From: Jan van Steenbergen (ijzeren_jan@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Mon May 12 2003 - 20:01:11 EST
--- Adam Walker skrzypszy:
> Have any real Romlangs borrowed any interrogatives
> from non-Latin/Romance sources?
Not that I know of. This is not the kind of words that language borrow from
other language, I'd say. Rather they would create new ones based on other
inherited stuff, like french "Pourquoi".
> Currently, I'm leaning toward the following scheme:
>
> Fin Who
> Fid What
> Pali What
> Pun When
> Pervi Why
> Jundi Where
> Pomu How
> Pandu How much/many
> Pochi How often
Yes, I agree with your choices. If I understand you correctly, you are
hesitating between "jundi" and "pa" for "where", and between "pervi" and "pu"
for "why". I think you do right if you go for those forms that are easier
distinguished from other interrogatives.
"Which" seems to have disappeared from the list, BTW.
> But I could change my mind entirely at any moment.
> Conlangers perrogative, you know. What say you?
Have you considered making a table of correlatives? IMO it is an excellent tool
for creating this kind of vocabulary and understanding some of the mechanisms
of the language itself. I did something like that for Wenedyk, and this is what
I came up with (I hope it shows up correctly):
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Inter- | Demonstrative | Indefinite
|rogative| here | there | none | some | all | any (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
person czy il\ iwial\ nieczy alczy tocy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
object ko'd il\ iwial\ nio'l\ alko'd tot
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quality (2) kwal tal - nul\ alkwal kaszkun
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
quantity kwa~t ta~t - nul\ - tot
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
method komo'd szyk - - kodamo'd -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
reason prokoz^u prol\u - - alku -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
time kwa~du ne~k te~k ne~kwa alkwa~du sia~prz
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
place wa~dz' jeszyc - nuszwa alka~dz' ubiecz
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
source zia~dz' ziele~c ziwiele~c z'nia~dz' alzia~dz' -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
destination ada~dz' ale~c awiele~c ania~dz' alada~dz' -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
route kwalak il\ak iwial\ak -
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) There are created by adding the suffix "-ka~cz" to the interrogative:
"czyka~cz" (anybody, whoever), "kódka~cz" (anything, whatever), etc.
But: "uska~cz" (anywhere, whereever), "kuka~cz" (for whatever reason).
(2) This can both mean "which" or "what kind of". So: "kwal" (which, what kind
of), "tal" (such), "nul\" (no), "alkwal" (some), "kaszkun" (every, each).
Of course, you can add columns at will (as a matter of fact, I also have a
column for "many", "often", etc., but I left it out for reasons of space.
Jan
=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones
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