quote:
Originally posted by DJ:
<STRONG>Your efforts are commendable, but I don't see why would Dwarven have the same word order as English. Different languages have different word orders (German is especially weird).</STRONG>
I've studied German, and the word-order is quite confusing. However, I have something different in mind:
Ransackedring, Whisperingbust, Whippedheart, Spikewhipped, Guildpacked, Rungtowers - these almost mean something.
Fortifyrusted (verb+verb), Minedbowed (verb+verb), Ringedslap, Ringransacked, Bustwhispering - these don't really work.
Ransacked-something is a good combination and makes sense, because generally you ransack something. Whipped-thing and Thing-whipped both work, because you can whip things and whip with things. Ideally, I'd like to be able to define how verbs are used. If I can't have that, many verbs' part participe (thanks, Aloysius) works as front compound, but not as rear compound, so that's a nice compromise. Also, verbs never work when combined with other verbs.
Here are more actual grammatic suggestions:
Belllabors, Bluenesssword and other names where front compound ends on double-consonant, and the next word starts with the same consonant, don't look good.
Double vocals such as Tundraarmor aren't nearly as common, but they're still worth mentioning. The only word with a triplet-vocal I can think of is Sableeel.
There's also the special case of adjectives that modify the word they affect. There's difference between "old stone house" and "stone old house", because 'stone house' is one, distinct thing, while 'old house' just describes a common house. All materials and colors are modifying adjectives that should be close to the word, relative to other adjectives. Numericals should be far from the noun: three iron daggers, one true hero etc.
It'd be nice to be able to limit various words to just singular or plural form. The One Ring, The Seven Sisters, The Lone Mountain, etc. The adj_dist might do this, because some words seem to work this way, but I've got no idea what it actually does. I think smaller adj_dist means the adjective appears more often, however.
Brooks and rivers often have poor names. Just the name-part or the the-part is enough in most cases, and most often either works better than both. Brooks should have name-part names (Bathechance is the best brook name ever!), while streams and big rivers should be The Something, and having both should be quite rare.
For some reason a brook can get named "A Cyclopean Planet". I had thought words belonging to the NAME_REGION symbol group didn't appear in normal names.
Peaks and Volcanoes should like singular names more than plural names.
[ March 07, 2008: Message edited by: Janne Joensuu ]