reconlangmo 7: discourse (#155)

* reconlangmo 7: discourse

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+---
+title: "ReConLangMo 7: Discourse"
+date: 2020-05-25
+series: reconlangmo
+tags:
+ - conlang
+ - lewa
+---
+
+# ReConLangMo 7: Discourse
+
+Previously on [ReConLangMo][reconlangmo], we covered a lot of new words for the
+lexicon of L'ewa. This helps to flesh out a lot of what can be said, but
+conversations themselves can be entirely different from formal sentences.
+Conversations flow and ebb based on the needs/wants of the interlocutors. This
+post will start to cover a lot of the softer skills behind L'ewa as well as
+cover some other changes I'm making under the hood. This is a response to [this
+prompt][rclm7].
+
+[reconlangmo]: https://christine.website/blog/series/reconlangmo
+[rclm7]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gqo8jn/reconlangmo_7_discourse/
+
+## Information Structure
+
+L'ewa doesn't have any particular structure for marking previously known
+information, as normal sentences should suffice in most cases. Consider this
+paragraph:
+
+```
+I saw you eat an apple. Was it tasty?
+```
+
+Since `an apple` was the last thing mentioned in the paragraph, the vague "it"
+pronoun in the second sentence can be interpreted as "the apple".
+
+L'ewa doesn't have a way to mark the topic of a sentence, that should be obvious
+from context (additional clauses to describe things will help here). In most
+cases the subject should be equivalent to the topic of a sentence.
+
+L'ewa doesn't directly offer ways to emphasize parts of sentences with phonemic
+stress like English does (eg: "I THOUGHT you ate an apple" vs "I thought you ATE
+an apple"), but emotion words can be used to help indicate feelings about
+things, which should suffice as far as emphasis goes.
+
+## Discourse Structure
+
+Conversationally, a lot of things in L'ewa grammar get dropped unless it's
+ambiguous. The I/yous that get tacked on in English are completely unneeded. A
+completely valid conversation could look something like this:
+
+```
+<Mai> xoi
+<Cadey> xoi
+<Mai> xoi madsa?
+<Cadey> lo spalo
+```
+
+And it would roughly equate to:
+
+```
+<Mai> Hi
+<Cadey> Hi, you doing okay?
+<Mai> Yes, have you eaten?
+<Cadey> Yes, I ate an apple
+```
+
+People know when they can speak after a sufficient pause between utterances.
+Interrupting is not common but not a social faux-pas, and can be used to stop a
+false assumption from being said.
+
+## Utterances
+
+An utterance in L'ewa is anything from a single content word all the way up to
+an entire paragraph of sentences. An emotion particle can be a complete
+utterance. A question particle can be a complete utterance, anything can be an
+utterance. A speaker may want to choose more succinct options when the other
+detail is already contextually known or simply not relevant to the listener.
+
+L'ewa has a few discourse particles, here are a few of the more significant
+ones:
+
+| L'ewa | Function                                             |
+|-------|------------------------------------------------------|
+| xi    | signals that the verb of the sentence is coming next |
+| ko    | ends a noun phrase                                   |
+| ka    | marks something as the subject of the sentence       |
+| ke    | marks something as the verb of the sentence          |
+| ku    | marks something as the object of the sentence        |
+
+## Formality
+
+The informal dialect of L'ewa drops everything it can. The formal dialect
+retains everything it can, to the point where it includes noun phrase endings,
+the verb signaler, ka/ke/ku and every single optional particle in the language.
+The formal dialect will end up sounding rather wordy compared to informal slangy
+speech. Consider the differences between informal and formal versions of "I eat
+an apple":
+
+```
+mi madsa lo spalo.
+```
+
+```
+ka mi ko xi ke madsa ku lo spalo ko.
+```
+
+Nearly all of those particles are not required in informal speech (you could
+even get away with `madsa lo spalo` depending on context), but are required in
+formal speech to ensure there is as little contextual confusion as possible.
+Things like laws or legal rulings would be written out in the formal register.
+
+## Greetings and Farewell
+
+"Hello" in L'ewa is said using `xoi`. It can also be used as a reply to hello
+similar to «ça va» in French. It is possible to have an entire conversation with
+just `xoi`:
+
+```
+<Mai> xoi
+<Cadey> xoi
+<Mai> xoi
+```
+
+The other implications of `xoi` are "how are you?" "I am good, you?", "I am
+good", etc. If more detail is needed beyond this, then it can be supplied
+instead of replying with `xoi`.
+
+"Goodbye" is said using `xei`. Like `xoi` it can be used as a reply to another
+goodbye and can form a mini-conversation:
+
+```
+<Cadey> xei
+<Mai> xei
+<Cadey> xei
+```
+
+## Emotion Words
+
+Feelings in L'ewa are marked with a family of particles called "UI". These can
+also be modified with other particles. Here are the emotional markers:
+
+| L'ewa | English        |
+|-------|----------------|
+| `a'a` | attentive      |
+| `a'e` | alertness      |
+| `ai`  | intent         |
+| `a'i` | effort         |
+| `a'o` | hope           |
+| `au`  | desire         |
+| `a'u` | interest       |
+| `e'a` | permission     |
+| `e'e` | competence     |
+| `ei`  | obligation     |
+| `e'i` | constraint     |
+| `e'o` | request        |
+| `e'u` | suggestion     |
+| `ia`  | belief         |
+| `i'a` | acceptance     |
+| `ie`  | agreement      |
+| `i'e` | approval       |
+| `ii`  | fear           |
+| `i'i` | togetherness   |
+| `io`  | respect        |
+| `i'o` | appreciation   |
+| `iu`  | love           |
+| `i'u` | familiarity    |
+| `o'a` | pride          |
+| `o'e` | closeness      |
+| `oi`  | complaint/pain |
+| `o'i` | caution        |
+| `o'o` | patience       |
+| `o'u` | relaxation     |
+| `ua`  | discovery      |
+| `u'a` | gain           |
+| `ue`  | surprise       |
+| `u'e` | wonder         |
+| `ui`  | happiness      |
+| `u'i` | amusement      |
+| `uo`  | completion     |
+| `u'o` | courage        |
+| `uu`  | pity           |
+| `u'u` | repentant      |
+
+If an emotion is unknown in a conversation, you can ask with `kei`:
+
+```
+<Mai> xoi, so kei?
+      hi,  what-verb what-feeling?
+
+<Cadey> madsa ui
+        eating :D
+```
+
+This system is wholesale stolen from [Lojban](https://lojban.github.io/cll/13/1/).
+
+## Connectives
+
+Connectives exist to link noun phrases and verbs together into larger
+noun phrases and verbs. They can also be used to link together sentences. There
+are four simple connectives: `fa` (OR), `fe` (AND), `fi` (connective question),
+`fo` (if-and-only-if) and `fu` (whether-or-not).
+
+### OR
+
+```
+ro au madsa lo spalo fa lo hafto?
+Do you want to eat an apple or an egg?
+```
+
+### AND
+
+```
+ro au madsa lo spalo fe lo hafto?
+Do you want to eat an apple and an egg?
+```
+
+### If and Only If
+
+```
+ro 'amwo mi fo mi madsa hafto?
+Do you love me if I eat eggs?
+```
+
+### Whether or Not
+
+```
+mi 'amwo ro. fu ro madsa hafto.
+I love you, whether or not you eat eggs.
+```
+
+### Connective Question
+
+```
+ro au madsa lo spalo fi lo hafto?
+Do you want to eat apples and/or eggs?
+```
+
+## Changes Being Made to L'ewa
+
+Early on, I mentioned that family terms were gendered. This also ended up with
+me making some gendered terms for people. I have since refactored out all of the
+gendered terms in favor of more universal terms. Here is a table of some of the
+terms that have been replaced:
+
+| English                 | L'ewa term  | L'ewa word |
+|-------------------------|-------------|------------|
+| brother/sister          | sibling     | xinga      |
+| mother/father           | parent      | pa'ma      |
+| grandfather/grandmother | grandparent | gra'u      |
+| aunt/uncle              | parent      | pa'ma      |
+| cousin                  | sibling     | xinga      |
+| man/woman               | Creator     | kirta      |
+| man/woman               | human       | renma      |
+
+In some senses, gender exists. In other senses, gender does not. With L'ewa I
+want to explore what is possible with language. It would be interesting to
+create a language where gender can be discussed as it is, not as the categories
+that it has historically fit into. Consider colors. There are millions of
+colors, all sightly different but many follow general patterns. No one or two
+colors can be thought of as the "default" color, yet we can have long and
+meaningful conversations about what color is and what separates colors from
+eachother.
+
+I aim to have the same kind of granularity in L'ewa. As a goal of the language,
+I should be able to point to any content word in the dictionary and be able to
+say "that's my gender" in the same way I can describe color or music with that
+tree. These will implicitly be metaphors (which does detract a bit from the
+logical stance L'ewa normally takes) because gender is almost always a metaphor
+in practice. L'ewa will not have binary gender.
+
+Issue [number two](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa/issues/2) on the L'ewa repo will
+help track the creation and implementation of a truly non-binary "gender" system
+for L'ewa.
+
+---
+
+I've been chugging through the Swaedish list more and more to build up more of
+L'ewa's vocabulary in preparation for starting to translate sentences more
+complicated than simple "I eat an apple" or "Do you like eating plants?". One of
+the first things I want to translate is the classic [tower of babel
+story][babel].
+
+[babel]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel
+
+Be well.