Forum:Group Project/Innovations

Start-General-Vocabulary-Organization-Innovations


 * Dual Pronouns


 * It would be interesting to include, but would it offer a tactical advantage over a natlang? Razlem 01:55, May 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Mostly efficiency. In Hungarian it is a lot easier to say "Szeretlek" for I love you rather than "Téged szeretem." —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 19:44, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Dual pronouns are not so much of an innovation. In fact, it is found generally in older languages like Old Greek and, in most languages in which it is found, it tends to disappear. What advantage would it bring to the language?Panglossa | Talk 02:12, May 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * Artificial/Natural "Genders"
 * We should inflect for nouns (Ex. artificial nouns end in [X], natural, in [Y]). Plural markers would stay the same, as would any other modifiers. Should words agree or not? Razlem 16:17, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Genders in general bring no advantages to a language. But it may be useful if well-thought, as a means of derivation for nouns, as we have e.g. in Portuguese where pairs of words are opposed exclusively by a difference in gender: o caso (masc.) "the case" x a casa (fem.) "the house"; a moral (fem.) "the morality" x o moral (masc.) "the self-confidence"; BUT, for an auxiliary language, I guess it would bring more probems than solutions. Panglossa | Talk 02:12, May 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * If we forgo artificial/natural and dual, what other kinds of innovations can we include? Razlem 02:50, May 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I just thought of an example: tree. A natural tree would be the tall, leafy plant. An aritifical tree would be a branched diagram or web. Razlem 18:13, May 28, 2010 (UTC)

Concerning head direction and alignment, how do you all feel about a head-first nominative-accusative? Razlem 03:28, May 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * Why having nom-acc rather than direct? The Emperor Zelos 14:02, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's up for debate. Would direct be better for this auxlang? Razlem 18:11, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * Auxlang is meant ot be easy, how much easier can it get than all words taking 1 shape ni all positions? throw off everything unneccisery, dont have anything but present past and future too The Emperor Zelos 18:57, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * It's starting to sound like a pidgin. —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 19:44, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a fine line between easiness and laziness; nom-acc languages can be made easy. I'm not sure what you mean by "dont have anything but present past and future"- as opposed to far future or far past? Razlem 23:13, May 24, 2010 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean. What he wants is no past perfect, conditional, etc. If you take an approach like Mandarin, it can be done, but it gets quite confusing rather than easy. Otherwise it's just a pidgin. As for nom accus, I agree with Zelos, because nom-accusative markings are overly European and pointless unless the word order is VSO or SOV (or VOS or OSV). —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 00:40, May 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, we'll go with direct then. I'm not familiar with Mandarin though; how do they approach the tenses and moods? Razlem 01:01, May 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * They use words. There are no inflections at all, and only one or two conjunctions, so they use words for everything. Take the sentence "I eat/ate/will eat meat." Present "wǒ chī ròu" or any combination of the bolded particles "wǒ zhèng zài chī zhe ròu ne." Past "wǒ chī le ròu." Future "wǒ huì chī ròu" (informally). Experential (I have eaten meat) "wǒ chī guo ròu." Present perfect negative (ish) "wǒ méi chī ròu." Near future "wǒ yī kuàir chī ròu." Conditional (If I eat meat, I will be full), "yào shi wǒ chī ròu, wǒ jiù chī le bǎo," lit. If I eat meat, I thus ate (until) full. Those are mostly random particles added. But they get confusing at times, especially when dealing with stuff they would call conditional, subjunctive, etc. in English/Spanish.


 * That seems like it would be taxing on one's memory. But I suppose that's what you have to do for an isolating language. What I did in Logiano is just attach an ending to the verb without conjugating it, and separate it with a dash for clarity. I know Logiano is far from perfect, but it seems more efficient to just attach an ending, as in the romance languages. Another option is to totally regulate the particles.Razlem 03:01, May 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * But the big problem you may notice is the problems when you run into the conditional, you have to say "If I eat meat, I thus ate full," (for If I eat meat, I will be full) and there are a lot of other time problems because there are no tenses. I agree that we should have some system, probably inflections, for tenses, but it also should include perfect tenses, conditional, etc. —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 10:43, May 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm. What about agglutination? Infixes possibly... Razlem 01:43, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Infixes? Why not suffixes? —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 02:01, May 26, 2010 (UTC) ust
 * I just realized my own auxlang has infixes. But be more specific on the uses. —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 02:02, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * The infixes could be placed after the first vowel. (A random example word) lovajl "eat", lodaavajl "have eaten". Razlem 02:29, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Infixes are detrimental for auxlangs as they are even harder dealing with than suffix or prefix, You should reall use neither because that generates irregularities which in turn is against auxlang purpose, better is having it isolated where additional words do the change and is used in a specific order aka grammar The Emperor Zelos 17:14, May 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Proposal: (example) "Subject [pastparticle] [perfectiveparticle] [conditional particle] Verb Object". Tense particle precedes perfective precedes conditional. I think we can omit infinitive, reflexive, active, and passive. Razlem 03:57, May 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * A language needs flexibility, so it should be necessary for there to be passive, probably just an infix though. There needs to be an infinitive as a noun form of a verb. I agree on reflexive. —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 21:48, May 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Subject [infinitiveparticle] [tenseparticle] [perfectiveparticle] [conditional] [passive] Verb Object Razlem 23:48, May 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure. Now let's start making words. Where's the noun rules, etc? —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 21:17, June 11, 2010 (UTC)
 * The "start" tab. We still need to finalize the rules. Razlem 00:21, June 12, 2010 (UTC)

Plurals
We need to establish some kind of plural system.

Here are a few options:

Dual: Plural: Razlem 04:12, June 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Add a semivowel "j" after the medial vowel - tojr
 * Create a new medial vowel altogether for duals - tür
 * Particles - nu tor
 * Infixes - tnujor
 * Instead of 'j', 'w' - towr
 * tır
 * u tor
 * tujor

Honestly I am opposed to plurals in general. If "3 cow" is "cows" and "2 cow" is cows, then why isn't "1 cow" also "cows?" However, I propose a system which should use as little plurality as possible while still retaining all possible meaning practically. This is accomplished by three articular infixes, let's call them -il-,-ag- and -oj-

(root hangox=moose)

hangilox=a moose

hangagox=some moose

hangojox=the moose (singular or plural). And there is no ambiguity as you can see:

a) A moose saw me.

b) Some moose saw me.

c) The moose were drinking water at the watering hole.

Read sentence a) then c). Now read b) and c). Notice how by context it's impossible to mess up the meaning of c). The value in this is basically to aid Chinese speakers in learning the language, and possibly to help Europeans let loose on plurality in order to learn other languages.

More random points:

1) Two semivowels in a row in a single syllable (towr) is pretty much impossible to pronounce as one syllable, especially for Asians. Even in English, it is impossible not to pronounce it as tow-er. You can only really have a syllable ending in a semivowel and other consonant if it is a plosive (towk), but this should also be avoided. After all, it doesn't fit our syllable structure.

2) Creating a vowel specifically for a purpose is stupid and hasn't existed in any language in history. And ı is unnecessarily confusing in the "fi" ligature.

3) Never create an infix in that way. An infix should never be CV(C) if placed between a consonant and vowel or (C)VC if between a vowel and a consonant. E.g you shouldn't have Por->pnuor or pounr. Always use punor or ponur, preferably the first because it's easier to wrap your mind around. But the best place is before the last vowel.

4) Dual should not be in an auxlang. It is meant for African languages that don't have numbers up to ten that need a way to say that their cattle is mating. It could otherwise be easily replaced with the number two.

5) Particles are okay, but they steal stress and thus create ambiguity, assuming we are using penultimate stress model. —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 03:33, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

Take your example 'b'- "some moose" can mean in English "an indistinguished singular moose" or "more than one moose". Your examples also indicate that conjugation would be necessary for "be" to indicate number. You are also forgetting the correlatives (which btw are incomplete). "some moose" would have to be something like "anis hangox"

Re-evaluate your suggestion using the table of correlatives. Another thing, infixes are not used in any of our target languages; they would not be suitable for this auxlang.

2) We've done this already with our medial vowel system. Azeri and Turkish get along fine with using 'i' and 'ı' btw.

3) Again, infixes aren't used in our target languages, meaning it would be difficult for anyone within those groups to learn them.

4) Um. Okay. No duals then.

5) I don't see how particles would 'steal stress' more than any other words we've created.

Infixes would disrupt the stress more than particles. Stress is in bold:

wo jad hangox- I eat moose (sing)

wo jad vu hangox - I eat moose (pl- particle)

wo jad hangagox - I eat moose (pl- infix) <-- The stress changes, plus this would be difficult to say.

Remember that each particle would have a fixed meaning. "Vu" in this case means "more than one"

So my vote is for particles because of universality (unlike infixes, which are unwieldy for non-native users).

With particles you can have "3 cow, 2 cow, 1 cow, many cow, no cow...". The plurality is kept to a minimum, and you still have your precision without changing the root word.

Razlem 04:47, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

I mean "some moose" as in "more than one moose." Geez. Stop loopholing. And we can go back on the table of correlatives if necessary. I made it, so I will retract it if necessary.

2) Lol am I just really dumb or do you keep loopholing me? In "gelyl," e means "adverb" but it's not used only for adverbs because "gelyl" isn't an adverb. And it would get too crazy with i and i dotless. If you wanted to text someone like "yo wassup, went to camaguey, ate some entrees" it would be unnecessarily difficult to understand because our keyboards are limited. Besides, it would require an extra dot for capital letters and thus it would take up too much extra room. Finally, just we don't need other vowels. It would be too hard to distinguish them at a certain point, especially in loud environments.

3) Come on... I grew up with exactly the three target languages and I love Tagalog infixes, and they are not harder than prefixes or suffixes. Also remember our counterpart Esperanto uses the -in- infix for female, so we wouldn't be alone.

4) Lulz.

5) In Tagalog and maybe Spanish, what happens is this:

Malusog ka. You are healthy. The stress is supposed to be "Malusog ka" but this is mostly impossible to pronounce two heavily stressed syllables next to each other (note that in phrases like "decayed pizza," "cayed" doesn't have a real stress, as it is stolen by "pi" assuming it is the emphasis) in Tagalog, an extremely quickly spoken language, so it's pronounced "Malusog ka." This is one possibility. It would be difficult for Terran speakers to distinguish in fast conversation.

However, say that Pinoys used our system. Malusog ka would be Malusog ka. In both cases the word boundaries are obscured completely.

The problem with making a steadfast particle for plurality is that European beginners will come to overuse it and it will become necessary, thus making everything less efficient. Btw, we don't need three infixes lulz, we only need two :P my bad —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 05:25, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

We need a regular correlative system, don't erase the chart.

5) In our system it would be pronounced "malusog ka". But your argument doesn't make sense. Wouldn't these people have the exact same problem with "wo jad hangox"? There are 3 stressed syllables in a row.

What? Of course "cayed" is stressed. I don't know where you're from, but around here, it's "decayed pizza". If decayed were unstressed, you'd hear reduced vowels.

Then just tell Europeans how to use it -.- Don't assume that the use will be lawless. We actually wouldn't even need a particle for "some amount", as a correlative already exists for it:

anis tor - some cows

pnanis tor - all cows

nanis tor - no cows

Razlem 13:26, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

And if you want to get creative, "the cow (pl)" can be "this amount of cow" - tsanis tor

the cow- this cow - tsow tor

the cows - this amount of cows - tsanis tor

a cow - some cow- ow tor

some cows - some amount of cows- anis tor

If we just keep the correlatives, we have no need for plurals.

"Dogs are animals" would translate to "all amount of dogs are animals", and you'd use "pnanis".

Razlem 21:16, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

I) I never said I was going to erase the chart, I just said I would revise it, because I have this crazy volatile mind. Correlatives, however, are nevertheless still inefficient.

II) The stress issue is this. A monosyllable in any language has stress or it doesn't. It is irregular, as there is no distinct place to draw the line. For example the Hungarian particle "a," meaning "the" is always unstressed "a leves," the soup. However, there are words like "fa" meaning "tree" which are stressed. And this is Hungarian, with stress on the first syllable. Naturally, all monosyllabic nouns receive stress. But say we have your system "anis tor." In SPOKEN LANGUAGE, the stress in reality would disappear from "anis." If you don't believe me then go out and listen to yourself talk. So we already have irregularities and ambiguities, just like any language. Face it. Why create more with added particles? Tuck in a nice infix and we know exactly where the stress went.

III) Geeez....................... You defend my system and even use it wrong. "All amounts"' use is limited to something like "The people had all amounts of hair" i.e. The people had different numbers of hairs ranging from none to infinite. But this use is extremely limited. Just saying "all noun" is the correct correlative. I don't want to get into an article.

Dogs are animals. The correct is "all dog exist (lu) animal." it's so much more efficient but WERE HERE TO ARGUE ABOUT PLURALITY NOT CORRELATIVES. Just take my system, and it's a lot better.

IV) I'm not the first to be despondent that Europeans, particularly Western Europeans, have trouble letting go of tense. My Hungarian book, well written, by a native Hungarian, specifically puts plurals as late as possible for a reason. It's so English speakers won't say "keet ferfiak," two men, but "keet ferfi," "two man." Give a European a plural and it's stuck. Limit the usage and you thus have efficiency there. It's pretty simple. As long as we don't make the distinction for definite articles, it's fine because as I discussed earlier there's absolutely no ambiguity (with there being no ambiguity in languages like Chinese without any articles at all). —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 04:54, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

My point is that plurals can be expressed with correlatives. There's no need to create something new.

These cows are green - tsow tor lu fajhiit

This would be exactly the same as - This cow is green - tsow tor lu fajhiit

See? I'm letting go of plurals while not complicating things by adding new concepts:

Some cows are green, some cows are black- ow tor lu fajhiit, ow tor lu suuli

A cow is green, a cow is black- ow tor lu fajhiit, ow tor lu suuli

Some different examples:

What do cows cook - kyyng pnow tor ala [lit. what (artificial) all cow cook]

How do I cook these soups - kutee wo ala tsow gelyl [lit. how I cook this soup]

Razlem 05:41, July 2, 2010 (UTC)

Fine, but I redo the table. I think we should standardise our word order because yours is the same as English lol. We should say this:

1) No real word order, but we should do it this way:

Subject Modificators Verb Object

Modificators are basically a word I made up for anything that's not nominative, e.g. an adverb or prepositional phrase that modifies a verb. I have a feeling you will loophole this somehow.

2) As for question words, we shouldn't always try to put them first. It's quite a Western European trait. The word that comes first should be the word that is directly affected by the question word, normally emphasized in English. Hungarian, lol, strange language always emphasizes the question word. Thus rephrasing your questions:

How do I cook these soups=I how cook these soups.

What do cows cook=All cow cook what.

Thus we incorporate question words into our grammatical system. Please do not argue this. —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 06:04, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to have the subject 'modificator' go after the subject, but the object mod to go before the object.

I how...these soups

In English, Spanish, and Chinese if I'm not mistaken, mods are put before both the subject and object:

Mod Subject Verb Mod Object

Razlem 12:53, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

"Modificators are basically a word I made up for anything that's not nominative, e.g. an adverb or prepositional phrase that modifies a verb. I have a feeling you will loophole this somehow." How come I'm so good at predicting?

Here are some examples of modificators used in context.

1) I quickly walked.

2) I to the store went.

3) The boy while holding his mother's hand crossed the street. —Detectivekenny; (Info) Preceding text certified by R. Xun as of 19:25, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

Continued
Well, when you start making things up you're bound to run into a few problems :P

Stick with existing words. Correlatives are much different than adverbs and prepositional phrases. We can group them together in terms of placement, but not as one concept.

Adverbs, correlatives, and prep. phrases will go immediately before the word they describe-

I quickly walked

I like this store

I went to the store

"to the store" does not describe in what manner you "went", it describes the destination, the object.

If we have it this way, adjectives must also precede their words-

A green cow

So all of your 'modificators' are regularly placed and easy for our target languages to pick up.

Razlem 20:08, July 3, 2010 (UTC)

Table of Correlatives
I don't fully understand your table. I'll translate the most that I can, and I'll put a '?' where I'm unclear.

So immediately I see some discrepancies.

1) I can't imagine when you would ever use "the thing" or "the degree", except by using an article and a noun. Articles are similar to, but not the same as, correlatives. Unless of course you'd prefer "something cow" instead of "a cow" or "the thing truck" instead of "the truck". So you should ditch the "indefinite" and "definite" columns.

2) I have no idea what "as adjective" and "verb" mean.

3) I would avoid 'yonder' for an auxlang, it's too finicky. I would also avoid 'state' since it isn't used nearly as often as others.

4) Why is it that indefinite has sing and plural, but definite is only 1?

5) Add a row, labeled "X". This will allow you to say things like "what X" (what cow), all X (all cows), this X (this cow), etc.

So if you want to establish articles, o and y as indefinite are perfect, as are zo and zy for definite. I thought you wanted to avoid plurals though?

Razlem 22:18, July 3, 2010 (UTC)