Liaison

Glosa uses a kind of liaison (apparently inherited from a, an); when the w= ords like a, u or ko are followed by a vowel or h (consonant; this is a le= gacy of silent h; it’s about time we grouped it not with vowels but with c= onsonants, no?) d or n are added to create a liaison, making ad, un, or ko= n (I consider this too as a kind of inflection):

• u –> U plus(o) bibli.= (Another [additional] book)
• un –> Un hetero bibli. (Another [different= ] book)
• a –> An pa trena a Paris. (He ‘trained’ [went by train] to Pari= s)
• ad –> Mi pa veni ad Italia pre bi anua. (I came to Italy two years = ago)
• ko –> dice Glosa ko mi. (speak Glosa with me.)
• kon –> Na pa un= io kon an a tri horo. (We met him [by appointment] at three.) However, th= is rule is not consistently applied:
• u(n) –> France es u Euro-landa. (F= rance is a Euro-country)
• u(n) –> verifi u horo-tabula (check the time t= able)

• u(n) –> dupe un publika kampania (run an advertising campaign)

  ko(n) –> Ko u-ci grama mi mite u posta karta de mi urba; (With this mail= I send a postcard of my town;) And why isn’t the same rule applied to oth= er similar words; e, ab, pa, in, etc.?

This rule may seem “natural” or = “nicer” to anglophones but for people of many other languages it strikes y= ou as odd. Perhaps with multiply defined vowels like English it may be rat= her difficult to separate the two consecutive vowels without a little “bou= ndary” sound (liaison). However, with distinctly defined vowels for Glosa =

and other languages this is not much of a problem. It is possible that a = little problem may arise when the two vowels are the same (this would not = be a problem for languages that clearly define short and long vowels); but= there are ways around the problem:

• pronounce the two vowels separately = as recommended in Niuspi (in Glosa too)

• change the tone (down-up-down) =

• pronounce a tiny separator vowel: e.g. a+a –> a+(tiny u)+a
• combinati= on of these, etc. So, you know what I’m going to say :-) I recommend you w= ould remove this rule (to make the language simpler). You may still use (= exception) it in poetry, play, slang, etc.

There are a few other (smalle= r) issues I like to raise but I think I’ve already upset a few people (I’m= sorry). (Who the hell is this tyro making all these demands? [I mean well= …]) So I will shut up, for now. Thank you.

NB: All examples come from= “18 Steps to Fluency”