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On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 12:29 AM, Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Of course, "Xorban" is just a temporary place holder.
>
> 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".
Something like that, yes.
>> sentence := predicate | operator sentence
>>
>> operator := unary-operator | binary-operator
>>
>> binary-operator:= SV('V)* sentence
>>
>> unary-operator := NV('V)*
>>
>> predicate := CCC*V('V)*(KV('V)*)*
>>
>> V := a | e | i | o | u
>>
>> C:= b | c | d | f | g | j | k | l | m | n | p | r | s | t | v | w | x | y
>> | z
>>
>> S:= l | m | r | s | ...
>>
>> N:= n | ...
>>
>> K:= k | f | ...
>
>
> I assume add "j" to S.
Yes, I forgot to add it. Since we have "na" for negation, I would now
add "ni" for affirmation and "nu" for tautology. Then as connectives
in addition to "je" we can have "ja" and "jo" as in Lojban. "ju" is
not needed because it's just "je nu".
> What is the status of /ai ei oi au/? I was thinking that if these are
> gone, or if they can be covered by <ay ey oy aw>, then we can drop the
> apostrophe, or reuse it for the glottal stop.
I was sort of reserving diphthongs for interjections and such. I also
want a clear distinction between "a", "a'a", "a'a'a", and so on, so I
think I'll keep Lojban's apostrophe for now.
> You didn't add the glottal
> stop to the phoneme inventory; maybe we can use that to enclose names and
> transliterations. Then Johnny(x, y) could be something like "
> '(a)djani'oakoe" = "He is known as 'Johnny' to them"
Maybe, but I'd rather have a more developed grammar in place before
considering how to add foreign words, and there are still several
things missing.
> I was brainstorming a bit last night. Observing that "l-" was simply a
> structure-word, and reasoning that the binary-operator "lX CCCX" was going
> to get used a whole lot, I was thinking that maybe CCCX by itself under
> certain conditions could be interpreted as an equivalent unary-operator.
("lX CCCX" is itself a unary-operator, even though I confusingly call
the construct 'binary-operator' in the grammar, the binary-operator
part is just "lX".) The problem is establishing those "certain
conditions", since CCCX looks like a predicate (or nullary operator)
not like a unary-operator.
> Naturally that would necessitate some sort of sentence separator, among
> other changes in the production rules. I see now that my idea would
> introduce some unwelcome complexity at this stage, so I put it back in my
> pocket.
OK. :)
>> na sa xrja vfla ... na se nlceka
>> It is not the case that for some x which is a pig, x flies ... It is
>> not the case that for some y, y is a wing of x (=pigs).
>> No pig flies. They have no wings.
>
> Okay, it took me a while to get this. Yes, that seems to work the way we
> want.
>
> 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".
We could have one of the V'V (say "e'u") implicitly restricted to
"people". So "pigs aren't liked" ("people don't like pigs") would be
"la xrja na nlce'uka" (or equivalently "na la xrja nlce'uka"). That's
not a general solution for the passive voice, but it covers a lot of
ground. Maybe for a better passive we can resort to "ï'o" (from Lojban
"zi'o").
I was also thinking of adding "g-" to the K-separators as a way of
adding an agent argument to any predicate.
> In any case, discourse topics should probably get a more marked variable
> than "V".
Would that be more a matter of style rather than prescription?
>> Here I note I've already used "nlc" both for "x1 likes x2" and for "x1
>> is a wing of x2". We will need some vocabulary construction if we
>> don't want this kind of homonymy.
>
> 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...(?)
Yes, that's the idea. Schwas can be inserted at will between consonants.
> 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. I assume CC for special things like
> generics and case tags. CCC for regular vocab and CCCC for jargon.
Roughly yes.
> No
> compounding or derivation.
No formal rules for that, at any rate, no.
> Some effort should be made so that changing one
> phoneme doesn't result in a valid root within a similar semantic category.
Yes. Although with numbers, that's just what happens.
> Depending on how many variables we need, 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.
It would make words longer though, since we would need to introduce a
number of restrictions on permissible consonant clusters. I prefer to
keep the simple CCC* for now with no restrictions.
> /y w/ could be used
> in root onsets, but I would reserve /ay/ etc. as variables.
I was originally thinking of them as ordinary consonants, but I can
see how they can cause trouble when they are followed by another
consonant. Maybe I will remove them from the current portion of the
grammar and perhaps reserve them for stuff not yet considered, like
interjections and illocutionary indicators.
> Compounds can
> be both dictionary entries and nonce expressions. Compounds are not
> particularly logical, but they can be helpful in constructing vocab.
Predicates are an open class, so the dictionary will not contain them
all, and yes some will be nonce.
mu'o mi'e xorxes