--- In konyalanguage@yahoogroups.com, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@g...>
wrote:
>
> On 10/10/05, Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@m...> wrote:
>
> > > 3) So let's use the final vowel as a lexical class marker.
> > Here I have a problem. Does this perhaps imply that the
> > number of lexical classes must equal the number of vowels
> > in the phoneme inventory? If so, are we sure that gives us
> > enough lexical classes to construct almost any interesting
> > utterance?
>

In fact, we don't have enough. Names take a two-letter marker, "ya",
and in version 037 I have invented the interjection/qualifier, which
takes the two-letter marker "ye".

I'm not entirely satisfied with the interjection/qualifier, though.
It seems to occupy a midpoint between functional and lexical. It has
lexical relatives in the other classes, but, like a functional, it
has special properties, chief among them that it serves to modify
precisely what has preceded it, rather than the most recent headword
(noun or verb). I wonder if we wouldn't be better off just having
them as functionals and, if we need related lexicals, just build them
off the functionals, which can take classifier suffixes as easily as
lexicals can.

Any class of words that is very small needs to be looked at as a
candidate for functional class rather than lexical.

> If you look back in the group archives, you'll see
> we talked about a possible scheme with four semantic
> categories (substance, action/process, relationship,
> and quality) which correspond to four "parts of
> speech", noun, verb, preposition, and adjective/adverb.
> But I think Larry finally went with a simpler scheme
> that folds relationships into the other categories.
>

No, or if I did, I didn't mean to. We have -i for nouns, -u for
verbs, -o for prepositions, and -e for adjectives/adverbs. Doi bu doi?

We had also, even a bit earlier, discussed order of preference for
selecting the natural class of a lexical root. I don't remember for
certain the order, but the order that lately seems to be the most
effective is:

1) preposition
2) verb
3) modifier (adjective/adverb)
4) noun

Despite this preference, most words come out as nouns, though.

--larry

P.S. Jim, has anybody heard anything from Jeff Henning? I've emailed
him and put out an APB on some newsgroups. langmaker.com is at least
2 months stagnant. Not a peep.