Thursday, November 14, 2002

Aidan Grey's vocab of the week, 2.3 and 2.4:

#2.3

topic: genitive relatives (or whatever the "whose..." clauses are called)

1. president
2. office

The president whose office is oval has moved to the country.
(I swear this juxtaposition was random)

3. trap

The hunter whose trap was empty is angry.

4. operate

He operated on her.
He knows how to operate a well/pump.

5. idea

Whose idea was that?

6. blame

The girl whose dress is torn blames you.

7. descriptive

The guy whose writing is very descriptive will probably win awards.

8. upright

It stood upright against the wall.

9. everything

Everything is as messed up!

10. own

The old woman who owns that cat is really mean.
I can barely see my own hand in front of my face.

#2.4

topic: how to disambiguate (if at all) 3rd person referents

1. life

She owed her her life.

2. journey

Their journey to visit their friends was long.

3. brick

He gave his brick to him.

4. merry

She was merry all day at the festival.

5. fail

He failed to save him.

6. approve

He approved his request.

7. jaw

Their jaws were bruised from fighting their enemies.

8. hardship

He thought his hardship too great to bear.

9. whatever

Whatever she did, she was not happy.

10. goods

Their goods were locked on their wagon.

Muke Tever 6:34 AM

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Saturday, October 26, 2002

Aidan Grey's Vocab #2.2

1. whoever
Whoever stole my wallet is going to die!

2. which
Which one do you like better?

3. scale
What kind of bathroom scale do you have?
How many scales are there on a trout?
Someone scaled the wall silently.

4. throat
My throat hurt, so I guessed I had some kind of infection.

5. set
Every one of the dish sets was chipped
Everytime he sets the table, he forgets the spoons.

6. slight
Whenever her son has a slight cough, she takes him to the doctor.

7. upstairs
When we play hide-and-seek, sometimes I like to hide upstairs.

8. reduce
He needs to reduce the number of cigarettes he smokes.

9. care
No one cares about him.

10. imagination
I never had the imagination you have.

Muke Tever 2:29 AM

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Saturday, October 19, 2002

Aidan Grey's Vocab of the Week, kept here for future reference...(I lose these in the message inbox, which is hyooge already)

Theme: topicalization (make the vocab word the topic or focus of the utterance).

1. crowd
There was a huge crowd in front of the building.

2. lead
She led her dog into the field.
Her dog was on a lead.
The pipes are made of lead.

3. ready
He's ready to go now.

4. slow
Snails are slow.
He runs slowly, and I bet he won't win the race.

5. rent
I have to pay rent on the 5th of every month.

6. popularity
This was just a popularity contest.

7. -ion
two parts here: first, how are verbal nouns formed?
  act > action, move > motion, see > vision.
second, the sentence:
  His action was hasty.

8. addition
Even the addition of an extra student increased class sizes beyond tolerable limits.

9. hat
Today is a say-something hat day!

10. pack
I need to pack for my trip.
The pack she wore on the trip was way too heavy.

Muke Tever 10:10 AM

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Saturday, September 14, 2002

Henaudute numbers [β]

Why all these numbers? They're easy. Ah well...

1-10: hin, hau, kē, haphtha, nottha, thokhtha, pōstha, khophtha, haltha, rhettha.

(Yes, the aspirated stops in 6=thokhtha and 8=khophtha remain. The stems are thok- and khob-, with the aspiration coming from the -tha.

11-19: himbráltha, haubráltha, kēbraltha, ambráltha, nobráltha, thobráltha, pōbraltha, khombráltha, halbráltha.

20: lou. (Or, possibly loutha—both could be valid.)

30-90: kērrhethas, habrétthas, notrétthas, thokrétthas, pōrretthas, khobrétthas, haldrétthas.

100: listha. (Or littha—but not both.)

200-: haulísthas, kēlisthas, hablísthas, etc.

1000: petha.

The ubiquitous -tha is just the adjective suffix. It can be added to 1, 2, and 3... but not necessarily.

Muke Tever 7:05 AM

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Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Per spoq's request, you can hear Ibran one to ten: ibnums.wav (180 K).

I seem to have lost my wav > mp3 converter.

Muke Tever 9:42 PM

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Ibran numbers [ε]

Okay, and here are the numbers for Ibran (cardinals only). Also, I know that people are seeing a little spiral instead of d-cedilla but I havent the faintest idea why.

1 - une - [jin]
2 - dos - [do?]
3 - tris - [tri?]
4 - càtre - ["k{t@]
5 - cinc - [SV~x]
6 - seis - [ze?]
7 - şett - [ZEt]
8 - oet - [OET]
9 - nuif - [nO:f]
10 - ḑez - [dZES] (ḑ = d-cedilla)
11 - unz - [A~S]
12 - doz - [dOS]
13 - triz - [triS]
14 - càtorz - ["k{tO:S]
15 - quinz - [kV~S]
16 - şez - [ZES] (ş = s-cedilla)
17 - ḑecett - [dZE"SEt]
18 - ḑezoet - [dZES"OEt]
19 - ḑeznuif - [dZES"nO:f]
20 - vint - [vV~T]
30 - trint - [trV~T]
40 - càreint - ["k{reV~T]
50 - cinqueint - ["SV~keV~T]
60 - seseint - ["zEzeV~T]
70 - setteint - ["zEteV~T]
80 - octuint - ["OxtO:V~T]
90 - noneint - ["nOneV~T]
100 - cent - [SV~T]
1000 - miul - [mjil]

Muke Tever 9:22 PM

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Kirumb numbers [γ]

Fished through sources and now have the set of Kirumb numbers, which ought to be final. Er, since the stress isnt exactly final, and vowel reductions depend on it, it may not be entirely good but it'll be close enough, especially the disyllables :p "~" is for eng here.

[update 12 Sep: changing o to u, so I can read it properly]

	Cardinal "one"	Ordinal "first"	Adverbial "once"
1	winus /wI"nUs/	furus /fU"rUs/	hamílai /xAmi:"lAj/
2	dúu /"du:wU/	a~cerus /"ANtSErUs/	dwis /dwIs/
3	stráis /"strQ:wIs/	striceyus /strItSE"jUs/	stris /strIs/
4	kituris /kItU"rIs/	ktúrus /ktu:rUs/	kiturús /kItUru:s/
5	fi~k /fINk/	fi~[k]tus /"fINtUs/	finkús /fIN"ku:s/

[Suddenly got struck by acute déjà vu...]

6	wist /wIst/	wistus /wI"stUs/	wistús /wI"stu:s/
7	hifta /xI"ftA/	hiftemus /xIftE"mUs/	hiftús /xI"ftu:s/
8	ustuw /U"stUw/	ustemus /UstE"mUs/	ustús /U"stu:s/
9	nía /"ni:jA/	níu~tus /ni:"jUNtUs/	níús /ni:"ju:s/
10	jisat /dZI"sAt/	jisitus /dZIsI"tUs/	jisitús /dZIsI"tu:s/

Adverbs regular in -ús from there on out.

11-19: "hinjisat, duji"sat, "strayjisat, ki"turjisat, "finkijisat, wisji"sat, hifti"jisat, u"stuwjisat, níu~jisat. 11th-19th: replace -jisat with -jisi"tus

20-90: "wísat, strí"sumt, ki"twúrsumt, finkí"sumt, wist"sumt, hi"fcímpsumt, ustuw"sumt, ni"wí~sumt. 20th-90th: "wísestus. replace -sumt with -sumpstus in the rest.

[NB how did "kitwursumt" get in there? [twu] shouldn't exist anymore...]

Hundreds: 100 = sa"tum. 100th = himpsi"tumtus. 200 = dusi"tum, dusi"tumtus, etc., using the number form from the teens series (stray-, kitur-,...)

Thousands: 1000 = šillum. 1000th = himpšillumtus. 2000 = dušillum. Etc., as for hundreds.

Everything else: Too much.

Muke Tever 8:26 AM

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Sunday, September 08, 2002

Negative verbs... have to be thought through. We have some lexical negatives (such as have ~ lack, remember ~ forget) but we can always have more (there ought to be one somewhere for "know")...

Incidentally, English has a severely damaged verb system. The copula and the so-called "auxiliary" verbs are the only ones that appear to be fully functional: main verbs can't be negativized, not even the ones the auxiliaries are derived from.

He is a cat. ~ He isn't a cat. (He is not a cat.)

He will have milk. ~ He won't have milk. (He will not have milk.)

He wants cheese. ~ He doesn't want cheese. (not *He wantsn't cheese/*He wants not cheese.)

He did something. ~ He didn't do something. (not *He didn't something.)

He has eaten ["eat" as the verb] : He hasn't eaten.
He has rabies ["has" as the verb] : He doesn't have rabies (not *He hasn't rabies.)

I dont know if (m)any conlangs have a verb system messed up differently from this. (Yeah, it's easy to imagine a language without it, such as through Spanish influence, or a conlang created with this difference, through contamination from English, but has anyone out there got other systems?)

Muke Tever 7:12 AM

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Wednesday, September 04, 2002

I just finished rereading Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis (first book in an excellent series).

Anyway, I'd really like to develop a conlang extending Malacandrian, the hressa hlab (language of the hrossa). It pretty much appears to be another triconsonantal root language (with really powerful plurals like oyarsa ~ oyéresu, hnakra ~ hnéraki, sorn ~ séroni...) Initial sonorants (even y and w!) are devoiced. Only two verb forms are given though, so that'd be pretty rough to deal with...

Muke Tever 8:47 AM

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