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Mike S., On 23/10/2012 00:17:
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 3:20 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email <mailto:and.rosta@hidden.email>> wrote:
It would also help to use conventions where stems and particles are indicated by glosses in square brackets rather than by their temporary phonological forms. That would make exx easier to understand, and wouldn't let us be distracted by phonological forms that will be scrapped and will spare us from inadvertently learning forms that we might later be reluctant to discard because we've already learnt them. In sum, use as far as possible a graphical nonphonological notation.
--And.
In order to evaluate this idea, it would be interesting to see what it'd look like if we used a mathematical symbolism augmented with English words for the object language. We'd probably have something like:
person = pr
cat = mlt
black = xkr
& = je
~ = na
x, y, z, u, v, ... = a, e, i, o, u, ...
me = a'a
sth = o'e
...etc.
Then we could write nonphonologically something like:
E-x cat-x black-x
L-x & black-x cat-x happy-x
Definition: Meanwhile[-u] F => L-v Event-v F concurrent-v,Sth[,u]
That's pretty much what I had in mind. Put formula stems in [ ] brackets to distinguish them from operators. I'd thought of doing variables with numbers rather than letters, but the choice is arbitrary.
... versus our current: sa mlta xkra la je xkra mlta glka Definition: ne'u[ke] F => lo fo F cbnoko'e[ke] I could probably carry on in either format, but I think I'd prefer continuing with what we have, partly because, at the end of the first stage of development, it'd be nice to say that we have a speakable language called "Classical Xorban" (or maybe "Archaic Xorban"), even if we go on to design something better.
I think the nonphonological notation would be easier for people new or not up to speed to cope with, and it would also deflect attention away from tinkering with the morphology, e.g. when we replaced certain Cs by jVk, and when discussion has compared forms on the basis of the number of syllables they contain. --And.