Sunday, December 23, 2007

Brief Conversation in RC/Latin/English

Victóre: Salvét!
Glóra: Salvét!
Victóre: Qu'esta tó nóme?
Glóra: Meó nóme esta Glóra. E té?
Victóre: Victóre.
Glóra: Ést'esta un nóme bonó.
Victóre: Gratas! Mé pe t'estar belló.
Glóra: Gratas! Té quére var có mé?
Victóre: Si!
Glóra: Si placé, vat có mé!

Victor: Salvē!
Glōria: Salvē!
Victor: Quid nōmen tibi est?
Glōria: Nōmen mihi Glōria est. Quid nōmen tibi est?
Victor: Nōmen mihi Victor est.
Glōria: Illud nōmen bonum est.
Victor: Grātiās tibi agō! Tē pulchram esse putō.
Glōria: Grātiās tibi agō! Mēcumne venīre vīs?
Victor: Volō!
Glōria: Sī tibi placet, mēcum venī!

Victor: Hello!
Gloria: Hello!
Victor: What is your name?
Gloria: My name is Gloria. What about you?
Victor: Victor.
Gloria: That's a good name.
Victor: Thanks! I think you're pretty.
Gloria: Thanks. Do you want to come with me?
Victor: Sure!
Gloria: (Then) please, come with me!


Yeah, it's lame. Guys, this is not the right way to talk with girls, let alone pick up any, but whatever. It's all I could think of using the current RC lexicon...=/

Monday, December 17, 2007

Il Verbas

==============
Verbs - Verbas
==============

Infinitive - Infinitivo
-----------------------
amar

Present Active Participle - Participo Presente
----------------------------------------------
amante

Preterite Participle - Participo Preterto
-----------------------------------------
amato

Gerund - Gerundo
----------------
amando

-----------------------
-----------------------
Indicative - Indicativo
-----------------------
-----------------------

Present Perfective - Presente Perfectivo
----------------------------------------
ama

Present Imperfect - Presente Inperfecto
---------------------------------------
amanta = amantesta = amant'esta = amante esta

Present Perfect - Presente Perfecto
-----------------------------------
amave = amatave = amat'have = amato have

Preterite Perfective - Preterto Perfectivo
------------------------------------------
amava = ama (present perfective) + va (preterite ending)

Preterite Imperfect - Preterto Inperfecto
-----------------------------------------
amantava = amanta (present imperfect) + va (preterite ending)
amantava = amantestava = amant'estava = amante estava

Preterite Perfect - Preterto Perfecto
-------------------------------------
amaveva = amave (present perfect) + va (preterite ending)
amaveva = amataveva = amat'haveva = amato haveva

Future Perfective - Futuro Perfectivo
-------------------------------------
amare = ama (present perfective) + re (future ending)
amare = amarave = amar'have = amar have

Future Imperfect - Futuro Inperfecto
------------------------------------
amantare = amanta (present imperfect) + re (future ending)
amantare = amantestare = amant'estare = amante estare

Future Perfect - Futuro Perfecto
--------------------------------
amavere = amave (present perfect) + re (future ending)
amavere = amatavere = amat'havere = amato havere

amar, amante, amato, (amando)

M'ama te. I love you.
Mes amanta il caballos. We are loving the horses.
T'amave me. You have loved me.
Il regina amava il rege. The queen loved the king.
Il rege amantava il regina. The king was loving the queen.
Un servos amaveva il rege e regina. Some servants had loved the king and the queen.
Tes amare un estellas. You (all) will love stars.
Victor amantare Glora. Victor will be loving Gloria.
Un homnes toto amatare un femnas e floras. All people would have loved women and flowers.

Te mentiveva a me! You had lied to me!
Me no crede te. I don't trust you.

Me mentivevar pro te. I had been lied to by you. (passive = + r)??? DON'T ADHERE TO JUST YET

None of this is final. I'm still not liking the lack of conjugation for person...and I need to get the tenses squared out.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Detachment

Ok, I'm going to detach verbs and determiners; meaning, I'm going to have them not inflect according to other words like how the verb "have" changes according to the subject, "I have" "she has", etc. It shall be like "I have", "she have", etc. Uniform. Each part of speech shall inflect according to its own necessary attributes. For verbs it is tense and mood (voice is not included since it is handled not by verbs alone, but by periphrasis, i.e.: a combination of words to generate a single meaning like "I will be" is a periphrasis of "to will" and "to be"). Number is taken out of verb inflection because it is determined by the subject. Determiners (i.e.: adjectives, articles, and so forth) will not inflect, not even in number or gender, since those are determined by the noun/pronoun. Nouns and pronouns will only inflect in number but not in gender since gender is often included in the meaning (a king is male, a queen is a female) and in the case that it isn't, gender doesn't matter to begin with.

So, I'm thinking something like:

ló rége = the king and ló régina = the queen instead of la régina; where ló is from derivation, a neuter article (but it looks masculine). Maybe I should use "le" even though it has masculine roots, it seems nearly genderless.

In addition, the verb conjugation below no longer applies. All verbs don't inflect for number or person.

Verbs are categorized by their endings (-AR, -ÉR, and -IR), but the way they are inflected for tense and mood is regular unlike the conjugations I've provided below (even though it was for estar, forms of havér were used in periphrasis). Oh, I won't include the periphrastic tenses/aspects (perfect, imperfect) because I'm still wondering how to do it without using a lot of morphemes (i.e.: sounds/syllables). That's important, the morpheme-word ratio...needs to be small. And the use of periphrasis should be minimal.

Énfénétivó (stem + r)
estar, havér, mentir

Presenté (stem)
esta, havé, menti

Pretertó (stem + va)
estava, havéva, mentiva

Fóturó*** (infinitive + havé)
estar havé, havér havé, mentir havé

The thing with the future is that it is formed with the verb havér and the infinitive through periphrasis but in modern Romance, it merged. I want to merge it but there are two ways to do it and I just don't know which one is better. I'll just stick with this:

Fóturó (stem + vé)
estavé, havévé, mentivé

Mé esta un estella --> M'esta un estella = I am a star. Té havé un estellas --> T'havé un estellas = You have (some) stars.

Yeah, un drops all gender based inflections (even though it is used as a masculine article in French). This leads into indeclinable numbers... But what about the definite articles ló and la? How do I make them genderless? If I drop that end of the article and use the first part (which is "il" in both Latin ille, illa, illud)...then it's sort of genderless since it derives from all of the gendered articles...even though transcribed into RC, it's él, which is the Spanish masculine article and looks like il, the Italian one?

The articles are: él and un, the and a/an. They do not inflect, period.

New example: (by the way, the ellision stuff is inspired by what I've learned about Latin ellision in poetry, and French ellision like ce est = c'est, or je ai = j'ai or le amour = l'amour. I was considering "stealing" the Spanish "a él" = "al", but that doesn't adhere to my rules of ellision...which is the preceeding vowel drops...which in RC would just be "él"...which means we just lost ourselves a preposition.

Mé esta a él Academa Régalé dé él Scéntas --(ellision)--> M'esta a él Academa Régalé d'él Scéntas = I am at the Royal Academy of the Sciences.

-AR Verb Conjugation?

I'm still wondering if conjugating is necessary...or if there are different conjugations...or...I don't know, a lot of things... Verbs are difficult to deal with.

Énfénétivó
estar

Geróndivó
estante

Partécépale
estató, -a

Éndécativó Activó

Presente
estó
esta
esta
estamó
estaté
estan

Presente Énperfectó
estó estante
esta estante
esta estante
estamó estantés
estaté estantés
estan estantés

Presente Perfectó
havó estató, -a
havé estató, -a
have estató, -a
havémó estatós, -as
havété estatós, -as
haven estatós, -as

Pretertó
estava
estava
estava
estavamó
estavaté
estavan

Pretertó Énperfectó
estava estante
estava estante
estava estante
estavamó estantés
estavaté estantés
estavan estantés

Pretertó Perfectó
havéva estantó, -a
havéva estantó, -a
havéva estantó, -a
havévamó estantós, -as
havévaté estantós, -as
havévan estantós, -as

Fóturó
estaravó
estaravé
estarave
estaravamó
estaravaté
estaravan

Fóturó Énperfectó
estaravó estante
estaravé estante
estarave estante
estaravamó estantés
estaravaté estantés
estaravan estantés

Fóturó Perfectó
havéravó estató, -a
havéravé estató, -a
havérave estató, -a
havéravémó estatós, -as
havéravété estatós, -as
havéraven estatós, -as

Subjónctivó Activó
Not finished...

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Sentence Preview 1 + Lexicon 1.1

In addition to Lexicon 1:
  • ballar v. to dance
  • haber v. to have, to ought to
  • có prep. with
  • dé prep. of, from, about
  • fémna f. woman, lady, girl
  • academa f. academy
And some sentences I made up using a prototype conjugation...subject to change obviously.
    Habó ballató c’una fémna bella; ló nómne dé la fémna staba Glóra.
    • I have danced with a beautiful lady; the name of the lady was Gloria.
    Stamó ballantés c’unas fémnas bellas; lós nómnés dé las fémnas stan Glóra, Véctóra, Mara, e Elina.
    • We are dancing with beautiful ladies; the names of the ladies are Gloria, Victoria, Maria, and Elina.


    The indicative tenses (all active voice): presente, presente imperfectó, presente perfectó, pretertó, pretertó imperfectó, pretertó perfectó, fóturó, fóturó imperfectó, fóturó perfectó.

    The first example has present perfect and a preterite.

    The second has a present imperfect (might be progressive, but I have a hard time differentiating between the two) and a present.

    Lexicon 1

    Just some words I thought up of...taken from Latin and written in RC, of course.
    • cantar v. to sing
    • bóca f. mouth
    • énfante adj. infantile
    • énfante m. infant
    • star v. to be
    • nocte f. night
    • vóce f. voice
    • unó, -a art. a
    • ló, -a art. the
    • amóre m. love
    • focó m. fire
    • celó m. sky
    • vinó m. wine
    • spatha f. sword
    • vina f. vine
    • mascló, -a adj. masculine
    • homne m. human being
    • ménsa f. table
    • oró m. gold
    • dólce adj. sweet
    • caballó m. horse
    • e conj. and
    • o conj. or
    • mare f. sea
    • sangne m. blood
    • casa f. house
    • comparar v. to buy
    • portar v. to carry
    • jocar v. to play
    • grande adj. big
    • belló, -a adj. beautiful
    • saper v. to know
    • stella f. star
    • nomne m. name
    • ovó m. egg
    • lébró m. book
    • dónar v. to give
    • patre m. father
    • matre f. mother
    • fratre m. brother
    • soróre f. sister
    • rapdó, -a adj. fast
    • nó adv. not
    • amar v. to love
    • edéfécó m. building
    • edéfécar v. to build
    • én prep. in
    • a prep. at, to, towards
    • sempe adv. always
    • glóra f. glory
    • véctóra f. victory
    • véctóre m. victor
    • colóre m. color
    • léngua f. language
    • négró adj. black
    • véréde adj. green
    • rosa adj. rose
    • rége m. king
    • régina f. queen
    • régale adj. royal
    • mentir v. to lie

    Monday, December 3, 2007

    Sound 2

    Yeah so, I was playing with an strictly IPA-based alphabet...and we'll just put it this way. La Akadema Regal doesn't look as good as L'Academa Regale. RC will not be strict in phonology. It will define the most common pronunciations for monographs, digraphs, and so on, but leave some of them open to different pronunciation based on dialect. I'll come up with a graph-sound IPA chart sometime to illustrate it. RC should be foremost beautiful, and following that regular, then functional and then all of that linguistic jargon.

    I've got a bit of a fake world to go along with RC, but we'll leave that for my personal uses.

    Just a demonstration: Me sto a L'Academa Regale. I am at the Royal Academy.

    I'm still trying to figure out if RC will be pro-drop...so you could say: Sto a L'Academa Regale. But the problem is, 2nd and 3rd person singular for the verb "star" are both "sta"...and that would lead to ambiguity... Maybe I should just tack on an ending to differentiate...

    Sunday, December 2, 2007

    Sound

    The first thing a language must define is its alphabet and sounds. The alphabet is easy, since RC (Romance Conlang) is based on the Romance languages, which already define common letters. But, it's not as easy as that. Because, they are natural languages, each letter may represent more than one sound, which goes against good linguistic practices. Like, "c" is hard or soft, as in "cat" /kat/ or "cite" /sait/.

    It's difficult to draw the line between beauty and function. The Romance languages (especially French, "Je suis heureux", is full of silent sounds, except in liaison?). There are two extremes, really beautiful (French) and really functional (say like Esperanto). "Nomoj" is ugly, but it's a regular way to form the plural of "nomo" where if you had Latin "nomen", the plural is "nomines" both of which personally sound better to me. Sound is subjective. I guess "beautiful" for RC is beautiful relative to the Romance languages, because a Afro-Asiatic speaker may think differently of a Romance or Germanic language.

    I don't have the alphabet or sounds finalized, because I'm having a hard time deciding in what order I apply sound changes. Do I do the regularization of sounds first? And then apply Romance changes? Or vis versa? The end result is obvious, each monograph (k is the /k/ sound) or polygraph (like "CH" represents the /tS/ sound) must represent exactly one sound. I wonder if I'll even have polygraphs, because they complicate pronunciation (they're like exceptions, like "c" is always "k" unless followed by a "h", where it's like "church"). Exceptions = bad, and impede regularity and uniformity.

    My best guess is to regularize at the Latin level then apply Romance phonetics. I'll try that.

    [Insert Greeting Here]

    Hello everyone. I'm not a professional linguist, but I do find linguistics interesting. I know English (obviously, my first and primary language), Latin (currently enrolled in Latin IV). I've also had decent exposure to Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese. I've tried Spanish, and French. I've had even less exposure to Japanese and Esperanto (a notable conlang).

    I've always disliked the way natural languages are formed, how they're inconsistent in pronunciation, grammar, inflection, and so forth. My goal with the "Romance Conlang" (it hasn't been given a real name yet), is to construct an international auxiliary, analytic-fusional synthetic language whose aspects are all regular. It will be functional, practical (in both colloquial speech and linguistic studies, i.e.: easily transcribed into IPA, etc.), and visually and phonetically beautiful.

    Besides putting this project on single accessible page, I have another reason for creating this blog. For a while now, I've been fusing linguistic jargon into my everyday blog (not on Blogger) and as a result, those entries are insanely lengthy and difficult to read. So, I'm pulling out all of the conlang stuff and putting it here.

    I suppose that's all for now. Oh, note that there is a conlang called Interlingua. I have looked at it and it is similar to my own conlang in design but I'm sure my design will deviate from Interlingua in time. Just in case you don't read my everyday blog, I'll give you a taste of what I've constructed already (though it's very subject to change):

    ???: Los adverbos stan formos co la femina forma d'un'adjectivo e "miente".

    IPA: /los ad 'ver bos stan 'for mos co la fe 'mi na 'for ma du nad jek 'ti vo e mient/

    Eng. Sp.: los ahd-VEYR-bos stahn FOR-mos co lah fey-MEE-nah FOR-mah doo-nahd-yeyk-TEE-vo ey MEE-EYNT.

    Eng.: Adverbs are formed with the feminine form of an adjective and "miente".

    [Insert Goodbye here]