There are 25 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1a. Re: grand revamp of the Talmit and Kymna pages    
    From: Jörg Rhiemeier
1b. Re: grand revamp of the Talmit and Kymna pages    
    From: Alex Fink
1c. Re: grand revamp of the Talmit and Kymna pages    
    From: Roman Rausch

2a. A Quick Question    
    From: J. Snow
2b. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Sam Stutter
2c. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: kechpaja
2d. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2e. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Brian
2f. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Jörg Rhiemeier
2g. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Brian
2h. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Roger Mills
2i. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Padraic Brown
2j. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
2k. Re: A Quick Question    
    From: Padraic Brown

3a. Derivational Affixes    
    From: Sam Stutter
3b. Re: Derivational Affixes    
    From: Charlie Brickner

4a. Creating Fictional Cases    
    From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
4b. Re: Creating Fictional Cases    
    From: Padraic Brown
4c. Re: Creating Fictional Cases    
    From: Sam Stutter
4d. Re: Creating Fictional Cases    
    From: Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews
4e. Re: Creating Fictional Cases    
    From: Padraic Brown
4f. Re: Creating Fictional Cases    
    From: yuri
4g. Re: Creating Fictional Cases    
    From: Patrick Dunn

5a. (no subject)    
    From: yuri
5b. (no subject)    
    From: Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro


Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Re: grand revamp of the Talmit and Kymna pages
    Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 9:25 am ((PST))

Hallo conlangers!

On Sunday 08 January 2012 23:53:08 Roman Rausch wrote:

> I'd like to announce a major rehaul of the Talmit website. The main page
> can now be found at: http://www.sindanoorie.net/ (right column).

A very handsome and well-designed web site, I must say!
Your pages are excellently done.

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1





Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: grand revamp of the Talmit and Kymna pages
    Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 10:00 am ((PST))

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 18:25:27 +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On Sunday 08 January 2012 23:53:08 Roman Rausch wrote:
>
>> I'd like to announce a major rehaul of the Talmit website. The main page
>> can now be found at: http://www.sindanoorie.net/ (right column).
>
>A very handsome and well-designed web site, I must say!
>Your pages are excellently done.

Yes, big style points for the TeX.  

On Sun, 8 Jan 2012 17:53:08 -0500, Roman Rausch <[email protected]> wrote:
>And last but not least: Since the first impression of the language usually
>was that some grammatical elements seemed to be engelangy, I made a page
>with historical anecdotes trying to explain how these and other features
>might have arisen historically:
>http://www.sindanoorie.net/glp/historical.html
>http://www.sindanoorie.net/glp/historical.pdf
>It's gotten very involved by now, I'm not sure that anyone will be able to
>follow, but I mainly did it to set those things straight for myself. Still,
>it's exciting, so check it out. Right now.

Mm, that does help a lot of those features go down smoothly for me.  What
you've done for signum I like; the number compounds you've probably given
the only explanation you really might have; the rest, I had no problems with
going in.  

But there are some other things which added to my sense of nonnaturalness
which I feel remain inadequately explained.  

One is why Tallic seems so free to perform CV metatheses at no provocation,
and (probably relatedly) so eager to reinterpret things as infixes.  Like,
infixing for iconicity!  That wouldn't happen unless infixing was already an
extremely familiar and non-weird thing to do, and in most languages it ìs
weird.  (This actually strikes me as a sort of Tolkienism; Primitive
Quendian has a lot of diverse internal modifications too.)  
I suppose this is probably not so hard to explain, though, as somehow
analogous to the grades in PIE, or (Roger Mills' favourite) the binding
processes in Leti, and with a similar origin involving lots of vowel loss. 
I guess in this instance I'm really just saying that I myself wouldn't be
satisfied to stop there; I'd want to track this process down to ordinary
origins as well.  

Another thing, which I still find hard to swallow, is cases where large sets
of forms seem to've ended up with unlikelily similar phonemic compositions.
 I don't mean the sound-symbolism, it's great.  And the fact that all roots
have a stop I can accept too (see below).  
What I mean is states of affairs like most of the inflectional endings
lacking stops, for instance all the basic postpositions.  One expects there
to have been postpositions with a stop, once; where did they go?  Or, again,
the basic numbers 1 through 5 are all vowel-sonorant; where did the ones
which historically had stops go?  
Perhaps it's sound change, but then why did the roots keep so many stops? 
(Phonological padding material, now lost?)  I can't see it as analogy, or
other such restructuring; no nat-example that is so severe as to throw out
whole classes of consonants from a set of CV forms comes to mind.  (The best
I can do is cases like those class of Bantu languages where in CVCVCV roots
it has come to be that the second and third C must be acute and grave in
that order.)  
... Or, is it analogical reassignment of the _classification of a form as a
root or not_?  E.g. your suffixes _-pa_ and _-ta_ seem to want to be
morphological elements, but you call them roots; just conceivably they were
once suffixes and were swept up in some such reinterpretation.  But how
would that have proceeded, step by step?


As concerns the roots, you write:
| Very rarely, _m_ is observed instead of an initial plosive (&#8730;me 'human 
| being'), _s_ as an initial sonorant (&#8730;ksatr 'fly', &#8730;psar 'rub'), 
_w, j_ 
| as final sonorants (&#8730;dew 'advice'). The breaking of the otherwise 
strict 
| pattern suggests an ancient loaning.

No, it doesn't suggest that to me.  After all, how did the root canon
*P(S)V(P)(S) in Proto-Tallic take hold?  AIUI, the normal procedure would be
(after regular change has made that root shape dominate already) by
reshaping the roots that don't fit in a variety of mostly ad-hoc ways,
motivated by morphological alternations if these exist.  These reshaping
processes are usually irregular or at least piecemeal enough that a residue
of oddballs is to be expected.

In your case, I'd venture explanations something like this: 
initial sonorant /s/ had always been allowed but was just very rare even in
the pre-proto-language (perhaps pre-proto-initial *PVS had shown syncope
when S was /rlwj/ but not when it was /s/, so all *P/s/ are very old); 
groups with final sonorants /wj/ mostly monophthongised but didn't in some
contexts (preceding V?) and the non-monophthongised variants only survived
as roots when a derived word containing them was especially salient; 
and initial plosive /m/ was either an old prefix that coalesced onto the
root ('human being' was once &#8730;m-be ?), or else was just never caught up in
the reshaping in a few very common words in which it occurred due to the
same forces that e.g. allow very common words to remain inflectionally
irregular ('human being' could well be one of these).  



One last smaller comment.  I doubt the need for your proto-Tallic phoneme
/l\/; I suspect it was just /r/, with dissimilation of all /r ... r/.  Is
there any Tallic case of the survival of */r ... r/ which can't be explained
as an analogical recreation of expected /r ... l/ or /l ... r/?  This
version would fit in with the root constraint against *r...r as well.

Alex





Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: grand revamp of the Talmit and Kymna pages
    Posted by: "Roman Rausch" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 2:55 pm ((PST))

>A very handsome and well-designed web site, I must say!
>Your pages are excellently done.

Thanks!

>One is why Tallic seems so free to perform CV metatheses at no provocation,
>and (probably relatedly) so eager to reinterpret things as infixes.  Like,
>infixing for iconicity!  That wouldn't happen unless infixing was already an
>extremely familiar and non-weird thing to do, and in most languages it ìs
>weird.  (This actually strikes me as a sort of Tolkienism; Primitive
>Quendian has a lot of diverse internal modifications too.)  
>I suppose this is probably not so hard to explain, though, as somehow
>analogous to the grades in PIE, or (Roger Mills' favourite) the binding
>processes in Leti, and with a similar origin involving lots of vowel loss. 
>I guess in this instance I'm really just saying that I myself wouldn't be
>satisfied to stop there; I'd want to track this process down to ordinary
>origins as well.

I admit that the CV <> VC metathesis was inspired by Elvish where a Quenya
verb like _ista_ has a past tense _sinte_ (IS- <> SI-).
But an easy explanation would be that the contact of a final consonant with
an initial consonant of the following word was avoided by inserting a vowel,
with the initial vowel later dropped:
_*aQ meda_ > _*aQa meda_ > _*Qa meda_
The metathized variant then by analogy got into free variation with the
original word.

Regarding infixing for iconicity, well.. One question that keeps bugging me
is: Is all grammar really just created by the agglutination of separate
words with later restructuring or can there be other effects? Reduplication
is clearly an iconic thing of its own, and so might be the gemination of a
particular consonant for intensification. Infixing to indicate position
inside was such an idea of a more direct change (there is additional
motivation of the avoidance of repetition, as explained in the text).
In any case, I'd have to read up on infixing and further meditate over this.
Leti certainly looks like fun, thanks for the input.

>What I mean is states of affairs like most of the inflectional endings
>lacking stops, for instance all the basic postpositions.  One expects there
>to have been postpositions with a stop, once; where did they go?  Or, again,
>the basic numbers 1 through 5 are all vowel-sonorant; where did the ones
>which historically had stops go?  

Shouldn't it be very well within probability to have no stop in 7 short
words? Also, a stop is created by later processes in _nótto_.
But if you look at the Indo-European case endings, the one which was least
fit for survival seems to have been ablative /t/, mainly surviving in
Sanskrit and apparently in some of the Italic languages. The second least
fit seems to have been /bh/. On the other hand, the fittest seem to have
been /n/, /m/ and /s/, the latter even surviving in the English plural. If
you look at German, for instance, you'll just find endings with /n/, /m/ and
/r/, apart from vowels.
Again, initial [D] in English is limited to certain grammatical elements.

Regarding the numerals: There is the subtle concept of a 'closed-set
symbolism' (which I picked up from a paper by Johanna Nichols): Words which
are often mentioned beside each other start to develop a kind of assonance -
this may be rhyme (Finnish 1st & 2nd person _minä, sinä_) or alliteration
(Avar _di-, du-_) or maybe something else. However, numerals seem to form
such sets in pairs (Old Japanese _*pito-, *puta-_ '1, 2', _mi-, mu-_ '3,
6'), not so much in quintuplets. I'll have to think it over.. Can't the
shape of the numerals in Talmit just be written off as an irreconstructible
mystery? Natural languages are certainly full of those..

In any case I'm trying to work out of a psychology where sonorants (plus
/s/) are seen as the special kind of sounds (which they are) - they can
easily combine with any other sound and are therefore better suited as
morphological elements. The outline of a script I have is actually a
syllabary with the sonorants marked by diacritics.

>... Or, is it analogical reassignment of the _classification of a form as a
>root or not_?  E.g. your suffixes _-pa_ and _-ta_ seem to want to be
>morphological elements, but you call them roots; just conceivably they were
>once suffixes and were swept up in some such reinterpretation.  But how
>would that have proceeded, step by step?

_Pa_ and _ta_ became suffixes in the most recent times, after the separation
into nouns and states had been completed. PA- has to be a root because it
has the derivatives _apéa_ 'good state', _ipéa_ 'bad state'.

>No, it doesn't suggest that to me.  After all, how did the root canon
>*P(S)V(P)(S) in Proto-Tallic take hold?  AIUI, the normal procedure would be
>(after regular change has made that root shape dominate already) by
>reshaping the roots that don't fit in a variety of mostly ad-hoc ways,
>motivated by morphological alternations if these exist.  These reshaping
>processes are usually irregular or at least piecemeal enough that a residue
>of oddballs is to be expected.

I guess you're right. I had of course invented this restriction in
'god-mode', but then made up roots which didn't fit it, thereby becoming
loans in god-mode. Looking at the whole thing in 'linguist-mode', however,
such an assumption does seem far-fetched.

>One last smaller comment.  I doubt the need for your proto-Tallic phoneme
>/l\/; I suspect it was just /r/, with dissimilation of all /r ... r/.  Is
>there any Tallic case of the survival of */r ... r/ which can't be explained
>as an analogical recreation of expected /r ... l/ or /l ... r/?  This
>version would fit in with the root constraint against *r...r as well.

In Japanese it seems to serve as a hiatus-breaker (superficially, it's
obvious: _tob-u_ 'fly', but _mi-r-u_ 'see'), similar to the English linking
r. So if hiatus-breakers generally tend to be rhotics and if a
hiatus-breaker appeared in pre-Proto-Tallic, it must have been different
from the already exisiting /r/ in order to explain why:
_ga_ + _un_ > _gánun_ with assimilation to the following /r/, but
_gar_ + _un_ > _gárun_ without it.
All the cases of multiple /r/'s are ambiguous. And of course, in the
original god-mode I just thought of them as dissimilations of /r/ and used
linking /n/ without thinking anything, until the above idea hit me in
linguist-mode.

Well, thanks for the detailed feedback - it's much appreciated.





Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. A Quick Question
    Posted by: "J. Snow" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 9:46 am ((PST))

In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic cases, nominative, accusative, dative and 
genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I use the dative case. 
Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new noun case 
altogether?





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 9:52 am ((PST))

Seems fine with me. That's what I've always used, anyway. Other noun cases tend 
to be specific to the prepositions used. The dative covers any indirect object.

Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na il cu barri"

On 9 Jan 2012, at 17:46, J. Snow wrote:

> In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic cases, nominative, accusative, dative and 
> genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I use the dative 
> case. 
> Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new noun case 
> altogether?





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "kechpaja" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 9:59 am ((PST))

That's definitely okay, although natlangs tend to have a variety of cases that 
are allowed to take prepositions. Will all prepositions take the Dative, or 
just those that aren't specifically designated as governing a different case?

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:51:41 +0000
Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:

> Seems fine with me. That's what I've always used, anyway. Other noun cases 
> tend to be specific to the prepositions used. The dative covers any indirect 
> object.
> 
> Sam Stutter
> [email protected]
> "No e na il cu barri"
> 
> On 9 Jan 2012, at 17:46, J. Snow wrote:
> 
> > In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic cases, nominative, accusative, dative and 
> > genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I use the dative 
> > case. 
> > Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new noun case 
> > altogether?


-- 
Lûk torktas blût spârva alrôrik.
Laws are a poor substitute for true integrity.





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 12:05 pm ((PST))

Hallo conlangers!

On Monday 09 January 2012 18:46:13 J. Snow wrote:

> In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic cases, nominative, accusative, dative and
> genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I use the dative
> case. Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new noun case
> altogether?

What you do is IMHO perfectly OK.  In German, which has the same
case inventory, many prepositions go with the dative (and many with
the accusative), and I have a draft of a conlang that does exactly
the same as yours.

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Brian" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 12:29 pm ((PST))

It's what Latin does.
------Original Message------
From: J. Snow
Sender: Conlang
To: Conlang
ReplyTo: Conlang
Subject: A Quick Question
Sent: Jan 9, 2012 11:46

In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic cases, nominative, accusative, dative and 
genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I use the dative case. 
Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new noun case 
altogether?





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 12:46 pm ((PST))

Hallo conlangers!

On Monday 09 January 2012 21:29:31 Brian wrote:

> It's what Latin does.

Actually, not.  Latin prepositions govern either the ablative
(which is the same form as the dative in many words, but still
a different case) or the accusative.  AFAIK, there is not a
single Latin preposition that governs the dative!  (Where is
Ray Brown when we need him?)

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Brian" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 1:45 pm ((PST))

That's probably what confused me, the ablative and dative being the same for 
many words. Oh well, that's what I get for neglecting my research before I try 
answering questions.
------Original Message------
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
Sender: Conlang
To: Conlang
ReplyTo: Conlang
Subject: Re: A Quick Question
Sent: Jan 9, 2012 14:46

Hallo conlangers!

On Monday 09 January 2012 21:29:31 Brian wrote:

> It's what Latin does.

Actually, not.  Latin prepositions govern either the ablative
(which is the same form as the dative in many words, but still
a different case) or the accusative.  AFAIK, there is not a
single Latin preposition that governs the dative!  (Where is
Ray Brown when we need him?)

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
"Bêsel asa Êm, a Êm atha cvanthal a cvanth atha Êmel." - SiM 1:1





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 1:51 pm ((PST))

From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[email protected]>

On Monday 09 January 2012 18:46:13 J. Snow wrote:

> In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic cases, nominative, accusative, dative and
> genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I use the dative
> case. Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new noun case
> altogether?

What you do is IMHO perfectly OK.  In German, which has the same
case inventory, many prepositions go with the dative (and many with
the accusative), and I have a draft of a conlang that does exactly
the same as yours.
============================================

Likewise Kash. The only difference might be-- the single locative preposition 
_ri_ with the dative means 'to, towards', with the accusative 'at, in, on'. It 
can take the genitive too, but that's a special usage. The preposition _alo_ 
'from' always takes the genitive.





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2i. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 3:09 pm ((PST))

--- On Mon, 1/9/12, J. Snow <[email protected]> wrote:

> In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic
> cases, nominative, accusative, dative and 
> genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I
> use the dative case. 
> Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new
> noun case altogether?

I don't see why prepositions *must* go with the dative.  I recall in Old 
Norse, til takes the genitive.

The real answer to your question is this: what case or cases have little
function words (adpositions etc.) been associated with in your conlang?

If you find that some little word is associated with the dative or the 
genitive or the nominative -- then thát is the case which that adposition 
"governs". Don't let the grammarians tell you that the nominative *can't* 
take a preposition! If your language has prepositions that are associated 
with the nominative or the vocative, then so be it. Let the grammarians 
grumble; but they will still have to sort out the history and the 
mechanics of it.

Padraic





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2j. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 3:33 pm ((PST))

I suppose you could create your own noun case.


Follow me on twitter


www.twitter.com/greenmellissa


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Padraic Brown" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: A Quick Question


> --- On Mon, 1/9/12, J. Snow <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic
>> cases, nominative, accusative, dative and
>> genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I
>> use the dative case.
>> Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new
>> noun case altogether?
>
> I don't see why prepositions *must* go with the dative.  I recall in Old
> Norse, til takes the genitive.
>
> The real answer to your question is this: what case or cases have little
> function words (adpositions etc.) been associated with in your conlang?
>
> If you find that some little word is associated with the dative or the
> genitive or the nominative -- then thát is the case which that adposition
> "governs". Don't let the grammarians tell you that the nominative *can't*
> take a preposition! If your language has prepositions that are associated
> with the nominative or the vocative, then so be it. Let the grammarians
> grumble; but they will still have to sort out the history and the
> mechanics of it.
>
> Padraic 





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
2k. Re: A Quick Question
    Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 3:51 pm ((PST))

--- On Mon, 1/9/12, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <[email protected]> 
wrote:

> I suppose you could create your own noun case.

Can certainly do that as well. One popular topic hereabouts is unusual or
rare nominal cases. I think the lists usually top twenty or thirty distinct
cases. 

Padraic

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Padraic Brown" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: A Quick Question


> --- On Mon, 1/9/12, J. Snow <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> In Sironu, nouns have the 4 basic
>> cases, nominative, accusative, dative and
>> genitive. When it comes to the object of a preposition, I
>> use the dative case.
>> Is that grammatically acceptable, or should I create a new
>> noun case altogether?
>
> I don't see why prepositions *must* go with the dative.  I recall in Old
> Norse, til takes the genitive.
>
> The real answer to your question is this: what case or cases have little
> function words (adpositions etc.) been associated with in your conlang?
>
> If you find that some little word is associated with the dative or the
> genitive or the nominative -- then thát is the case which that adposition
> "governs". Don't let the grammarians tell you that the nominative *can't*
> take a preposition! If your language has prepositions that are associated
> with the nominative or the vocative, then so be it. Let the grammarians
> grumble; but they will still have to sort out the history and the
> mechanics of it.
>
> Padraic 





Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3a. Derivational Affixes
    Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 3:23 pm ((PST))

Since Nỳspèke doesn't need any class-changing derivation, I've been playing 
around with some class-mantaining suffixes. Most of them are quite mundane, 
like +inhabitant of and +location bought from. Then there's the 
slightly-interesting  +fruit of suffix, hence:

venenk +a = venenka = the pistachio tree
venenk +eduk +a = venenkeduka = the pistachio nut

I've been trying to imagine some really quirky ones (I like quirky), but so far 
I haven't got anything particularly odd enough. I am rather proud of my 
body-lateral suffixes:

kànak +a = kànaka = thumb
kànak +ush +a =kànakusha = thumb on one's left hand
kànak +its +a = kànakitsa = thumb on one's right hand

Out of interest (by which I mean "in order to save myself the effort of having 
to be imaginative") I was wondering whether anyone had come across or had 
indulged in any particularly unique / strange / overly specific derivations. Or 
perhaps even root words which fulfil the same criteria and whether they say 
anything about your conlang or conculture?

I have in my hands a book by Adam Jacot de Boinod which lists a load of 
similarly overly specific or unusual turns of phrase (hell, let's include 
un-English turns of phrase while we're on the subject). However, it feels like 
one of those pop-linguistic "let's laugh at funny foreigners" books. I quote:

"bakku-shan" (Japanese): Girl who appears pretty when seen from behind but not 
from the front
"sendula" (Mambwe): to find accidentally a dead animal in the forest and be 
excited at the thought that a lion or leopard could still be around

I'm none too sure how much of this is attested or completely made up or 
somewhere in-between. Real examples are preferred *please* :)

Sam Stutter
[email protected]
"No e na il cu barri"





Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
3b. Re: Derivational Affixes
    Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:20 pm ((PST))

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 23:23:50 +0000, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> 
wrote:

>venenk +a = venenka = the pistachio tree
>venenk +eduk +a = venenkeduka = the pistachio nut

Senjecas does this by putting these in different declensions:

cáákis = pistachio tree - the declension for plants
cáákos = pistachio nut - the declension for perceivable objects

Senjecas treats meat in a similar way.

yórkes = deer - the declension for animals
yórkos = venison

Charlie





Messages in this topic (2)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4a. Creating Fictional Cases
    Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 3:41 pm ((PST))

How are fictional cases created? 


Follow me on twitter


www.twitter.com/greenmellissa





Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
4b. Re: Creating Fictional Cases
    Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 3:55 pm ((PST))

--- On Mon, 1/9/12, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <[email protected]> 
wrote:

> How are fictional cases created? 

Save yourself some wheelreinventing work and look here first:

http://www.frathwiki.com/Labels_for_local_cases

If you don't find a relationship you need, you can follow those models to
devise novel cases.

Don't feel restricted. If your language demands a special case for sitting
on a chair as opposed to sitting on a bench or on the ground, then you need
to devise those cases!

Padraic





Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
4c. Re: Creating Fictional Cases
    Posted by: "Sam Stutter" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:10 pm ((PST))

On 9 Jan 2012, at 23:55, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:

> --- On Mon, 1/9/12, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
>> How are fictional cases created? 
> 
> Save yourself some wheelreinventing work and look here first:
> 
> http://www.frathwiki.com/Labels_for_local_cases
> 
> If you don't find a relationship you need, you can follow those models to
> devise novel cases.
> 
> Don't feel restricted. If your language demands a special case for sitting
> on a chair as opposed to sitting on a bench or on the ground, then you need
> to devise those cases!

Ah, the sedemative case vs the terramative case :)

You guessed it, I can't do Latin. 

> 
> Padraic





Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
4d. Re: Creating Fictional Cases
    Posted by: "Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:16 pm ((PST))

So verb tenses can be cases instead tenses. What exactlyis a case?


Follow me on twitter


www.twitter.com/greenmellissa


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sam Stutter" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 7:10 PM
Subject: Re: Creating Fictional Cases


> On 9 Jan 2012, at 23:55, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> --- On Mon, 1/9/12, Nicole Valicia Thompson-Andrews 
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> How are fictional cases created?
>>
>> Save yourself some wheelreinventing work and look here first:
>>
>> http://www.frathwiki.com/Labels_for_local_cases
>>
>> If you don't find a relationship you need, you can follow those models to
>> devise novel cases.
>>
>> Don't feel restricted. If your language demands a special case for 
>> sitting
>> on a chair as opposed to sitting on a bench or on the ground, then you 
>> need
>> to devise those cases!
>
> Ah, the sedemative case vs the terramative case :)
>
> You guessed it, I can't do Latin.
>
>>
>> Padraic 





Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
4e. Re: Creating Fictional Cases
    Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:20 pm ((PST))

--- On Mon, 1/9/12, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:

> > Don't feel restricted. If your language demands a
> > special case for sitting
> > on a chair as opposed to sitting on a bench or on the
> > ground, then you need
> > to devise those cases!
> 
> Ah, the sedemative case vs the terramative case :)
> 
> You guessed it, I can't do Latin. 

Well, sounds good to me!

Just remember that the one always takes "to" *and* drops the definite
article, while the other may take either "with" or "beside" and never
drops the article! And don't forget that there is a distinct shift of
meaning in the one when the verb is middle voice vs. active! "I me sit to
chair" may only be said by one of the archonial class, as it refers to
his Office, while "I sit to chair" may be used by anyone for whom chairs
are appropriate furniture (this obviously excludes musicians, who must
always "sit with the earth", priests, who often "sit with a dais" and
children, who must never sit at all, but must attend to their elders at
all times or else be gone)!

Padraic


> 
> > 
> > Padraic
> 





Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
4f. Re: Creating Fictional Cases
    Posted by: "yuri" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:47 pm ((PST))

On 10 January 2012 12:55, Padraic Brown wrote:
> Save yourself some wheelreinventing work and look here first:
>
> http://www.frathwiki.com/Labels_for_local_cases
>
> If you don't find a relationship you need, you can follow those models to
> devise novel cases.

KlaXa has a hypothetical case for pronouns that translate loosely to
"someone", "something", "somewhere" when referring to a person, thing
or place that may or may not exist.

For example, in the sentence "someone should put a stop to this
nonsense", in KlaXa the word "someone" would be the common-gender
personal pronoun in the hypothetical case.

Yuri





Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
4g. Re: Creating Fictional Cases
    Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:49 pm ((PST))

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 6:20 PM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:

> --- On Mon, 1/9/12, Sam Stutter <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > Don't feel restricted. If your language demands a
> > > special case for sitting
> > > on a chair as opposed to sitting on a bench or on the
> > > ground, then you need
> > > to devise those cases!
> >
> > Ah, the sedemative case vs the terramative case :)
> >
> > You guessed it, I can't do Latin.
>
> Well, sounds good to me!
>
> Just remember that the one always takes "to" *and* drops the definite
> article, while the other may take either "with" or "beside" and never
> drops the article! And don't forget that there is a distinct shift of
> meaning in the one when the verb is middle voice vs. active! "I me sit to
> chair" may only be said by one of the archonial class, as it refers to
> his Office, while "I sit to chair" may be used by anyone for whom chairs
> are appropriate furniture (this obviously excludes musicians, who must
> always "sit with the earth", priests, who often "sit with a dais" and
> children, who must never sit at all, but must attend to their elders at
> all times or else be gone)!
>
> Padraic
>
>
Wow.  That was like jazz conlanging.





Messages in this topic (7)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5a. (no subject)
    Posted by: "yuri" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:30 pm ((PST))

On 10 January 2012 00:37, Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro wrote:
> I opened the link with no fear of acquiring any malware, trojan or
> whatever! I use Linux, I don't fear it at all! :)

Does this list's "No cross, no crown" policy include Linux proselytising?

Yuri





Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
5b. (no subject)
    Posted by: "Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro" [email protected] 
    Date: Mon Jan 9, 2012 4:45 pm ((PST))

Sorry for that, Yuri! I was not trying to be rude, I was just trying to be
playful.

Sorry for anything!

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 10:30 PM, yuri <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 10 January 2012 00:37, Hugo Cesar de Castro Carneiro wrote:
> > I opened the link with no fear of acquiring any malware, trojan or
> > whatever! I use Linux, I don't fear it at all! :)
>
> Does this list's "No cross, no crown" policy include Linux proselytising?
>
> Yuri
>





Messages in this topic (8)





------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/

<*> Your email settings:
    Digest Email  | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    [email protected] 
    [email protected]

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [email protected]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply via email to