Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Department of Creativity / Advice sought / <!>Advice sought (2014-04-19 14:35:16)
As mentioned elsewhere:
1. It seems really, really weird to me to break up morphology and syntax so deeply. I realise that there are other grammars that do this, and that it may be marginally more convenient for an expert who only occasionally needs to look up a few inflections or syntax rules but not both, but it's definitely anti-didactic, and for a conlang's grammar I think it's a lot more useful to assume the reader knows little or nothing about how the language works.
2. The "categorization" paragraph at the start of "issues in Jamna morphology" piques my interest with the irregularities it suggests and its talk of syntax and derivation—but the stuff it talks about is nowhere to be seen. I think you should try to make an effort to break up the absolute dead obvious noun and verb inflections (e.g. TAM, noun case, noun number, etc.) before you introduce grey areas (e.g. the this/that/which series) and finally clear-cut derivational morphemes, such as the first set of haaioari.
3. You introduce the stem endings for accusative, dative, and nominative without first saying definitively what cases the language has and what they're used for. This, I think, is the worst consequence of the grammar's overall division into syntax and morphology.
4. The verb section is a little better because it starts with a chart describing all the parts of the verb, which helps the reader get a bit of a sense of everything that's going on—I was happy with it up until the second sentence of the TAM complex section, which told me I had to go read the syntax section to figure out how this part of the language worked. Again, breaking up the grammar this way rebukes the student.
5. If you're referencing another section, can you throw in an internal link to an anchor tag? Kinda adding insult to agony here.
6. Both the syntactical and morphological sections on formants are disasters—the morphological one is basically redundant, and the syntactical one needs a summary table. The way this section is written suggests that formants don't have clear-cut uses, requiring the patient memorization of the entire thing in order to be sure one does not conflate them. (I'm particularly annoyed that it takes to the section paragraph of "-so" to figure out what it does.)
7. "multiple preference patterns" – empty heading before "other adjustments" and a number of empty headings within "other adjustments"... but I won't report on those any further.
8. I'm hesitant about the "other adjustments" section. On one hand, it's not immediately clear to me how to write it differently, but at the same time it feels like it sharply perpetuates the tradition of being overly analytical at the expense of didactic value. At a minimum this section needs a lot of examples and, ideally, headings that also describe what each adjustment is used for; this may just be me being an inexperienced linguist, but I have my doubts that someone asking "how do I say x in Jamna Kopiai?" is going to immediately jump to the section entitled "IDO extraction," particularly as I can't even figure out what it means. (The "postposing (de-extraction)" part is backward and needs to be introduced more clearly for the roles it provides, while the remaining adjustments seem somewhat easier to grasp at a glance.)
...hopefully that'll be enough to get you started; I realise it leaves at least half of the grammar uncovered.
1. It seems really, really weird to me to break up morphology and syntax so deeply. I realise that there are other grammars that do this, and that it may be marginally more convenient for an expert who only occasionally needs to look up a few inflections or syntax rules but not both, but it's definitely anti-didactic, and for a conlang's grammar I think it's a lot more useful to assume the reader knows little or nothing about how the language works.
2. The "categorization" paragraph at the start of "issues in Jamna morphology" piques my interest with the irregularities it suggests and its talk of syntax and derivation—but the stuff it talks about is nowhere to be seen. I think you should try to make an effort to break up the absolute dead obvious noun and verb inflections (e.g. TAM, noun case, noun number, etc.) before you introduce grey areas (e.g. the this/that/which series) and finally clear-cut derivational morphemes, such as the first set of haaioari.
3. You introduce the stem endings for accusative, dative, and nominative without first saying definitively what cases the language has and what they're used for. This, I think, is the worst consequence of the grammar's overall division into syntax and morphology.
4. The verb section is a little better because it starts with a chart describing all the parts of the verb, which helps the reader get a bit of a sense of everything that's going on—I was happy with it up until the second sentence of the TAM complex section, which told me I had to go read the syntax section to figure out how this part of the language worked. Again, breaking up the grammar this way rebukes the student.
5. If you're referencing another section, can you throw in an internal link to an anchor tag? Kinda adding insult to agony here.
6. Both the syntactical and morphological sections on formants are disasters—the morphological one is basically redundant, and the syntactical one needs a summary table. The way this section is written suggests that formants don't have clear-cut uses, requiring the patient memorization of the entire thing in order to be sure one does not conflate them. (I'm particularly annoyed that it takes to the section paragraph of "-so" to figure out what it does.)
7. "multiple preference patterns" – empty heading before "other adjustments" and a number of empty headings within "other adjustments"... but I won't report on those any further.
8. I'm hesitant about the "other adjustments" section. On one hand, it's not immediately clear to me how to write it differently, but at the same time it feels like it sharply perpetuates the tradition of being overly analytical at the expense of didactic value. At a minimum this section needs a lot of examples and, ideally, headings that also describe what each adjustment is used for; this may just be me being an inexperienced linguist, but I have my doubts that someone asking "how do I say x in Jamna Kopiai?" is going to immediately jump to the section entitled "IDO extraction," particularly as I can't even figure out what it means. (The "postposing (de-extraction)" part is backward and needs to be introduced more clearly for the roles it provides, while the remaining adjustments seem somewhat easier to grasp at a glance.)
...hopefully that'll be enough to get you started; I realise it leaves at least half of the grammar uncovered.