Some while ago I had to change my mind on the
shape of the plural definite article in Rhodrese.
Ever since the inception of the lang I’d thought
the plural definite article was il, but with the
rule that unstressed e and unstressed i are
pronounced alike as [ɪ] a
plural il would be homophonous with the
masculine el, and I can clearly not have that!
Better then to have the plural article as li,
with the prepositions + article contractions
becoming dilli, alli, polli etc. Needless to say
the plural article before words beginning in a
vowel remains gl’.
This also offers a clue to the demise of distinct
feminine forms, for surely the feminine plural
article was originally le but became homophonous
with the masculine li. The abolition of le was
surely one of Bernual’s reforms.
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On Romconlang Peter Collier wrote:
Once more I find myeself torn, BP, between awe at your philological
near-omniscience, and despair as yet again I find myself reconsidering
linguistic points I thought I had firmly pinned down….
Trying to sort even the bare bones of this language is like trying to herd
cats.
P
I sure hope I haven’t achieved even near philological omniscience. For
one thing the leading passion of my life would be spent already in
mid-life, and for the other I know best how many books I’ve read only
cursorily or not at all — I do hope they were not written in vain!
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Want to post this to your blog? it doesn’t really fit in as a comment on an exisiting post, and I can’t make an original post myself of course.
With the sound changes now more or less in place, I’ve also been working on some grammar basics (pronouns, articles, etc) but I’m too tired to write up all of that right now!
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