faqsphinx wrote:
> Why do you allow such a comprehensive array of dipthongs?
I see them as monosyllabic vowel clusters, and I like to have simple
rules. That, and my goal to have a huge number of possible roots,
which are also phonologically different from each other. All roots in
Raikudu have the shape CV(V)CV(V). (Lirakdom is different.)
> Why did you rule out polysemy?
It is primary to make the morphology completely regular and
productive: you should always know from two morphemes what their
combination means. For that to be true I have to ditch polysemy. I am,
however, fond of _hypernymy_. To take an example: Where English has
different words for "fox", "dog" and "wolf", my language has a single
word "sicram" (tentatively)
.
> Why do you set up 24 consonants, and how did you choose them?
I begun with 13 consonants or something like that. The phonology was
supposed to be easy to pronounce for more or less everyone. Then, as
time went by, I added consonants now and then based on aesthetic
considerations to finally arrive at 25. I had as a criteria that every
consonant should be cross-linguistically common enough and that I
should be able to pronounce them, and that the resulting system should
have a "natural symmetry".
I am, nevertheless, not happy with the phoneme inventory of Raikudu. I
have a new one for Lirakdom:
http://veoler.googlepages.com/phonology.html
For both Raikudu and Lirakdom I had the goal to have an average sized
phoneme inventory, and 22 consonants and 6 vowels is about average.
> 4.6.11 The Utilitative Case
> Ithkuil distinguishes between Utilitative and Instrumentive cases. I find this > distinction is better marked by aspect based on my reading of Bernard Comrie. I > would like to hear your thoughts on this.
How do you mean? I haven't read Bernard Comrie so I don't know. But
the difference between the Utilitative and the Instrumental isn't
aspectual, in the narrow sense of the word, as far as I understand it.
In a grammar such as Latejami I find the case tag version of the verb
"to use" the best choice for the Utilitative. For the Instrumental, on
the other hand, I think to have it morphologically marked on the verb
might make most sense, since it has a specific relation with the agent
for the event in question.
It is possible that this distinction is often expressed with a formal
aspectual difference in natural languages, I don't know, but a crucial
design criteria for my language is that the semantics should be
correct, so it might be irrelevant.
Could you elaborate on your thought?
> Thanks again for an interesting conlang.
Thanks.
--
Veoler