arise wherever you
> find a reasonable number of deaf people.

The Ethnologue database maintained by the Summer Institute of Linguistics
lists the following 72 sign languages.  I have added the country of origin
where it is not obvious.

Adamorobe (Ghana), Algerian, American, Australian, Australian Aboriginal,
Austrian, Belgian, Bolivian, Brazilian, British, Canadian, Catalonian,
Chadian, Chinese, Costa Rican, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Ecuadorian,
El Salvadoran, Eskimo, Finnish, French, French Canadian, German, Ghanaian,
Greek, Hawaii Pidgin (U.S.), Hill Country (Thailand), Indian, Irish, Israeli,
Italian, Japanese, Kenyan, Korean, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Latvian,
Lyons (France), Malaysian, Martha's Vineyard (U.S.), Mayan, Mexican, Moroccan,
Nepalese, New Zealand, Nicaraguan, Nigerian, Norwegian, Nova Scotian,
Old Kentish (U.K.), Penang (Malaysia), Peruvian, Philippine, Polish,
Portuguese, Providencia (Colombia), Puerto Rican, Rennellese (Solomon Islands),
Russian, South African, Spanish, Sri Lankan, Swedish, Swiss, Taiwanese,
Thai, Tunisian, Urubu-Kaapor (Brazil), Venezuelan, Yiddish, Yugoslavian.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account  for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Tue Jun 21 13:58:44 1994
From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 17:58:44 -0400
Message-Id: <199406212158.RAA23425@startide.ctr.columbia.edu>
Subject: Rules of Accentuation

>From: Edmund.Grimley-Evans@cl.cam.ac.uk

>But I am fairly certain that Volapuk's stress is not invariable.

Volap"uk's stress is invariable on the last syllable... sorta.  There are
two affixes (um... -li and, oh damn, I can't remember the other one) that
are not properly suffixed to the word, but are attached by a hyphen, and
don't carry the stress, which remains on the final syyllable of the word
proper.  I think they can both be used as prefixes as well, also with
hyphens, and that usage became preferred, to avoid the inconsistency with
stress.

~mark

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Tue Jun 21 14:01:29 1994
From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 18:01:29 -0400
Message-Id: <199406212201.SAA23433@startide.ctr.columbia.edu>
Subject: SF languages

>Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 15:19:44 +0200
>From: Dragon 

>>	I remember another language suggestion in which intonation
>>(tonemes) expressed the basic root words as in Solresol while affect,
>>assertion, and other sentential modifications were carried by more
>>ordinary phonemes.

>What is the reference to this?  It sounds a lot like something
>I've been tinkering with for a short story about a sentient species
>on Earth 50 million years from now, long after evolution has left
>the lifeforms we know of today with the dinosaurs.  Although the
>language isn't central to the story, it is of interest.

Sounds a hell of a lot like Jim Carter's language -gua!spi.  The syllables
conveyed meaning, and the grammar was conveyed by the tones.  So you'd have
a falling tone to introduce noun phrases or something, and rising ones to
pop back up to the predicate, etc.  I'll see if I can find a copy of the
paper he wrote.

>Craig Kopris


~mark

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Tue Jun 21 14:11:37 1994
From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 18:11:37 -0400
Message-Id: <199406212211.SAA23486@startide.ctr.columbia.edu>
Subject: a stupid question

>JMAS@eui.uab.es

>   Then, could somebody explain me how come that the deaf-mute use
>definitely not an alphabetic system? 

For starters, the sign language used by interpreters is sort of a pidgin
sign, since they're translating on the fly.  It's closer to English (or
whatever) sentence structure than the natural, conversational ASL (or
whatever the regional sign language is).  Fingerspelling is something else
altogether, and is sort of an escape mechanism for things that have to be
described using another (spoken) language, like proper names.  You can't
really talk using fingerspelling for long (fingers and eyes get really
tired).

There really are "words" in ASL (the only sign language I have persona
familiarity with); there is a gesture that means "send" and one that means
bicycle and one that means "rubber" and one that means "marry".  Now, there
are also signs with broader meanings, that don't translate well, but
that';s to be expected.  

Sign languages have the advantage of having more dimensions than
spoken ones.  Spoken language has a dimension of sound/pitch/phone and
one of time.  Sign has time and also three dimensions of space,
enclosed in a small chunk of air in front of the speaker, plus
handshape.  Since the purpose of language is to model concepts and the
real world, sign languages have to do less compression to get from the
multidimensional world down to the language, while spoken languages
have to do more.  There's nothing particularly intuitive about the
sounds for the word "there" in English that imply "that region of
space"... but in a sign language you can just point to it.  This
doesn't make it any less of a symbol, just a more intuitive and more
flexible one (since you can point to other "there"s too).


~mark

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu Tue Jun 21 14:16:37 1994
From: shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu (Mark E. Shoulson)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 18:16:37 -0400
Message-Id: <199406212216.SAA23533@startide.ctr.columbia.edu>
Subject: a stupid question

>Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 19:19:33 +0200
>From: Ken.Beesley@xerox.fr (Ken Beesley)

>So the signs of sign language are not ideograms--they have internal
>structures composed of the equivalent of phonemes.  One term I have heard
>used is chiremes.

I'd heard "cheremes", I think.

>Some names have sign equivalents.  The resorting to hand-spelling is often
>necessary and is somewhat equivalent to slipping a French word into an English 
>speech.

Yes... many cities and countries have signs, and towns often have signs
that may be known only to the local populace.  People, too, get name-signs,
which their friends know (or famous people, like Jesus or Washington or
Hitler, for whom everyone knows the sign).  Sometimes if the same person is
mentioned in a speech many times (as at a funeral I was at, where the
eulogy was interpreted), it's spelled at the beginning and then assigned a
sign for ease of use in the rest of the speech.

~mark


______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From non12@cyber.net Wed Jun 22 02:58:43 1994
From: "John H. Chalmers" 
Subject: Tone language
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 94 9:58:43 PDT
Message-Id:  <9406220958.aa04902@cyber.cyber.net>

Craig Kopris: I can't remember exactly where I heard about
the inverse-tonal conlang. Very possibly it was in the 
language fanzine "Linguisa" (aka Linguica and a few other names).
I used to be be member, but I dropped out for lack of time.
If no-one currently in conlang knows the reference, I could email
a couple of members who might know the answer. 

     On the other hand, it might have been in a former Conlang post.
     
    I think this language was the inverse of guaspi!(sp?) as the
tone sequences carried lexical information and the syllable the 
grammatical and attitudinal structure. I suspect that such a language
would require a greater ability for pitch recognition (perfect pitch) and
tonal memory (carrying and/or recognizing a tune) than most humans 
possess. Even Solresol would have been very difficult for most people, 
even if it were based on the diatonic (7-tone) scale rather than 
the chromatic (12-tone). Of course, rhythm and possibly timbre 
(tone color) could be used to  help differentiate "words." 

    There is some evidence that humans can make about 5 (7 +/- 2)
automatic distinctions along any given perceptual dimension, though
training can improve this ability. Most musical scales have 5 or 7
tones, and while there are plausible acoustic and structural reasons
which might explain this observation, the limits of human information
processing may also be involved. I should think that Solresol would be
very hard to learn and use for most people. 

    The elusive T-lang discussed above would probably have to use
gliding tones rather than a dozen or so level pitches to construct its
lexicon. As far as I know, no tonal language has more than about 5 levels
or more than about 8 pitch levels and contours (neumes?). Is this true?

-- John

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From lojbab@access.digex.net Wed Jun 22 09:45:24 1994
From: Logical Language Group 
Message-Id: <199406221745.AA03851@access2.digex.net>
Subject: Re: Tone language
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 13:45:24 -0400 (ADT)

John H. Chalmers writes:

> As far as I know, no tonal language has more than about 5 levels
> or more than about 8 pitch levels and contours (neumes?). Is this true?

I think the bit about 5 levels maximum is true.  While most languages with
contour tones have 8 at most, there are exceptions:  Cantonese has 11, of
which 9 are basic and 2 are marginal (appearing only in colloquial forms).
Kam, also spoken in China, of the Kam-Sui branch of Tai, has 15!
Ramsey, p. 244:

	The Kam language is noteworthy for its extraordinarily large
	number of tone distinctions.  Counting six pitch distinctions
	in "checked" syllables [those which end with a stop], most
	dialects of Kam are said to have fifteen different tones.  This
	is surely close to a record.  The almost unbelievably large
	number of tone distinctions seems to have resulted historically
	from at least two tone splits, both of which happened as a result
	of changes in the initial consonants, particularly devoicing.
	Kam now has no voicing contrasts.  The other Kam-Sui languages
	have fewer tones and more vowels and more consonants.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account  for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Sat Jun 25 00:38:00 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9406241838.AA27334@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: Something about Finnish
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 21:38:00 +0300 (EET DST)

Quoting Irina Rempt:

> (Please will some Finn enlighten me on whether Finnish has prepositions
> and/or postpositions at all, or is it all done with those glorious
> eleven cases?)

Yes, there are... They're mostly postpositions, but there are
prepositions also (in poetry and things like that there's no difference
between them...). They often require the main word should be in specific
case (usually genitive), as in many other languages.

      koiran kanssa    = with the dog
      dog's  with

      talon   takana   = behind the house
      house's behind

      talon     sisa"lla"  = inside the house
      house's   inside

      sisa"lla" talossa    = inside the house
      inside    in house

Sometimes the post/preposition can also be put in different cases...

(And ps: as far as I remember, there are _fifteen_ cases in Finnish,
I don't master the grammar very well, but eleven seems too few ;)

Quoting Edmund Grimley-Evans:

> In Hungarian and Finnish the stress is always on the first syllable.

> (Please correct me, if any of my examples are wrong. But don't bother
> to mention pendantic and rare exceptions to the rules.)

This is kind of rare exception...
In Finnish 'Aivan!' (= 'Exactly!') the stress is on the second syllable.
If the stress was on the first syllable, as it usually is, I think it
would not carry its message very well: try this in English: say
'Exactly!' first stressing the first syllable, then stressing the second
one. Which one of them sounds better?

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila           Usebol ez joinse tuit;
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi      tot obolros o'Zurs;
  77700 Rautalampi         dol obol o'Jurs
  Finland

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Sat Jun 25 00:38:43 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9406241838.AA27361@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: About descriptions of fictional languages
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 21:38:43 +0300 (EET DST)

I've seen many detailed descriptions of fictional lgs here in conlang.
It's nice to know about grammars and so, but I'd also like to know more
about things where the lgs are based: some world description also!
I think many of us shares this opinion with me.

And, because we're getting so much of these huge lg descriptive texts,
It would be nice to see them all collected in some file server
(listservs' file systems, ftp's etc) where they could be found by anyone
who is interested.

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila           Usebol ez joinse tuit;
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi      tot obolros o'Zurs;
  77700 Rautalampi         dol obol o'Jurs
  Finland

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi Sat Jun 25 00:39:29 1994
From: viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila)
Message-Id: <9406241839.AA27389@freeport.uwasa.fi>
Subject: A text about "Language Creation"
To: conlang@diku.dk
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 21:39:29 +0300 (EET DST)

I found a text file about language creation on a shareware CD-ROM of a
BBS a year or so ago. After I read it, I tried to find some information
of contacting the author other than his name (Dan Vanderboom), because
the text, though it gave me new ideas and even new points of view,
seemed to be suffering of "minor" glottocentrism.

Let's have some quotes:

> Is the creature naturally peaceful or hostile?  For peaceful beings, the
> words and syllables will be softer and smoother, while more hostile
> races will tend to make sharp, nasty sounds, spitting or barking their
> words once in a while.

> Prepositions and prepositional phrases are the things that color our
> sentences and give them detail.  "Under the rock", "around the corner",
> "through the roof" are all prepositional phrases.  There are so many
> prepositions that only a few will be named within these pages.  For
> more, there can easily be found lists of prepositions in English grammer
> texts at your local library. When thinking of prepositions that you may
> need, you should consider the nouns you have created.

> In the Spanish language, as well as many others, there are male and
> female words.  This is determined by a suffix, while some other
> languages use prefixes.  If you wish to do this--and it's not suggested
> due to an extreme amount more work--you can do so by formulating your
> own suffix/prefix additions to words.  But I will show you how, in case
> you have other plans for them, such as making them plural, etc.

> When adding prefixes or suffixes, don't add more than one or two
> letters, as you're significantly change the sound, and thus the meaning,
> of the word.

> Phase changes you'll want to cover are: singular/plural, gender
> (optionally), and other and miscellaneous things (food may be 'hun' for
> planted food and 'hunir' for hunted meat food).

The CD-ROM may have been So Much Shareware, I'm not too sure. The name
of the directory was something like 'unassorted'... The filename was
'language.zip'.

If there is one who wants to have a look on this text, he/she can mail
me to get it.
And if someone has any clue of the origins of this text, then please,
share that clue.

Viznut.H.
_

-- 
  Ville Heikkila           Usebol ez joinse tuit;
  Miskala, Vaajasalmi      tot obolros o'Zurs;
  77700 Rautalampi         dol obol o'Jurs
  Finland

______________________________________________________________________
 
 
>From hmiller@ea.com Sat Jun 25 00:46:54 1994
From: hmiller@ea.com (Herman Miller)
Subject: Re: A text about "Language Creation"
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 00:46:54 GMT
Message-Id: 

In article  viznut@freeport.uwasa.fi (Ville Heikkila) writes:

. . . 

>Let's have some quotes:

>> Is the creature naturally peaceful or hostile?  For peaceful beings, the
>> words and syllables will be softer and smoother, while more hostile
>> races will tend to make sharp, nasty sounds, spitting or barking their
>> words once in a while.

Sometimes it's more fun to do just the opposite.  Mizarians are peaceful 
people, but their language contains no voiced stops, only voiceless ones, and 
no nasals at all.  Not exactly sharp & nasty, but I wouldn't describe it as 
softer and smoother.  Then there's the hostile Leski [l@s'ki:], who have a 
more "beautiful" language.

>> Prepositions and prepositional phrases are the things that color our
>> sentences and give them detail.  "Under the rock", "around the corner",

. . .

Why exactly do we use the same word "in" for "in the box", "in town", "in 
front", "in English"?  I would use different words for these in Olaetyan.  On 
the other hand, Olaetyan "a" could be translated "at", "on", or "in", and "y" 
as "of", "from", or "than".  Preposition usage seems to vary quite a bit from 
language to language.  I wonder to what extent this is true in artificial 
languages that have prepositions or postpositions?  Esperanto, from what I 
remember, has a "catch-all" preposition of indefinite meaning in case one of 
the regular prepositions didn't fit (a useful concept).  "In English" would be 
an adverb in Esperanto, but what about "in the box", "in town", "in front": 
would these use the same preposition or different ones?

>> In the Spanish language, as well as many others, there are male and
>> female words.  This is determined by a suffix, while some other

. . . 

I don't use grammatical gender, though there's really no reason not to (in a 
fictional language).  It's just another one of those complications like 
irregular verbs that no one would ever notice.  I do use masculine & feminine 
suffixes in some languages, though.

>> When adding prefixes or suffixes, don't add more than one or two
>> letters, as you're significantly change the sound, and thus the meaning,
>> of the word.

I don't agree with this rule; consider English "-able", Spanish "-mente", 
Olaetyan "-redhli".

>> Phase changes you'll want to cover are: singular/plural, gender
>> (optionally), and other and miscellaneous things (food may be 'hun' for
>> planted food and 'hunir' for hunted meat food).

What about case?  Tense, aspect, and mood of verbs?  Some languages (like 
Irish) even inflect their prepositions.
Text file Source (historic): geocities.com/raiu_harrison/conlang

geocities.com/raiu_harrison

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