I've done a little more thinking about the Glyphica, and paid a visit to
the Language Construction Kit site. Given that this is a rather arcane
lagnuage, here are some questions to think about:
Besides marking nouns for plurality and subject/object, do you mark for
direct v. indirect object? Gender? Do you have a way of indicating
number beyond "one" or "many"?
Are verbs marked by person, gender, or number?
What distinctions do you make with the verbs?
* Tense
* Completion (a/k/a perfection)
* Aspect (single act, act-in-progress, habitual act, repeated act)
* Mood (Indicative/Subjunctive/Negative/Imperative)
* Evidentiality
* Intransitive/Transitive/Reflexive
* Static/Dynamic (describes a state/reports a change in state)
* Deference between speaker & listener
As an example, one Austronesian language has 4 past tenses and three
future tenses, plus present tense, allowing them to describe events on a
continuum of remote past, near past, yesterday, last night, this moment,
immediate future, near future, remote future.
Given that the Glyphica Arcana are tied to magic, I'd say there
definitely needs to be a way of indicating imperative verb forms.
Perhaps the symbols for the Ones of the Ephermera in certain positions?
The Glyphica remind me a little of the magic glyph tattoos that Weis &
Hickman invented for their Death Gate novel series.
Andrew
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