Re: [glosalist] Re: Too much plainness

Saluta Mi Plu Amika,

At 07:13 PM 2/22/04 +0100, Laslo grafo:

Saluta Robin,

 I don't know how the ancient Greeks or Romans denoted the possessive, but that could be a fruitful line of enquiry.

You know, all the ethnic languages uses plenty of expressions. That is one of the the reasons that they are very difficult to be learnt. You don’t be surprized if you experience that an ethnic language don’t use one or another gramatical solution. This is because the ethnic languages without exception are wheeling by expressions. And this is just what we should avoid in a “bridge-language”. *** Not too sure of your precise meaning, but I think you are saying there ought to be one clearcut way of indicating the possessive. EG Mi habe Jon bola. I have Jon’s ball. (Not satisfactory to you & poss. others)

         Mi habe u bola de Jon.    I have the ball of Jon   (Very French)

         Mi habe Jon-a bola.#       I have Jon's ball.  (Your  suggestion; not accepted Glosa)

(I don’t know how to say “car” and “telephone”): *** telefono telephone vagona car ago (to) drive

/Mi “car” “telephone” domi./ => “My car phones to the home.” [It is an intelligent, computerised car!] *** Mi vagona telefono a mi domi.

   Mi vagona id-se telefono mi domi.    ( If the idea of computerised  car & home are odd.)

or “I am driving while I am making a call to the home.” or “I am phoning to the home during my driving.” - In many languages the verb “to car” functions, and it does mean “to drive”. That’s not a sleng! There are plenty of nouns that functions in the same manner in several languages. *** Iso mi du ago, mi telefono a mi domi.

  Mi du ago tem mi dice per telefono a mi domi.

ago = (to) drive, (to) car.

All in all, I think that the main problem is how to interpret the meaning of the words, and how to express yourself in a perscpicuous mode. *** Could be so. My feeling is that one attempts to wrap one’s mind around the feel for the language, and one’s tongue around the words.

   Read the sentence you write aloud, hear what you have said, while  running your eyes over the words.  The original meaning should pop back  into your head as you hear yourself reading the words.
   If the words you wrote do not revive the original ly intended  meaning, then recast the sentence.

I think, there is only one thing that the Glosa should introduce: the use of endings for marking the word class (for example: -o, -a, -e, -i or other solution). This kind of using words will not change the basic concept of the Glosa on the multi-sense of the words. *** Well, here we have a language in which the basic concept is that each word can be used , unchanged, for any part of speech. So, the terminal-vowel marker trick will completely change all that. Maybe such markers are not your normal inflections .. that operate within a VERB, or give alternative meanings to different versions of a NOUN, but they are within the family of inflections, like ‘-ly’ (adjective –> adverb), ‘-ing’ (verb –> gerund [=noun]), and ‘-ed’ (verb –> participle [=adjective]) - in English.

Even the dictionaries need not be changed, because the users will know how to make an another part of speech from that given in their dictionaries. It will be enough to be changed the last character of the word in compliance with the message that you want to give, for making unambiguous it’s meaning. *** 1. I appreciate that you seek unambiguous communication. 2. I guess that you come from a language tradition in which the words all carry Part-Of-Speech markers. 3. In the English language tradition, we can find five inflections .. maybe a few more if we include “go/went”, “is/am/be/was”, etc But Glosa has ?overcome? the inflections within a word, and between Parts-Of-Speech, as well.

  So in the Glosa dictionaries, which, for reasons of economy are only  "word-translation" dictionaries, we find words, which really can be  described as "concepts."   And, yes, a system of vowel-marker endings could  be imposed to indicate the P-O-S usage of the word at the time in that  particular part of the sentence, but then the language produced would no  longer be Glosa.  Back in 1977, when i first met Ron, he was playing with  the idea of having "-o" and "-a" endings, and I can't remember properly  now, but I think '-a' was to have been for NOUNS and '-o' was to have been  for everything else.  I recall his abandoning the idea.  Then, when people  reported that the y disliked some of the terminal vowels, for a short time,  he declared that any vowel that a person liked the sound of, would be  acceptable: he "floated" the vowel endings.  This idea proved too  distracting to last for long.  Then we settled down to the present terminal  vowels which are more or less related to the gforms of the Greek or Latin  roots from which the words are derived.
  Ron was a bit ahead of his time, because he thou

This feature would improve in an extraordinary manner the easilly intelligible of the texts and would make unnecessary the use of special expressions. As me this changing is worth to be made. This would be the only one use of endings in the Glosa.

Plu kardia saluta,

Laslo

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