--- In konyalanguage@yahoogroups.com, "Yahya Abdal-Aziz" <yahya@m...>
wrote:
>
>
> > "yahya_melb" <yahya@m...> wrote:
> > > "HandyDad" <lsulky@r...> wrote:

---SNIP---

> It's a neat scheme, that clearly distinguishes these words by their
> phonetics. When generating these functionals, would it be
practical
> to also retain the vowel that marks the lexical class? eg sinye ->
sye,
> minwi -> mwi ?
>

Perhaps, and I would be open to "back-forming" the full forms from
the more convenient and cleverly chosen contracted forms. "mwi" might
not be optimal for so commonly used a word as 'me', just because it's
a touch more difficult to pronounce, I think, than some other
available combinations.

---SNIP---
>
> And it would be even better if there was an agreed method for
> generating the functional from the long form, for example the kind
> of contraction or deletion rule given in my examples above. Then
> Konya speakers would have a productive rule that they could apply
> to generate new words whenever occasion demanded. Of course,
> a deletion rule, as in my example, would in turn exert pressure on
the
> possible choices of root words; it would be preferable if any
listener
> could say with authority: "Ah! 'sye' has the CSV pattern, so it must
> be a contraction of 'sinye'."
>

That would be ideal, and Jim has led the charge on productive rules.
But it might be difficult to achieve in this case. For example, we
could say:

* CinSV contracts to CSV

For example: "kinye" => "kye".

But then we have no room left to cover the other three possible
stressed vowels, "e", "o", and "u". Or we could consider letting
lexical class go (assuming that one would have to memorise it). Then
we could have:

* CV1nSV2 contracts to CSV1

For example: "konye" => "kyo"; "lunyo" => "lyu"; "punwi" => "pwu".

Even here, though, it means that we can only contract words that
started out as short lexicals anyway. So the horrid 4-syllable word
for the adverb of place 'here' remains with us.

Perhaps we can only afford a mnemonic relationship, but not a
productive rule.

---L