[NGL] Translation: Ku Valaksiya à Weksaforda
Jack Durst
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 01:59:19 -0230
From: Stephen DeGrace <c72...@morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
Subject: Re: [NGL] Translation: Ku Valaksiya ŕ Weksaforda
From: Stephen DeGrace <c72...@morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
On Mon, 4 Oct 1999 18:33:38 -0700 (PDT), Gerald Koenig
<j...@netcom.com> wrote:
>From: Gerald Koenig <j...@netcom.com>
>
>
>>
>>On Sat, 2 Oct 1999 21:46:26 -0700 (PDT), Gerald Koenig
>>>From: Gerald Koenig <j...@netcom.com>
>>>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>From: Stephen DeGrace <c72...@morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
[...]
>This means there are at least 1000 suffixes with the potential to be
>homophonic words. Probably not a major problem for humans with context
>and common sense, but why not keep this language easy to machine parse?
>At least, why not make accents optional. I am using accents with my
>infix forms, I haven't finalized it as I need to understand the
>grave/acute distinction better and the prosody rules more, I don't
>want to propose breaking the natural rhythms of speech in an unesthetic
>way.
Basically, there _is_ no distinction in the _affect_ of grave and
acute. As I wrote before, the distinction is functional, that is,
grave accents indicate stress that is intrinsic to the _meaning_ of
the word, if you like, whereas an acute accent indicates stress that
is purely a whim on the moment, and is mainly a literary convention to
distinguish irregularlar stress that's grammatically necessary versus
irregaular stress that comes from spur-of-the-moment artistic
embellishment or variation. If you put accents on your infixes, for
example, {těribe} for {tIRibe}, it is redundant, because the regular
stress on an NGL word is on the first syllable _anyway_, so the accent
would make no difference in speech. Accents on first syllables are
rare, one exception that shows up in the corpus is {nŕzka}, "quarter",
which is a shortening of {inŕz ka}, "divide by four", and retains the
accent from its source expression purely as a spelling convention.
Now, if you want the infix to be *non*-stressed, that's different. If
you want it to be that the syllable _after_ the infix always get's
principle stress, a good way to do this is the make a rule that you
put a grave accent on the syllable _after_ the infix, like {tirěbe},
which is pronounced like tir-IB-e, capiatals indicating a stressed
syllable.
[explanation of vector length words snipped]
Thanks for the discussion on this, and I do think that the addition of
the ability to distinguish time and space vectors, if one is so
inclined, is interesting.
>But this may not address the metaphorical difference that you feel.
>I thought about your "material" preference for time conceptualization
>and I realized that the idiom:
>
>"We don't have a <whole lot of time> since school started" embodies
>your metaphor of time as a material substance, a "lot".
>
>The closest I can come in VXT to this metaphor would be to consider a
>row of adjacent Time-Atoms on the time-line as bagged up into a lot or
>set. One could then say, " met: I don't have a large set of
>Time-Atoms...". That uses the underlying basis of the vector system
>and avoids the use of vectors. But I will understand if this still
>doesn't represent your intuitions. Anyway, let me know what you think
>of these potential additions to VXT.
Well, they're interesting and worth trying. But I _would_ like some
minimal non-proprietary item in the general vocabulary to handle these
sorts of concepts, and I don't want to be stuck with having to use the
space metaphor implied by {korti}. With such a large and important
block of the vocabulary essentially totally proprietary and
furthermore under construction, I would like to see a certain minimal
level of co-existing "public lisence" forms (borrowing the term from
Linux :-) ). I don't consider this particular case unreasonable, after
all, the word {korti} is doing a very similar thing with space as
{heka} is doing with time, and is working from an image that is much
more directly co-occupying the space of VXT than {heka} is. In general
I think we have enough general vocabulary space and time words, but in
this case I _feel_ (note the choise of words :-) ) a lack. So while it
may most likely see a reduction in its currency when VXT gets more
beyond its experimental stages, I am going to keep forward my proposal
of {heka}, adverbial nature and all.
[...]
>>Sorry for the snips, but I only wanted to say here, thank you very
>>much for the feedback on my use of VST. I feel that it is only through
>
>Thanks for using it. As you have said before, it is through usage that
>we get to really understand these theories, me included. I have a very
>strong belief in the underlying logic of VXT because it is a
>back-translation to language from mathematics. But since I'm not
>formally trained either as a mathematician or a linguist, a lot of
>reality testing of my new system is in order. The only 100 year old
>concept of the vector is still evolving.
Heh, join the club (lack of formal training in this, I mean :-) ).
For me, that is the great charm of a project like this - reality
testing. To me, this sort of work is the true forge of ideas, it has
amazing capacity to teach you new things and point out new ideas to
you that you would never have thought of purely in the comfort of your
own head :-), and it is the ultimate test and ultimate grounding of
the validity of ideas. I tend to find that things usually work out
differently than what I might have first envisioned, sometimes only a
bit, sometimes quite a lot, but the exercise of taking visions and and
making them _real_ by making them interact with reality is endlessly
fascinating - at least in part because of its element of
unpredictabilty. It is my joy in this that I suppose is responsible
for my tendency to test drive new ideas before they maybe strictly
speaking should be let out of the workshop... :-)
[...]
>>2) _Is_ there a way to say "aside" as in "the old man gently
>>stepped aside" in VST without specifying the side (i.e., without
>>specifying whether he stepped to the right or the left, if you really
>>don't know which or if the information isn't considered important to
>>the story being told)? Or is this the sort of thing best handled with
>>an Ogdenism like {dosig}?
>
>It's a new question, but there is a way, just saying right of or left
>of for aside. I have the unpublished words
>
>ior i or i or (object) right of the.. derecho del
>inor in i or -i or (object) left of the.. izquierdo del
>
>so <dumin pa pas ior/inor ku [assailant]>
>
>where the understood object is the assaulting lady would say it but
>maybe another word, say <bior> is needed for ior/inor. The object of
>origin could be implicit, that is whose right or left wouldn't have to
>be said.
>
>I'll think about it, I'm running out of those elusive droplets,
>time-atoms:).
Is there a way that you could say motion on an axis without specifying
direction on the axis? That would solve the problem. Maybe define
{bi-} as meaning "positive/negative unknown/undetermined". That would
be helpful in the anthopomorphic point of view on the surface of a
planet where there is the greatest difference between up and down
(because of gravity and lack of human symmetry in this direction),
less differnece but still a fair bit of difference, between front and
back (because of the human body's lack of symmetry in this direction)
and no average fundamental difference between left and right because
of human bilateral symmetry. I think you need something like this,
especially for the point of view I'm talking about here, because while
making up/down and back/front fundamental, required distinctions makes
good sense in light of human lack of symmetry in these directions,
human symmetry between left and right makes _requiring_ a distinction
on this axis in many cases an unnatural and needless excess of
precision, especially in cases where it just can't be answered with
certitude, as in the case of my old woman from Wexford :-). Anyways,
that's someting to chew over, at least. :-)
Naesverig,
Stephen
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