ever thought language was stupid? felt like improving it? make your own!

[highlyeccentric]

17:12 me: verbs should totally have gender...

  or rather, take on gender

 Brenton: Latin verbs are hard enough as they are, Miss. :)

17:13 me: well... if i invented a language, it would have gendered verb forms

 Brenton: You would. ;P

17:14 me: what's that supposed to mean?

 Brenton: You would.

  :)

  Grammar lover.

 me: gendered and numbered forms, but not person, i think

17:15 Brenton: That is a strange idea, and awesome.

  I don't know if it would work,.

 me: possessives would take their gender from the possessor

  not the object

17:16 Brenton: Neat?

17:18 me: shrugthat's what english does. his, hers. as opposed to french "la sienne,le sien" (the female object possessed by the third person, the maleobject possessed by the person)

 Brenton: Ah, right.

  I see.

 me: but i'd extend it, so that me/mine and you/yours had gendered forms

  and maybe i wouldn't give my nouns gender

 Brenton:In Latin it's the same- 'meus' is the masculine of 'mine,' it's anajective. So 'mea mensa' means my table, even if the speaker is male.

17:19 me: yeah. no grammatical gender.

  so verb forms would be: male, female, unspecified human, object

17:21 and would be available in singular, in plural, in plural exclusive (we not you) and in dual number (we two)

  the last two only being available in human forms

17:22 hmm...actually, no. the last two won't be verb forms

 Brenton: You've thought about this a LOT. I am impressed.

 me: they'll be pronouns

  because verbs weren't going to conjugate by person

17:23 Brenton: nods I think I follow. This is deep magic.

17:24 [Damn. Several books I want are out.]

 me:pronouns will be: I (m/f), you (m/f/n), you plural (m/f/n), they(m/f/n), they plural (m/f/n), it, it plural, we, we exclusive, dualnumber

17:25 oh, and the we forms will have m/f/n declension. probably by suffix

 Brenton: nods Cool. I don't have anything to add to that.

  It's very good.

  :)

17:27 me:nouns will have no gender. they will decline by number and grammaticalrole, and these roles will be: nominative, accusative, and genitive.the dative and instrumental will be indicated by preposition using theaccusative

 Brenton: YES.

  YES, and YES.

  And the prepositions, they will be clear and unambiguous?

17:28 me: um... i dunno.

  i haven't got that far

17:29 there will be the subjuctive

  verbs will be available in indicative and subjuctive. the imperative will be expressed by use of a prefix on the infinitive

17:30 Brenton: Oooh, that's a enat idea.

  *neat

 me: the subjunctive will only be used in dependant clauses.

17:31 it will be clearly distunguishable from all other verb forms. possibly by a prefix

 Brenton: That's a good idea.

 me:yeah, a prefix. so the verb conjugates the same (suffixes and/or vowelchanges according to gender and number), and mood will be indicated bya prefix

17:32 theinfinitive, accordingling, will appear as the stem with a *prefix*, nota suffix. thereby making it easy to identify the verb stem, and to knowwhat to look up in the dictionary

  verbs will be entered in the dictionary according to their stem

17:33 gender and number will be indicated by suffixes

  by consonant changes in suffixes, in fact

  tense will be indicated by vowel changes in the suffix

17:35 sooo... the use of pronouns for the subject of the sentence will become unnecessary

  one won't need to say "he does"

  because the verb encodes that already

17:36 Brenton: That last is the same as Latin.

  This is an awesome plan.

  :)

 me: will i need a nominative pronoun, do you think?

 Brenton: Hmm. Yes, for emphasis.

 me: how does latin tell who the actor is, if there's no gendered verb forms?

17:37 Brenton: I'm not sure I follow you.

17:38 Nominative indicates subject.

 me: yes

  so... if you can just say "sum", how do you know who the subject is?

  if there isn't a gendered form of the verb?

  or does it only work for first person?

17:39 damn, i want to invent some verbs and pronouns now

 Brenton: sum: "I am"
es: "you are"
est: "he/she/it is"

  etc

  summus 'we are' estis 'you are' sunt 'they are'

17:40 It declines by number.

  *conjugates

 me: ok, the problem is only in third person

  don't you end up scratching your head going "who is?"

 Brenton: In third person, it will be combined with a nominative.

 me: ah

  right

 Brenton: Caesar est imperator.

 me: cool :)

 Brenton: Caesar is the emperor.

 me: eeeee, i want to invent some verbs now!

17:41 Brenton:In third person, if there is no nominative (happens), usually means"he" is--> subject is taken from subject of previous sentence.

 me: and some pronouns

  what should my pronouns look like?

 Brenton: Catullus amo Lesbiam. stultus est.

  Gah. I mean "Catullus amat Lesbiam. stultus est."

17:42 == Catullus loves Lesbia. He is stupid.

 me: heee, i read that!

 Brenton: Except that verb usually goes at the end. But you get the idea.

 me: hmmm... what's manly sort of vowel?

 Brenton:Pronouns should be kept simple. I realise this is not a languagedesigned to look evolved, but pronouns are always simple words.

  [at least, AFAIK]

17:43 manly sort of vowel?

  What a weird question

17:44 me: i think u and y. first person male and female pronouns

 Brenton: Just the letters, or are you going to add things to them?

17:45 me: first person plural pronouns can be ut, yet and et (m/f/neuter)

  first person plural exclusive can be us, yes and es

17:46 first person dual number can be unt, yent and ent

17:47 Brenton: That is going to confuse latinists, but we could do with some more confusing. :P

 me: hmm... pronouns... will need to decline as well, won't they?

17:48 Brenton: They usually do.

 me: so, that was just the nominatives

Comments

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

Yes.

Oh, now tell me you've heard Avenue Q.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

she has.

i gave it to her.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

That is the way it should be. Yes. Excellent.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

I have! Amy gave me a cd of some of the songs, I'm planning to get the rest off a guy in band. Actually I got the score out of the Con Music library a while ago and just returned it today.

*sings* The internet is really really great...

I heard that it's coming to Australia in 2010!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

when you get the rest of them, i will be grovelling at your feetses.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

There are at least five Avenue Q fans in SUWO, and two of them that I know of have promised me the rest of the soundtrack.

One of them, Alvin, sang "Special" in character (dress and all) at his school's cabaret. I wish there were pictures...

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

oh.

my.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

I KNOW. Oh oh oh! I have pics of him from when four of us went out last night - gimme a sec and I'll post them.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

Here we go:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=24vpqpu&s=2

Alvin's the dark haired guy - the other one is Adam, who lives at Johns.

I put it in a link because it's HUGE, so be warned - I couldn't get the photo to shrink.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Everything in that comment is delightful.

Also, you MUST ensure that Our Hostess gets the collection, so I can then steal it from HER.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

you don't have it? i was hoping to nick it from you...

you can have as much as i have...

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

No, I never got around to ripping it to my computer.

I am sadly lacking in Awesome Things.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Hey Amy, you know how you gave me the cd? I ripped it to my music folder, then gave it to Bree! I haven't got it back yet... ^_^

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

eeexcellent. i hope it's circulating in the underbelly of Women's College.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

...if that is the same Bree that tutors me in Latin, I will suddenly be very, very afraid. It is unlikely, though.

Speaking of Latin! Your nerdy medieval tendencies may mean that you know a fellow Women's fresher from my Latin class. Small, blond, ridiculously intelligent. Forget her name, mind. I am terrible with names.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Isabella, you said.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was it.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

I do! Isabel! She only moved to Womens this semester, she likes action movies, she reads fantasy and she sits with me at dinner!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

sounds like fun :D
clearly, i must pounce upon her. nerds unite!

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

She is also one of my favourite people in Latin, intelligent and skilled in the tongue language. You can tell her I said that, if you like.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

It actually could be the same Bree, because my Bree took Latin last year and is doing Classics. Does she have dark frizzy hair? Is she from Mosman? Because if she does and is, then it's probably the same person.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

i've seen both your Brees, and it's not.

also, that explains why your Bree is OLD.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

My Bree is a third-year, so I doubt it. Majoring in Latin.

Also, lacks dark frizzy hair.

This is a relief. I was afraid of Brisbane Syndrome again.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

?

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Brisbane Syndrome is where anyone new you meet you already know, because everyone knows everyone else in Brisbane. I am not kidding. I was chatting to a random customer at Oxfam once: mother of the apprentice chef I worked with in second year. Everyone you meet you already know.

You know the 'seven connections between everyone in the world' thing? In Brisbane, it's two. At most. It's very disturbing, I'll have you know.