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"overthrowyertle" <overthrowyertle@y...> wrote: > Okay, now we're up to nine people in this group. Cool. Is > there anyone here who has already gone through the lessons > posted on Rick's web-site? I've gone through to lesson 8, > acquiring a vocabulary of maybe 250 words, but that was a > couple of months ago, so now I'm back at lesson 4 with 100+ > words. The cool thing about Katanda, though, is that its > morphemes are so powerful that words are easy to learn, > remember, and derive, so vocab won't be that difficult to learn, if > time is given to it. I'm already using a Mac OS X flashcard > program to drill myself in general vocabulary as well as > classifiers, and affixes, but it's taking awhile to type out all of the > cards. > What are other people doing? What are some tricks or > resources we might be able to share to make learning this, and > other languages easier? How much effort are individual people > going to put into learning it? I've gotten most of my understanding of Katanda from reading the _LS_. You're right about the vocab being easy to learn. This is the best designed a_priori vocab I've ever seen. The way I am going about it is trying to grasp the syntax and then looking up the words when I need them. > As far as LexSem goes, I read it maybe a month ago, > understood most of it, but the whole "A/P-s" type notation for > verbs and their derivations still takes some effort to understand. > Perhaps that should be another set of flashcards...if anyone has > Mac OS X, I'd be happy to share those flashcard sets as they are > developed. > Like I've said, I'm new to this stuff, so I'm waiting for other > people to put out suggestions for how we might move forward. > Take care, all, Well you asked for suggestions, so here's mine. I think it would be good if those interested in learning Katanda tried their hand at writing a couple sentences, and asking quesions on this group. Don't worry about being 100% correct the first time. Most likely you won't be, if my attempt was any indication :-) Just try to write something to start getting a feel for the syntax. Here are a few starting points: 1. Sentences are VSO: subject comes after the verb, followed by any objects. If there are two objects, the indirect object (listener, receiver, etc.) comes first. 2. Verbs must have all their argument slots filled (likewise, in English, verbs like <put> need objects: *"I put the book." is ungrammatical without "on the table".). Look at the Kat-Eng dictionary examples to see what verbs require what nouns. (Later, after you get the hang of basic verbs, you can start trying to dig into the underlying case roles, and then the class-changing morphemes, and finally tense and voice operations, and you'll just about have the gist.) 3. Nouns are definite by default. "naji" = "the duck". Mark the plural by prefixing with "le-": "lenaji" = "the ducks" Mark indefinite nouns by putting "va" after any (closed) adjectives: "naji va" = "a duck", "lenaji va" = "(some) ducks". 4. Adjectives come after nouns: "naji xamyu" = "the white duck"; "lenaji xamyu va" = "some white ducks". In addition, since the whole vocabulary and syntax is based on the classifiers, I would try to get familiar with at least some of the important ones ASAP, through the lessons, etc. That's enough to start speaking a Katanda pidgin of sorts :-) I think the lessons are important but none of us will learn if we don't try communicating in it and asking questions. Regards --- Mike