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Mike S., On 23/08/2012 04:29:
On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Jorge Llamb�as <jjllambias@hidden.email <mailto:jjllambias@hidden.email>> wrote:
I'm
thinking names will be predicates like almost all other words of the
language.
All names N could be predicates defined as "x is [known by/called]
[name/transliteration] N [to/by] y" e.g. "He's 'Johnny' to his
friends".
I would have names be syntactically/semantically ordinary predicates. What distinguishes them from other predicates is their limitless homonymy, so it would be good to have a way of marking them, e.g. by some initial CV.
The only question is about using the commonly used variables of shape "V" - if we are also doing things like using free variables to create the passive voice so to speak, we have to be careful about that. The sentence "na la xrja nlceka" intended as "pigs aren't liked", under a certain context might mean "the woman with the red hat doesn't like pigs". So maybe we should set aside or some "V'V" or "Vy"or "aw" for the purpose of an explicitly unbound variable indicating something like "zo'e".
{zo'e} is a terrible idea, because it's so unhelpfully vague. But a V'V for "le co'e" -- "him/her/it/them" might be a good idea. Maybe the rule would be that V'a is interpreted as a definite reference unless explicitly bound.
It's probably not expected or acceptable for an engelang of this sort to have a sentence that means both "they have no wings" and "no one likes them". We have plenty of room for roots. I assume that epenthetic schwas are permitted and that we are not being asked to master Georgian phonotactics...(?) I am unsure about the phonotactics of /y w/ so I will leave those out: CC: 17^2 = 289 CCC: 17^3 = 4913* CCCC: 17^4 = 83521* *minus "nmC(C)" and similar series.
Why minus "nmC"? Just make sure it has a very different meaning from "mnC".
I assume CC for special things like generics and case tags. CCC for regular vocab and CCCC for jargon. No compounding or derivation. Some effort should be made so that changing one phoneme doesn't result in a valid root within a similar semantic category. Depending on how many variables we need,
Lots.
I almost want to suggest "e" for roots where needed and "o" for compounding. That would leave a, i, u and all 25 V'V for variables, and eliminate the schwa phoneme. /y w/ could be used in root onsets, but I would reserve /ay/ etc. as variables. Compounds can be both dictionary entries and nonce expressions. Compounds are not particularly logical, but they can be helpful in constructing vocab.
Let compounds be merely a concatenation of the stems. It doesn't matter if, say, CCCC is ambiguous between CC+CC and CCCC, or CCCCC between CC+CCC and CCC+CC: compounding would be a purely mnemonic way of forming novel predicates, derivationally translucent. Discussion of phonology is really a separate discussion, but since you brought it up, I'd go for: vowels [a e i o u y @], <a e i o u y> with /@/ unwritten Lojban /'/ would have to be exterminated viciously. Instead, allow unlimited sequences of V(V(V(...)))), subject to a phonotactic constraint that in every VV sequence at least one of the Vs is i or u, the Vs are different, and neither is /@/. consonants, probably one for each remaining letter of the 26-letter alphabet, /b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x z/. Assuming Lojban phonetic values, that leaves values needed for <h q w>. Obvious phonetic values are gap-filling velar nasal and voiced velar fricative, and glottal stop, which Lojban has (but with very limited phonotactic distribution). for slightly better grapheme assignment, use <h> for [x], <x> for [S], <q> for [?], and <w> for [G] and <c> for [N] or vice versa. --And.