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o/e rule
Topic Started: Sep 7 2008, 01:27 PM (2,324 Views)
IJzeren Jan
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Jan van Steenbergen
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I like my option the best:
I) Use -em instead of -om, -ego instead of -ogo, etc., -uvat' instead of -ovat', use only -e- to link two words, and only leave words like svežost' which just simply HAPPEN to have soft + o combination in them


Still, I don't like this kind of chain reactions. Two years ago we had a nice and simple concept. But it had one flaw: mojo. And now, repairing this minor flaw seems to lead to a complete redoing of the whole language, including a new adjective declension, new noun declensions and altered methods for word creations. And all this to avoid a sequence that anybody can pronounce but doesn't occur in a few languages. To me, this whole e/o thing is a complete non-issue. Like I said, -jo- may seem unnatural in Russian, but then, Slovianski is Slovianski, not Russian. I'm sure it will also contain sequences that do not occur in Polish, but I certainly won't complain about that either.

That said, I can live with -ego instead of -ogo, and -em instead of -om, although I still don't see the point. But okay, if that's the only way to conclude this discussion and move on, then so be it. But please, no -uvat' or -e-!

Jan
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So how do you say "to spit" imprf.?

pl'ovat'? *barf*
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
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Jan van Steenbergen
iopq
Oct 4 2008, 01:53 AM
So how do you say "to spit" imprf.?

pl'ovat'? *barf*

I'm not saying the sequence -uvat' can NEVER occur. Let's take a vote for "to spit":

RU: плевать [плюнуть]
BY: пляваць [плюнуць]
UA: плювати [плюнуть]
PL: pluwać [pluć]
CZ: plivat [plivnutí]
SK: pľuvať [pľuť]
SL: pljuvati [pljuniti]
H/B: pljuvati [pljunuti]
SR: пљувати [пљунути]
MK: плука
BG: плюя

This gives the following results:

Imperfective:
- pljuvat': 3 votes (124 mln. speakers)
- plevat': 1 votes (145 mln. speakers)
- plivat': 0.5 votes (12 mln. speakers)
- pljavat': 0.5 votes (9 mln. speakers)
- pluka: 0.5 votes (2 mln. speakers)
- pljuja: 0.5 votes (9 mln. speakers)

Perfective:
- pljunut': 2.75 votes (220 mln. speakers)
- pljut': 1.5 votes (56 mln. speakers)
- plivnut': 0.5 votes (12 mln. speakers)
- pluka: 0.5 votes (2 mln. speakers)
- pljunit': 0.25 votes (2 mln. speakers)
- pljuja: 0.5 votes (9 mln. speakers)

The conclusion for both is obvious: imperfective pljuvat', perfective pljunut'

If you ask me, that should be enough for the other two as well, "to peck" and "to chew". But just in case:

"to chew":
RU: жевать
BY: жаваць
UA: жувати
PL: żuwać
CZ: žvýkat
SK: žuvať
SL: žvečiti
HR: žvakati, živati
BS: žvakati, živati
SR: жвакати, живати
MK: џвака, жива
BG: дъвча, живя

- žuvat': 2 votes (103 mln. speakers)
- ževat': 1 votes (145 mln. speakers)
- žvikat': 0.5 votes (12 mln. speakers)
- žavat': 0.5 votes (9 mln. speakers)
- žvakat': 0.375 votes (19 mln. speakers)
- živat': 0.375 votes (19 mln. speakers)
- dǎvča: 0.25 votes (9 mln. speakers)
- žvečit': 0.25 votes (2 mln. speakers)
- džvaka: 0.25 votes (2 mln. speakers)
- živa: 0.25 votes (2 mln. speakers)
- živja: 0.25 votes (9 mln. speakers)

And, "to peck, to pick":

RU: клевать [клюнуть]
BY: ?
UA: клювати
PL: kłuć
CZ: klovat [klovnutí]
SK: klať
SL: kljuvati
H/B: kljuvati [kljucati]
SR: кљувати [кљуцати]
MK: клука
BG: кълва

- kljuvat': 1.125 votes (68 mln. speakers)
- klut': 1 votes (50 mln. speakers)
- klevat': 0.5 votes (145 mln. speakers)
- kljunut': 0.5 votes (145 mln. speakers)
- kǎlva: 0.5 votes (9 mln. speakers)
- klat': 0.5 votes (6 mln. speakers)
- kluka: 0.5 votes (2 mln. speakers)
- kljucat': 0.375 votes (19 mln. speakers)
- klovnut': 0.25 votes (12 mln. speakers)
- klovat': 0.25 votes (12 mln. speakers)

Based on the above, I'd say: žuvat' for "to chew" and kljuvat' for "to peck".

Jan
Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno to bude trudno s vsim inim.

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Jan van Steenbergen
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If we consequently eliminate all the similar stuff that says nothing to a considerable number of Slavs (e.g. e/'e, i/'i, dva kon'a or oni kriczat, as I have just written elsewhere), then OK, let's do away with o'>e, too, and choose the option C.


I fully agree with that solution (even if I personally still would have preferred D, but I'll happily comply in this case).

After retranslating the Slovianski text on my website, I'm having some pretty heavy second thoughts regarding an adjective declension -i/-ego/-emu/etc. First of all, it is decisively a minority solution, and secondly, it violates the "rule" that a strong hard jer become "o" in Slovianski. I've been reluctant regarding this change from the very beginning, but now I see that it has a really deep impact on the language. While trying to implement it, I noticed that virtually every text ever written in Slovianski would have to be retranslated; and the result IMO looks ugly, even more so than without any o/e rule implemented.

Changing all os to e in adjectival declension, just as a means to omit the o/e rule, is throwing away the baby with the badwater. The forms that would require e are way less numerous than the forms that wouldn't, and so, all this means that we make 90% of the forms look worse in order to make 10% of the forms look better. Frankly, I dislike forms like togo slovianskego slova, v pjatem gode, etc. It's like I don't recognise my own language anymore.

I still insist that there won't be any phonological IF...ELSE constructions in Slovianski, and therefore, conditions like "after consonants X, Y, Z vowel P becomes vowel Q in the following situations: ....." are really unacceptable. To me, the whole o/e rule is pretty much a non-issue, but I understand I'm in the minority here. So let's go for option C and "apply it to possessive pronouns only", with one little plus: we can use for the neuter nominative/accusative singular of all adjectives without much trouble (which also has the advantage that a form on -o will be instantly recognisable as an adverb). Thus:

NA. to slovianske slovo, moje svee polje
G. togo slovianskogo slova, mojego sveogo polja
D. tomu slovianskomu slovu, mojemu sveomu polju
I. tim slovianskim slovom, moim sveim poljom
L. tom slovianskom slove, mojem sveom polje
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wouldn't it be "tego slovjanskego slova" then :)

anyway, if you're going to go that far, might as well use it for all declensions

we can still have svežost' and vojovat' if you want, but we'll have put' - putem
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
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Moraczewski
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Comparing C and D - what is the advantage of D in that case?
"I nent pochyby, e kdokoli chce a um, můe sobě stworiti jazyk krsn, bohat, libozwučn a wemoně dokonal: ale jazyk takow nebudě wce nrodnim, alebr osobnm jazykem toho kdo jej sobě udělal".
Frantiek Palack. Posudek o českm jazyku spisovnm, 1831.

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Jan van Steenbergen
Jarvi
Oct 7 2008, 04:18 PM
Comparing C and D - what is the advantage of D in that case?

What I wrote was in fact this:

C) Apply it to possessive pronouns only. That would mean, in the neuter declension: moje, mojego, mojemu and nae, naego, naemu, but adjectives and present active participles are left alone: sveo, sveogo; buduo, buduogo, etc.

D) Apply it only in the nom./acc.sg.N of adjectives, possessive pronouns and p.a.p. That way, we'd have moje, nae, svee, budue, but mojogo, naogo, buduogo...


What follows from my last past is that in fact we can go one step further and combine C and D into one. Igor's idea to extend the o/e rule even to those cases where it wouldn't normally occur goes too far for me, but inspired me to apply it in all case described in D.

So the neuter singular of dobri is dobre, the genitive singular dobrogo. In the case of svei: svee and sveogo. But in the case of moj: moje and mojego.

In such case, D is not an option anymore, as it has already been implemented automatically. Which leaves us with C.
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So let's do that, that's great.

By the way I agree with your point that Slovianski must be as simply as possible. But I see there two points. One point is when a Slavic-speaker learns Slovianski - so he expects naturality and being close to his own language, and non-Slavic speaker will prefer the simpliest rules. Maybe for Slavic-speakers some rules like o/e will cause no problems because of their naturality.

So even I thought Slovianski-P is better for e.g. West-European people? And Slovianski-N can have some more rules to be easier and friendlier for Slavic?
"I nent pochyby, e kdokoli chce a um, můe sobě stworiti jazyk krsn, bohat, libozwučn a wemoně dokonal: ale jazyk takow nebudě wce nrodnim, alebr osobnm jazykem toho kdo jej sobě udělal".
Frantiek Palack. Posudek o českm jazyku spisovnm, 1831.

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Jan van Steenbergen
iopq
Oct 7 2008, 03:52 PM
anyway, if you're going to go that far, might as well use it for all declensions

we can still have svežost' and vojovat' if you want, but we'll have put' - putem

If anything, if would be putjem. Or put'em, if that's how you prefer to write it.

I think you've misread my post. Option C means: apply it to possessive pronouns. Ergo: not to other adjectives, demonstrative pronouns, and not to nouns either.

Saying that we apply it ALWAYS to instrumentals singular of nouns is basically the same thing as applying it on all adjectives beforehand. I don't know what the number of soft vs. hard stems is, but even if it's 50%, I can hardly see the point of making 50% look worse in order to make the other 50% look better. -em and -eju would be minority solutions in comparison to -om and -oju, and would violate the basic principle that a strong hard jer becomes o. And it would give us forms like: s slovem, s psem, s grodem, s zseneju, s zemljeju, s jednostjeju. Well, you'll agree with me that in the first three the e should never be palatalised, and therefore, o is really to be preferred in these cases.

And all this to avoid a sequence that anybody in the world can pronounce and that is far from absent in the Slavic languages?

I have nothing against applying rules like this when it comes to the creation of word roots from Common Slavic, as long as it remains invisible to our potential users. Phonological schemes are essential when it comes to creating these words roots, but they shouldn't apply to individual forms. In other words, once a word root has been created, we have it followed by the endings we already have, without further phonological whatifs.

Okay, but I see that these arguments won't convince you. So I'll propose a compromise. I'm willing to make the o/e change OPTIONAL after j. That way, putjem and putjom will both be correct, as will putjev and putjov. Likewise: bojem/bojom and bojev/bojov (reminds me of the title of a Laibach song: Sredi bojev). I wouldn't apply it after š/ž/č/c, though, because that would really make things too complicated for many people (and also because in these cases Polish generally has -ov).

For the rest, I suggest we have another look at the f.instr.sg.
S ženoju looks okay to me, but s zemljoju/zemljeju and s jednostjoju/jednostjeju are all kind of awkward. My original form was -ju; more or less created as a compromise solution between SCr. -om, Sln. -(j)o, Cz. -ou/-i, Sk. -ou/'ou, Pl. -(j)ą, Sorb. -u, Ru. -oj/-'ju, BR. -oj/-aj/-oju/-aju/-ju, Ukr. -(o)ju.
I think it it would be worth considering to return to -ju, since this form is attested in several languages and recognisable for the rest. And it omits the whole o/e problem.
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jednostju is ok but s zemlju? S zsenju?
"I nent pochyby, e kdokoli chce a um, můe sobě stworiti jazyk krsn, bohat, libozwučn a wemoně dokonal: ale jazyk takow nebudě wce nrodnim, alebr osobnm jazykem toho kdo jej sobě udělal".
Frantiek Palack. Posudek o českm jazyku spisovnm, 1831.

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Jan van Steenbergen
Jarvi
Oct 7 2008, 07:20 PM
So let's do that, that's great.

By the way I agree with your point that Slovianski must be as simply as possible. But I see there two points. One point is when a Slavic-speaker learns Slovianski - so he expects naturality and being close to his own language, and non-Slavic speaker will prefer the simpliest rules. Maybe for Slavic-speakers some rules like o/e will cause no problems because of their naturality.

So even I thought Slovianski-P is better for e.g. West-European people? And Slovianski-N can have some more rules to be easier and friendlier for Slavic?

Thank you for you input! I agree with you, except for one thing: Slovianski-N and Slovianski-P should be kept together as much as possible. They shouldn't be treated as two separate languages with one common dictionary; rather like two separate ways to use the same language. That said, I agree that it is not always simplicity that should win when balanced against naturality. Basically, we should strive for both, although it's obvious that a language cannot be 100% simple and 100% natural at the same time. Therefore, we should always weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each option. If we can make the language 10% more natural by making it 1% harder, we should do it. But if we can make it 10% more natural by making it 20% harder, we shouldn't.

Every Slavic language has its own ins and outs. An interlanguage will therefore always contain elements that look natural to a speaker of one language and unnatural to a speaker of another. That's inevitable. The only language that would be 100% natural for a Russian would be Russian, and the same goes for all other languages. The point is: a) is it understandable? And B) how much do you need to know to produce a text?

In the case of the o/e rule I keep having the feeling that we make things a lot more difficult (and less attractive for a great number of potential users), while making the language look just a tiny little bit more natural, which IMO is beside the point of Slovianski.

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iopq
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But the female soft declension is "s jednostju" so that's not a problem
I don't see what's wrong with "s zeml'eju", it's pretty close to Ukrainian "z zemleju"

Anyway, I don't see why splitting "mojo" and "put'om" makes sense logically

Remember, you yourself made the point that Russian pronounces it sometimes like jo
If we go by that, "mojo" is the correct Russian pronunciation

Just because some West Slavic languages have moje doesn't mean that they should have the monopoly on deciding where we use e and where we use o
For example, Bulgarian last names use -ev like Botev after a soft consonant and -ov after a hard one like Ivanov

As you can see, East and South Slavic apply the o/e rule in more cases than West Slavic
What you're trying to do is reduce it to ONLY the cases where Polish uses it (option C)
isn't that a bit biased?
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
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Jan van Steenbergen
Quote:
 
But the female soft declension is "s jednostju" so that's not a problem


No, it's not. If the ending is -oju or -eju, we'll get "s jednostjoju/jeju". Of course "s jednostju' would be better, hence my original idea and my proposal to restore it.

Quote:
 
I don't see what's wrong with "s zeml'eju", it's pretty close to Ukrainian "z zemleju"


I have nothing against "s zemljeju". I have something against the fact that you are proposing three different endings for the feminine instrumental singular. In a hypothetical Slavic artlang such a move would make sense, but not in an auxlang. Do you subscribe to the design principles of the language at all?

Quote:
 
Anyway, I don't see why splitting "mojo" and "put'om" makes sense logically


And I don't see why combining them makes sense. One is the nominative neuter singular of a personal pronoun, the other is the genitive plural of a masculine noun.

Quote:
 
Remember, you yourself made the point that Russian pronounces it sometimes like jo
If we go by that, "mojo" is the correct Russian pronunciation


Yes, but Slovianski is not Russian. Otherwise we might as well abandon the project and tell people to learn Russian.

Quote:
 
Just because some West Slavic languages have moje doesn't mean that they should have the monopoly on deciding where we use e and where we use o
For example, Bulgarian last names use -ev like Botev after a soft consonant and -ov after a hard one like Ivanov


Well, it was you who proposed -e, -ego etc. in the first place!

Quote:
 
As you can see, East and South Slavic apply the o/e rule in more cases than West Slavic


And? Slovianski is neither East, West or South Slavic. Like I've said 50 times by now (a point you don't seem to want to address), there is no space for that kind of phonological if...else constructions in an auxlang.

For that matter, I still haven't heard a single argument why the o/e rule would be such a terrible enrichment of Slovianski. It makes things a hell of a lot more complex, with the only effect that the final result will look a bit more natural to some and a bit less natural to others.

Quote:
 
What you're trying to do is reduce it to ONLY the cases where Polish uses it (option C)
isn't that a bit biased?


Not at all. It's biased to make the language more complex than necessary because most natlangs are complex, too. Slovianski is not a natlang, and it's not meant to be some kind of quasi-natlang. Polish gives some nice examples of regularisation, why should Slovianski be more complex than Polish in this respect?

Besides, it's not true what you write. I explicitly offer the possibility of writing -ev, a form totally absent in Polish.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to work towards a compromise. In short:
- for nouns: Optional o/e rule after j
- fem.instr.sg. and instr.sg. of ja/ti/sebe: -ju instead of -oju/eju/ju (*)
- for adjectives: always -e in the N.nom/acc.sg., but for the rest -ogo/-omu etc.
- for possessive pronouns: always -e-.

(*) If you really have such a tremendous problem with s enju, s mnju, s tobju, -u could be an option, too. In that case, the instrumental would in most cases be similar to the accusative, but why not? S enu, s zemlju, s jednostju, s mnu, s tobu.

From the above follows, that you basically have your o/e rule, albeit in a slightly simplified form. It's not my preferred solution, but I can live with it. And it is as far as I am prepared to go. Now, what say you?
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iopq
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you obviously didn't see my tables, female soft declension is -ju, female hard is -oju

Here's Russian:
костью
женой
землей

obviously Russian is an artlang and is too hard to learn
what's funny is that you already split the two feminine declensions, yet you want to unify them again?

you have made the point that there is no place for "if else" constructions in an auxlang, yet you have not argumented your position
IF the noun ends in (e)c, add -ni and change the (e)c to č
example: konec -> konečni

so we shouldn't have it anymore?
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
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Jan van Steenbergen
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you obviously didn't see my tables, female soft declension is -ju, female hard is -oju


Of course I haven't seen your tables. AFAIK the only tables around are my tables at http://steen.free.fr/slovianski/. Unless I've missed something, that's the only more or less complete grammar around.

Quote:
 
what's funny is that you already split the two feminine declensions, yet you want to unify them again?


Not entirely, but I want to keep them together as much as possible. Having four declensions (1M, 1N, 2F) doesn't necessarily mean that we need a separate form for each ending in each declension. In the genitive singular we have two endings: M/N -a, F -i; in the nominative plural we have two endings too: M/F -i, N -a.
Besides, we have three endings for the dative singular, two for the locative singular, three for the genitive plural. Dative, instrumental and locative plural have only one ending each. But if we adopt your ideas, we'd end up with no less than five different endings for the instrumental singular: M/N -om, M'/N' -em, F1 -oju, F1'-eju, F2 -ju.

Five endings in four declensions is too much. So okay, I'm fine with -om/-em, provided that it's only after j, but let's in that case unify the three feminine endings. So let's have either -ju or -u.

Oh wait. You are referring to these tables? Well, here it says -u for the fem.instr.sg. If that's your proposal anyway, then what are we actually talking about? And why do you keep insisting on ženoju in that case? I'll change the f.instr.sg. to -u on my pages. That would of course also include: s mnu etc.

I should note that IF this is your table, you are not very consequent about the o/e rule yourself either. You apparently apply it for the neuter only (but I guess that's a typo) and not in the dative plural neuter.

Okay, we already talked about the dative plural and decided it would be -am after all. For the rest I can live with your proposal.

Quote:
 
you have made the point that there is no place for "if else" constructions in an auxlang, yet you have not argumented your position


I have, *sigh*, many times. But I'm willing to repeat it. So here goes... Let's not talk about schematic auxlangs like Slovio and Esperanto, but about regional/naturalistic auxlangs. The primary purpose is to create a language that is understandable to any Slav without prior study, right? So far so good. But when it comes to written or spoken communication, there are always two sides: the one who's talking/writing and the one who (hopefully) is listening/reading. The former has to master the language, at least to some degree, or at least must be able to write the language with grammar and dictionary beside him. Now, if this person writes without knowing everything by heart, the reference materials he's using should be clear, simple, and concise. If he sees that muž is a masculine word and that the instrumental singular ending is -om, it's easy: mužom, and he can move on to the next word. If he sees something like (e|o)m, he first has to find out what thát's all about. Some people will stop trying at this point, some others will have a look and give up after a few tries. But even those who'll eventually make it will have to deal with the fact that writing a text in such way takes a lot more time than with a simpler grammar.
Then, there are our potential learners. Let's face it, only a very tiny amount of people would ever even consider learning a constructed language. But only a very tiny amount of those who would, are linguists or at least linguistically gifted people. They have to be lured, not only with a final result that looks nice and is understandable to the whole Slavic world, but also with a very low threshold. Therefore, it has to be simple. At least as simple as naturality permits. It's bad enough we have six cases and four declensions, so let's not make it even harder by introducing all kinds of conditions that can make an ending different from what it should be.
Now, regarding IF...ELSE constructions: for the average man in the street things like "soft consonant", "palatalising vowel" have no meaning at all. He doesn't give a rat's ass for "historical evolution", "etymological correctness" and the like. So unless we can offer him something nice and easy, he will opt for Slovio.

Just look:

word = "muž";
gender = "m";
instr_ending = "om";
IF gender = "m"
{ result = word + instr_ending; }

look a whole lot simpler than:

word = "muž";
gender = "m";
IF gender = "m";
{ IF (word.lastchar = "j" OR word.lastchar = "š" OR word.lastchar = "ž" OR
word.lastchar = "č")
{ instr_ending = "em"; }
ELSE
{ instr_ending = "om"; }
result = word + instr_ending;

Quote:
 
IF the noun ends in (e)c, add -ni and change the (e)c to č
example: konec -> konečni

so we shouldn't have it anymore?


It would have been better not to have it, of course. But there are a few cases when we really cannot avoid it, because the final result would be dreadful. Prosiju vs. prošu is a similar case. But the fact that we have IF...ELSE constructions in a few situations should not be used as a reason to have them all over the place. Konecni and prosiju don't exist anywhere in Slavic and look horrible. Mužov dóes exist in Slavic.
Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno to bude trudno s vsim inim.

Slovianski - Словянски - Словјански
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