Hi!

R A Brown writes:
> Henrik Theiling wrote:
> [snip]
>> Please comment on my rules:
>>
>> http://www.kunstsprachen.de/s25/#nounconstr
>
> I am surprised to find the 4th & 5th declensions surviving, as they
> did not survive in Vulgar Latin. This is a really archaic feature.

Yes.  Only a few 4th declension nouns will retain -u (the declensions
don't survive, of course, the resulting words are uninflected).  It
came in handy to keep a difference between porta and portus...

The result of shifting 5th declension nouns is the same as shifting
most other declensions: 1st, 2nd, most of 3rd and 5th behave the same.
I will rephrase the paragraph in the webpage so that the collapse of
the declension system *before* the shifts are made explicit, so that
the view is focussed on Vulgar Latin rather than Classical.

Whether the 4th declension and the -i- declension could possibly have
had any influence on the modern language would be interesting.  The
effect in Terkunan would be nothing more than a final -i or -u, which
also results from stems in -i and -u (e.g. in 'corvus').

> The 4th declension was simply absorbed into the 2nd, for fairly
> obvious reasons. Indeed, those who know their classical Latin will
> remember that 'domus' (house) couldn't make up its mind which
> declension it belonged to even in the formal language. In
> inscriptions we find confusion quite a few other nouns and it is
> clear from all the Romance tongues that the 4th simply didn't hang
> on in the common language.

In Þrjótrunn, I extended the 4th declension a bit.  The language is
meant to be very archaic as you know.  So I decided that 2nd
declension feminines and 2nd declension plant names tend to become 4th
declension (and feminine).  I like the 4th declension, really.  Maybe
I cannot let go in Terkunan although I should. :-)

>...
>> http://www.kunstsprachen.de/s25/#verbconstr
>
> Yes - as you wish to reduce the verbal apparatus to a simplicity found
> neither in Latin nor the Romance languages (excepting, of course,
> romance based creoles), it's difficult to comment other than to say
> that here, in contrast to the conservatism of non-palatalization and
> the apparent retaining of the 4th & 5th declensions, the verbs show
> very radical reduction of verb forms. It will be interesting to see
> the diachronic development here.
>
> My task in many ways is easier in that _no_ fictional diachronic
> development is required. It's a fauxlang derived directly from ancient
> Greek.

Yeah.  My goal of a plausibly Romance diachronical fauxlang that I
like is a bit hard to explain. :-)

I'll try:

Defining exactly how Terkunan developed historically is not my primary
goal, it just came in handy that I had an alternate universe so I
placed Terkunan there.  The diachronical development is retro-fitted
and secondary.

Primary design goals are:

   - To have a Grand Master Plan that produces a well-sounding
     language (some languages I have in mind are mentioned on the
     page).  The GMP guarantees some consistency, which I value
     high.  It seems like an improvement over Da Mätz se Basa.

   - Vulgar Latin as a basis, so that the result looks plausibly
     Romance.  At first and maybe second sight, Terkunan should be a
     normal Romance language.  (This goal means that the 4th
     declension thing above might indeed be a problem.)

   - Isolating morphology.  For plausibly sounding verb forms,
     I retain a few irregular forms.

Following these goals, some structures might need some thinking to be
retro-fitted to historical development...

Afrikaans also exists, it also reduced morphology radically.  So why
not a Romance lang?

**Henrik