Quick call for help...
I need to find a way to get my vocabulary up for my various languages, but it doesn’t really seem to come that easily to me; the words keep turning out ugly. Any strategies you guys might recommend?
Vocabulary Expansion
Vocabulary Expansion
My name means either "person who trumpets minor points of learning" or "maker of words." That fact that it means the latter in Sindarin is a demonstration of the former. Beware.
Spell Merchant | Patreon
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Re: Vocabulary Expansion
Im curious what strategy youre using now.... I dont want to recommend something only to find that its the thing thats bringing you down. But anyway,...
I created a word-gen list about a mile long for the most recent all-CV ancestor of my main conlangs, and then whenever I need a new root I pick one or two of the CVCV roots on the list (depending on how basic the concept is), and derive it through the sound changes. But I play a lot .... sometimes I take only one syllable from one of the words, so I really have three starting lengths ... CVCV, CVCVCV, and CVCVCVCV.
However, the lexicon of my main conlangs, Poswa and Pabappa, has been massaged so much that I may as well have created each word from scratch. There's no quick way to do that .... I've been at it for fifteen years and I'm still not really done with either of them.
I created a word-gen list about a mile long for the most recent all-CV ancestor of my main conlangs, and then whenever I need a new root I pick one or two of the CVCV roots on the list (depending on how basic the concept is), and derive it through the sound changes. But I play a lot .... sometimes I take only one syllable from one of the words, so I really have three starting lengths ... CVCV, CVCVCV, and CVCVCVCV.
However, the lexicon of my main conlangs, Poswa and Pabappa, has been massaged so much that I may as well have created each word from scratch. There's no quick way to do that .... I've been at it for fifteen years and I'm still not really done with either of them.
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k1234567890y
- Posts: 75
- Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 6:55 am
Re: Vocabulary Expansion
1. create non-derived words(roots) and derivational affixes
2. see how natlangs derive words
3. calque compound words and derived words from natlangs, you can calque from Latin, Greek, German, Dutch, Chinese, etc.
Also you can take a look at this: https://linguifex.com/wiki/Guide:Derivations
For a list of potential non-derived words, you can take a look at the Swadesh list, the Leipzig-Jakarta list, the globish word list(you can find it at http://www.jpn-globish.com/file/1500motsGlobish.pdf ), the Basic English wordlist(you can find it at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip ... d_wordlist ), the list of gismu of Lojban(you can find it at http://www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/gismu.txt ).
Something about affixes:
Affixes turning nouns into adjectives seem to tend to mean "of or pertaining to ..."(represented by -ic, -ical, -al in English), "with the characteristic of"(represented by -ish in English), "with, full of or covered with..."(represented by -y, -ful, -some, -ed, -ive, -ous in English), "without or without the property of..."(represented by -less in English), "resembling..."(represented by -like in English), "in the direction of..."(represented by -wards, -wise in English)
Affixes turning verbs into adjectives seem to tend to mean "being the patient of the action"(represented by -ed in English), "doing the action"(represented by English -ing, -ive), "tending to do the action"(represented by English -ive, -ing, -ous), "capable of being the patient of the action"(represented by English -able).
Moreover, don't let aesthetics bother you too much.
Finally, take your time, Rome wasn't built in a day.
2. see how natlangs derive words
3. calque compound words and derived words from natlangs, you can calque from Latin, Greek, German, Dutch, Chinese, etc.
Also you can take a look at this: https://linguifex.com/wiki/Guide:Derivations
For a list of potential non-derived words, you can take a look at the Swadesh list, the Leipzig-Jakarta list, the globish word list(you can find it at http://www.jpn-globish.com/file/1500motsGlobish.pdf ), the Basic English wordlist(you can find it at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip ... d_wordlist ), the list of gismu of Lojban(you can find it at http://www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/gismu.txt ).
Something about affixes:
Affixes turning nouns into adjectives seem to tend to mean "of or pertaining to ..."(represented by -ic, -ical, -al in English), "with the characteristic of"(represented by -ish in English), "with, full of or covered with..."(represented by -y, -ful, -some, -ed, -ive, -ous in English), "without or without the property of..."(represented by -less in English), "resembling..."(represented by -like in English), "in the direction of..."(represented by -wards, -wise in English)
Affixes turning verbs into adjectives seem to tend to mean "being the patient of the action"(represented by -ed in English), "doing the action"(represented by English -ing, -ive), "tending to do the action"(represented by English -ive, -ing, -ous), "capable of being the patient of the action"(represented by English -able).
Moreover, don't let aesthetics bother you too much.
Finally, take your time, Rome wasn't built in a day.
Last edited by k1234567890y on Sat Jul 27, 2019 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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alynnidalar
- Posts: 336
- Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2018 11:51 am
- Location: Michigan
Re: Vocabulary Expansion
Is the issue you don't like the words you're coming up with, or you don't like the way they look after affixes are attached, or you don't like the way they look after sound changes?
In any case, my advice is to forget about trying to come up with words for specific vocabulary items--just come up with words that fit your phonotactics that also fit what you consider non-ugly, and reference this list down the road when you need a new word. If you want to dig into phonotactics, you can analyze this list to figure out what makes it different from the "ugly" words, and can build those restrictions into your phonotactics/phonology to begin with. e.g. if the "ugly" words are ones that have a lot of consonant clusters, then restrict or eliminate consonant clusters, and if "beautiful" words have a lot of a particular phoneme, then just embrace that phoneme as unusually common.
If the issue is ugly words after applying sound changes, then I would do basically the same thing. Generate or invent a bunch of "Old X" words, then run them through your sound changes to "Modern X". (even if they're ugly in "Old X", they might not be in "Modern X") Pay attention to what sound changes make words "ugly"; you may end up needing to modify your sound changes to better fit your desired aesthetics. This obviously takes at least twice as long as my first piece of advice, but again, you can end up with a solid list of "good" words.
Finally, if the issue is ugly affixes, then I have two suggestions: change your affixes, or change how affixes attach to roots. Going back to my "ugly consonant clusters" example, in a case like that, you could try adding an epenthetic vowel between the root and affix to make it less ugly, or add a rule where one consonant is modified to result in a less-ugly cluster. Or add a new, prettier affix/way of forming a construction; many languages have multiple similar affixes or strategies anyway.
In any case, my advice is to forget about trying to come up with words for specific vocabulary items--just come up with words that fit your phonotactics that also fit what you consider non-ugly, and reference this list down the road when you need a new word. If you want to dig into phonotactics, you can analyze this list to figure out what makes it different from the "ugly" words, and can build those restrictions into your phonotactics/phonology to begin with. e.g. if the "ugly" words are ones that have a lot of consonant clusters, then restrict or eliminate consonant clusters, and if "beautiful" words have a lot of a particular phoneme, then just embrace that phoneme as unusually common.
If the issue is ugly words after applying sound changes, then I would do basically the same thing. Generate or invent a bunch of "Old X" words, then run them through your sound changes to "Modern X". (even if they're ugly in "Old X", they might not be in "Modern X") Pay attention to what sound changes make words "ugly"; you may end up needing to modify your sound changes to better fit your desired aesthetics. This obviously takes at least twice as long as my first piece of advice, but again, you can end up with a solid list of "good" words.
Finally, if the issue is ugly affixes, then I have two suggestions: change your affixes, or change how affixes attach to roots. Going back to my "ugly consonant clusters" example, in a case like that, you could try adding an epenthetic vowel between the root and affix to make it less ugly, or add a rule where one consonant is modified to result in a less-ugly cluster. Or add a new, prettier affix/way of forming a construction; many languages have multiple similar affixes or strategies anyway.