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

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

O_o And you call me strange! But that is very interesting. I skimmed it, because I am confused enough at the moment by Japanese modifiers, predicates and other strange beasts. In a lot of Japanese sentences, there is no object. Or subject. I get mixed up, because I did not do grammar at school and so forget which is which. Anyway, what I mean is that it's common to read stuff like this, in literal translation: [Highly] an apple is eating. That is, I would just leave off the person who is doing the eating.

With the person left in, it looks like this: ハイリさん　は　リんご　を　食べています。
And without, it looks like this: リんご　を　食べています。
Normally you get the second one in the middle of a paragraph where I've already said stuff about Highly, so it's obvious that's who I'm talking about. Or in other situations where the same applies.

Oh - and if anyone who reads Japanese is reading this, I put the spaces in to make it obvious where the words are. I do know that normally there aren't any spaces.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

wheeee!

grammar nerdery is awesome.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

Best thing about Japanese? It has the verb at the end of the sentence ALL THE TIME. But almost everything else can move around somehow. And if you see a verb in the middle of a sentence, it's either in a compound sentence or been turned into a noun by chopping it up and adding a suffix, like so:

The verb "to do" is する (suru) - at least, that's what it looks like in the dictionary or 'plain' form. There's about a million other versions, e.g. potential, past, -ing, passive, pretty much everything you can think of. But to turn it into a noun, you just add the suffix こと. So that would be, yes, すること, or 'surukoto'.

Now I think about it, there's a lot of suffixes - like adding -mono makes it a 'thing' - e.g tabemono is food (things you eat), tatemono is a building (a built thing), yomimono is something you read; adding -sugiru means that you're doing too much of whatever verb you added it to...

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Wait, so the verb is ALWAYS at the end of a sentence, unless it's a compound sentence? That is very cool, but I am suspicious. In Latin, for example, that's a 'general principle,' but one that often becomes subservient to the demands of poetry, emphasis, metre or the writer being a dick. So it interests me that Japanese is apparently more structured than that.

Also, SUBJECT = HIGHLY writes crazy. Whatever is doing the thing.
Object = Highly writes CRAZY. Whatever the doing is being done to.

I.e, in your sample sentence above, the subject is left off the sentence. It's similar in Latin, where the subject can be contained in the verb.

Catullus amat Lesbiam: Catullus (he)loves Lesbia.

amat Lesbiam: (he)loves Lesbia. I.e, He loves Lesbia.

So, in short: BLAH BLAH BLAH LET ME TALK ABOUT LATIN BECAUSE I LOVE IT SO

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, yeah. Probably in my next reading class the tutor will be "yanno how the verb's always at the end of the sentence? Guess what, WE LIED!" - that seems to be how it usually works with me and grammar. I *thought* that was how subject/object worked! I just get confused, mostly because of the no-subject-sentences you get in Japanese.

I see your BLAH BLAH BLAH LET ME TALK ABOUT LATIN BECAUSE I LOVE IT SO and raise you a BLAH BLAH I TALK ABOUT JAPANESE BECAUSE THAT'S MORE INTERESTING THAN ACTUALLY DOING MY JAPANESE HOMEWORK.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

*laughs and laughs at the two of you*

Grammar Nerds Unite!

Brenton, meet Fresher!Me. Kylee, meet Brenton The Subject Of Much Angst (wait, did you get to observe any of my angst?)

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Ah, Lies-to-Children. My very favourite teaching method. It's something you should probably check now, before you get into the habit of looking for the verb at the end of the sentence. I knew a few Latinists that did that.

Very messy. They're still looking for their brains, even now. Alone in the desert of verbs, ever seeking.

Talking about things is always more interesting than doing it! It's why I'm better at presentations than essays! Also, your icon is awesome.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

*bows, flourishing his hat*

Call me B.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

i assume that instruction was directed at Kylee?

or was that a reprimand to me for actually using your name?

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

*curtsies* I'm Kylee - Pleased to meetcha!

Although how one curtsies in jeans, I don't know.

I have a serious thing for Ravenclaw icons - actually HP icons in general, but Ravenclaws are my favourite. And as Amy will tell you, seriously weird Sesame St icons.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

yes. you, my dear, are seriously strange, and so is your icon collection.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Kylee, although I do prefer B online.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

*stares*

That...is...AWESOME. Truly inspiring. I am awestruck by the glory of that icon.

You can curtsey in jeans. Same movement as with a dress, but jeans. Probably looks a little funny, though.

As for Ravenclaw, I'm a Slytherin. Highly, I dare you to disagree with me.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* It's hell fun though!

(http://tinypic.com)

(http://tinypic.com)

My icon collection, let me show you it.

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

Here's another one -

(http://tinypic.com)

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

i had to delete my default pic just so i could put this one up...

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

*bows*

fair nuff.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

Yes.

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

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

hahahahaha

that is all.

alas i have lost my shift key.

(Just joking).

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

she has.

i gave it to her.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

*delights*

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

wtf?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

damn you. i have been reading QC all night...

[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!