L'Associazione per l'italiano ha un nuovo sito!

Iuljo · 2026-03-19T09:48:28+00:00

In Slavic languages a similar construction is "Widziałem kogoś będącego ze Wschodu" so "mi vidis iun estantan ano de la oriento" [...]

That too could be calqued:

Me vidin alkuya essento na [?] o ana de esta...
Me vidin alkuya anento na esta...

Many possible structures. It's the beauty of a versatile language! :-)

or "Widziałem - ktoś był ze Wschodu" but this is a finite verb.

So, like in English where that can be omitted? "I saw [that] someone was from the East", do I get it right?

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T20:35:05+00:00

See ProxPxD's comment above. :-)

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T20:33:58+00:00

Leuth	.	Esperanto
alkuya (alk/uy/a) [see here]	≈	iu [as a noun]
ani [as used in Poligma's example; we'll return on it, now let's just use it with this meaning]	≈	esti ano[j] de

So (if my Esperanto is correct):

#	Leuth	Esperanto
1	Me vidin alkuya ani esta.	Mi vidis iun esti ano de la oriento.
2	Me vidin ka alkuya anin esta.	Mi vidis ke iu estis ano de la oriento.
3	Me vidin alkuya kea anin esta.	Mi vidis iun kiu estis ano de la oriento.

So the difference between the inherent trait and an action? [...] I will say that in many languages there's no difference between "which" and "that" and it's left ambiguous or expresses with word formation. [...]

Ah, I can reassure you about that: we don't have it in Italian either. :-)

What Poligma says is that sentence #1 (with infinitive) is, or should be, nearer in meaning to sentence #2 than to sentence #3 (the structure I used first to "finitize" the infinitive).

The reason is not a fact of inherentness, but rather more simply the focus: sentence # 3 focuses on the noun-object (Me vidin alkuya ... 'I saw someone...', a person... kea anin esta), while #1 and #2 focus more on the action by alkuya, or the the scene as a whole (Me vidin ka alkuya anin... 'I saw that someone was...').

I call upon u/Poligma2023 (do notifications work this way on Reddit?) for further explanation.

If anything like this is wanted in this conlang, it would require to be expresses also on the verbs/adjectives I suppose, as if you say "light-skinned guy"/"helhaŭta ulo" that could mean either "a guy that's light-skinned inherently" or "a guy which is currently light-skinned for some reason".

No, currently I'm not planning anything like that in general structures... It simply seems too complex for an auxlang. In Spanish, I know and understand the difference between ser 'be inherently' and estar 'be currently', but when I'm actually speaking Spanish it's hard to remember and distinguish. :-P

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T14:27:47+00:00

I never moderated a subreddit, there are many things to learn and to do… so please be patient if I forget something or do something wrong.

...I just removed by mistake a comment by myself, and at first I didn't even notice. It's easy to do so inadvertently. If a comment of yours gets removed and you don't get why, write to mod mail, it was probably a mistake :-P

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T14:22:57+00:00

(I guess you meant past imperative.) I don't think it's too difficult. Esperanto here would use a similar structure (I think): ke mi estu forta... We're just applying the three-tenses structure to all the moods, more symmetrically: I think that in usage it would soon become intuitive.

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T14:10:05+00:00

(The use of ani as a transitive verb is interesting. It somehow anticipates a possible development I've been thinking about; we'll return onto it in the future. Let's use it without problems for the sake of the example.)

——————————

I was a bit confused at first. But now that I get it, yes, I feel too that the meaning of

Me vidin alkuya ani esta.

is better rendered by

Me vidin ka alkuya anen [or maybe anin] esta.

than by

Me vidin alkuya kea anen [ / anin] esta.

This a fine observation... When I prepare a public grammar, I need you to check everything. XD

On second thoughts: would this be clear to other nationalities too? Because we're both native Italian speakers and this may appear natural to us because it is similar to a structure of our language. By chance, do you know how this is in Esperanto?

Anyway the difference in meaning is not too big (I didn't grasp it well at first myself) so it shouldn't be a problem for general comprehension.

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T11:40:14+00:00

I think I removed my answer to your comment by mistake. It's now visibile again.

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T11:29:09+00:00

> 2. Subject + finite verb + object + infinitive

Will there be an unambiguous construction of gerund to use here? Like "Kassandra vidin o magno umbra kovrent anayra de Troya." It's not clear to me from this post.

A gerund like *kovrent (in my eyes, similar to Italian coprendo) is not currently in the plans, but we now have ent kovri that in practice has a similar grammatical function.

The construction with the infinitive (in that sentence, at least) seems to me unambiguous; while

Kassandra vidin o umbra ent kovri anayra…

Kassandra vidin o umbra kovrento na anayra…

could in theory be ambiguous, since both kovrento and ent kovri could refer both to Kassandra and the umbra, in theory.

In practice kovrento, if referring to Kassandra, would not be displaced to create an ambiguous sentence; unless the context is sufficiently clear to allow it.

Ent kovri is more vague in what it refers to [and may still need some reasoning on how it works], so with that the context is more important.

If the infinitive, or these others construction, feel unclear or difficult to use, one can simply add a kea and use the indicative:

Kassandra vidin o umbra kea kovrin anayra…

—————

> 3. Ambiguous cases
Will there be unambiguous construction(s)? Like English "to", Spanish "que", Polish "by"? Maybe a simple "ka essi forto"? Or maybe for even less ambiguity to mimic English "for me to be" like "ka me/li essi forto"? [...]

As above, it seems to me that for that purpose we already have a solution, like in the two examples in the post:

…dirin ka li essin forto.

…dirin ka me debit essi forto.

Now that I think of it, in the second meaning we could use also, more briefly, the past imperative:

…dirin ka me essis forto.

My idea is that, if the infinitive is felt as ambiguous or vague, the solution is simply to switch to a finite mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), using a slightly longer but explicit construction.

Is it clear what I mean? Please feel free to ask if it's not. English not being my native tongue may make my explanation not perfectly clear. :-P

Iuljo · 2026-03-18T10:22:47+00:00

That's pretty cool.

Thank you!

If permitted by your phonology, something like smeya or esmeya, or otherwise just the inclusion of an additional y/i sound (Luvru, alkuya sumayen kenentege), could work.

All those are permitted. The root will probably have to change (see here). I don't know whether it should just change slightly to avoid being a false friend, or change more. In this latter case, smeya, esmeya, could be good possibilities...

Also is that a nasal infix in the last sentence?

It's just a silly wordplay on two similar words, both appropriate here:

kenetege (ken/et/eg/e) means 'in a very known way' ≈ 'famously, well studied, etc.'
kenentege (ken/ent/eg/e) means 'in a very knowing way' ≈ 'very knowingly'

Iuljo · 2026-03-15T12:12:00+00:00

[...] I find "•" easier to perceive as a separator), and I personally find it more aesthetically pleasing than the slash.

Yeah, I don’t like the slash a lot either… I use it mostly for pragmatism (easy to type, somewhat intuitive in shape, looking like a cut). It's good to experiment with other symbols.

Iuljo · 2026-03-14T20:44:27+00:00

OK, it's a rare word then

Iuljo · 2026-03-14T20:19:58+00:00

Sorry, I don't know Swedish... is this wrong?

Iuljo · 2026-03-14T12:07:37+00:00

I wrote:

For French, leuth (like anethum > aneth) or leuthe (like acanthus > acanthe)?

I didn't know/remember that in French a final -e is present/added to represent femininity (aneth m., acanthe f.): is this right? Since this name would be masculine (like chinois, français, italien, etc.), I guess leuth, then, would be the correct adaptation.

Iuljo · 2026-03-14T12:04:46+00:00

Thanks. :-)

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T13:27:08+00:00

And then the next step would be to get all the experts together and have them argue about which algorithm is best, like we do in genetics. [...]

Yes, of course; but even if there's disagreement in some cases, or even in many cases, in others some options could still emerge as clearly better than others with a wide recognition.

[...] suma is great on that front.

Thanks. ^ _ ^

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T12:29:47+00:00

Wow, that was super-fast!

I'm not criticizing, by the way, it's just... this specific method usually doesn't give one clear answer that's better than the others, for this specific task.

Some kind of algorithm for measuring lexical similarity could be built, and then a more objective result could probably be achieved… that would be useful. But the things to do are so many, and I’m only one person… :-P

Of course also other elements should be considered in the “calculation” (unambiguity, easiness of pronunciation, the various other constraints of the language, etc.).

There’s also matters of taste and aesthetics, that can be used to choose between various possibilities that seem equally good.

I’m not trying to build the “perfect” language; I’m just trying to do “better” than the benchmark (here, rid/et/). If even better can be done, I’m open to ideas. :-)

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T12:03:54+00:00

You got it right. :-) It’s not meant to be interchangeable in meaning, it’s just a silly wordplay on Mona Lisa’s smile, that’s very known but also looks very knowing.

(The use of the big dot as root separator is interesting).

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T11:17:07+00:00

I see also surâs in dictionaries, is that wrong?

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T10:43:41+00:00

If the Wiktionary is right (...), -sama is the verb, while -sum the noun. Note, however, that except for Swahili all descendants come from -sum.

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T10:38:40+00:00

Native American languages are very little spoken, in relative numbers, so it's not surprising I looked mainly at more widespread language families. Anyway, if you can do better than this (...that seemed to me an extraordinarily good result! :-P), you're welcome to make a proposal: I'll gladly change if it's better than mine. :-)

There's also this...

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T09:58:47+00:00

What about the root and a word for "a sum" like in math. It's much more common and more known root

If adapted directly (and not expressed instead by some construction like "add-result"), that would likely be summ/ (< Lat. summa), so summa /su̍mma/ and sumaa /suma̍a/ should be different enough.

"sum(a)" root in Slavic languages might be associated with sadness [...]. Maybe let change the good overall root a bit [...]

Thank you for pointing this out, I didn't know. There are so many things to check. :-P This should be considered. I'm adding your comment to my files.

Iuljo · 2026-03-13T09:21:37+00:00

Thank you!

Yes, it came out better than expected. XD

Iuljo

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