(From Lognet 91/3)
The Academy has several pending proposals, but no new decisions to report in this issue. Logli are reminded that proposals to the Academy should not be combined with general correspondence. Proposals should be physically separate if several are submitted, each described on a separate and single sheet of paper. Supporting studies may be included as supplemental material. Please make your submissions in triplicate, as we are now three..
One of us (JCB) mentioned briefly last time that, after more than a year of public discussion and private deliberation, Dr. McIvor's proposal for a "general declension"—one that could apply to nearly any predicate of the language; see LN89/1:6—had been "rejected". That wasn't strictly true. While Dr. McIvor had put his idea up for general discussion in December 1989, he never did propose it formally to the Keugru. As time went on, and studies showed that a general declension would have disturbing effects on the affix system, he, too, decided against re-engineering the language. Both then-members of the Keugru—we were still two at the time—were impressed with Bill Gober's "shoot the engineer" argument in LN91/1:4. We agree with Bill that our current objective should be to use and perfect the language, not to re-engineer it. We were similarly unanimous in our judgment that the animal declension—also an idea of Dr. McIvor's—was worth adding. We concluded that it would have very small effects on the affix system, and that its other effects were probably benign.
As a result of our adoption of the animal declension, a generic animal predicate (for any age or sex) will now always end in -u regardless of its previous derivation. The word for the female of the species will end in -a, the adjectival form that means ‘like (that species)’ will end in -e, the infant form in -i, and the male form in -o. Hence berci = 'lamb', berco = 'ram', berca = 'ewe', berce = 'ovine', and bercu = 'sheep'. Complexes can still be made, of course; e.g., ?junkasna could well mean 'heifer'. Any CVC-form affixes that had been assigned to the old predicate will remain in force and will apply as before to the generic animal; e.g., horkarti = 'horse cart'. Where it is necessary to make a sex or age distinction, as in 'heifer', the long form should be used. Thus either ?cinkasno or ?menkasni could mean 'baby bull'.
—JCB/RAM/SLR