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LKtheGreat from Fowl Manor Since: Dec, 1969
#276: Sep 30th 2010 at 10:03:35 AM

I like the "just writing" vs. "creative writing" distinction.

Also, we did establish that there would be two lengths of vowels - i.e. "a" vs. "aa." There are plenty of natural languages that manage to keep this distinction, but if you object I suppose we could rediscuss it. As I recall that was part of the back-and-forth between Zizoz and me that pretty much no one else took part in.

"There's an amazing feeling to being able to say things in your own language." - Zizoz
lockonlockon Game Master from In a dream Since: Jan, 2001
Game Master
#277: Sep 30th 2010 at 10:05:46 AM

I think it's just easier to make the deity suffix -ya.

TVTropes Nuzlocke Thread. - Arceus Help Us All.
VincentGaribaldi Since: Mar, 2010
#278: Sep 30th 2010 at 3:07:33 PM

I think -ya is much simpler as well.

LKtheGreat from Fowl Manor Since: Dec, 1969
#279: Oct 1st 2010 at 9:02:58 AM

So do y'all not think a vowel length distinction is feasible anywhere, or do you just not like it here?

What topic do you think we should tackle next? Pronouns?

"There's an amazing feeling to being able to say things in your own language." - Zizoz
BlackHumor Since: Jan, 2001
#280: Oct 1st 2010 at 2:15:11 PM

It's feasible (I mean, real languages use it), but it's also one of the weakest ways vowels can be distinguished.

So any language that has a vowel length distinction has to depend on context to know what it's doing. That's not a bad thing, almost all languages depend on context quite a lot, but we ought to realize it'll happen more if we use this distinction.

Zizoz Since: Feb, 2010
#281: Oct 1st 2010 at 2:16:18 PM

I think we should organize what we have. However...

A simple pronoun system could work as follows:

Have words for first-person, second-person singular, second-person plural, third person singular, third-person plural.

Combine them to produce other pronouns: e.g. I-you or I-you-he/she/it or I-you-they for inclusive we, I-he/she/it or I-they for exclusive we. This produces a lot of possible distinctions with only five basic words.

BlackHumor Since: Jan, 2001
#282: Oct 1st 2010 at 2:19:04 PM

We're using an aggultinative language, right?

So how about we have first/second/third person particles and singular/plural particles we combine to form all the pronouns?

Or just go pronounless like I thought someone was suggesting before?

Zizoz Since: Feb, 2010
#283: Oct 1st 2010 at 2:21:48 PM

Yeah, I was going to suggest reducing the number of particles to four by using a plural particle.

I-plural would imply a Hive Mind, though.

BlackHumor Since: Jan, 2001
#284: Oct 1st 2010 at 2:23:01 PM

Not if that's just the way the language works.

Zizoz Since: Feb, 2010
#285: Oct 1st 2010 at 2:57:37 PM

Well, I was suggesting that the language work in a different way. ;)

Matrix Since: Jan, 2001
#286: Oct 1st 2010 at 3:38:38 PM

"We" is just the nominative 1st person plural pronoun, while "I" is the nominative 1st person singular pronoun.

Sticking a plural on "I" would simply produce "we".

LKtheGreat from Fowl Manor Since: Dec, 1969
#287: Oct 1st 2010 at 3:53:21 PM

I like this simple system! I also, however, like my in/exclusive-we distinction. Perhaps inclusive refers to tropers, and exclusive to non-tropers? Thus we'd have:

I (implicitly a troper)I (marked for not-troper-ness)
we (implicitly tropers)we (marked for not-tropers-ness

and the same in second and third persons. Do you like this idea?

"There's an amazing feeling to being able to say things in your own language." - Zizoz
lockonlockon Game Master from In a dream Since: Jan, 2001
Game Master
#288: Oct 1st 2010 at 3:54:19 PM

@LK: So basically the equivalent of the dreaded "this troper".

TVTropes Nuzlocke Thread. - Arceus Help Us All.
LKtheGreat from Fowl Manor Since: Dec, 1969
#289: Oct 1st 2010 at 4:23:45 PM

Yes, only grammatically legitimised! I don't know how that idea occurred to me, but I'm glad it did.

"There's an amazing feeling to being able to say things in your own language." - Zizoz
Matrix Since: Jan, 2001
#290: Oct 1st 2010 at 4:36:32 PM

Yeah, it looks like a good idea to me.

AlirozTheConfused Bibliophile. from Daz Huat! Since: May, 2010
Bibliophile.
#291: Oct 1st 2010 at 5:48:51 PM

^^^^ What about unknown tropers? Should they have their own case?

Never be without a Hat! Hot means heat. I don't care if your usage dates to 1300, it's my word, not yours. My Pm box is open.
lockonlockon Game Master from In a dream Since: Jan, 2001
Game Master
#292: Oct 1st 2010 at 5:57:30 PM

They should.

And it would be used in cases where one intends to keep their identity unknown as well.

TVTropes Nuzlocke Thread. - Arceus Help Us All.
Joaqs Técnico Electromecánico from Argentina Since: Jul, 2009
Técnico Electromecánico
#293: Oct 1st 2010 at 6:02:52 PM

What about That Troper and The Other Troper?

edited 1st Oct '10 6:03:18 PM by Joaqs

AlirozTheConfused Bibliophile. from Daz Huat! Since: May, 2010
Bibliophile.
#294: Oct 1st 2010 at 6:12:55 PM

Our term for "That Troper" should be a combination of the word for "Did Not Do The Research" and the word for "editor/troper". The Other Troper should be a combination of our word for "Shown Their Work" and "editor/troper".

edited 1st Oct '10 6:13:13 PM by AlirozTheConfused

Never be without a Hat! Hot means heat. I don't care if your usage dates to 1300, it's my word, not yours. My Pm box is open.
LKtheGreat from Fowl Manor Since: Dec, 1969
#295: Oct 2nd 2010 at 5:50:47 AM

Oooh, how about pejorative and, er, whatever-the-opposite-is (laudative?) affixes? Thus "third-person-pejorative" is "That Troper" and "third-person-laudative" is "The Other Troper."

So you're proposing three levels of troper-ness - troper-with-handle, Unknown Troper, and non-troper? Sounds good to me!

edited 2nd Oct '10 6:01:30 AM by LKtheGreat

"There's an amazing feeling to being able to say things in your own language." - Zizoz
AlirozTheConfused Bibliophile. from Daz Huat! Since: May, 2010
Bibliophile.
#296: Oct 2nd 2010 at 11:27:36 AM

The more we can base things in 3, the better.

For singular and plural, I would say that we should have three, not two. Singular, Plural , and Infinite/Zero/uncountable.

Singular: Normal. The singular of Example would be our word for example.

Plural: How about we go with "n", rather than "s" in most cases. For example: the plural of example would be "examplen" rather than "examples".

Infinite/zero/uncountable: I think we could have a prefix or thimng to add to the start of the word. Maybe "Nexample" for the infinite/zero/uncountable for example? In some languages, putting N at the front of something negates it.

Like "Nill" for "will", leading to phrases like "will I, nill I" or "willy nilly".

Never be without a Hat! Hot means heat. I don't care if your usage dates to 1300, it's my word, not yours. My Pm box is open.
LKtheGreat from Fowl Manor Since: Dec, 1969
#297: Oct 2nd 2010 at 2:20:40 PM

I had been leaning towards having no grammatical number at all - just some optional words meaning "some," "many," etc. However, I do like your system, and using Rule of Three in our grammar is such a deliciously troper-like thing to do!

"Infinite/zero/uncountable" seems a bit wide, though. How about drop the zero and have the third form be only infinite/uncountable? Thus we'd have "example," "examples," "all examples everywhere." I know I'm rambling at this point, but it never occurred to me to use the general mood of verbs (which I think I mentioned earlier somewhere) on nouns. Yay for stream-of-consciousness grammar-ing!

"There's an amazing feeling to being able to say things in your own language." - Zizoz
Joaqs Técnico Electromecánico from Argentina Since: Jul, 2009
Técnico Electromecánico
#298: Oct 5th 2010 at 6:47:58 PM

For Wiki Words and Pot Holes there should be a form to say them.

BlackHumor Since: Jan, 2001
#299: Oct 5th 2010 at 7:05:08 PM

We could just have it be a "numberless" tense.

VincentGaribaldi Since: Mar, 2010
#300: Oct 5th 2010 at 9:04:36 PM

Would the numberless tense be used to quantify Beyond the Impossible?

EDIT:Ooh, ooh, can we make tropish numbers base 11?

edited 5th Oct '10 10:10:24 PM by VincentGaribaldi


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