Zompist Bboard Again

I'm going to back out and leave this to someone more level-headed. I don't have any way to respond to this that wouldn't earn me significant ire.

ah yes, the linguistic standard of mapping out the entire (thanks to the advance of science, well-known and empirically bounded) space of possibilities for human language and explicitly mentioning the space not occupied by the language under description

Also this side-discussion should probably be moved to its own thread so Dewrad can get on with conlanging in peace

I think Richard's main misreading here is that he thinks Dewrad seemed like he was going to write a careful question-by-question answer to every item and subitem in Describing Morphosyntax (as I did with English in this thread with the WALS chapters), and then he saw Dewrad announcing the apparent contradiction that he would not do so.

But Dewrad actually said he was going to use the questions as prompts, which is something different. Dewrad's point wasn't answering the questions, but starting from the questions to head into some detail that was not asked about. And then, Richard's framework would prevent him from understanding Dewrad and others' responses, besides some strange insistence that Dewrad follow his interpretation to the letter, for, as the Bible says, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Describing Morphosyntax law till all is fulfilled (Matthew 5:18).

Considering how much I enjoyed Dewrad's Telpahké and related conworld, I'd like to see the thread continued in spite of the above though.

Ser wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:05 pm I think Richard's main misreading here is that he thinks Dewrad seemed like he was going to write a careful question-by-question answer to every item and subitem in Describing Morphosyntax (as I did with English in this thread with the WALS chapters), and then he saw Dewrad announcing the apparent contradiction that he would not do so.

My point was simply that negative information is also useful.

Ser wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:05 pm But Dewrad actually said he was going to use the questions as prompts, which is something different. Dewrad's point wasn't answering the questions, but starting from the questions to head into some detail that was not asked about.

Indeed, I agree that it may very well be appropriate for the inapplicability of a subsection to be made clear at a higher level, and leave it at that. That still responds to the prompt.

Ser wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 12:05 pm Considering how much I enjoyed Dewrad's Telpahké and related conworld, I'd like to see the thread continued in spite of the above though.

Seconded. We don't have to all like his format.