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There are 6 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Types of Possession -- Tesäfköm: A Constructed Language (S11)
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Conlang flag in actual cloth
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
From: Larry Sulky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 13:56:35 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Types of Possession -- Tesäfköm: A Constructed Language (S11)
Hi!
Thomas Hart Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>...
> >1) Many languages divide nouns into two types; possessible and non-
> >possessible. ...
> > [snip]
> >
> >2) Many languages divide nouns into two types; those on the one hand that,
> >inherently, must be possessed, and those on the other hand that need not,
> >inherently, be possessed. ...
> > [snip]
> >
> >3) Many languages ... divide types of possession into alienable ...
> > versus inalienable ...
> >
> >4) Many languages use a combination of two of the above three ideas. It is
> > logically possible, and I think there may exist some natlangs attesting,
> > all three at once -- I don't know, does anyone else?
> >
> > [snip]
>
> Henrik Theiling's conlang Tesäfköm (S11) does embody all three of these
> ideas.
Indeed! :-) Of course, I stole the idea from various books I read. I
found it very interesting and designed my conlang according to it.
BTW, I love to introduce irregular structures that make it near
impossible to regularly 'fix' a defective system, e.g. the inalienable
construct state in S11 is irregular so that no regular absolute state
can be derived and used. And in S7 and also in S11, I embedded the
mood/evidence markers so deeply in the grammar structure that no-one
can easily leave them out (e.g. due to sloppiness). In S11 they
have a secondary function of marking the beginning of a sub-clause.
Thanks for looking to deeply into my conlang (despite my often
talkative and confusing web sites) -- it is nice to share ideas! :-)
>...
> 3) Henrik gives S11 two construct-states; the alienable one and the
> inalienable one.
>...
An upcoming website update will show that I removed one of the
construct states, but still, the distinction is there: alienable
possession now requires a completely different structure, namely a
relative clause. After the recent discussions about the various types
of possessive I decided to throw out a concept so underspecified and
ambiguous as alienable possession and further found that instead of
introducing many different possessive markers (e.g. like gzb and
Ithkuil), I'd better use what I already have: a relative clause. The
phrases get much longer by this, but so be it. :-) E.g.
man's house = EARLIER: man house.<alienable-constr-state>
NOW: MOOD-owned man-owns REL house
OR: house-MOOD-owned man-owns RES
MOOD= some mood/evidence marker (also indicates start of sub-clause)
REL= relative clause finalising particle (externally headed RC)
RES= resumptive pronoun (internally headed RC)
So instead of two or three morphemes (depending whether the construct
state is a morpheme of its own), yow now need six.
Anyway, inalienable possession is still present in exactly the way as
before:
man's arm = man arm.<inalienable-constr-state>
And actually, this is currently the only binary relation the language
has. Everything else that is naturally binary or n-ary, n > 2, has to
be expressed with a serial verb construction. I'm not sure yet about
how to handle clause subordination, but we'll see.
Discussions about different types of inalienable possession are very
welcome, maybe I've overseen something and it is still ambiguous? How
do, say gzb or Ithkuil or other conlangs handle inalienable possession
and what types are possibly distinguished?
**Henrik
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 13:41:21 +0000
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Conlang flag in actual cloth
Sai Emrys wrote at 2005-12-28 23:13:13 (-0800)
> Taliesin / Tim:
>
> Could I please have a more common-formatted version - compatible with:
> Illustrator 8.0, CorelDraw 9.0, and/or Photoshop 5.0?
>
Certainly. But a vector image can be scaled to any size - if you want
a bitmap, you'll have to tell me how big it should be.
> And please make sure that the colors conform to this palette:
> http://www.the-flag-makers.com/pantone-color-chart.htm
>
> Maybe argue over (er, I mean... discuss) which exactly is the right
> color for the sun and the sky, since I'm not the herladry expert
> around here. :-P
Interesting point. In principle, of cours, it'd be better to see them
on cloth rather than on the screen - I guess I'll look through and
find the closest matches to Christian's colours.
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 14:07:29 +0000
From: Chris Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
>
> If Gary wants to put his ideas to the test and produce a conlang in
> the way he has described, and see how it works out, that's fine - I
> have no quarrel with that. But please do not say that this is how
> conlangs in general should be produced.
>
The problem, IMO, with "using conlangs into existence" is that
invariably what you feel you need is exactly the structures that your L1
has and your conlang lacks. Anyone who's ever learned another natlang
that isn't closely related to their own will have learned that often the
new language feels "lacking" to you until you adjust to using what it
has, rather than what it seems to be missing by comparison with your L1.
The first thing your brain tries to do is force a familiar pattern on
things, so using a conlang into existence without designing it would
amount, I think, to grammatically recreating your L1 with just the shape
of the morphemes changed.
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 09:24:26 -0800
From: Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
--- R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >
> >>I think I've finally figured out why grammar is so
> >>complex. It's because it's an artificial attempt
> to
> >>discover "rules" in what is really a monsterous
> >>collection of exceptions. There ARE no rules; only
> >>exceptions! ...
> >
> >
> > Well, I find that too strict, since children do
> try to find rules when
> > learning a language.
<...>
> Yes - having had children of my own and now
> observing grandchildren,
> there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that
> Henrik is absolutely
> correct.
It is also absolutely correct that children find teddy
bears and elephants in puffy clouds. That we seek
something is not proof that what we seek exists.
However, "rules" DO exist. There's no doubt of that,
but they exist as artificial human constructs, not as
genetically wired givens. By my definition a "rule of
grammar" is simply a description of a habit of speech.
<...>
> Quite so! Nor am I at all comfortable, to put it
> mildly, with the
> apparent assumption that early hominids spoke in the
> comic book "me see
> tiger" idiom.
Surely you are not suggesting that on day one, when
the first homonid made the first sound with his mouth
that it was as grammatically sophisticated as Chaucer!
Certainly there was a time, however brief, when
utterances were little more than grunts and gestures.
I can't imagine how language could have emerged fully
developed overnight.
<snip>
>
> _should_? In any case, that would be a darned silly
> IMHO way to go about
> producing a loglang or, indeed, any sort of
> engelang.
>
> Conlangs are produced for a *variety of different*
> reasons - as this
> list has made clear over many years. To suggest that
> there is one method
> that 'should' be adopted in the construction of all
> conlangs seems to me
> just nonsense.
That WAS tongue in cheek. ;-) Certainly I'm not
foolish enough to proclaim the manner in which ALL
conlangs MUST be produced.
> If Gary wants to put his ideas to the test and
> produce a conlang in the
> way he has described, and see how it works out,
> that's fine - I have no
> quarrel with that. But please do not say that this
> is how conlangs in
> general should be produced.
<snip>
> >
> > For me, the chief attraction of conlangs (-- & I
> favour
> > the engelangy sort) is precisely that they can be
> designed
>
> AMEN!
>
Certainly. And some prefer golf to bowling. But we all
know that the world would be a better place if all the
bowlers and golfers would get out of the alleys and
off the greens and start conlanging! We must picket
the bowling alleys with our conlang flags!
--gary
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:31:28 -0500
From: Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
On 12/28/05, Chris Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > > >... Therefore conlangs should not be "designed", they should be
> > > > "used into existence." ...
> ... Has anybody on this list attempted this ... by teaching their conlangs
> to their children? That seems an obvious way to test the "speakability" of
> a conlang, if a child is able to be raised bilingual in a conlang plus a
> natlang.
This seems like a bad idea, simply
to use one's children as experimental
subjects to test whether a language design
is workable or complete. It could be
fun and useful for a family to have its
own language for speaking privately
in public, etc.; but in that case one
should not try to raise children speaking
the language until not just one
but several adults are fluent in it --
one should not inflict it on children
until it's already been proven to be fairly
complete and expressive. Even so,
most of the advantages of having
a familial "secret" language could
be had using an IAL or loglang
that has at least a few speakers
outside the family, but not so many
that one is likely to run into them
randomly.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm
...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 12:43:43 -0500
From: Larry Sulky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Why grammar is so complex a subject
On 12/29/05, Jim Henry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 12/28/05, Chris Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > Gary Shannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > > > >... Therefore conlangs should not be "designed", they should be
> > > > > "used into existence." ...
>
> > ... Has anybody on this list attempted this ... by teaching their conlangs
> > to their children? That seems an obvious way to test the "speakability" of
> > a conlang, if a child is able to be raised bilingual in a conlang plus a
> > natlang.
>
> This seems like a bad idea, simply
> to use one's children as experimental
> subjects to test whether a language design
> is workable or complete.
Agreed. This is why I've started off teaching Elomi mainly to the
family beagle. She has learned "aya!" already, which is an utterance
of consternation, alarm, or excitement, and pronounces it quite well.
She has also coined a new word herself, "awuuuuuuu", which seems to
mean 'lonesome'.
---larry
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