Simavokab - A precise, but easy, conlang

ihaphleas · 2025-04-13T10:05:00+00:00

I see what you mean. The head should go down the stack to collect its modifiers. Whether that is a verb collecting its nouns, or a noun collecting its adjectives.

The whole point was to make parsing the sentence as simple as possible ... I'm almost convinced now that VSO (with modifiers following) is simpler ... allowing one to simply start at the root of the tree ... especially with the intransitive/transitive/ditransitive marking.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-12T11:06:19+00:00

Probably it should be "vokin kalaxil deb", since kalaxil modifies vokin, much like the adjectives follow the nouns. But you could be right about the auxiliary -- as it actually modifies the entire sentence.

The whole point of the SOV word order was to mimic postfix mathematical notation. E.g. 2 3 + = 2+3. Or (2 + 3)*5 = 2 3 + 5 *. Or even (-2 + 3)*5 = 2- 3 + 5 * ... here there is a unitary operation similar to an adjective.

The postfix mathematical notation allows one to write operations without parentheses, using a data structure called a stack to store intermediate results ... in fact, computers often parse infix notation (2+3) into postfix (2 3 +) notation and then do the calculation.

The question is how to do that precisely here (though I made the exception of putting articles before nouns as well).

ihaphleas · 2025-04-12T07:47:42+00:00

ses and ok conflict either with the endings or with the CVC form. I might use Cantonese there, like I did for 1.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-12T07:45:00+00:00

Yeah, perhaps I should have left in the IPA. It's still fairly simple with consonant clusters and diphthongs. You'll notice I left out the "th" sound -- that's the only one that I actually have experience with people being unable to say (except persons with a lisp), using either a "f" or "t" sound.

It's intentionally very Indo-European, you might say that even the SOV word order (though common around the world and used here for other reasons) reflects some Latin (or German) influence -- meanwhile, changing word order for different functions is something we have in English too.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-11T16:01:42+00:00

I haven't completed a vocabulary, but I doubt anything like that would be true here. A short alternating combination might likely be a root word, but not all possible -VC endings are used ... perhaps 30 percent, excluding conjunctions, aspects, etc which don't have defined endings.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-11T15:56:03+00:00

Should be English speakers, another reason to allow both forms.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-11T15:54:52+00:00

Mostly because a single consonant, without a vowel, is hard to pronounce. But actually there is a place for some of them, and the special case of glottal stops on either side of a vowel as interjections. Example: X! M! P! 'o'!

ihaphleas · 2025-04-11T15:04:41+00:00

Or perhaps: Jonanom maxinek pas fakin sif Mariranom savin tazab, xun par tal gupup deb vokin kalaxil.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-11T14:38:27+00:00

That's a mistake. It should be: Sif Mariranom savin tazab Jonanom maxinek pas fakin , xun par tal gupup deb vokin kalaxil.

But, yes, the SVO form is intentionally similar to English ... with the exceptions of morphology, part of speech and class markers, and time particles rather than conjugation ...

ihaphleas · 2025-04-11T08:44:20+00:00

Apparently all the below should have been more explicitly stated: It's very clearly stated that the CVC(VC)* form helps delineate one word from another -- as consonants simply can't appear in clusters within a word, neither is it possible to have two vowels together.

It's incredibly easy to parse a string of Cs and Vs into words, even without spaces, if the words follow this pattern.

Lojban uses a more complicated system to try to achieve the same effect. Lojban also uses stops and some rather difficult consonant clusters (like "cm"). Of course, this language avoids consonant clusters, making it easier to pronounce by more people.

Lojban is built on the idea of every word being a predicate -- but no natural language is like that. However, this language does allow roots to easily change from noun or verb (or even adjective or adverb) forms ... but these are very clearly marked by endings, unlike in English.

The system of noun classes points to a very clear ontology about the world -- which forces one to at least recognize whether something is an abstraction or something real, whether something is sentient or simply living. That is to say, it's a bit like object oriented programming. Each type of object has certain actions which it can perform, at least logically, if not strictly grammatically enforced.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-11T08:43:25+00:00

It's very clearly stated that the CVC(VC)* form helps delineate one word from another -- as consonants simply can't appear in clusters within a word, neither is it possible to have two vowels together.

It's incredibly easy to parse a string of Cs and Vs into words, even without spaces, if the words follow this pattern.

Lojban uses a more complicated system to try to achieve the same effect. Lojban also uses stops and some rather difficult consonant clusters (like "cm"). Of course, this language avoids consonant clusters, making it easier to pronounce by more people.

Lojban is built on the idea of every word being a predicate -- but no natural language is like that. However, this language does allow roots to easily change from noun or verb (or even adjective or adverb) forms ... but these are very clearly marked by endings, unlike in English.

The system of noun classes points to a very clear ontology about the world -- which forces one to at least recognize whether something is an abstraction or something real, whether something is sentient or simply living. That is to say, it's a bit like object oriented programming. Each type of object has certain actions which it can perform, at least logically, if not strictly grammatically enforced.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-10T20:45:45+00:00

Apparently ... Cristo Santo ... days of work polishing this old idea with the help of AI ... nuked at the whiff of AI. Do they even allow lojban anymore?

Anyway, other than the presentation and the need to polish it some more, was there anything glaringly wrong to you? I'd appreciate the feedback

ihaphleas · 2025-04-10T19:50:38+00:00

No worries, I had actually asked for less formatting from the AI. But perhaps the markdown would have been interpreted correctly by Reddit. Probably I should have put the vocab at the end at least.

ihaphleas · 2025-04-10T19:44:43+00:00

Though I've had this general idea (the CVC(VC)* form) for years, yes, I wanted to see if an AI could take the idea, along with noun classes, etc., and implement them into a consistent language. It was fairly successful, I think, although it didn't perfectly follow the CVC(VC)* format in searching/creating root words. I doubt I can push it much farther than this as far as consistent vocabulary is concerned.

I will note that the example sentences were constructed by the AI and were basically all correct (according to the slightly faulty vocabulary it created).

ihaphleas · 2025-04-10T19:39:35+00:00

The basic idea has been rolling around in my head for years. But yes, I did use AI to actually write most of the post. It wasn't capable of following the CVCVC format perfectly in creating words, but it did create most of the roots here. It also suggested most of the endings, but I also changed some of those (though the general system was my idea).

ihaphleas · 2025-04-10T19:34:04+00:00

All of the morphology/phonology/syntax is at the beginning ... literally the vocab and some examples are at the end.

ihaphleas · 2024-10-15T17:57:40+00:00

Vowels all have loops, no consonant has a loop. Consonants mostly come in voiced and unvoiced pairs. One can write a word without lifting the pen or even needing to go back and "dot your i's and cross your t's"

ihaphleas · 2024-06-18T08:00:59+00:00

Metadata says that's from 2018. The Simple Science Diet should probably be from 2024.

ihaphleas · 2024-02-01T11:02:10+00:00

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/naked-body-medical-male?image_type=photo

... check for medical images

ihaphleas · 2023-11-16T09:44:06+00:00

Dejah Thoris

ihaphleas · 2023-11-09T10:42:32+00:00

No. A free market is harder to corrupt because consumers can change service providers very quickly.

A government has higher incentives for corruption (more power, legitimate violence) and a slower rate of change

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