Lexember 5th: konta "resin; incense"

Today's word is konta resin, sap, but also incense. It is related to the verb konno flow, seep, ooze.

Konta në ol li raumirë.

kont-a në ol li raum-irë

sap-SG TOP hand ABL stick-IPFV

The sap is sticking to my hand.

Ën konta në muëmin annas si relo.

this incense TOP sweet aroma ACC bear

This incense has a sweet smell.

I might ultimately derive perfume, cologne from this, too. Haven't yet decided.

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The Ultimate Dictionary Database System

Is text. End of post.Ok, it's not quite that simple. You probably want some sort of structured text, semantically marked up if possible. But at the end of the day, all you can really rely on is text. Why Spreadsheets SuckFirst, the format is proprietary and often inconsistent across even minor version changes. You will be in a world of hurt if you want to share your dictionary with anyone else.Second — and this is the biggest problem by far, assuming you're trying to make a naturalistic conlang — a real dictionary for a real language does not look like this:kətaŋsleepkətapbookkətəshangnail on the left little finger which interferes with one's needleworkkəwatreekəwahnoodlekəwecomputerkəweŋhardA few words between two languages might have (nearly) perfect overlap, and the early history of word in a conlang might start as a simple gloss, but a simple word-to-word matching is profoundly lying to you for a real language, and in a conlang signals a relex.A real dictionary ent…

Lexember 31st: unëho, "be satiated"

The final word for the 2018 Lexember season is unëho /ʔu.ˈnə.xo/ be satiated. It is most used with expressions of consuming, generally as a converb,

Ha në sanët unëho.
ha në san-ët unëh-o
1SG TOP eat-CVB.PFV be.satiated-PFV
I've eaten enough. Or, I'm full.

Ton në ilët unëho tul?
2SG TOP drink.CVB.PFV be.satiated.PFV Q
Have you had enough to drink?

But it can be used alone,

Ronuin në vurun unëho më.
aristocrat TOP when be.satiated.PFV NEG
Aristocrats are never satiated.

Singular nouns with the topic marker në can be used to refer to a class.

Kílta metaphor: SALT IS VITALITY

One standard feature of my current grammars for new languages is a separate section after the dictionary where I focus on particular areas of interest or difficulty. For example, copulas and verbs of existence in Kílta have a few complications, so there's a section on those. This lets me limit cross-references in the dictionary definitions to something reasonable, while still being able to give a thorough overview later.

A subsection on conceptual metaphor (Conlangery Podcast #66) is now standard in my grammars. I've recently been working out the metaphor SALT IS VITALITY (for some reason, conceptual metaphors are often given in all-caps like this).

When I first thought about this metaphor, I spent a little while first thinking through the implications. In this instance, I already had an idiom involving salt that would interact a bit oddly with it —

Ches si tirat vuëtiso.
salt ACC give.1R-INF try-PFV
They tried to bribe me. (lit., "they tied to give me salt")
I decided …

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