Meta

[shanex]

Recently I have taken a great interest in languages, and I came up with an interesting idea. I'm fairly convinced this idea hasn't been tried or seriously considered, because it would have no value before the computer age

Comments

[gunslnger]

What about idiomatic phrases?

[gunslnger]

They'll have to be outlawed. That's not a new concept in conlangs. Esperanto, for instance, sternly disallows using idioms or even creating idioms within Esperanto.

[shanex]

That was me, by the way.

[shanex]

I realize one big thing left out is passive voice. "I was hit by a rock".

[mactavish]

That's overused in English, but not entirely useless.

[otherbill]

Minor nit-pick: If adjectives go after nouns, then "I have two cat" would be "I have cat two".

This really reads like you're trying to develop a context-free grammar for language. Perhaps a book on compiler design or automata theory might be useful.

[shanex]

Yes. Oops. I suck.

-ATW

[ramirus]

tuski origin of four word, gi, ki, karn, tuski

I think syntax of meta too careful. most english speakers read could but non write could. construction like "cat of I big fluffy" - adjectives gi-place construction of noun, ki-place non "cat" - odd. negation non easy - if section of statement is negated then size of section clear non.

I mean to say, learning this actually is learning a new language. you have to learn to translate your text into meta.

[ramirus]

I'm pretty sure i got a lot of the syntax wrong, there. that's kind of my point.

[shanex]

I came up with those 4 words out of literally nowhere. I made them up with no root derivation. I made random sounds with my mouth

[ramirus]

with 'cat of I big fluffy' - that looks odd to me because I think the two adjectives 'big fluffy' need to be tacked next to 'cat' and not to 'I'. i'm not really sure how to refer to placement of stuff, spatially. i was using KI and GA there to denote before and after - 'this part should go before here', sort of thing - but that doesn't work because there's no shift in tense, really.

[vvvexation]

So how would nested possessives work, especially with additional adjectives? Like, would "suit of friend of I best" mean "my best friend's suit" or "my friend's best suit"?

[shanex]

I don't think that works out to anything. You put "best" after "I" meaning it's modifying "I".

"My best friend's suit" would be "suit of friend best of I"

"My friend's best suit" would be "suit best of friend of I"

Best simply modifies whatever it's immediately after. Adjective-wise it's identical to all Latin based languages (Spanish, French, etc.). And if you consider "of I" to be an entity like "my" it ends up being linguistically identical to Latin-based possessives and adjectives, in terms of word order.

-ATW

[vvvexation]

But you specifically said '"My big fluffy cat" becomes "cat of I big fluffy".' Should that be corrected to "cat big fluffy of I"?

Edit: Okay, yes. So possessives go last. That works, or at least I'm pretty sure I can't poke holes in it yet....

[shanex]

Yeah, ramirus pointed out the same thing. I was wrong. The correct way to say "my big fluffy cat" is "cat big fluffy of I".

-ATW