Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: DAVID HARRIS PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 04/23/96 at 21:54 Re: CONLANG: Categories of Gr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ’@TO :jim.henry N ’@FROM :SilentQ@msn.com N ’@SUBJECT:CONLANG: Categories of Grammaticalization N ’@UMSGID : N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Tue Apr 23 20:29:27 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (daemon@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail .holonet.net with ESMTP id UAA20166; Tue, 23 Apr 1996 20:29:27 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA05798 for conlang-outgoing; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 04:58:29 +0200 Received: from upsmot01.msn.com (upsmot01.msn.com [204.95.110.78]) by vidar.dik u.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA05790 for ; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 04:58:26 +0200 Received: from upmajb02.msn.com (upmajb02.msn.com [204.95.110.74]) by upsmot01. msn.com (8.6.8.1/Configuration 4) with SMTP id TAA16437 for ; Tue, 23 Apr 1996 19:49:55 -0700 Date: Tue, 23 Apr 96 21:54:55 UT From: "David Harris" Message-Id: To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: CONLANG: Categories of Grammaticalization Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: "David Harris" ******************************************** For CONLANG: Categories of Grammaticalization in Language- In Arabic Structure (a course I took at Georgetown University some years back), we identified eleven grammaticalized concepts and the parts of speech to which each applied. I have written up a short explanation of these and added a comparison to Esperanto with the idea that these areas might be exploited for language construction. Obviously, not all apply to all languages. Humanness, for example, is not a grammatical concept in Indo-European languages. By the same token, there must be others that don't apply to Arabic and which are, hence, not included here. (Animatedness, for example, is used in some African and Amerind languages. It's closely related to humanness but differs in that there are many levels of animatedness as opposed to the binary nature of Arabic humanness and non-humanness.) If anyone can think of other parameters not included here, I'd appreciate it if you could please make me aware of them. Format: Arabic >> Esperanto 1. aspect: is expressed in Arabic verbs >> in Esperanto verbs (-ad, ek-, -et, others?) Arabic has perfect and imperfect verb forms. However, these have come to designate tense more than aspect, although in compound forms, the aspectual sense still comes through (Grammaticalized aspect is limited to perfect and imperfect in Arabic.) In Esperanto, the prefix 'ek-' signifies an inceptive or inchoative sense, i.e. the beginning of an action: koni = to know or be acquainted with ekkoni = to get to know The suffix '-ad' signifies duration in a continuative and a habitual sense: studi = to study studadi = to be in school The suffix 'et-' is usually used with nouns to form the diminuitive. However, it can also be used with other parts of speech and even independently: dormi = to sleep dormeti = to nap If anyone can think of other affixes that express aspect in Esperanto, please bring them to my attention! (Thanks in advance) 2. tense: is expressed in Arabic verbs >> in Esperanto verb endings For Arabic, see aspect above. In Esperanto, tense is expressed in verbs and active and passive participles by means of a vowel alternation. verbal endings: -as = present, -is = past, -i = infinitive, -os = future, -us = condit ional, -u = optative, (-es is not used in vowel endings but could be if one de sired to incorporate another dimension of tense into Esperanto verbs, I suppose - or perhaps in a novel to illustrate a strange accent where present and past are bl urred by lack of distinction between vowels.) Personally, I don't believe tense is necessary in language. If it is desired, however, it should be expressed phrasally and not as a component of the verb. 3. gender: is expressed in Arabic verbs, nouns, adjectives, & 2nd and 3rd person pronouns for feminine and masculine >> In Esperanto, there is natural gender only and only in nouns, using the suffix '-in' for female and the prefix 'ge' for a group including members of both sexes 4. case: Arabic nouns are marked for three cases, nominative, accusative, and prepositional >> Esperanto has accusative and non-accusative only (although some might prefer to differentiate between those in a prepositional phrase and those standing alone, ie. nominatives) 5. mood: Arabic imperfect verbs have indicative, subjunctive, and jussive; Classical Arabic also had the energetic which survives to a degree in poetry; perfect verbs are not marked for mood and can be considered exclusively indicative; the conditional is expressed using phrasal particles >> in Esperanto, the conditional is considered a tense (see tense above); there are no other moods 6. definiteness: Arabic nouns and adjectives are marked for definiteness either with the definite article or a possessive pronoun; without these, indefiniteness applies >> Esperanto uses 'la' to mark the definite article and no marker for indefiniteness 7. number: Arabic verbs, nouns, adj's, and pronouns are marked for singular, dual, and plural >> Esperanto nouns and adjectives are marked for singular and plural 8. voice (Arabic verbs are passive or active) >> Esperanto can mark verbs with the suffixes '-ig' for "actifying" a passive or intransitive verb and '-igx' for passifying an active verbą 9. humanness Arabic plural nouns are modified by/replaced with plural verbs, adjectives, and pronouns when they refer to human beings; however, they take the feminine singular when they refer to non-human entities, activities, abstractions, etc. when expressed as large non-counted quantities (bushels of apples, for example) they take the masculine singular; Arabic also marks the difference between 'who' and 'what' >> in Esperanto, the 'who' and 'what' distinction is also made (kio vs. kiu) 10. person: 3 >> 3 11. deixis >> Arabic has 2 in most common usage but access to a third when needed >> Esperanto: 2 (marked 'this' and unmarked 'that') <*> Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: MICHAEL WETTSTEIN PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 04/24/96 at 19:00 Re: CONLANG: Categories’’’’’’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ’@TO :jim.henry N ’@FROM :haroun@eur.autodesk.com N ’@SUBJECT:Re: CONLANG: Categories of Grammaticalization N ’@UMSGID :<9604241700.AA16540@jamila.nc.esc> N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Wed Apr 24 16:35:48 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (root@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail.h olonet.net with ESMTP id QAA11154; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 16:35:48 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA12012 for conlang-outgoing; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 00:43:26 +0200 Received: from adeskgate.autodesk.com (adeskgate.autodesk.com [198.93.152.11]) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12005 for ; Thu, 25 Apr 1996 00:43:22 +0200 Received: from autodesk.autodesk.com by adeskgate.autodesk.com (8.6.12/SMI-5.3) with ESMTP id NAA05604; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 13:42:44 -0700 Received: from vector.eur.autodesk.com by autodesk.autodesk.com (8.6.8/4.4BSD) with SMTP id KAA08351; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 10:01:43 -0700 Received: from jamila.nc.esc by vector.eur.autodesk.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10807; Wed, 24 Apr 96 19:10:51 +0200 Received: by jamila.nc.esc (5.x/SMI-SVR4) id AA16540; Wed, 24 Apr 1996 19:00:53 +0200 Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 19:00:53 +0200 From: haroun@eur.autodesk.com (Michael Wettstein) Message-Id: <9604241700.AA16540@jamila.nc.esc> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: CONLANG: Categories of Grammaticalization X-Sun-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: haroun@eur.autodesk.com (Michael Wettstein) If I may be so bold as to add to SilentQ (David Harris)'s comments: > Format: Arabic >> Esperanto > > 4. case: Arabic nouns are marked for three cases, nominative, accusative, and > prepositional >> Esperanto has accusative and non-accusative only (although > some might prefer to differentiate between those in a prepositional phrase > and> those standing alone, ie. nominatives) It might be interesting to point out the broad range of functions of the accusative in Arabic. Essentially, it is Arabic's circumstantial case par excellence (if I can use "circumstantial" the way I am about to explain). For example, most prepositions in Arabic actually are or used to be nouns or adjectives (the distinction between nouns and adjectives in Arabic is rather fuzzy) in the accusative case and in a construct state, so that "above the house" is expressed as "fawqa l-bayti" sort of means "(with regards to the) above-area (of) the house" ("-a" marks the accusative case on "fawq-", and "-i" marks the genitive or prepositional case on "bayt-" [house]; the "l-" is the definite arti- cle). In view of this construction, I think you could call the prepo- sitional case a genitive one without loss of accuracy or generality (it also marks the standard genitive case). If a preposition is the "object" of another preposition, its accusative marker changes to gen- itive: "from above the house" = "min fawqi l-bayti" ("min" = "from", one of Arabic's few real prepositions). Another example of the circumstantial use of the accusative in Arabic is a sentence like "He answered, crying", which could be rendered in Arabic as "ajaaba baakiyan", which, translated literally, is "he-answered crying", with "crying" in the accusative case, as marked by the "-an" ending. Not surprisingly, the accusative is a major mark of adverbs in Arabic. Both of the above differ from Esperanto, which has a richer array of true prepositions, and for which circumstantials are often expressed with the adverbial ending (not the accusative). Also, the accusative is not used in Arabic to indicate movement as opposed to stationarity; all objects of prepositions are in the genitive case in Arabic. > 8. voice (Arabic verbs are passive or active) >> Esperanto can mark verbs wit h > the suffixes '-ig' for "actifying" a passive or intransitive verb and '-igx' > for passifying an active verbą Arabic's notion of "passiveness" is a bit different from that of Esperanto's. Arabic has both active and passive conjugations of verbs, which are different from the processes for making a transitive verb intransitive or an intransitive one transitive. The Arabic word for "passive" (when applied to conjugations) actually means "unknown", which is much more accurate for Arabic: if the agent is known, you generally can't use the passive voice. For example, you can't say "The boy was bitten by the dog"; you have to say "The dog bit the boy". You can specify an instrument in a passive construction, but not an agent. > 9. humanness Arabic plural nouns are modified by/replaced with plural verbs, > adjectives, and pronouns when they refer to human beings; however, they take > the feminine singular when they refer to non-human entities, activities, > abstractions, etc. when expressed as large non-counted quantities (bushels of > apples, for example) they take the masculine singular; Arabic also marks the > difference between 'who' and 'what' >> in Esperanto, the 'who' and 'what' > distinction is also made (kio vs. kiu) I'm not sure if this includes to the collective/unit distinction in Arabic. Arabic is quite rich in collective nouns that refer to all of a particular class of objects. You can then usually derive a unit noun from the collective by adding a unit suffix. This unit suffix has a plural which may or may not be identical to the collective. I think Esperanto's answer to this is something like "sukero" ("sugar", collective) -> "sukerero" ("grain of sugar", unit) -> "sukereroj" (plural of unit noun). An distinction analagous to the collective/unit distinction in Arabic is the derivation of "nouns of single instance" from verbal nouns, generally by adding the unit suffix. For example, "dahik" means "laughter", while "dahika" means "a laugh". I think Esperanto goes in the other direction: "rido" = "a laugh", while "ridado" = "laughter". > 11. deixis >> Arabic has 2 in most common usage but access to a third when > needed >> Esperanto: 2 (marked 'this' and unmarked 'that') Just out of curiosity, what is the third one you refer to in Arabic? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * MICHAEL WETTSTEIN * * Autodesk Development B.V. * * haroun@eur.autodesk.com * * European Software Centre (ESC) * * tel +41-38-23.91.00 * * Neuchātel -- Switzerland * * fax +41-38-23.93.99 * * ESC OPINIONS NOT EXPRESSED HERE * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * s s ** | **_ * | * \ || _ * |__ _ *__ \ || _) \_)))| (_\_)_)|_)))_) _\||(_\ (\_/__)(_\ /__)\ _\|| (__)_/ ** s __/ (__) __/ (__) _/ ** ** "La tero estas mia patrujo, kaj la homaro estas mia familio." "La terre est ma patrie, et l'humanité est ma famille." "The earth is my homeland; mankind, my family." -- Gibran Khalil Gibran <*> Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: JEFFREY HENNING PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 04/19/96 at 21:34 Re: CONLANG: Database/spreads ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ’@TO :jim.henry N ’@FROM :74774.157@compuserve.com N ’@SUBJECT:CONLANG: Database/spreadsheet N ’@UMSGID :<960420013411_74774.157_EHL65-1@CompuServe.COM> N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Fri Apr 19 19:10:21 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (daemon@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail .holonet.net with ESMTP id TAA19279; Fri, 19 Apr 1996 19:10:21 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA04781 for conlang-outgoing; Sat, 20 Apr 1996 03:36:13 +0200 Received: from dub-img-1.compuserve.com (dub-img-1.compuserve.com [198.4.9.1]) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA04774 for ; Sat, 20 Apr 1996 03:36:09 +0200 Received: by dub-img-1.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id VAA05670; Fri, 19 Apr 1996 21:36:06 -0400 Date: 19 Apr 96 21:34:11 EDT From: Jeffrey Henning <74774.157@compuserve.com> To: Conlang Subject: CONLANG: Database/spreadsheet Message-ID: <960420013411_74774.157_EHL65-1@CompuServe.COM> Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Jeffrey Henning <74774.157@compuserve.com> Is anybody out there using a database or spreadsheet to manage the vocabulary o f their model language? What fields or columns are you using? I have the following for each word: Spelling Pronounciation Meaning Part of speech Gender Etymology Era (approximately when the word entered the language) Category (weapons term, nominal term, culinary term, etc.) Notes What special database functions do you use besides Find/Replace and Sort? I'm trying to make sure my model language software satisfies most people's needs. Cheers, Jeffrey <*> Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: JIM HENRY PRIVATE To: JEFFREY HENNING Date: 04/22/96 at 16:35 Re: CONLANG: Database/spreads ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: 74774.157@compuserve.com JH> Is anybody out there using a database or spreadsheet to manage the v JH> their model language? What fields or columns are you using? I have JH> following for each word: So far, just an outline-based word processor. I have the older form of the language in one frame, later forms in subsequent frames, and will generally coin a word in the Old Toa frame (say), then copy it to Thau and make any needed sound and meaning changes there. But I'll need to move to a database sometime. JH> Spelling JH> Pronounciation JH> Meaning JH> Part of speech I suppose you allow alternate meanings and parts of speech for the same orthographical word? -- for instance, as "iron" is both a noun, adjective and verb in English. In one of the languages I'm working on, most words have a verb/adjective sense and a noun sense, which is determined in context by whether an article is applied, word order, and a couple of other things. JH> Gender JH> Etymology JH> Era (approximately when the word entered the language) JH> Category (weapons term, nominal term, culinary term, etc.) JH> Notes Sounds good, much more thorough than any system I've got so far. You might want to add a prepositive or postpositive toggle for adjectives & prepositions - that is, some words might precede the noun they modify, others follow it, and others have a different meaning according to their position (as, e.g., ancien in French). --- ž RM 1.31 3176 ž Shareware...Give...Receive... <*> Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: BRUCE R GILSON PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 04/27/96 at 03:01 Re: CONLANG: Gender (was: Mo ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ’@TO :jim.henry N ’@FROM :brg@NETCOM.COM N ’@SUBJECT:CONLANG: Gender (was: Modlang software sort fields) N ’@UMSGID :<199604271001.DAA10979@netcom23.netcom.com> N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Sat Apr 27 03:17:33 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (daemon@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail .holonet.net with ESMTP id DAA23679; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 03:17:33 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id MAA22520 for conlang-outgoing; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 12:01:13 +0200 Received: from netcom23.netcom.com (brg@netcom23.netcom.com [192.100.81.137]) b y vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA22511 for ; S at, 27 Apr 1996 12:01:10 +0200 Received: (from brg@localhost) by netcom23.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id DAA10979; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 03:01:05 -0700 Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 03:01:05 -0700 From: brg@NETCOM.COM (Bruce R. Gilson) Message-Id: <199604271001.DAA10979@netcom23.netcom.com> To: 74774.157@compuserve.com, SoggyNook@AOL.COM Subject: CONLANG: Gender (was: Modlang software sort fields) Cc: conlang@diku.dk Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: brg@NETCOM.COM (Bruce R. Gilson) Jeffrey Henning <74774.157@compuserve.com> wrote: >>>I would think "gender" is too specific. Some languages have >>>gender, some have noun classes (e.g. Bantu langs), some divide >>>nouns into mass nouns and count nouns, some languages do not >>>distinguish categories of noun, but make clearcut subdivisions >>>of verbs, adpositions or other parts of speech. Wouldn't >>>"class" (or "subcategory") be a better field than gender? > >When I think of gender I also think of noun class as in Bantu. I guess that's >just how I learned the time. Are the noun classes in Bantu not called gender? Actually, noun classes in Bantu and genders differ in one respect, at least where I've seen the term "gender" used in reference to Bantu. The singular and plural forms in Bantu are normally considered to be DIFFERENT classes. Thus in Swahili, there are nouns of class 1/2, 5/6, etc. Non-plurali- zing nouns, of course, are in only one class. Classes 1 and 2, which normally go together as singular and plural, would be counted as a single gender. And some classes form the plural for more than one class of singular (I'm not sure if the reverse is also true.) This sort of class would have to be considered the plural in two different genders. "Gender" is used sometimes in discussing Bantu. But it is not exactly synony- mous with "class" -- as indicated above. Bruce R. Gilson email: brg@netcom.com IRC: EZ-as-pi WWW: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/314 1 (for language stuff: add /langpage.html) <*> Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: RAYMOND A BROWN PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 04/30/96 at 20:14 Re: CONLANG: Postpositio’’’’’ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ’@TO :jim.henry N ’@FROM :raybrown@macline.co.uk N ’@SUBJECT:Re: CONLANG: Postpositions and prepositions N ’@UMSGID : N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Tue Apr 30 12:58:45 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (daemon@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail .holonet.net with ESMTP id MAA18212; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 12:58:45 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA16123 for conlang-outgoing; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:14:12 +0200 Received: from roadrunner.atlas.co.uk (roadrunner.atlas.co.uk [193.131.167.12]) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA16110 for ; Tue, 30 Apr 1996 21:14:04 +0200 Received: from [193.131.167.206] (line163.atlas.co.uk) by roadrunner.atlas.co. uk (4.1/PIPEX simple 1.9) id AA10902; Tue, 30 Apr 96 20:14:23 BST Date: Tue, 30 Apr 96 20:14:20 BST X-Sender: raybrown@mailhost.atlas.co.uk Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Jeffrey Henning <74774.157@compuserve.com> From: raybrown@macline.co.uk (Raymond A. Brown) Subject: Re: CONLANG: Postpositions and prepositions Cc: conlang@diku.dk Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: raybrown@macline.co.uk (Raymond A. Brown) Jeffrey rogavit: >Does any language, natural or modlang, have both postpositions and >prepositions? > In the earliest Greek (i.e. Homer) we seem to have adverbs, rather than true preps., giving the noun cases more precise meanings. These "adverbs" were fairly free in their positioning in sentences, but even there there was a tendency towards the prepositional position. In Classical Greek we definitely have prepositions. But the interesting thing is that the dissylabic ones (and most were) could be placed postpositionally with a change in the tonic accent! (The ancient accent was unquestionably tonal and not one of stress as in Modern Greek; but the details are uncertain and the subject of debate.) When the "adposition" (hate the term - but can't think of a better one at the moment) came before the noun the accent was on the second syllable, but if after the noun it was on the first syllable. Neat, eh! Ray. <*> Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: HS BRANDSMA PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 04/29/96 at 09:52 Re: CONLANG: RE: prepos. and ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ’@TO :jim.henry N ’@FROM :hsbrand@cs.vu.nl N ’@SUBJECT:CONLANG: RE: prepos. and postpos. N ’@UMSGID : N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Mon Apr 29 01:13:42 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (daemon@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail .holonet.net with ESMTP id BAA02605; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 01:13:42 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA22910 for conlang-outgoing; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 09:52:08 +0200 Received: from flits.cs.vu.nl (root@flits.cs.vu.nl [130.37.16.12]) by vidar.dik u.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA22903 for ; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 09:52:06 +0200 Received: by flits.cs.vu.nl (Smail3.1.28.1 #23) id m0uDnkb-0005s9C; Mon, 29 Apr 96 09:52 +0200 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 29 Apr 96 9:52:05 MET DST From: HS Brandsma To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: CONLANG: RE: prepos. and postpos. Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: HS Brandsma HI Dutch has both postpositions and prepositions: As in German (and Frisian) it has forms of the type "waarbij", like English "herewith, thereby". These seem to be common West-Germanic. But it also has examples like: In het huis (in the house) and Het huis in (into the house), so the prepos. has locative meaning and the postpos. directional meaning. In German or Latin this difference would be expressed by case. Other examples are: Het huis uit (out of the house), Het dak op (onto the roof) and some more. A.f.a.i.k. these all have a directional meaning. I don't recall any postpos. with no prepositional counterpart, like German gegenueber. Henno Brandsma <*> Origin: EAGLE - 0901 - Internet Email From: ROGER ROGERSSON PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 04/28/96 at 19:47 Re: CONLANG: Ume: Spatial ori ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ’@TO :jim.henry N ’@FROM :BruderB@t-online.de N ’@SUBJECT:CONLANG: Ume: Spatial orientation N ’@UMSGID : N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Sun Apr 28 11:09:30 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (daemon@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail .holonet.net with ESMTP id LAA25162; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 11:09:30 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA03353 for conlang-outgoing; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 19:52:58 +0200 Received: from mailout00.btx.dtag.de (mailout00.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.148]) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA03346 for ; Sun, 28 Apr 1996 19:52:53 +0200 Received: from ermail00.btx.dtag.de ([194.25.2.69]) by mailout00.btx.dtag.de wi th smtp (S3.1.29.1) id ; Sun, 28 Apr 96 19:51 MET DST Received: by ermail00.btx.dtag.de with (S3.1.29.1) id ; Sun, 28 Apr 96 17:50 GMT Message-Id: Date: Sun, 28 Apr 96 19:47 +0100 From: BruderB@t-online.de (Roger Rogersson) X-Sender: 057531550-0001@t-online.de (August Lohmann) Subject: CONLANG: Ume: Spatial orientation To: conlang@diku.dk Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: BruderB@t-online.de (Roger Rogersson) SPATIAL ORIENTATION IN UME I would like to take the oppportunity and ask your opinion about one of the features of my conlang Ume: its System of Spatial (and temporal and personal) Orientation, SSO. The SSO started out as a standardisation of Maricopa verb direction in March last year, and later got influenced by a remarkable book of Ekkehart Malotki, "Hopi Time". A short outline of the SSO will be given below in order to make discussion possible. I believe that the SSO has the potential to be a very powerful linguistic device, fitting well into my approach towards an "onomatopoetic" or "natural" language - but what do you think about it? I invite anyone who is interested to discuss this topic with me. Some of the questions I have: 1. Are there any other conlangs having "phonosemantics"? 2. Have you any suggestions how this device could be made more powerful? 3. The phonemes of motion are a little difficult. Shall /T/, i.e., be used for motion to a medial place or for a "neutral motion", that is, no motion at all. In that way, the phonemes of motion would be relative, and the phonemes of place absolute! Follows a short sketch of the SSO. ---- Short outline of the SSO ------------------------------------------------ The basic idea behind the SSO is quite simple (and may seem a bit naive in the beginning): Why not correlate positions of articulation to positions in space, thus using the mouth as a micro cosmos for the (abstract) world as a macro cosmos? Ume's series of velar series of consonants thus would be used as a metaphor for 'here; now; I' (velar consonants being produced back in the mouth, and in this respect being "nearest" to the speaker). The labial series would be used for 'there; then; you', being articulated most "far away" from the speaker. The alveolar/dental series might provide medial distance (in the personal class i.e., it would mean the person who is 'between' the two protagonists of speech, that is, the third person), but could also mark indefinite concepts: 'somewhere; sometimes; someone'. Ume has different grades in the primary consonants; a concrete example for the realisation of the SSO would be the following system of the three consonant series applied to some four concepts of "space": + 0 - Place p /p/ t /t/ c /k/ Time b /b/ d /d/ g /g/ Person m /m/ n /n/ ng /N/ Spatial motion ph /f/ th /T/ ch /x/ Temporal motion bh /v/ dh /D/ gh /G/ The combination of these "phonosemantic" units would give consonant clusters, that would be filled up (by the rules of phonotactics) with vowels: /a/ is attached to alveolar phonemes, /e/ to labial phonemes, /o/ is used after velar sounds. (Other vowels are used to express nuances in meaning, e.g. as intensifiers.) In that way, words like the following could be formed [1]: da sometimes (/a/ matches /d/) na he/she (utrum) ta.la lying there (/l/ marks horizontality) ti.la in there (/i/ is used as an intensifier) co.ra down there (/r/ marks verticality) ngo.go my former I (/o/ matches /N/ and /g/) Establishing rules of order in such expressions, quite complex concepts could be expressed with only a few phonemes. A sample order of elements for verbs of motion i.e. could be: TIME - ORIGIN - DIRECTION - GOAL - PERSON. Such a verb would look like this: b.p.chr.c.m > bepechracome "you shall/will come down from there" e.g.: - I'm going to stay on this this tree for the rest of my life! - (calm, with a whole life of experience) Bepechracome. ----- End of sketch ---------------------------------------------------------- I hope this stuff is interesting for some of you! Friendly regards, ROGER ROGERSSON BruderB@t-online.de <*>