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on 1/13/04 7:57 PM, HandyDad at lsulky@hidden.email wrote:
> (Sorry about the change of profile name from lsulky to handydad...I'm
> trying to consolidate.) (Also sorry about the length of this post.)
>
> I've always liked Ceqli even though I found a few things about it
> that struck me as a bit idiosyncratic. (Maybe that's why I liked it.)
> But after investigating a great many other loglangs and having
> approximately 96 cracks at creating one myself, I keep coming back to
> Ceqli. It's either the most natural logical language or the most
> logical "natural" one.
That's kind of what I was trying for. Well put.
>
> I decided when I was working on my own conlang(s) that what I really
> wanted was something somewhat pidginesque, a bit like Bislama, but
> not so relentlessly English-based. And I wanted it to be pretty
> logical and have self-segregating morphology. It should be something
> that people could actually see value in learning, either as a
> stepping stone to the language of a major economic power (English
> now, maybe Mandarin in the future) or because it was so darn easy
> that it was better to adopt it as a common tongue than learn a more
> complex one.
>
> I truly feel that Ceqli has the best chance to be that language.
> No, I wouldn't take bets that it WILL be adopted as a world-wide
> pidgin or creole...but I think it fits the requirements better than
> anything else available.
>
> Now some questions. I've scanned back through the group but a few
> things still befuddle me:
>
> COMPOUNDING BY DEFAULT --
>
> I look at a sentence and am never sure, if the particle "se" is
> lacking, which words are going to compound. Does "To kom pan se jin"
> refer to the person who is eating bread, or the person who is
> associated with a kind of bread called "kompan" ('eatbread' -- so
> tasty that absolutely EVERYONE eats it). And why doesn't "To"
> compound with "kom" in the sentence? Is there a list of known non-
> compounders?
Well, 'the' words are like grammar words in Loglan ? non-content words.
They are the sort of thing that _keeps_ things from compounding.
I figured that some kind of stress/juncture thing that I can't begin to
describe would actually assist in all this. Think of English 'blue bird'
vs. 'bluebird'. Ceqli I think would have
to blu fawl - toe BLUE FOUL
to blufawl - toe BLUEfoul
And then 'se' would tend to be used more to turn phrases into modifiers as
in
to kom pan se jin.
Where you really have to have the 'se.'
But
to pan jin. = to pan se jin.
As long as you can 'hear' the space between pan and jin.
but
to panjin
is a compound, with a specific meaning that hasn't been determined yet.
In short, I'd like for 'se' to turn phrases into modifiers and to be used to
separate one-word modifiers from the modified when necessary for clarity.
>
> A suggestion: Loglan and some loglangs rely on stress to help in
> segregating morphemes and words. I know Ceqli doesn't, but what if
> compound words were pronounced with a particular kind of stress on
> the first syllables of second and subsequent morphemes. I'm imagining
> a "dipping" stress reminiscent of Norwegian (or the Muppets' Swedish
> Chef):
>
> komp n
> \ / = eatbread
> a
>
> kom pan = eat bread
>
> I've been reading stuff aloud off the website according to this
> scheme and it sounds kind of cool. Or maybe a very strong falling
> stress would work...something that makes clear that this is not just
> the first syllable of a separate word. Or maybe a distinct stress
> pattern for all EXCEPT the final morpheme in the word....
Again, the best I can do is to say that Ceqli will here imitate the way
English keeps two words from compounding.
The dog sleeps in the dog house.
Mailman to mailman ? "Be careful at the place on the corner. It's a dog
house."
First case, the dog and house are clearly one word, in the second, clearly
two, despite the fact that there's an orthographic space in both.
>
>
> SCHWA ALLOPHONE OF "E" --
>
> Some Ceqli words begin with consonant clusters that some speakers are
> just going to have to schwa-buffer: "zbani" is going to end up
> as 'zuh-bani' which is a valid pronunciation of "ze bani". I know you
> love the schwa, Rex -- heck, who doesn't? -- but....
You're probably right, tho probably it's my years dabbling with Russian that
makes 'zbani' easy for me.
>
> A suggestion: Don't permit the schwa allophone for "e". Use schwa
> only for buffering, where necessary. I would further suggest
> permitting the allophone "ey" for "e", but I suspect there are lots
> of words that rely on these being distinct, so I won't.
Not the 'ey', but probably you're right and I should not permit schwa. Not
'ey' but the 'e' of Italian/Spanish, the é of French été. Question is, is
this sound different enough from 'ey'? For me it is, but for others?
>
>
> DIPHTHONGS --
>
> How is "uy" pronounced? Is it like in 'buoy', but faster, to
> distinguish it from "uwi"?
Yes. as in Esperanto 'uj'. As in South Midlands past tense of 'ruin'
/rujnt/
>
--
Rex F. May (Baloo)
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