Re: [engelang] Xorban Development - engelang messages

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 6:18 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote:

Mike S., On 23/08/2012 04:29:

> On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Jorge Llambías <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.

Having a separate morphological class for names/borrowings is nice because name-semantics are totally predictable.

There would be relatively little homonymy and no need for a kludge if there were a way to transliterate names from the vast array of natural languages with relatively little change. I gather that transliteration is not a primary aim of the language, but nevertheless I believe it would be useful and convenient for Xorban speakers to have a relatively faithful and easy method of transliteration. Using a designated phoneme like the glottal stop (properly spelled) {'} would allow that. That way, recognizable words like {'spageti'-}, {'betxoven'-}, {'joxanezberx'-}, {'kimono'-}, {'tiranosawrus'-} are possible that cause little need for fussing or guessing. To xorbanize, simply drop/alter the vowels and drop glottals -> spgt-, btxvn-, jxnzbrx-, kmn-, trnsrs- and modify/compound if there is a collision with an existing predicate.

Or, maybe the first {'} could be a CV as you suggested, and the second {'} always preceded by a vowel. That would be a little longer, but easier to pronounce.

Also, judging by Lojban speakers, many speakers would appreciate being able to render their names in somewhat recognizable form: consider {'mayk'-, 'and'-, 'xorxe'-} versus {mk-, nd-, xrx-} or something like {mk(o)pr- nd(o)pr- xrx(o)pr-} where -pr- means person.

> 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.

That's the whole point though. You aren't too concerned that it's vague; you only want to fill the next slot. I might have opened up a can of worms by mentioning to {zo'e}. I am not sure what the difference is in Lojban, but I imagine "aw" (now "o'e" by xortermi'e) might mean be more equivalent to "lo ku" in Lojban if that were grammatically possible. In Xorban "o'e" would be automatically bound by "lo'e smo'e"; I believe "sm-" to be the generic predicate such that "ra Pa sma" is true for all predicates P in Xorban.

As far as definite references, I think all "reused" (i.e. previously bound but now free) variables are definite references. Free variables are automatically bound as "l- R-" where R was the restriction under the most recent binding. If there was no previous binding, I guess it's like saying "he/she/it/they" in English with no glorkable referent. So I guess you could just say "o'a" instead of "o'e" if you wanted to signal that you have something more specific than "o'e" in mind. I am not sure that is allowed, though.

> 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".

"nm" is the numeral prefix and I was just noting that that and other series may be cutting through predicate-form space.

>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.

I know you disagree, but I don't think it harms anything to have a compound hyphen that derives non-fully-compositional compounds. There could also be other hyphens to produce the fully compositional meanings based on the suffix. Given Xorban's syntax with overt variables and binary operators, we could potentially avoid a lot of verbosity via such shortcuts. Something to put on the back burner for now, of course.

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

The one thing that Zamenhof is universally acknowledged to have gotten right is the vowel system :) I am surprised that a native Spanish speaker has sanctioned this six-vowel inventory.

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 /@/.

Well, on the plus side, I think that Xorban phonotactics effectively merge {x} and {'}. I like your nucleus-chain idea.

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.