Kovaali Thread

[Chongster]

Hi all!
My language is still only a skeleton and far from functional, but I figured putting what I have so far out here will help it develop properly.
I've been pumping out words faster than the system is growing, so I'm probably jumping the gun haha! Anyways, here goes!

Kovaali is the ancient (proto-?) language of the Kovaali people, or Kovaalych. It has an OSV word order, and currently has both head and dependent markings (is that possible?).

Phonology

Consonants	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p, b			t, d		k, g	ʔ
Nasal	m			n
Tap				ɾ
Fricative		f, v	θ, đ	s	ʒ	x
Approximant	ʍ					ʍ
Lateral Approximant				l

My vowels are: a, ɛ, i, y, ɒ, u (a, e, i, y, o, u, respectively)

• Long vowels are signified by doubling the vowel.

Phonotactics

• Syllable structure: (C)(C)V(V)(C)

• Both open and closed syllables allowed.

• Onset: All allowed

• Coda: all allowed except /ʍ/, /ʒ/, /đ/, and /v/.

• Nucleus: all vowels and diphthongs allowed.

• Glottal stops only allowed between two vowels.

• /ʍ/ never cluster.

• Stress system: emphasis on the second-to-last syllable UNLESS the third-to-last contains a long vowel OR there are no consonants between the second-to-last and last syllable; emphasis on the last syllable if it contains a long vowel; if the second-to-last syllable contains a long vowel and does not have a consonant between it and the last syllable, the emphasis falls on the second-to-last syllable (with the long vowel).

Syntax & Grammar

• Adjectives come before nouns; adjectives that follow a “being” verb act as objects and come before the subject.

• Adverbs follow the words they modify.

• Postpositional phrases come after the words they complement.

• The “Possessor” adjective comes before the “Possessee” noun.

• Auxiliary verbs come after the main verbs.

• Indirect Objects always precede the Direct Object.

• Subject is unmarked.

• Indirect Object marker (dative suffix): -ir

- If word ends with short vowel or diphthong , drop vowel or diphthong
- If word ends with long vowel, shorten it and add –ir; stress stays on that syllable

• Direct Object marker (accusative suffix): -en

- If word ends with short vowel or diphthong , drop vowel or diphthong
- If word ends with long vowel, shorten it and add –en; stress stays on that syllable

Number

• Singular: Unmarked

• Plural: + "-os"

• Collective: + "bos"

• Base counting system: 10 (decimal)

Tenses

• Present: Unmarked

• Future: + “ -’ua“ – “will” (Auxiliary verb)

• Past:

- Perfective (completed) (“did”): + “ -’un”
- Imperfective (continuous) (“have been”): + “ -‘une”

Imperative

Imperative verbs: + "-e"

Question Structure

• Yes/No Questions are formed by including both the positive and negative forms of the verb. Ex: "Do you have bread?"; Literally: "Bread you have have-not?

• Open-ended Questions are formed by using an interrogative pronoun.

If you guys have advice on what I should focus on at this stage, let me know! I have a lot of work to do with this language. Thanks!

[Pedant]

Right now it looks like you've got the bare-bone essentials of the language, which is good, but it needs fleshing out. Make up some new vocabulary words, preferably ones that a) are general-purpose words, b) tell us something about the speakers and their culture, or c) both. Find exceptions to the rules you've set up. Construct sentences and clauses of increasing complexity. Create a script--I can always help with that if you like. Create a poetic metre and write verses. Go forth and create!

[mèþru]

It doesn't need to have all those things. Your people could perhaps lack writing or only write in another language for instance.
Trying to translate things is a good way of finding new things to add when you come across difficulties expressing something

[Chongster]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm still working out their culture, environment, and mythology, since they're all intricately connected to the language.

[Chongster]

I'm wondering if it's necessary to have a derivation morphology structure. For example, if the noun derives from an adjective, a certain affix or declension is used that is different if, say, a verb has its root in a noun. Are there languages that does this arbitrarily, or do all languages have rules that specify derivation methods?

[TomHChappell]

I'm wondering if it's necessary to have a derivation morphology structure.

Probably not necessary per se. But, maybe desirable. IIANM, more languages do have derivational morphology than don’t.
You might count it as “derivation” whenever it changes the part-of-speech; or still call it “inflection” if it’s transparent and productive and semantically consistent.
You might count any morphology that changes a verb’s valency or aktionsart (lexically-inherent aspectual class) as “derivation”; or not, if it’s transparent and productive and semantically consistent.

For example, if the noun derives from an adjective, a certain affix or declension is used that is different if, say, a verb has its root in a noun.

A noun “derived” from a verb that still has some of the properties of a verb, is called a “verbal noun”.
A noun “derived” from a verb that has none of the properties of a verb, but all the properties of a noun, is called a “deverbal noun”.
There’s a similar contrast between “adjectival noun” and “deadjectival noun”;
and between “verbal adjective” and “deverbal adjective”;
and between “adjectival verb” and “deadjectival verb”;
and between “nominal adjective” and “denominal adjective”;
and between “nominal verb” and “denominal verb”.

One of the differences between “derivation” and “inflection” is productivity.
If a morphological process applies to all or the overwhelming majority of a given part-of-speech, including all or most newly-coined or newly-borrowed members, it’s likelier to be called “inflection”. (Because it’s highly productive.)
OTOH if it applies to a minority of that part-of-speech, particularly excluding most newly-coined and almost all newly-borrowed members, it is likelier to be called “derivation”. (Because it’s not very productive.)

Another difference is semantic transparency and semantic consistency.
If the result of a morphological process has a consistent semantic relationship to its base word, and speakers of the language can easily correctly guess what the resulting word means (even if they’ve never heard it before), that process is likelier to be called “inflection”, because it’s transparent.
OTOH if the relationship of the meaning of the word resulting from some morphological process, to the meaning of its base word, is idiosyncratic, and speakers and addressees can’t easily correctly guess the meaning of the result if they’ve never heard it before, that process is likelier to be called “derivation”, because it’s semantically idiosyncratic.

Nominal adjectives, nominal verbs, verbal nouns, verbal adjectives, adjectival nouns, and adjectival verbs, are all likely to be formed by morphological processes which are largely productive and largely transparent. You (or someone else) might want to call those processes “inflection”. The only reason to call them “derivation” instead, is they change the part-of-speech. (And they still leave some of the characteristics of the base-word’s part-of-speech!)

Denominal adjectives, denominal verbs, deadjectival nouns, deadjectival verbs, deverbal nouns, and deverbal adjectives, are likelier to be created by morphological processes which are not very productive, and/or semantically idiosyncratic rather than transparent or consistent. If so, you probably want to call those processes “derivation” instead of “inflection”. (OTOH if such a process is productive and transparent, maybe you want to call it “inflection”.)

Are there languages that does this arbitrarily,

I don’t know about “arbitrarily”.

But as i inderstand it many languages do have separate declensions for e.g. verbal and/or deverbal nouns; and many don’t.
For instance, a noun’s declension may depend on its gender as well as its phonology, and some languages have a specific gender for verbal and/or deverbal nouns, or some gender that contains all of them and also some other nouns. (Maybe such as abstract nouns?)

And IIANM many languages have separate conjugations for nominal verbs and/or denominal verbs and/or adjectival verbs and/or deadjectival verbs; and many don’t.

or do all languages have rules that specify derivation methods?

Not all natural languages have any morphology at all, as I understand it.
Some languages’ grammar is all syntax and no morphology, if they’re extreme examples of isolating analytic languages.
(There aren’t that many of them, but a few have lots of speakers.)

OTOH, for languages with morphology, most of the rules are going to be about inflection instead of derivation.
Or to put the horse back in front of the cart, if a morphological process follows rules, it’s likely to be called inflection, instead of derivation.

So I think very few, if any, natural languages, have many, or even any, rules that specify derivation methods.

“Rules that specify derivation methods” are likelier to show up in the diachronic processes of a language’s history, likelier to govern how it evolved from previous versions of itself, or its recent ancestors.
in my opinion they aren’t likely to show up synchronically, in how the language functions at any fixed time.


—————————————————————

I could be wrong, in little things or big things, in just a few places or in most of what I said.
If I am, I would welcome correction!

There’s a possibility I’ve been helpful even if I’ve been wrong!

Let me know?

[vegfarandi]

I'm wondering if it's necessary to have a derivation morphology structure. For example, if the noun derives from an adjective, a certain affix or declension is used that is different if, say, a verb has its root in a noun. Are there languages that does this arbitrarily, or do all languages have rules that specify derivation methods?

Derivation is key to conlanging to build out your lexicon. All languages have a derivational system, and although derivation tends to be quirkier than inflectional morphosyntax, it still occurs within a general structure.

There are many ways to think about derivation. The same main morphological elements apply as with inflection:

1. Conversion – word becomes another word (of another category) without any morphological change. This is common in English, especially contemporary English (to ask --> an ask) but is not possible in other languages.
2. Affixation – prefixes, infixes, suffixes, these are the bread and butter of all morphology, including derivational morphology. An OV (object, then verb) language is more likely to have more prefixes, a VO (verb, then object) language is more likely to have suffixes. Infixes are fairly rare world-wide.
3. Stem-change – vowel alternations, umlaut, consonant mutations, softenings, hardenings – you name it. This is the primary way Arabic and Hebrew accomplish derivation.

Unlike inflection, derivation is also accomplished with a fourth type:

4. Compounding – one word is attached to another word. Languages with compounding differ in what they allow. Verb+verb, verb+noun, noun+verb, noun+noun etc. And what the product of the compounding results in differs.

I would come up with some basic derivations in your early stage so you can derive your vocabulary as needed. I know some usually suggest working this out in quite a lot of detail, but in my personal experience I tend to map out some must-haves and some won't-haves* based on the overall goal and fill in the middle as needed, once I've worked out more of the inflection, to achieve better harmony between the two branches of morphology.

Note that not every language has every kind of derivational process so don't just go through a list thinking you need every kind for your language. And some languages require more "syntactic" methods of vocabulary building than others. For example, patient nominalizations are kind of sparse in English. You can't derive a noun meaning "that which is eaten" from the verb 'eat', but in Chinese that's as simple as prefixing 所 suǒ-: 所吃 'that which is eaten' (i.e. food). And some of those syntactic gaps in the derivation should be listed too

[Chongster]

@TomHChappell Thanks for correcting my terminology! From what you said, I think I was referring more to inflections. I'll post some examples of what I've done so far.

@vegfarandi Thanks so much for the input!

[Chongster]

Right now, my basic rules for morphology are these:

- Verbs: root + -a
- Adjectives: root + -i
- Adverbs: root + -u
- Nouns can have any ending other than the above suffixes.

There are some exceptions, like some adjectives ending with -y or -yn, and some adverbs with -ui, for example.

So for instance:
- karthus = n. "humility"; karthi = adj. "humble"
- imela = v. "to pray"; imeleth = n. "prayer"

So currently, it looks like "karthi" came from the root "karthus," which is all fine until I suddenly want the adjective to be the root. If that become the case, then the noun would have "-us" as a suffix instead of as a part of the root.
But "imeleth" seems to have its root in "imela". So why would one noun (inflection?) have the "-us" suffix and the other the "-eth" suffix?
So far, I've made these words based entirely on my preference and off the cuff. I'm not sure if that is right.
Thoughts?

[Pedant]

Right now, my basic rules for morphology are these:

- Verbs: root + -a
- Adjectives: root + -i
- Adverbs: root + -u
- Nouns can have any ending other than the above suffixes.

There are some exceptions, like some adjectives ending with -y or -yn, and some adverbs with -ui, for example.

So for instance:
- karthus = n. "humility"; karthi = adj. "humble"
- imela = v. "to pray"; imeleth = n. "prayer"

So currently, it looks like "karthi" came from the root "karthus," which is all fine until I suddenly want the adjective to be the root. If that become the case, then the noun would have "-us" as a suffix instead of as a part of the root.
But "imeleth" seems to have its root in "imela". So why would one noun (inflection?) have the "-us" suffix and the other the "-eth" suffix?
So far, I've made these words based entirely on my preference and off the cuff. I'm not sure if that is right.
Thoughts?

One thought! Sound changes. In my own Classical Salvian, I had a proto-language with variable endings in *-r, *-n, and *-s for nouns. If the stem ended in a consonant, these could in turn become *-u, *-i, and *-a respectively, thanks to the earlier forms *-uw, *-in, *-ah. Shortening the form due to sound changes is an easy way to make things interesting.
Alternatively, you could have, in the earlier language, a noun class system that's no longer in use, based on suffixes. Karthus, for example, could be analyzed karth-us, with a nominal ending representing an old class of nouns no longer in use. Likewise, imeleth from imela could be part of a completely different noun class--one dealing with actions, for example, rather than concepts. This would be the way I'd go for this language--you could have a lot of fun analyzing the different endings for morphological features, maybe even derive completely new verbs and different nouns, etc. in turn from the roots--but it's completely up to you.

[Xwtek]

Kovaali is the ancient (proto-?) language of the Kovaali people, or Kovaalych. It has an OSV word order, and currently has both head and dependent markings (is that possible?).

Yes, but usually (but not obligatory) has mismatch in the alignment. The verb conjugation tends to be nominative, while the noun may be more ergative. However, some language like Basque is consistently ergative, and FrenchQuechua is consistently nominative.

[TomHChappell]

Unlike inflection, derivation is also accomplished with a fourth type:
4. Compounding – one word is attached to another word. Languages with compounding differ in what they allow. Verb+verb, verb+noun, noun+verb, noun+noun etc. And what the product of the compounding results in differs.

I might classify compounding forty ways (some of which are probably rare, or maybe even unattested):
I. Noun+noun.
A. Noun+noun —> noun
B. Noun+noun —> adjective
C. Noun+noun —> verb
D. Noun+noun —> other

II. Noun+adjective, or adjective+noun.
A. Noun+adjective —> noun
B. Noun+adjective —> adjective
C. Noun+adjective —> verb
D. Noun+adjective —> other

III. Noun+verb, or verb+noun
A. Noun+verb —> noun
B. Noun+verb —> adjective
C. Noun+verb —> verb
D. Noun+verb —> other

IV. Noun+other, or other+noun
V. Adjective+adjective
VI. Adjective+verb or verb+adjective
VII. Adjective+other or other+adjective
VIII. Verb+verb
IX. Verb+other or other+verb
X. Other+other

Each Roman-numeral-numbered category has four uppercase-lettered subcategories, depending on whether the compound acts as
A. A noun
B. An adjective
C. A verb
D. Some other part-of-speech.

———

“Other” might be adverbs, adpositions, pronouns, conjunctions, or interjections.

[Chongster]

Another difference is semantic transparency and semantic consistency.
If the result of a morphological process has a consistent semantic relationship to its base word, and speakers of the language can easily correctly guess what the resulting word means (even if they’ve never heard it before), that process is likelier to be called “inflection”, because it’s transparent.
OTOH if the relationship of the meaning of the word resulting from some morphological process, to the meaning of its base word, is idiosyncratic, and speakers and addressees can’t easily correctly guess the meaning of the result if they’ve never heard it before, that process is likelier to be called “derivation”, because it’s semantically idiosyncratic.

So if I understand correctly, the difference between inflection and derivation is like this: for instance, the word "community" comes from "commune" or "common," and this is derivation. OTOH, "humility" is an inflection of "humble." Is that right?

[vegfarandi]

Another difference is semantic transparency and semantic consistency.
If the result of a morphological process has a consistent semantic relationship to its base word, and speakers of the language can easily correctly guess what the resulting word means (even if they’ve never heard it before), that process is likelier to be called “inflection”, because it’s transparent.
OTOH if the relationship of the meaning of the word resulting from some morphological process, to the meaning of its base word, is idiosyncratic, and speakers and addressees can’t easily correctly guess the meaning of the result if they’ve never heard it before, that process is likelier to be called “derivation”, because it’s semantically idiosyncratic.

So if I understand correctly, the difference between inflection and derivation is like this: for instance, the word "community" comes from "commune" or "common," and this is derivation. OTOH, "humility" is an inflection of "humble." Is that right?

Correct on the first count. If you think about it, common means "something shared", community is "something gathered around something shared" which has shifted to "people with something shared between them". The suffix -ity has a variety of meanings dependent on semantics and the word's history.

Regarding humble – it's an adjective with more than one syllable and it doesn't end in -y which means it actually has no inflection in English. Humility is in fact a derivation of humble, using that same derivational suffix as before, -ity. Other adjectives such as brave or pretty (one syllable and ends in -y, respectively) take inflection, namely grading: braver, bravest; prettier, prettiest.

The suffixes -er and -est are added uniformly to all words with the same semantic meaning so long as the word meets certain grammatical requirements. That makes them inflection.

An easier example of an inflection is the plural suffixes -s, -es (toy, toys; bass, basses) or the past tense -ed (signed, released, explained). So long as you have a noun that's not uncountable or irregular, you can add a plural suffix to it and it always means "more than one" and so long as you have a verb that's not irregular, you can add a past tense suffix to it which always means "happened before now".

[Chongster]

Unlike inflection, derivation is also accomplished with a fourth type:

4. Compounding – one word is attached to another word. Languages with compounding differ in what they allow. Verb+verb, verb+noun, noun+verb, noun+noun etc. And what the product of the compounding results in differs.

Okay, so here's a Kovaali word: kolenkilych = "builder", (kolenki = build + lych = "person"). Since this is a compound word in Kovaali but isn't in English, is this an inflection or derivation?

Thanks for your patience with me!

[vegfarandi]

Unlike inflection, derivation is also accomplished with a fourth type:

4. Compounding – one word is attached to another word. Languages with compounding differ in what they allow. Verb+verb, verb+noun, noun+verb, noun+noun etc. And what the product of the compounding results in differs.

Okay, so here's a Kovaali word: kolenkilych = "builder", (kolenki = build + lych = "person"). Since this is a compound word in Kovaali but isn't in English, is this an inflection or derivation?

Thanks for your patience with me!

Compounding is almost always (95% of the time) derivation, because putting together two words (lexemes) to yield a new word (lexeme) is deriving new meaning. So yeah, that's definitely derivation.

Over time, lych could turn into a suffix -lych, and maybe the language borrows a new word for "person", let's say it's abach, and over time people start to forget that -lych used to mean person. So maybe the suffix -lych starts to shift in meaning to also encompass tools (similar to how English -er can both derive both people teacher and tools screwdriver), so you derive "telephone" from the word "to speak" (let's say it's nar) so you would get narlych "telephone", lit. talk-er.

[Chongster]

For consistency's sake, I came up with some suffix classes specifically for nouns derived from other parts-of-speech.

	Affix	Class
1	-lych	Agent of an action
2	(after word-final consonant) -or; (after word-final vowel) 'os	Concept/State of being
3	-an	State of ability