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Language project stage two: Basic grammar
in this stage we don't decide how inclinations will look and such, we just decide if there's gonna be inclinations, and for example if they're on the end of the word, the beginning, stuff like that.
Also something i'd like to set is the % thingies on the amount of how many times letters occur. These shouldn't be followed strictly, but at least a bit when creating vocab. Personally i think there should be lots of T's, R's, V's, A's, I's, E's and N's for obvious reasons
I think Triani needs to combine mainly romance and arabic grammar. So i'd like to get to know some arabic grammar first
RicLyon Foreigner New Bee
Posts: 6
(8/8/03 6:38 pm) Reply
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
Base it on spoken or written arabic? Spoken has no cases or modus systems, nor does it have the complex verb system as High Arabic (written) has (1 verb root can have 1000 forms).
When languages get influenced they keep what is simple in the original language, and assimilate the easy from the influencial language. For an example English got its plural system from French and much more of the grammar too.
Richard Lyon
Yansha Elaer Kyon gef Shan
Pernem kahn gef kuymal per varga sti
Pernem kahn gef varga per kuymal sti
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
which is perfect, since conlangs shouldn't be to hard else nobody learns them. We don't need no ultracomplex verb forms, certainly not.
RicLyon Foreigner New Bee
Posts: 7
(9/8/03 1:10 pm) Reply
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammarPlural system!
End with s... Arabic got an entire docuement about plural system so I guess we keep -s just for the sake of smnimplicity hmaxos.com/Arabic%20Plural%20System.pdf
Should Triáni pluralize adjectives to? like in spanish buenos días?
Verbs
The little I found about arabic verns was that the root of the word is example k*s*r with * a vowel
Vowels change in accordance to time and person.
so in triáni something like
to eat
kámar
i eat
komúr
u eat
kimúr
s/he eats
kamúr
etc... juz a thought
first vowel is person, second is time...
Richard Lyon
Yansha Elaer Kyon gef Shan
Pernem kahn gef kuymal per varga sti
Pernem kahn gef varga per kuymal sti
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
I like the idea of changing vowels, although it would make some words totally unrecognisable. I think verbs should have a stem that consists of more than 3 consonants (i mean, also a few vowels and such), else we're going to be short on stems sooner or later
For plural stuff, one plural form is a good idea. But it doesn't necessarily have to be S in my opinion.
I also like the adjectives agree thing, that way we don't have to make the word order too strict.
I'd also like to derive all vocab phonetically, since we have a lot more sounds and such. For example email would become ímél (accent on last long vowel, é).
I also like the idea of not having to much consonants after eachother without vowels between em, for example qawrUniva(means "crown" according to Ric)
besides wouldnt "to eat" be kOmer afaik, and we should have more original endings but that's vocab, thats for later.
This should become more detailed though, and also it's the best I can do, not the best our whole team can do. So i want additions, changes, corrections, stuff like that. Also i think it should be a tad bit more complicated. The verb tenses for example are propably way too simple.
RicLyon Foreigner New Bee
Posts: 8
(9/8/03 9:08 pm) Reply
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
Mixed languages do not use accusative, nominative etc... as distinct forms, since they tend to simplify.
Spoken arabic has no cases, nor French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian. Only written Latin (not spoken "vulgar")... I don't like cases.
Other than that I like it, would of course like nouns ending with a vowel
Richard Lyon
Yansha Elaer Kyon gef Shan
Pernem kahn gef kuymal per varga sti
Pernem kahn gef varga per kuymal sti
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
Nouns ending with a vowel.. i dunno, i like the n m ng thing. If we don't use cases, i'd like to use some sort of preposition thingy to replace each of them. or maybe a post position, as if it were an unattached case.
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
i think the grammar outlined is fine.
personally, i like cases, and i think it'd be a pity if we took them out.
another thing though - are we going to have words/endings/prefixes/etc. for "the" and/or "a"?
in arabic (the only bit of arabic grammar i know ), there's a word for "the", but not for "a". The word for "the" is "al", except the "l" sometimes mutates to copy the first letter of the word - hence "AL Jazeera", but "AZ Zubayr" (technically because "z" is a "sun letter" and "j" isn't )
in welsh, the word for "the" is "y", except it changes depending on if it's surrounded by vowels or consonants:
- consonant - the - consonant = "y": "Betws-y-Coed"
- vowel - the - consonant = "'r": "mae'r llewod"
- consonant - the - vowel = "yr": "bordd yr iaith gymraeg"
slight changes like the above make the language flow nicer. just some ideas
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
We need to have cases! I hate having to use propositions for everything. I've used four or five cases in all but one of my languages, five only in the Slobbo-Ovian tongues. Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Instrumental (Only in the Slobbo-Ovians). These are the only cases I've really been able to understand the function of, mostly because my major foreign language backgroiund is with German at the moment. I only loosely understand the use of the instrumental case really.
I personally preffer stable words for 'the' like der, changing only to mark gender. Which brings me to another point, do we want gender? I have it in very few of my languages so far, but I think it does something to add to the character of the language, especially if it's easy to tell what gender the noun is based on endings or beginnings, etc. I'd suggest two genders, Neuter and Utrum (Latin term meaning with Gender) instead of Masculine-Feminine.
King Johanns V fonn Klosso
King of the five Kingdoms of Cranda
Grand Khan of Lontinien
hm it would be nice to have genders, as long as we have easy way to tell them apart. i'd be happy with a neutral gender and an utrum thingy (like the common gender in dutch i guess)
maybe we should have a dative case, to add different shades of meaning - i love (and hate - it's confusing) the way icelandic uses cases to add subtle differences of meaning. like the dative of rest, etc. hm but that would get too complicated.
--
RicLyon Foreigner New Bee
Posts: 12
(10/8/03 10:07 pm) Reply
AAAARGHHH
I hate cases when you also have prepossitioons. Either ahbe an English way of system (of, from, through) or a Finnish/Feianova system. Please don't combine them both!
Gender, one for -n, one for -m and one for -ng... al - el and la perhaps...
Re: AAAARGHHH
Prepositions are necessary, whether you have cases or not. Otherwise you end up with like six million cases to express every preposition. Four or five cases, and prepositions would work well.
King Johanns V fonn Klosso
King of the five Kingdoms of Cranda
Grand Khan of Lontinien
RicLyon Foreigner New Bee
Posts: 13
(11/8/03 11:38 am) Reply
Re: AAAARGHHH
If we ahve a few cases, there is no need for certain prepositions, what about three cases then, nominative, objective and genitive?
Besides, languages simplyfy, that is what happens when languages merge like that. The cases in English went off when the French invaded, just like the spoken Arabaic lost its acses when it was split to many dialects.
If not having cases, just put the most common prepositions after the word like qa'rúnivan -> qa'núrivad
Richard Lyon
Yansha Elaer Kyon gef Shan
Pernem kahn gef kuymal per varga sti
Pernem kahn gef varga per kuymal sti
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
i like aveng's idea about articles. We should certainly have articles, but only for defined stuff imho.
Gender can become pretty complicated.. As long we can keep it easy enough it's ok for me. I'd go for the neuter utrum thing in that case.
yknow, cases OR prepositions is so unoriginal. We should, in my opinion, have a few cases AND prepositions.
And Ric, those cases you proposed are exactly the ones i meant
Quote: not having cases, just put the most common prepositions after the word like qa'rúnivan -> qa'núrivad
Then we could just as well have cases what we could do though is use postpositions instead of prepositions.. but not attach them to the word. and besides, D is an adjective ending ... AND it would mutate into T anyways.
RicLyon Foreigner New Bee
Posts: 14
(11/8/03 3:43 pm) Reply
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
OK OK OK...
I agree with you here then.... But why not skip the genitive case and make them adjectives in stead. To say the crown "qa'rúnivan" and of the crown "qa'rúnivat"...
Chinese does that.
Richard Lyon
Yansha Elaer Kyon gef Shan
Pernem kahn gef kuymal per varga sti
Pernem kahn gef varga per kuymal sti
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
Why get rid of the genitive case? I think it's fairly handy, avoids the constructions most now caseless Romance languages have been forced to rely on.
Saying "The Book of Sam"
instead of "Sam's book"
King Johanns V fonn Klosso
King of the five Kingdoms of Cranda
Grand Khan of Lontinien
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
I don't Ric was suggesting we say "the book of Sam". I think his idea is that we use adjectives instead, like "the Samish book" (i.e. "the book belonging-to-Sam").
On another matter, why not have a few impersonal verbs - a Germanic influence on Triáni?
e.g. In Icelandic, "I think" is "mér þykir", which literally means "[it] thinks to me". This is like the archaic "methinks" in English.
Another example in Icelandic is "mig vantar" ("I need") - literally "[it] lacks me" (I think )
German has them too - "mir ist kalt" - "[it] is cold to me"
Also, in Icelandic some impersonal verbs can be used personally (i.e. with a nominative subject) to give different meanings. So whereas "mér [dative] þykir [3rd person]" means "I think", "ég [nominative] þyki [1st person]" means "I consider". I think so, anyway
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
I say keep the genitive case,
and the verb thingies are for vocab. In dutch we have "ik denk" which means i think, and "me dunkt" which would be like "me thinks" but it's hardly used these days. I like that kinda stuff, but we should keep it for vocab in my opinion. Im still working on the php vocab thingy by the way.
Re: Language project stage two: Basic grammar
Crandish also has mer tynkt, incidently. However the verb tynkan means 'it seems to,' tenken is to think. German, at least Middle High German, made the same distinction.
King Johanns V fonn Klosso
King of the five Kingdoms of Cranda
Grand Khan of Lontinien
I hope your triani grammar wont be this bad 
Arabic got an entire docuement about plural system so I guess we keep -s just for the sake of smnimplicity 
)
what we could do though is use postpositions instead of prepositions.. but not attach them to the word. and besides, D is an adjective ending 
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