History: Voksigid

Source of version: 6 (current)

Voksigid created by an Internet working group led by Bruce R. Gilson, attempts to construct a predicate language of a different type from those which had gone before. Its syntax was somewhat influenced by Japanese, and its vocabulary was based mostly on European language roots. Loglan and Lojban both use word order to mark the various places in the predication, but because remembering which position means which role in the predication might be beyond easy memorization for most people, Voksigid was designed in order to overcome this issue. It uses an extensive set of very semantically specific prepositions to mark the roles of verb arguments, instead of positional order as in Loglan and Lojban.

[http://ViewsOfLanguage.host56.com/voksigid/index.html]

{HTML(wiki="0")}
<html><head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

<title>Bruce R. Gilson's Voksigid Page </title>

</head>

<body BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">

<center><h1>Voksigid</h1></center>

<p>

</p><hr>

Voksigid was an attempt to construct a predicate language of a different

type from those which had gone before. The first predicate language

(<a href="http://www.loglan.org/">Loglan, </a> developed by James Cooke Brown), 

and its descendant <a href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/lojban.nf.html">Lojban,</a>

developed by Robert LeChevalier, both used word order to mark

the various places in the predication. I felt that remembering which

position meant which role in the predication might be beyond easy

memorization for most people. In October 1991 I made <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/revjap-proposal.html">a proposal to the Conlang group</a> putting forward

some ideas for a language that I envisioned. I assembled a development committee

following that post, and for several months we worked on the language, which we

named Voksigid. The language has a <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/syntax.html">syntax</a> which

was (as mentioned in the proposal letter) somewhat influenced by <a href="http://www.wg.omron.co.jp/cgi-bin/j-e/jap.guide.txt">Japanese</a> (but 

reversed; Japanese is verb-last and postpositional, Voksigid is verb-first

and prepositional), and a <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/words.html">vocabulary</a> based mostly on European

language roots.

<br><br>

After some time, I became aware that many of the ideas we were using in the

construction of Voksigid resembled the theory of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_grammar">case grammar</a> propounded by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_J._Fillmore">Charles J. Fillmore</a> (See also 

<a href="http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=14">this 

site</a> for more about Fillmore. Note that he was also interested in Japanese!). Had 

we been working longer on this project, perhaps there would have been more use of 

Fillmore's ideas; if anyone would like to consider restoring the Voksigid project, I 

would certainly recommend some study of those ideas.)

<br><br>

<center>

<a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/ortho.html"></a>

<br>

<a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/morph.html"></a>

<br>

<a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/syntax.html"></a>

</center><p>

The project was formally ended in a message I submitted as a <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/final-report.html">final report to the Conlang group</a> on July 23, 1992.

(Please note that all e-mail addresses shown are no longer valid!)</p><p>

Anyone who might wish to build upon the foundation of this project is welcome to <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">communicate with me, but at my present e-mail address.

</a><br>

<br></p><center></center><br>

This page was originally a part of my site on Geocities, maintained until 1998.

The last edit on the Geocities page was made on May 24, 1997. The pages on Geocities

could not be edited between 1998 and 2009, and were preserved as they were, until

download in preparation for migration to this site took place on May 22, 2009.

<br>

Please <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">inform me </a> of 

dead links and any other problems.<br>

<br><center><br><br>

Last modified by <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">B. R. Gilson 

(brg1942@gmail.com)</a> June 24, 2009.<br>

<br><br></center>

<b> 

<center><table border="3"><tbody><tr><td>

<a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"><font><b>Sign up for your own site</b></font></a>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<big></big> Back to my <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/index.html">home page</a></center><br>

<br><br><a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"></a><a href="http://www.hosting24.com/"></a>

</b></body></html>

<html><head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

<title>Voksigid: Orthography etc.</title>

<body BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">

<center><h3>The Orthography, Phonology, and Phonotactics of Voksigid.</h3></center>

<hr>

<p>

</p><dt>1. The alphabet consists of all the Roman letters except <b>q</b> and

<b>x.</b>

<br>

The letters <b>l</b> and <b>r</b> will never be used to distinguish two words,

so that in a technical sense they will be considered the same phoneme. In fact,

however, the official sounds of <b>l</b> and <b>r</b> will be as shown below.

Because people whose native languages have only one sound similar to both, as

Japanese and Korean, may use that sound for both letters, we will never use them

to distinguish minimal pairs. A similar comment holds for <b>s</b> and <b>z</b>;

Spanish, for example, has no /z/ while German tends to pronounce initial

<b>s</b> as [z] and Italian does the same with intervocalic <b>s</b>.

<p>

</p></dt><dt>2. The sounds of the letters are as follows:

<p>

</p></dt><dd><b>a</b> (Eng. art, Fr. la)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>b</b> (Eng. boy)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>c</b> (Ital. cento = ch in Eng. chief, sh in Eng. shoe)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>d</b> (Eng. dog)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>e</b> (Eng. bed, Ger. Bett, beten)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>f</b> (Eng. find)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>g</b> (Eng. girl)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>h</b> (Eng. have, Ger. Bach) -- the [x] sound is allowed for the benefit

of such as Russian speakers who cannot pronounce [h].

<br>

</dd><dd><b>i</b> (Eng. in, machine)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>j</b> (Eng. jam, Fr. journal)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>k</b> (Eng. key)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>l</b> (Eng. love, Ger. Liebe)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>m</b> (Eng. man)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>n</b> (Eng. sun; before <b>k</b> or <b>g,</b> as in Eng. sung)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>o</b> (Brit. Eng. on, aw in Am. Eng. dawn, Ger. so)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>p</b> (Eng. pin)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>r</b> (Eng. red, Fr. rouge, Span. rojo) 

<br>

</dd><dd><b>s</b> (Eng. sing)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>t</b> (Eng. top)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>u</b> (Eng. push, rude)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>v</b> (Eng. very)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>w</b> (Eng. wash)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>y</b> (Eng. yet)

<br>

</dd><dd><b>z</b> (Eng. zero)

<p>

</p></dd><dt>It should be noted that for the letters <b>c e h i j n o u,</b> sounds are

included that are in some languages considered distinct phonemes; this is

done to allow for ease in pronouncing by speakers of as many languages

as possible.

<p>

For items 3-5, the following terminology applies:

</p><p>

<br>

</p></dt><dd><i>Vowel</i> = <b>a e i o u,</b> or any of the <i>diphthongs</i> listed.

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Diphthong</i> = <b>ai au oi.</b> 

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Pure consonant</i> = <b>b c d f g h j k p s t v z.</b>

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Liquid</i> = <b>l r.</b>

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Nasal</i> = <b>m n.</b>

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Glide</i> = <b>w y.</b>

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Semivowel</i> = any <i>liquid, nasal,</i> or <i>glide,</i> as defined

here.

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Consonant</i> = any <i>pure consonant</i> or <i>semivowel,</i> as defined

here.

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Voiced consonant</i> = <b>b d g j v z.</b>

<br>

</dd><dd><i>Unvoiced consonant</i> = <b>c f h k p s t.</b>

<p>

</p></dd><dt>3. A syllable consists of one to four phonemes, of the form [P] [S] V [C]

where bracketed elements are optional, P is any pure consonant, S any

semivowel, V any vowel, and C any consonant, except:

<br>

</dt><dd>a. The final consonant of a syllable may not be a glide or <b>h</b>.

<br>

</dd><dd>b. The final consonant of one syllable, combined with the initial

consonant(s) of an immediately following syllable in a word, may not make any of

the combinations forbidden in 4.

<p>

</p></dd><dt>4. The following consonant combinations are forbidden:

<br> 

</dt><dd>a. Voiced + unvoiced consonant or vice versa.

<br>

</dd><dd>b. Nasal consonant + nonhomoorganic stop. This specifically forbids the

combination of <b>m</b> + any of (<b>c d g j k t</b>) and the combination

of <b>n</b> with (<b>b p</b>)

<p>

</p></dd><dt>5. If a word ends in a pure consonant and the following word does not begin

with a pure consonant, or if a word ends in a semivowel and the following word 

begins in a vowel, a distinct pause must be articulated at the word boundary. 

In other cases, a pause <i>may</i> be made at a boundary, but need not be. A word 

boundary is defined as anywhere where a blank space is written.

<p>

<br></p><center></center><br>

This page was originally a part of my site on Geocities, maintained until 1998.

The last edit on the Geocities page was made on May 24, 1997. The pages on Geocities

could not be edited between 1998 and 2009, and were preserved as they were, until

download in preparation for migration to this site took place on May 22, 2009.

<br>

Please <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">inform me </a> of 

dead links and any other problems.<br>

<br><center><br><br>

Last modified by <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">B. R. Gilson 

(brg1942@gmail.com)</a> June 13, 2009.<br>

<br><br></center>

<b> 

<center><table border="3"><tbody><tr><td>

<a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"><font><b>Sign up for your own site</b></font></a>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<big></big> Back to my <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/index.html">home page</a><br>

<big></big> Back to the <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/index.html">Voksigid top page</a></center><br><br>

<br><br><a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"></a><a href="http://www.hosting24.com/"></a>

</b></dt></body></html>

<html><head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

<title>Voksigid: Morphology</title>

<body BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">

<center><h3>The Morphology of Voksigid.</h3></center>

<hr>

(Consult <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/syntax.html">the document entitled "The Syntax of Voksigid"</a> for

any terminology needed to understand this document.)

<hr>

<p>

1. Predicates will be constructed as two-syllable or longer words ending in a 

vowel; tags will be single-syllable words that both begin and end in

consonants; other particles will be single-syllable words that either begin or

end in a vowel or both. 

</p><p>

2. Words which can be used as nouns or adjectives (the specific usage being

governed by paragraph 4 of the syntax document) will be derived from verbs by

nominalizing suffixes which are identical in form to the tag/preposition words.

These can be resolved into predicate + suffix, because in all cases the last

three letters (consonant + vowel + consonant) will be a nominalizing suffix.

As nouns, their meaning will be "noun with the relationship defined by the tag

to the predication implied by the verb meaning of the word," e. g. a tag meaning

"indirect object" attached to the word for "give" means "recipient." As

adjectives, their meaning will be "having the relationship defined by the tag to

the predication implied by the verb meaning of the word," so that the same word

means "receiving."

</p><p>

3. Suffixes used to create predicates from tags, from other particles, or from 

strings of particles, will be of the form consonant + diphthong. No simple 

predicate will end in a diphthong, so that any predicate ending in a diphthong 

consists of a particle or string of particles followed by a predicatizing

suffix. 

</p><p>

4. Gender will be expressed by the use of the prefix <i>mas-</i> (for masculine)

or <i>fem-</i> (for feminine). No assumption is to be made as to the sex of the

referent in the absence of these prefixes. The prefix <i>mas-</i> is altered to

<i>maz-</i> before voiced sounds and <i>fem-</i> to <i>fen-</i> before nonlabial

stop consonants to avoid prohibited clusters.

</p><p>

<br></p><center></center><br>

This page was originally a part of my site on Geocities, maintained until 1998.

The last edit on the Geocities page was made on May 24, 1997. The pages on Geocities

could not be edited between 1998 and 2009, and were preserved as they were, until

download in preparation for migration to this site took place on May 22, 2009.

<br>

Please <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">inform me </a> of 

dead links and any other problems.<br>

<br><center><br><br>

Last modified by <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">B. R. Gilson 

(brg1942@gmail.com)</a> June 13, 2009.<br>

<br><br></center>

<b> 

<center><table border="3"><tbody><tr><td>

<a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"><font><b>Sign up for your own site</b></font></a>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<big></big> Back to my <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/index.html">home page</a><br>

<big></big> Back to the <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/index.html">Voksigid top page</a></center><br><br>

<br><br><a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"></a><a href="http://www.hosting24.com/"></a>

</b></body></html>

<html><head>

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

<title> Voksigid: Syntax</title>

<body BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">

<center><h3>The Syntax of Voksigid.</h3></center>

<hr>

<p>

1. The parts of speech are predicates (verbs), tags (prepositions), and other

particles. (the terms "predicate" and "verb" will be used interchangeably, as

also "tag" and "preposition." The term "other particle" will include

conjunctions, modal/aspectual particles, ending markers, and such others as

become necessary to define the syntax. All content words will be understood as

verbs. Those which represent primarily constructs that English uses nouns or

adjectives for will officially mean "to be X." Predicates can be used as nouns

or adjectives by the use of nominalizers as described tn the morphology

document.

</p><p>

2. All sentences begin with a verb, possibly preceded by aspectual or modal

particles. All other elements of the predication are expressed by the use of 

prepositional phrases. These include the elements that would in English be 

expressed by subject and direct and indirect object, as well as adverbial 

phrases. No distinction is made between these phrases, and if more than one 

phrase is used, they may be placed in any order, depending on the speaker/

writer's desire to emphasize one or another.

</p><p>

3. Clauses consist of a conjunction followed by the elements that compose a 

sentence according to the previous paragraph. No distinction between coordinate

and subordinate clauses will be made in structure.

</p><p>

4. The same form defined in 1 as a noun can be used as an adjective by being

placed after the noun which it modifies. Thus a nominalized verb which

immediately follows a preposition is a noun; one that follows another such

is an adjective modifying the noun that precedes it.

</p><p>

5. Neither definite nor indefinite articles will be necessary. Each preposition

will delimit a noun phrase, since all prepositional phrases can be analyzed as

a preposition, an object-of-preposition noun, and zero or more nouns-used-as-

adjectives. 

</p><p>

6. Ending markers will comprise end-of-phrase, end-of-clause, and end-of-

adjective/adverb markers. The end-of-phrase marker is treated as a right 

parenthesis with the nearest tag prior to it as the corresponding left 

parenthesis. It is only necessary if another modifier (nominalized-verb-used-

as-adjective, clause, or tag/preposition + noun phrase) follows it. The end-of-

clause marker is treated as a right parenthesis with the nearest conjunction 

prior to it as the corresponding left parenthesis. It is only necessary if 

another modifier (nominalized-verb-used-as-adjective, clause, or tag/preposition

+ noun phrase) follows it. The end-of-adjective/adverb marker signifies that the

word before it is an unmodified adjective or adverb, and is needed only to

indicate that a following modifier is to be attached, not to the adjective/

adverb in question, but to the word it modifies. The end of a sentence terminates

all unclosed phrases and clauses.

</p><p>

7. A relative clause is introduced by a special subordinating conjunction

(<i>su</i>) and is constructed as in paragraph 3. It is inserted in the sentence

after the word it modifies. The place in the relative clause where the relative

relates to the clause is filled by the relative pronoun (<i>lau</i>).

</p><p>

8. Another equivalent of a relative clause in other languages is a phrase

constructed with a special case tag governing a nominalization of the verb which

was the clause main verb. The nominalization indicates which case the restricted

phrase is supposed to fit. When necessary (in the rare instances where the

restricted phrase is not going to be an argument of the clause verb) or desired 

for stylistic reasons, nominalize with <i>cen</i> (abstraction) and use

<i>lau</i> as a pronoun to represent the restricted phrase, with its proper

case tag. This will be designated a quasi-relative phrase.

</p><p>

<br></p><center></center><br>

This page was originally a part of my site on Geocities, maintained until 1998.

The last edit on the Geocities page was made on May 24, 1997. The pages on Geocities

could not be edited between 1998 and 2009, and were preserved as they were, until

download in preparation for migration to this site took place on May 22, 2009.

<br>

Please <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">inform me </a> of 

dead links and any other problems.<br>

<br><center><br><br>

Last modified by <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">B. R. Gilson 

(brg1942@gmail.com)</a> June 13, 2009.<br>

<br><br></center>

<b> 

<center><table border="3"><tbody><tr><td>

<a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"><font><b>Sign up for your own site</b></font></a>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<big></big> Back to my <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/index.html">home page</a><br>

<big></big> Back to the <a href="http://viewsoflanguage.host56.com/voksigid/index.html">Voksigid top page</a></center><br><br>

<br><br><a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"></a><a href="http://www.hosting24.com/"></a>

</b></body></html>

<html><head><title>Voksigid final report</title></head>

<body>

<center><h1>The Voksigid final report</h1></center>

<br><br>

Originally posted on the Conlang mailing list, July 23, 1992.

<br><br>

Date: 23 Jul 92 09:09:00 EDT<br>

From: "61510::GILSON" &lt;gilson%61510.decnet@cfe1.nrl.navy.mil&gt;<br>

Subject: Final (I think) status report to Conlang group on the Voksigid project<p>

<br><br>

This functions both as the apparent final progress report on the Voksigid

project to the conlang group and the apparent final communication to the

Voksigid development group, a. k. a. the newlang group. If anyone, either

by sending to the Voksigid group as a whole at newlang@buphy.bu.edu, or by

emailing to me at brgilson@highlite.gotham.com, evinces an interest in

reviving the Voksigid project, the possibility of continuing the effort

still exists, but I am pessimistic about the chances.

<br><br>

My observations are that the demise of the effort was not due to any 

impracticality of implementing the concept that Voksigid represented. I still 

feel that we might have, if a few non-linguistic happenings had been different,

come out with something better than Lojban at the things Lojban is best at,

while being easier to learn.

<br><br>

Voksigid went through three phases:

<br><br>

1. In a preliminary organization phase, we eliminated two people whose ideas

were so far removed from what the rest oif us had in mind that compromise was

clearly impossible. One of them, I feel, could well have contributed a lot of

useful ideas, but was so firmly wedded to an a priori vocabulary that we could 

not hold him. His loss was unfortunate because I think he knew a lot about some

aspects of grammar that most of us did not know. The second of those would at

least have given us some input from a person whose native language was not

English, but it was very clear from early on that there was no compromise that

could embrace both him and myself; on one occasion I went so far toward his

proposal that it was making me ill to conceive of what was being done, and yet

he was accusing me of being unwilling to compromise. With the departure of those

two from the group, we were able to come up with some documents to define the

language, and at that point it looked as if we were making progress.

<br><br>

2. At that point, we began filling in the details. We developed a vocabulary,

fleshed out a few grammatical details, and I thought we'd soon have a language

created. Then disaster struck. One of us, who had been the most prolific source

of ideas in the first phase (and who, more than I, was the person whose 

structure as first proposed turned out to be the one that the final Voksigid 

resembled most closely) had to leave to devote full time to his dissertation.

Another changed schools. I myself, for a while, was incommunicado because I

lost the ability to receive e-mail at my work computer and needed to establish

a new location. That led to phase 3:

<br><br>

3. We got to a point where a proposal would be made, and nobody would respond.

It was clear that nothing more was going to happen. This is where we are now.

I think we have to give Voksigid a decent burial. The defining documents are

still, I assume, to remain on the PLS, and if someone sends a copy of Dave 

West's final version of the lexicon to the PLS archives, they will have a

basis on which to proceed if anyone wants to take the role that Ashby and Clark

took to Hogben's Interglossa. 

<br><br>

Observations:

<br><br>

Apparently, for an experimental language, the only organization scheme that 

works is something like what happened in Lojban. One person (in that case, JCB)

developed a language, and a group was set up only much later, but the group

was much larger than we had, so that dropping out by 1 or 2 or 3 did not leave

them so shorthanded that paralysis started whenever two people disagreed. The

voting mechanisms I devised worked when we had 5 or 6 people; when we got down

to 3 we were lost. They would have worked better if we had the 9 or 10 I'd 

originally envisioned. Lojban had one unfortunate experience, the split between

JCB and lojbab that required them to construct a totally new vocabulary from

scratch -- they'd be a year or two further along, I think, if that hadn't happened. 

But (even though I can't read the language well enough to follow everything that goes 

on) I think the group works well. I'd hoped that we could do that kind of thing 

eventually. The only problem is getting to that point. A committee such as we had 

doesn't seem to work. I'm sorry it doesn't. John Ross and Jim Carter, at least, had 

useful ideas without which the language, if it had depended on me alone, would never 

have been as good as the one we were on the threshold of developing. Jim, in 

particular, even though he has his own creation (guaspi) and is also an active 

participant in the Lojban group as well, was able to grasp the spirit of Voksigid 

well enough that his suggestions were frequently right to the point, even though they 

had to be different from the way guaspi or Lojban would handle the same problem. I 

wish we had been able to get the same from the one person I mentioned earlier who

was the first to get off the boat.

<br><br>

              

              

              

              

              

     Bruce

<br>

<br><center><br>

<br><br>

Please <a href="mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">inform me </a> of 

dead links and any other problems.<br>

<br><center><br><br>

Last modified by <A HREF = "mailto:brg1942@gmail.com">B. R. Gilson 

(brg1942@gmail.com)</a> June 20, 2009.<br>

<br><br></center>

<b> 

<center><table border=3><tr><td>

<a href="http://www.000webhost.com/"><font><b>Sign up for your own site</b></font></a>

</td></tr></table>

<big></big> Back to the <A HREF=index.html>Voksigid main page</a></center><br>

<big></big> Back to my <A HREF=index.html>home page</a></center><br>

<br><br><a href="http://www.000webhost.com"></a><a href="http://www.hosting24.com"></a>

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE> [conlang_learners] More about Voksigid

</TITLE>

<LINK REL="Index" HREF="index.html" >

<LINK REL="made" HREF="mailto:conlang_learners%40conlang.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5Bconlang_learners%5D%20More%20about%20Voksigid&In-Reply-To=%3C8e02713f0907191224i6f3e632dm3b36fca282b00492%40mail.gmail.com%3E">

<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">

<LINK REL="Previous" HREF="000346.html">

<LINK REL="Next" HREF="000345.html">

</HEAD>

<BODY>

<H1>[conlang_learners] More about Voksigid</H1>

<B>Jim Henry</B> 

 <A HREF="mailto:conlang_learners%40conlang.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5Bconlang_learners%5D%20More%20about%20Voksigid&In-Reply-To=%3C8e02713f0907191224i6f3e632dm3b36fca282b00492%40mail.gmail.com%3E"

TITLE="[conlang_learners] More about Voksigid">jimhenry1973 at gmail.com

</A><BR>

<I>Sun Jul 19 12:24:49 PDT 2009</I>

<P><UL>

<LI>Previous message: <A HREF="000346.html">[conlang_learners] Summary of Laef&#232;v&#230;&#353;ii

</A></li>

<LI>Next message: <A HREF="000345.html">[conlang_learners] FrathWiki mainpage in Dalcurian:

</A></li>

<LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> 

 <a href="date.html#344">[ date ]</a>

<a href="thread.html#344">[ thread ]</a>

<a href="subject.html#344">[ subject ]</a>

<a href="author.html#344">[ author ]</a>

</LI>

</UL>

<HR> 

<PRE>Voksigid was an engelang created by Bruce Gilson, Jim Carter, John

Ross and others in 1991-1992.   It remained somewhat unfinished; the

vocabulary comprises 256 words and affixes, and the grammar pages,

though the syntax and morphology are described thoroughly at a high

level of abstraction, lack any example sentences.   The phonology is

clearly defined except for stress, though the presentation uses

multiple natlang examples for each phoneme and its allophones rather

than IPA.   It uses a purely ASCII phonetic orthography, with 24

letters representing 19 consonants and 5 vowels.  The vocabulary comes

from a variety of natlangs, mostly European.



Basically, Voksigid is a verb-initial active language with free

ordering of the phrases following the verb, each phrase consisting of

a preposition, a noun, and potentially one or more adjectives and/or

modifying particles.   Fairly specific case tags (prepositions) mark

the subject as well as the objects and complements.   Content roots

are always verbs (e.g., &quot;katse&quot; is defined as &quot;to be a cat&quot;); nouns

and adjectives are derived from root verbs with case tags used as

nominalizing suffixes.   I infer that  &quot;katselen&quot; would mean &quot;a cat&quot;

or &quot;pertaining to (a) cat(s)&quot; (depending on context), although use of

specific nominalizers is not discussed.  (&quot;len&quot; is defined as &quot;subject

of a non-quantifiable statal predicate&#168; and seems to be the most

appropriate of the case tags for this kind of nominalization.  &quot;tor&quot;

is &quot;active subject&quot;, i.e. agent I suppose, so &quot;katsetor&quot; would seem to

mean &quot;one who is deliberately being a cat&quot;.)



Some details of the grammar are underspecified and would have to be

(re)created based on the clues in the lexicon and grammar documents.

In particular, the definitions of the case tags aren&#180;t always specific

enough to give the reader a clear idea of how they&#180;re used.   However,

I think it would be quite possible for us to study the Voksigid

documents, discuss them, and come up with a more ample reference

grammar (with lots of example sentences) and lessons.   It would also

be necessary to coin more words based on the principles described in

the morphology document.  Voksigid was clearly not intended to be a

lexically minimalist language, given the kinds of concepts to which

root words are devoted in the extant lexicon; the small vocabulary is

due to the project having ended prematurely.



Figuring out the grammar from the terse documents on the Voksigid

website would take some time and effort, but once someone has done

that and written an expanded reference grammar and/or lessons, I think

Voksigid would be relatively easy to learn.  The hard part would be

getting used to the way case tags and nominalizers are used (and

perhaps the way relative clauses are formed); there&#180;s no inflection,

much less irregularity thereof, and the phonology should be easy for

anyone who already speaks a European language (and many who don&#180;t).



-- 

Jim Henry

<A HREF="http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/">http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/</A>

</PRE>

<HR>

<P><UL>

<LI>Previous message: <A HREF="000346.html">[conlang_learners] Summary of Laef&#232;v&#230;&#353;ii

</A></li>

<LI>Next message: <A HREF="000345.html">[conlang_learners] FrathWiki mainpage in Dalcurian:

</A></li>

<LI> <B>Messages sorted by:</B> 

 <a href="date.html#344">[ date ]</a>

<a href="thread.html#344">[ thread ]</a>

<a href="subject.html#344">[ subject ]</a>

<a href="author.html#344">[ author ]</a>

</LI>

</UL>

<hr>

<a href="http://lists.conlang.org/listinfo.cgi/conlang_learners-conlang.org">More information about the conlang_learners

mailing list</a><br>

</body></html>
{HTML}
History: Voksigid

Source of version: 6 (current)

Search Lojban Resources
