Collective effort
Rex F. May
in to create the perfect pan-romance language. I'll
start with the alphabet.
The basic 26 letters with these values:
a, e, i, o, u, as in Esperanto.
b d f g h k l m n p r s t v z, as in Esperanto.
c = ^c
j = ^j
q = reserved for somebody else's good idea. Maybe
it'll just be omitted.
w = as in English
x = ^s
y = as in English.
W and Y to be used in consonant fashion.
Diphthongs restricted to:
ai = aj
au = a^u
oi = oj
Bias in favor of spelling first, that is, say, the
word for hundred is 'cento,' pronounced '^cento',
word for to exercise wd be 'exercise', pronounced
'e^ser^cise'. But if we can't stand some results,
we go the Esperanto route and heart is 'koro,' not
'coro.'
Comments?
--
Rex F. May
To order my book, click on:
http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/gdummy.htm
See my cartoons daily at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp
Henricus
It is a good idea to develop a pan-European language. Although I finished
the gramar for the Latina nova 2000 (Eurish), I am pleased to give some
considerations about my experience in language design.
> This would be a good place for everybody to chip
> in to create the perfect pan-romance language. I'll
> start with the alphabet.
>
> The basic 26 letters with these values:
> a, e, i, o, u, as in Esperanto.
> b d f g h k l m n p r s t v z, as in Esperanto.
The sound of these letters should be the same as in continental European
languages. An English pronounciation would be difficult to learn and to
speak.
> c = ^c
> j = ^j
In Eurish I prefered to express one phonem by one letter.
proposal: c = ^c better => tx
j = ^j better => dj
> w = as in English
Why not "v" for "w" ?
> x = ^s as in Portugese
> y = as in English.
> Bias in favor of spelling first, that is, say, the
> word for hundred is 'cento,' pronounced '^cento',
In classical Latin the pronounciation was [kento]. In Eurish I kept this.
Before creating a new language, there should written down be some
characteristics of this language.
To mix the European languages was done in Esperanto (Latin, French, German,
Greek). There would be no progress to shake words together and invent a
concise grammar.
In Eurish I refered to pure Latin (not romanic languages) and use a
shortened regular grammar to arrange the words to sentences.
You did not say if the new language should be of an isolating or a flective
typ. How should be the word order be: SVO or SOV?
Ave
Henricus
phil hunt
>This would be a good place for everybody to chip
>in to create the perfect pan-romance language.
How are you defining perfect? What are the design criteria?
>I'll
>start with the alphabet.
>
>The basic 26 letters with these values:
>a, e, i, o, u, as in Esperanto.
>b d f g h k l m n p r s t v z, as in Esperanto.
>
>c = ^c
>j = ^j
What's this in IPA? /Z/ or /dZ/ or something else?
>q = reserved for somebody else's good idea. Maybe
>it'll just be omitted.
Why not have it as /k/, with "qu" as either /kw/ or /k/ -- that's
what most Romance languages use.
>w = as in English
>x = ^s
Which Romance languages use that?
>y = as in English.
>
>W and Y to be used in consonant fashion.
>Diphthongs restricted to:
>ai = aj
>au = a^u
>oi = oj
>
>Bias in favor of spelling first, that is, say, the
>word for hundred is 'cento,' pronounced '^cento',
>word for to exercise wd be 'exercise', pronounced
>'e^ser^cise'.
Why not pronounce it /ek ser 'tSi se/?
> But if we can't stand some results,
>we go the Esperanto route and heart is 'koro,' not
>'coro.'
>
>Comments?
What are you trying to achieve, and how does Interlingua fail to
meet those goals?
--
*****[ Phil Hunt ]*****
"An unforseen issue has arisen with your computer. Don't worry your silly
little head about what has gone wrong; here's a pretty animation of a
paperclip to look at instead."
-- Windows2007 error message
Rex F. May
phil hunt wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Sep 2000 12:34:41 GMT, Rex F. May <rm...@peakpeak.com> wrote:
> >This would be a good place for everybody to chip
> >in to create the perfect pan-romance language.
>
> How are you defining perfect? What are the design criteria?
I'm just playing around, Phil. I'm thinking out loud. 'Perfect' is
used playfully.
>
>
> >I'll
> >start with the alphabet.
> >
> >The basic 26 letters with these values:
> >a, e, i, o, u, as in Esperanto.
> >b d f g h k l m n p r s t v z, as in Esperanto.
> >
> >c = ^c
> >j = ^j
>
> What's this in IPA? /Z/ or /dZ/ or something else?
/Z/
>
>
> >q = reserved for somebody else's good idea. Maybe
> >it'll just be omitted.
>
> Why not have it as /k/, with "qu" as either /kw/ or /k/ -- that's
> what most Romance languages use.
Because I don't want the same sound represented by different
letters.
>
>
> >w = as in English
> >x = ^s
>
> Which Romance languages use that?
Well, Portuguese does use 'x' that way, and 'w' seems to
be necessary (I could be wrong) in cases where you want
a semivowel in contrast with a full vowel. Maybe that
wouldn't be necessary.
>
>
> >y = as in English.
> >
> >W and Y to be used in consonant fashion.
> >Diphthongs restricted to:
> >ai = aj
> >au = a^u
> >oi = oj
> >
> >Bias in favor of spelling first, that is, say, the
> >word for hundred is 'cento,' pronounced '^cento',
> >word for to exercise wd be 'exercise', pronounced
> >'e^ser^cise'.
>
> Why not pronounce it /ek ser 'tSi se/?
Because I want to keep spelling unambiguous. Zamenhof
did it by replacing x with ks, I think it's more elegant to
do it by giving x its own pronunciation.
>
>
> > But if we can't stand some results,
> >we go the Esperanto route and heart is 'koro,' not
> >'coro.'
> >
> >Comments?
>
> What are you trying to achieve, and how does Interlingua fail to
> meet those goals?
>
Like I said, I'm thinking out loud. I think Interlingua is overly
'natural.' Too many ambiguities in spelling and pronunciation.
Rex F. May
Henricus wrote:
> Salve Rexus,
>
> It is a good idea to develop a pan-European language. Although I finished
> the gramar for the Latina nova 2000 (Eurish), I am pleased to give some
> considerations about my experience in language design.
>
> > This would be a good place for everybody to chip
> > in to create the perfect pan-romance language. I'll
> > start with the alphabet.
> >
> > The basic 26 letters with these values:
> > a, e, i, o, u, as in Esperanto.
> > b d f g h k l m n p r s t v z, as in Esperanto.
>
> The sound of these letters should be the same as in continental European
> languages. An English pronounciation would be difficult to learn and to
> speak.
I think they all are, except 'h.'
>
>
> > c = ^c
> > j = ^j
>
> In Eurish I prefered to express one phonem by one letter.
>
> proposal: c = ^c better => tx
> j = ^j better => dj
Maybe, but what I'm doing with 'c' is to try to preserve it
in spelling, but give it its own pronunciation. I also think
I'd avoid the /dZ/ sound altogether, and have 'j' as /Z/.
>
> > w = as in English
>
> Why not "v" for "w" ?
Well, here I wanted to have both sounds preserved. I never
liked the 'kv' in Eo. Maybe we don't need the 'w' sound at
all.
>
>
> > x = ^s as in Portugese
> > y = as in English.
>
> > Bias in favor of spelling first, that is, say, the
> > word for hundred is 'cento,' pronounced '^cento',
>
> In classical Latin the pronounciation was [kento]. In Eurish I kept this.
>
> Before creating a new language, there should written down be some
> characteristics of this language.
> To mix the European languages was done in Esperanto (Latin, French, German,
> Greek). There would be no progress to shake words together and invent a
> concise grammar.
>
> In Eurish I refered to pure Latin (not romanic languages) and use a
> shortened regular grammar to arrange the words to sentences.
>
> You did not say if the new language should be of an isolating or a flective
> typ. How should be the word order be: SVO or SOV?
I haven't decided what I like better. Isolating is appealing:
Me vide = I see (timeless)
Me es vide = I see (present)
Me te vide = I saw
Me va vide = I will see
Or just use the Esperanto system:
Me vidas (still timeless)
Me vides
Me vidis
Me vidos
And make the endings unbound, and define them as the
tenses of 'to be', and also use them that way.
Me as homo. I'm a man
Me es homo. I'm a man now (I used to be a frog)
Me is, etc.
And, for heaven's sake, undeclined simple pronouns.
My first thought:
Me Nos
Tu
Lo (no sexual variation Loi
Paul O Bartlett
> in to create the perfect pan-romance language.
> [much cut]
> Comments?
I already know of one Pan-Romance language in the works, Romanova. See
http://members.aol.com/dkcsac/myhomepage/romanova.htm if I copied down
the URL correctly.
--
Paul Bartlett
bart...@smart.net
Vienna, Virginia, USA
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Rex F. May
Paul O Bartlett wrote:
> In article <39CA260E...@peakpeak.com>,
> "Rex F. May" <rm...@peakpeak.com> wrote:
> > This would be a good place for everybody to chip
> > in to create the perfect pan-romance language.
>
>
> I already know of one Pan-Romance language in the works, Romanova. See
> http://members.aol.com/dkcsac/myhomepage/romanova.htm if I copied down
> the URL correctly.
Yes, there have been heaps. What I had in mind is that here on this
newsgroup we could have some fun and maybe learn something by
a collective effort more or less from scratch. So I started with the
sound system, and invite comments, some of which I've already
gotten.
As I see it, the goal of the sound system should be:
1. Have a relatively simple set of phonemes, pretty much what most
Romance speakers have now.
2. Have unambiguous spelling. Avoid having the same sound represented
in more than one way, and, of course, have every letter with a unique
sound.
I'm undecided about whether to include a /tS/ sound. If I do, it would
be represented by 'c', but, as somebody pointed out, it could be regarded
as two sounds, thereby weakening the unambiguity. Also, it isn't
present in French, at least not commonly. I'll probably end up using
'c' for it, and having 'x' represent /S/. But as for the 'j', I'd have
that stand for /Z/, and not have the sound /dZ/ in the language, I
think they form minimal pairs in very few languages anyway.
And, following Zamenhof's lead, I'd tend to try to preserve spelling,
and make the pronunciation follow it. Like I said above, I'd try
to preserve the use of the letter 'x', in words like 'exercise', and
have it pronounced /S/.
Dkcsac
>start with the alphabet.
>
>The basic 26 letters with these values:
>a, e, i, o, u, as in Esperanto.
>b d f g h k l m n p r s t v z, as in Esperanto.
I can comment on these matters as they relate to our development of the neutral
Romance language Romanova
(http://members.aol.com/dkcsac/myhomepage/romanova.htm). We decided to have a
simple phonemic system for ease of learning and pronunciation. Since about half
of Romance-speakers (mainly Spanish-speakers) lack /z/, using /s/ instead, we
figured it would be easier for the other half to change /z/ to /s/ than for
Spanish-speakers to memorize which words use /z/ and which ones used /s/.
Occasional accidental uses of /z/ instead of /s/ shouldn't hurt intelligibility
much, as Romanova has no /z/ to confuse it with.
>c = ^c
The vast majority of Latins pronounce soft "c" as [s], so we use "s" in
Romanova.
>j = ^j
The French and Portuguese pronounce j as [Z], the Italians pronounce their soft
g as [dZ] (or [Z] in dialect), but Spanish-speakers pronounce j as [x], [h],
and/or [ç]. As a compromise sound, intelligible to the majority, we use [S] in
Romanova, as it is the unvoiced version of [Z], and is also close to the [ç]
used by many Spanish-speakers before e or i. Occasional accidental uses of /Z/
instead of /S/ shouldn't hurt intelligibility much, as Romanova has no /Z/ to
confuse it with.
>q = reserved for somebody else's good idea. Maybe
>it'll just be omitted.
C and g are always hard in Romanova, for simplicity and regularity, as in
Classical Latin, but of course the soft c and g have generally become s and j
in Romanova.
>w = as in English
Romanova uses u as a semivowel/semiconsonant, as the vast majority of Latins
do.
>x = ^s
Romanova uses cs for [ks], but s generally before a consonant, as many Latins
drop the [k] in this case.
>y = as in English.
Romanova uses i as a semivowel/semiconsonant, as the Latins do.
>
>W and Y to be used in consonant fashion.
>Diphthongs restricted to:
>ai = aj
>au = a^u
>oi = oj
Romanova uses ai, ei, oi, au, eu, as most Latins do.
>Bias in favor of spelling first, that is, say, the
>word for hundred is 'cento,' pronounced '^cento',
>word for to exercise wd be 'exercise', pronounced
>'e^ser^cise'. But if we can't stand some results,
>we go the Esperanto route and heart is 'koro,' not
>'coro.'
Romanova's bias is in favor of pronunciation, as people seem to speak more than
they write.
Romanova's neutrality relates more to numbers of Romance-speakers than to the
arbitrary divisions of language, so Spanish (over 400 million speakers) and
Portuguese (almost 200 million speakers) have had more influence on its
development than the other Romance languages. This was done to maximize
intelligibility and ease of learning for the largest number of Latins.
David Crandall
Project Romanova
Gareth Wilson
> And, following Zamenhof's lead, I'd tend to try to preserve spelling,
> and make the pronunciation follow it. Like I said above, I'd try
> to preserve the use of the letter 'x', in words like 'exercise', and
> have it pronounced /S/.
No offense, but that's the second-worst feature of Esperanto. It hopelessly
muddles the source of the root (quick, what does [beardo] mean?). For your
example you should spell it "eksersize" and use x however you like.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gareth Wilson
Christchurch
New Zealand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Robert Hubert
recent one called Romanova (still under advanced development) that only uses
19 letters and draws its vocabulary from modern French, Italian,
Portuguese/Spanish, and Romanian:
http://members.aol.com/dkcsac/myhomepage/romanova.htm
Robert
"Rex F. May" <rm...@peakpeak.com> wrote in message
news:39CA260E...@peakpeak.com...
> This would be a good place for everybody to chip
> in to create the perfect pan-romance language. I'll
> start with the alphabet.
>
> The basic 26 letters with these values:
> a, e, i, o, u, as in Esperanto.
> b d f g h k l m n p r s t v z, as in Esperanto.
>
> c = ^c
> j = ^j
> q = reserved for somebody else's good idea. Maybe
> it'll just be omitted.
> w = as in English
> x = ^s
> y = as in English.
>
> W and Y to be used in consonant fashion.
> Diphthongs restricted to:
> ai = aj
> au = a^u
> oi = oj
>
> Bias in favor of spelling first, that is, say, the
> word for hundred is 'cento,' pronounced '^cento',
> word for to exercise wd be 'exercise', pronounced
> 'e^ser^cise'. But if we can't stand some results,
> we go the Esperanto route and heart is 'koro,' not
> 'coro.'
>
> Comments?
Kextrii
> au = a^u
> oi = oj
I've always wondered why Esperanto uses an accented "u" to represent the end
of a diphthong. Seeing as there is no accented "i" but rather a "j" why did
Zamenhof not choose to use the letter "w" or simply allow a "u" with no
accent? Esperanto broke some kind of pattern with this, I think. Heh,
right. Anyway that's all.
Rex F. May
Gareth Wilson wrote:
> "Rex F. May" wrote:
>
> > And, following Zamenhof's lead, I'd tend to try to preserve spelling,
> > and make the pronunciation follow it. Like I said above, I'd try
> > to preserve the use of the letter 'x', in words like 'exercise', and
> > have it pronounced /S/.
>
> No offense, but that's the second-worst feature of Esperanto. It hopelessly
> muddles the source of the root (quick, what does [beardo] mean?). For your
> example you should spell it "eksersize" and use x however you like.
> --
I don't quite follow you here. I'm sort of following Z's lead only more
so, by preserving 'x' in spelling, but giving it a unique pronunciation. What
exactly do you mean about 'worst feature'? If you mean replacing the x
with ks, I'm inclined to agree. Maybe I'm overestimating Z's intentions
here. What I think is the way to go is to have words _look_ recognizable
as much as possible, and never mind the pronunciation, as far as
recognizability is concerned.
Gareth Wilson
What I think is the way to go is to have words _look_ recognizable
> as much as possible, and never mind the pronunciation, as far as
> recognizability is concerned.
Depends what you want to do with the language, I guess. If you expect it to be
used mostly in written form, that's reasonable. But expecting someone to hear
"eshersize", (or whatever) and relate it to the original root is a bit optimistic.
Henricus
Salve Rexus,
>Me vide = I see (timeless)
>Me es vide = I see (present)
>Me te vide = I saw
>Me va vide = I will see
In Interlingua every vowel ending can denote everything. There is no chance
for beginners to decide if a word is a noun, adjective or verb. This lack
should be avoided.
Look at "Me te vide"
In this case you must implicitely learn the class of words. Therefore I took
for Eurish:
"Mu vid-e-ba" (m-u <Nominative singular> = engl. I, vid-e <verb> = engl.
to see, ba = past tense)
Possible is also: "Vid-e-ba-m (vid-e <verb> = engl. to see, ba = past
tense, m = engl. I)
>Or just use the Esperanto system:
>Me vidas (still timeless)
>Me vides
>Me vidis
>Me vidos
Possible scheme, but the first two verbs sound very similar.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------
>And make the endings unbound, and define them as the
>tenses of 'to be', and also use them that way.
>Me as homo. I'm a man
>Me es homo. I'm a man now (I used to be a frog)
>Me is, etc.
A vowel follows a vowel. Should a semi-vowel be inserted between "me" and
"as" etc. ?
-> Me [y] as homo.
Can the personal pronoun follow the tense particle?
f.e. Asem homo. Esem homo, Isem homo.
Compare Eurish:
Mu e homu. Tu e homu. Lu e homu.
Alternative:
Em homu. Es homu. E homu. ("Es" < {derived from} "Et", "E" < {derived
from} "El")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
>And, for heaven's sake, undeclined simple pronouns.
>My first thought:
>Me Nos
>Tu
>Lo (no sexual variation) Loi
If you invent a new language, you have the chance to bring more regularity
into the particles. Supposed you decide the ending -u as signifier for
nominative, the above mentioned particles are:
Singular: mu, tu, lu
Which signifier should be chosen for plural? Alternatives: -i (as in Eurish)
or -s (as in other romance derivates)
Plural with -i: mi, ti, li (<= Eurish, sound more Italian)
Another proposals:
Singular: mu, tu, lu (basis is Eurish)
Plural with -s: mus, tus, lus
or:
Singular: mo, to, lo (basis is reformed Esperanto)
Plural with -s: mos, tos, los (sounds more Spanish ?)
There are so many alternatives to compose a new language. The different
forms could be overtaken by democratic agreement (majority of votes) or
derivation of a natural language.
I decided to take Latin for the building of the new pan-European language
(the advantages are listed in my web). Other people took Spanish as their
master language to derive their auxlang (look at the Romanova project).
Ave
Henricus
Rex F. May
Gareth Wilson wrote:
> "Rex F. May" wrote:
>
> What I think is the way to go is to have words _look_ recognizable
>
> > as much as possible, and never mind the pronunciation, as far as
> > recognizability is concerned.
>
> Depends what you want to do with the language, I guess. If you expect it to be
> used mostly in written form, that's reasonable. But expecting someone to hear
> "eshersize", (or whatever) and relate it to the original root is a bit optimistic.
>
Good point, but I find that I do that sort of thing from language to language.
Example. Learning Spanish 'jamas' if you already know French 'jamais.' It's
easier for me as it is with the similar spelling, than it would be if the Spanish
word were llamé, if you see what I mean.
Rex F. May
Henricus wrote:
>
> In Interlingua every vowel ending can denote everything. There is no chance
> for beginners to decide if a word is a noun, adjective or verb. This lack
> should be avoided.
>
> Look at "Me te vide"
>
> In this case you must implicitely learn the class of words. Therefore I took
> for Eurish:
>
> "Mu vid-e-ba" (m-u <Nominative singular> = engl. I, vid-e <verb> = engl.
> to see, ba = past tense)
>
> Possible is also: "Vid-e-ba-m (vid-e <verb> = engl. to see, ba = past
> tense, m = engl. I)
I agree. This is one place where Esperanto is clearly superior to Interlingua.
>
>
> >Or just use the Esperanto system:
>
> >Me vidas (still timeless)
> >Me vides
> >Me vidis
> >Me vidos
>
> Possible scheme, but the first two verbs sound very similar.
You're right. I've been thinking about, but not insisting on, the
necessity for a timeless 'tense,' for cases like. 'Katoi es animaloi'
>
>
> >And make the endings unbound, and define them as the
> >tenses of 'to be', and also use them that way.
>
> >Me as homo. I'm a man
> >Me es homo. I'm a man now (I used to be a frog)
> >Me is, etc.
>
> A vowel follows a vowel. Should a semi-vowel be inserted between "me" and
> "as" etc. ?
>
> -> Me [y] as homo.
Not necessary for me. The words flow okay without that. _Maybe_ 'm'es'
for 'me es.'
>
>
> Can the personal pronoun follow the tense particle?
>
> f.e. Asem homo. Esem homo, Isem homo.
Cute idea, but I don't see any necessity for it.
>
>
> Compare Eurish:
>
> Mu e homu. Tu e homu. Lu e homu.
>
> Alternative:
>
> Em homu. Es homu. E homu. ("Es" < {derived from} "Et", "E" < {derived
> from} "El")
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------
>
> >And, for heaven's sake, undeclined simple pronouns.
> >My first thought:
>
> >Me Nos
> >Tu
> >Lo (no sexual variation) Loi
>
> If you invent a new language, you have the chance to bring more regularity
> into the particles. Supposed you decide the ending -u as signifier for
> nominative, the above mentioned particles are:
>
> Singular: mu, tu, lu
Yes, but I deliberately didn't . 1. Lack of redundancy, which always
bothered me about Esperanto. Interestingly, Loglan avoided that problem
with pronouns, but then fell into it with numerals. 2. A decision that
one-syllable words don't need that regularity.
> Which signifier should be chosen for plural? Alternatives: -i (as in Eurish)
> or -s (as in other romance derivates)
>
> Plural with -i: mi, ti, li (<= Eurish, sound more Italian)
>
> Another proposals:
>
> Singular: mu, tu, lu (basis is Eurish)
> Plural with -s: mus, tus, lus
>
> or:
>
> Singular: mo, to, lo (basis is reformed Esperanto)
> Plural with -s: mos, tos, los (sounds more Spanish ?)
>
Note that 'we' isn't really the plural of 'I', so I made a
whole new word for it, 'nos.' However, 'they' is the
plural of he/she/it, so it's 'lo' and 'loi'.
Rex F. May
a modified SVO, which allows for VOS and OSV. Still
perfectly unambiguous, if there is POS marking.
Me tene libro.
Tene libro, me.
Libro, me tene.
All meaning 'I have a book,' and probably varying
in emphasis. Of course the circular order is required.
You can't have SOV, for example.
phil hunt
>> >This would be a good place for everybody to chip
>> >in to create the perfect pan-romance language.
>>
>
>I'm just playing around, Phil. I'm thinking out loud. 'Perfect' is
>used playfully.
Well, what's it for? Are you trying to design for maximal at-sight
readability? (If so, you for: Romance speakers? Europeans? Everyone
who speaks European languages?)
Or are you trying for an aesthetically simple grammar?
Or for ease-of-learning (again, which target population? And ease of
productive use, or just passive use?)
Also, is written similarity with the source languages important, or
spoken similaraity? Or both?
It strikes me that before you do something, it's a good idea to know
what you are trying to do.
>Like I said, I'm thinking out loud. I think Interlingua is overly
>'natural.' Too many ambiguities in spelling and pronunciation.
That gives me some clue as to what you want.
Martijn Dekker
<Henr...@netcologne.de> wrote:
> In Interlingua every vowel ending can denote everything. There is no
> chance for beginners to decide if a word is a noun, adjective or
> verb. This lack should be avoided.
This is totally untrue. Not only is the class of a word (noun,
adjective, verb, etc.) determined by the position of a word in the
sentence and can easily be derived that way, there are also many
standardized endings that help determine the class of a word as well as
its meaning. For example, corage = courage, coragiose = couragious (the
"-ose" ending makes the noun into an adjective).
> Look at "Me te vide"
The correct Interlingua sentence is "Io te vide" (I see you) and in this
sentence "vide" cannot be anything but a verb because of its position in
the sentence.
Apart from all that, once you learn the meaning of the word, you
automatically learn its class as well. Esperanto-style artificial class
endings are unnecessary and only add to the obfuscation of the
international vocabulary and remove much of the elegance from a
language. They are a bad solution for a nonexistent problem.
- Martijn
Paul O Bartlett
"Henricus" <Henr...@netcologne.de> wrote (small excerpt):
> In Interlingua every vowel ending can denote everything. There is no
chance
> for beginners to decide if a word is a noun, adjective or verb. This
lack
> should be avoided.
>
> Look at "Me te vide"
This is bad Interliingua and is not a complete sentence. There are
two object pronouns and no subject. Do you mean "Io te vide" or "Tu me
vide"?
--
Paul Bartlett
Vienna, Virginia, USA
bart...@smart.net
bpp...@my-deja.com
<snip>
> >
> > >Me as homo. I'm a man
> > >Me es homo. I'm a man now (I used to be a frog)
> > >Me is, etc.
> >
> > A vowel follows a vowel. Should a semi-vowel be inserted
between "me" and
> > "as" etc. ?
> >
> > -> Me [y] as homo.
>
> Not necessary for me. The words flow okay without that.
_Maybe_ 'm'es'
> for 'me es.'
>
I always use a glottal stop between adjacent vowels in my constructions.
<snip some more>
>
> Note that 'we' isn't really the plural of 'I', so I made a
> whole new word for it, 'nos.' However, 'they' is the
> plural of he/she/it, so it's 'lo' and 'loi'.
>
What do you mean by 'we' isn't really the plural of 'I'?
Kevin P. Miller
Rex F. May
bpp...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> What do you mean by 'we' isn't really the plural of 'I'?
The only time it cd mean the plural of 'I' is when a group is
speaking in chorus. Otherwise it can mean 'I plus other
person(s) not addressed' or 'I plus you' or both.
Rex F. May
Come to think of it, following Loglan's lead, a good language
shd have several words for 'we/us' to reflect the different
meanings. Thus:
Me = I
Tu = you
Lo = 3d person singular
Loi = 3d person plural
So:
Meu = I plus you
Meo = I plus another person not addressed
Meoi = I plus other people not addressed
Muo = I plus you and another person not addressed
Muoi = I plus you and other people not addressed
And, just maybe, we need a plural 'you',
and that could be:
Tui = persons addressed
Tuo = person addressed plus person not addressed
Tuoi = person addressed plus persons not addressed
Tuio = persons addressed plus person not addressed
Tuioi = persons addressed plus persons not addressed
Strange as it may seem, all these make sense.
Kjell Rehnström
>
> In Interlingua every vowel ending can denote everything. There is no chance
> for beginners to decide if a word is a noun, adjective or verb. This lack
> should be avoided.
>
> Look at "Me te vide"
To ne e interlingua. In interlingua il e: Io te vide; ego te vide.
Kom in multi lingves un desinentie posse haber pluri funktions.
bpp...@my-deja.com
all these pronouns is fine for Loglan/Lojban because of the necessity
to avoid all ambiguity, even at the expense of simplicity (and
sometimes clarity), since it's designed to be easily parseable by a
computer. But small ambiguities are easily rectified by humans because
we are such _good_ computers.
As for "we," in many cases, when a person uses "we," they are speaking
_on behalf_ of whatever person or persons are referenced, and as such,
are indeed speaking in the 1st person, made plural, so I don't see any
ambiguity to begin with.
In article <39CF785D...@peakpeak.com>,
"Rex F. May" <rm...@peakpeak.com> wrote:
>
>
Rex F. May
bpp...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I have a hard time buying into this argument. The distiction between
> all these pronouns is fine for Loglan/Lojban because of the necessity
> to avoid all ambiguity, even at the expense of simplicity (and
> sometimes clarity), since it's designed to be easily parseable by a
> computer. But small ambiguities are easily rectified by humans because
> we are such _good_ computers.
>
> As for "we," in many cases, when a person uses "we," they are speaking
> _on behalf_ of whatever person or persons are referenced, and as such,
> are indeed speaking in the 1st person, made plural, so I don't see any
> ambiguity to begin with.
Partly true, and I agree that there are probably too many possible
distinctions,
but the inclusive and non-inclusive 'we's are indeed ambiguous. When
I tell my son, "We're going to the store," he asks "Me, or just you and
Mom?" It would be good to have two 'we's, at least. Indeed, many
languages have them.
ANDROGENOIDE
>> Strange as it may seem, all these make sense.
>>
came up with 8 possible 1st person forms....I didn't even go into combinations
of second and third persons (and opening third person to class gender could
produce way more pronouns than I'd even want to think about). I wouldn't be
surprised if I missed a few possible forms...
alangiles
"Rex F. May" wrote
>when I tell my son, "We're going to the store," he asks "Me, or just you
and Mom?" It would be good to have two 'we's, at least. Indeed, many
languages have them.
I agree with this. There is ambiguity in English when we use words such as
'you' and 'we'.
In Gilo, I have included the following:-
I, me = me
we (me and the person[s] spoken to) = mi
we (including someone else) = wi
you (singular) = yu
you (plural) =yi
This obviously does not cover every potential combination but is better than
the present options available in English.
Alan Giles
www.gilo.org
Automort
>There is ambiguity in English when we use words such as
>'you' and 'we'.
The Cherokee pronoun system does not distinguish by gender/sex, but it does
make useful distinctions English does not. Besides, genderlessness/sexlessness
is the current fad.
Cherokee has singular, dual, and plural.
The first person plural (per Holmes & Smith), for example, can express:
We two "me and him/her but not you"
We several "me and them but not you"
We two "you and I"
We all "you and them and I"
The first two appear rude in English, but in Cherokee they are simple
statements of fact, just as are the gender/sex references in English.
Seems a good system to me.
bpp...@hotmail.com
up with eleven pronouns to cover all persons, and which in my mind
accurately depicts all possible states of the referent(s):
1 me
2 you
3s him
3p them
1+2 me and you (we)
1+3s me and him (we)
1+3p me and them (we)
2+3s you and him (you)
2+3p you and them (you)
1+2+3s me, you and him (we)
1+2+3p me, you and them (we)
Note the lack of an independent 2p, because you are seldom ever
speaking to more than one person at a time, unless you are speaking to
a group, in which case you don't really speak to an individual. Group,
as I use it in this sense, means a "faceless," impersonal crowd. This
stipulation makes the 2 situations mutually exclusive, negating the
need for separate terms. In addition, in rare cases (that only seem to
happen in broadway musicals ;) a "pitch-man" might shift his focus from
the group at large to a single individual, but the meaning would be
clear from the context, i.e., it's suddenly 2 or 2+3, plus eye contact,
rather than simply 2 to the group.
Kevin
In article <20000926232701...@ng-fw1.news.cs.com>,
ANDROGENOIDE
it was early and the brain was fuzzy but I did include both a singular and
plural 2nd person and the rather improbable 1st plural (chorus style)
There was a mention some months back of the idea of a 4th person pronoun to
cover such distinctions as " he put his books in his locker" in which the 3
third person pronouns could refer to anything from 1 to 3 different
persons....It could certainly get as out-of-hand as a person wanted....
androg...@my-deja.com
androg...@cs.com (ANDROGENOIDE) wrote:
> it was early and the brain was fuzzy but .....
>
Ok, I sat down and redid some thinking...I see 7 forms without
including 1st person (choral) plural:1s,1s+2s,1s+2s+3s,1s+2s+3p,1s+2p,
1s+2p+3s,1s+2p+3p there'd be another 7 if 1p(choral) were substituted
for 1s and another 6 forms for combinations of 2nd & 3rd person (2s,
2s+3s,2s+3p,2p,2p+3s,2p+3p)....so there's 14 personal pronouns (without
1st person choral) and without cases...imagine 21 pronouns with 15
cases each...and then there's fourth person if you want to make it
interesting...
Kjell Rehnström
> In article <20000928185635...@ng-fu1.news.cs.com>,
> androg...@cs.com (ANDROGENOIDE) wrote:
> > it was early and the brain was fuzzy but .....
> >
> Ok, I sat down and redid some thinking...I see 7 forms without
> including 1st person (choral) plural:1s,1s+2s,1s+2s+3s,1s+2s+3p,1s+2p,
> 1s+2p+3s,1s+2p+3p there'd be another 7 if 1p(choral) (...)
Could also be
1 , 2, p m, f, n (n used by machines etc. in Sci-Fi novels)
3 p m, f, n
4 p m, f, n (non-present person)
A person that I know of but who is not seen - will express what verbs do
in some languages).
Same procedure with plurals.
ANDROGENOIDE
>1 , 2, p m, f, n (n used by machines etc. in Sci-Fi novels)
>3 p m, f, n
>4 p m, f, n (non-present person)
>A person that I know of but who is not seen - will express what verbs do
>in some languages).
Third person could also be expanded by class gender: separate pronouns for
animate, concrete, abstract, collective, etc ( yes, there could be separate
forms to indicate "me and my book" or "me and my dog") I don't know of any
natlangs that have lots of class genders and cases at the same time but if a
person wanted to construct such a thing as a theoretical excercise it should be
possible to have hundreds of pronoun forms.
The question that interests me, though is "how many are enough?" There's
nothing odd about having as few as 4 or as many as a few dozen...Cartoon BEM's
and wolf children are made to speak using proper nouns instead (ET phone home)
or a minimal set of non-case-sensitive ones (me Tarzan,you Jane). Is there a
trade-off when too few are used?
bpp...@hotmail.com
basic meaning is the same but which have slightly different
implications. A pronoun indicating 1s+2s, for example, could, in
reality, be either a 1p or a 2p, one meaning ME and you, and the other
meaning YOU and me. Personally, I like these kinds of subtleties, but
I don't know how useful such a distinction would be, so it might not
last very long in a natlang.
Kevin
In article <8r10ql$84f$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Rupert Barnes
by using the more impersonal or distant pronouns outlined. This is a
useful subtlety of language, I suppose. (For similar reasons the French
and the Germans devised the verbs "tutuyer" and "duzen" respectively.)
For the record, Baanzish has eight basic pronoun persons (with the dual
forms useful to suggest a closeness, friendship or intimacy. That gives
(with genders and the impersonal "one") twelve pronouns. However If you
want to use "he" or "she" ("hoo" or "hais") twice in a sentence and be
less ambiguous about which "he" is which then there are alternatives
("dhoo" and "dhais") indicating a slightly more distant "he" or "she".
That gives fourteen pronouns. So:
1p sing Mie
2p sing Thie
3p sing Hoo (m), Hais (f), It (n), Ein (impers) Dhoo, Dhais
1p dual Wit
2p dual Jut
1p plur Wie
2p plur Jue
3p plur Dhue (m/f), Dhin (n) (and "Hue" maybe?)
I am quite attracted by some of the variants mentioned before though.
They are seen in some African tongues, I am told. However I wonder if
they would actually be used properly by a native speaker (if there were
such a thing, particularly if he were speaking quickly. We would also
have to be sure there are "general" versions of each person. Otherwise a
speaker might be stuck if he were unsure which category to fit a subject
into.
In article <39D4E000...@swipnet.se>, =?iso-
8859-1?q?Kjell_Rehnstr=F6m?= <cel...@swipnet.se> writes
>androg...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> In article <20000928185635...@ng-fu1.news.cs.com>,
>> androg...@cs.com (ANDROGENOIDE) wrote:
>> > it was early and the brain was fuzzy but .....
>> >
>> Ok, I sat down and redid some thinking...I see 7 forms without
>> including 1st person (choral) plural:1s,1s+2s,1s+2s+3s,1s+2s+3p,1s+2p,
>> 1s+2p+3s,1s+2p+3p there'd be another 7 if 1p(choral) (...)
>
>Could also be
>1 , 2, p m, f, n (n used by machines etc. in Sci-Fi novels)
>3 p m, f, n
>4 p m, f, n (non-present person)
>A person that I know of but who is not seen - will express what verbs do
>in some languages).
>
>Same procedure with plurals.
Rupert Barnes
bpp...@hotmail.com
rather the formal act of allowing someone to use the familiar form for
the first time. I believe it was traditionally accompanied by a drink
and a toast (but wasn't everything :). The source of this was my
(German) German teacher, so I took it on good faith, though I may be
mistaken.
Kevin
In article <kT9rcDAG...@rahbarnes.demon.co.uk>,
Rupert Barnes <r...@rahbarnes.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>(For similar reasons the French
> and the Germans devised the verbs "tutuyer" and "duzen" respectively.)