Conlang Random Thread

[Xwtek]

No guns either. I want my culture to look somewhat barbarian, except without any metal armor. (Barbarian is often depicted wearing a metal armor only protecting certain parts of the body, like shoulder and limb, but with torso exposed) I thought by having no metal armor whatsoever, it's more justifiable. (Sakha cannot make armor or metal is a rarity here, so it gets used for a weapon which is more vital). Also, I aim to a civilization more primitive than typical euro fantasy. (At Neolithic-Chalcolithic boundary. Sakha doesn't have a technology to make a copper, but one of their trade partner has). The problem is leather armor. While it's less effective than metal armor, when metal armor is excluded, it instantly becomes the best armor. My question is, then, is there any reason that people were shirtless instead of wearing leather.

[jal]

My question is, then, is there any reason that people were shirtless instead of wearing leather.

A taboo against wearing (upper body) clothing? Religious reasons? It's probably cultural, not practical, except if the leather armour is of poor quality and/or the metal weapons are so sharp leather doesn't help much (but restrains movement).


JAL

[jal]

I’ll copy the questions here for reference:

1. The bulls ran through the town all day long.
2. The bulls were running through the town all day long.
3. I never ran so much in my life.
4. I have never run so much in my life.

For me, the difference between (1) and (2) is quite simply the difference between perfective and imperfective: (1) focuses on the event as a whole, whereas (2) considers the event as having internal structure. As for (3) and (4), I think the main difference is that (4) is a progressive perfect, whereas (3) is a perfective. That is why (4) sounds more natural to me: it describes a past action (i.e. ‘before now, I never ran to this extent’) with present relevance, which is appropriate in this situation.

To me (but IANANS), (2) denotes a group of bulls that didn't leave the town but were rampaging inside of it, while (1) invokes the image of a long line of millions of bulls that went into and out of the town in a straight line, the whole herd taking a day to pass by.

(3) seems the conclusion of a (part of a) story, while (4) seems something someone would utter just after running for a long time.


JAL

[alynnidalar]

My question is, then, is there any reason that people were shirtless instead of wearing leather.

They don't have access to animals with hides suitable for tanning into large pieces of leather?

[bradrn]

I’ll copy the questions here for reference:

1. The bulls ran through the town all day long.
2. The bulls were running through the town all day long.
3. I never ran so much in my life.
4. I have never run so much in my life.

For me, the difference between (1) and (2) is quite simply the difference between perfective and imperfective: (1) focuses on the event as a whole, whereas (2) considers the event as having internal structure. As for (3) and (4), I think the main difference is that (4) is a progressive perfect, whereas (3) is a perfective. That is why (4) sounds more natural to me: it describes a past action (i.e. ‘before now, I never ran to this extent’) with present relevance, which is appropriate in this situation.

To me (but IANANS), (2) denotes a group of bulls that didn't leave the town but were rampaging inside of it, while (1) invokes the image of a long line of millions of bulls that went into and out of the town in a straight line, the whole herd taking a day to pass by.

As a native speaker, your interpretation of (2) sounds like a very odd implication to me. For your interpretation of (2), I would say rather ‘the bulls were running around the town all day long’. For me X ran through Y has an implication that X entered and then left Y, and it sounds odd to not obey that.

(3) seems the conclusion of a (part of a) story, while (4) seems something someone would utter just after running for a long time.

This certainly makes sense, and in fact I might interpret (3) and (4) this way as well. But oddly enough I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out whether this is due to the difference in tense, aspect or something else. I think part of the problem is that both of those sentences could be easily used in both contexts — each sentence is just slightly more appropriate for a different context.

[Vijay]

To me, 1 and 2 mean the same, and 3 and 4 mean the same.

[Kuchigakatai]

Well, if we're looking for tense and aspects as separate morphology, we'll run into questions like this: what aspect is "ran?" Strictly speaking, the only overt morphology it carries indicates it as a simple past tense. But we also know it cannot be progressive or perfect, which locates it in a very specific aspectual space as well. This is the sort of problem I think you're going to keep running into trying to isolate these two variables morphologically.

I think you're entirely right really. Even in a language that doesn't mark aspect in the morphosyntax, verbs are nevertheless used with particular aspects.

However, even though it's true, it's not something too relevant though? I mean, when linguists discuss "aspect" in a language, what they're really doing is discussing the aspects that are clearly distinguished in the grammar, especially those that you have to distinguish, by force. It doesn't normally make much sense to discuss the French future (je lirai 'I will read') in its imperfective and perfective uses, because its grammar doesn't distinguish this, so it doesn't matter... Well, okay, I guess it matters when you're translating from French into another language (like Russian maybe), but still.

[akam chinjir]

To me, 1 and 2 mean the same, and 3 and 4 mean the same.

My judgments are closest to Vijay's. I think for me there's an informational difference: you'd be more likely to use (1) if you were focusing the bulls' activity, (2) if you were supplying background for something else you wanted to mention.

"through" here doesn't for me imply entered and then left," it's fine meaning roughy around.

[bradrn]

To me, 1 and 2 mean the same, and 3 and 4 mean the same.

My judgments are closest to Vijay's. I think for me there's an informational difference: you'd be more likely to use (1) if you were focusing the bulls' activity, (2) if you were supplying background for something else you wanted to mention.

I agree with this perspective as well. In general, I think that aspect is a fairly abstract concept, and a particular aspect can have several different implications at once; we are just disagreeing about which implication is primary for us.

____

I do have another question about aspect now — hopefully simpler than my previous one. How common is a tripartite present/past perfect/past imperfective aspectual system outside Europe? Dahl (1985) suggests that this is common in general (‘There is a strong tendency for PFV categories to be restricted to past time reference … it is very common for non-future TMA categories to form a tripartite system’), but then suggests that it is mostly restricted to Europe (‘[The imperfect] seems to be restricted to an area around the Mediterranean’).

[akam chinjir]

I do have another question about aspect now — hopefully simpler than my previous one. How common is a tripartite present/past perfect/past imperfective aspectual system outside Europe? Dahl (1985) suggests that this is common in general (‘There is a strong tendency for PFV categories to be restricted to past time reference … it is very common for non-future TMA categories to form a tripartite system’), but then suggests that it is mostly restricted to Europe (‘[The imperfect] seems to be restricted to an area around the Mediterranean’).

The statement referring to the Mediterranean is specifically about past-tense markers that are only used with imperfective verbs. That's a particular way you could get a tripartite distinction, but not the only one; my take-away, and my general understanding, is that it's very common for perfective verbs to preferentially or exclusively get a past-time reading.

[bradrn]

I do have another question about aspect now — hopefully simpler than my previous one. How common is a tripartite present/past perfect/past imperfective aspectual system outside Europe? Dahl (1985) suggests that this is common in general (‘There is a strong tendency for PFV categories to be restricted to past time reference … it is very common for non-future TMA categories to form a tripartite system’), but then suggests that it is mostly restricted to Europe (‘[The imperfect] seems to be restricted to an area around the Mediterranean’).

The statement referring to the Mediterranean is specifically about past-tense markers that are only used with imperfective verbs. That's a particular way you could get a tripartite distinction, but not the only one; my take-away, and my general understanding, is that it's very common for perfective verbs to preferentially or exclusively get a past-time reading.

Thanks for explaining! If that is just one way to get a tripartite distinction, then what are some other ways of achieving the same thing?

(Or I suppose I could do a non-tripartite system, like in English, but I’d like to do something a bit more interesting with tense/aspect in my current language…)

[akam chinjir]

Looking at it a bit more carefully, I'm starting to share your puzzlement---he really ought to tie the two discussions better. (But I haven't had time to look at the tense stuff at all carefully, I could easily be missing something.)

A system like the ones he describes for Semitic languages might be an alternative: a perfective (generally with past reference), an imperfective (generally nonpast), and a compound past imperfective using a perfective copula together with an imperfective main verb (both fully inflected, as far as I can tell).

[Xwtek]

I decided that my con-culture went shirtless because many of the monsters are bigger than people, and magic can bypass even metal armor (which is unavailable), let alone leather armor (which is available because of dragon typically have strong skin, so it's usually used to craft an armor).

Also, is there any improvement using pants instead of (short-flapped) loincloth when riding a horse (Or in this conworld horse-dog, i.e. pony-sized dog. In Sakha, this creature is called xwtek)?

I planned for my conpeople to wear only loincloth regardless of the season. To fight cold due to winter, people were covered with grease and carry around a fire, which is necessary anyway because there is no daylight during winter.

The season in the Sakha plane can be compared to the polar area during mid-late Cretaceous. There are two seasons, day/summer and night/winter. The day/summer season is bright and warm. In this season, the Sakha people do agricultural activities, although someone still hunts. The night/winter is cold and dark. Sakha people cannot do agricultural activities in that season. Instead, people hunt for meat and eat the summer produce instead.

[Moose-tache]

people were covered with grease and carry around a fire

Uh... I see a problem with this plan.

[Xwtek]

people were covered with grease and carry around a fire

Uh... I see a problem with this plan.

Oh, a nice catch. I actually tried to emulate how Fuegian (I use term Fuegian because I saw both Yaghan and Selknam also use the same strategy) fight cold. I probably miss something. Probably not grease. But I'm reluctant to use fire magic. (Mana is supposed to be preserved, not to be burned unnecessarily. Agriculture requires a lot of mana in my world, and although hunting produces a net gain in mana, it also requires a large amount of investment.)

Also, did it snow in south pole during Cretaceous? Did the temperature ever drop to below zero?

[Qwynegold]

Also, is there any improvement using pants instead of (short-flapped) loincloth when riding a horse (Or in this conworld horse-dog, i.e. pony-sized dog. In Sakha, this creature is called xwtek)?

If your thighs are naked, wouldn't they chafe against the animal?

[Qwynegold]

I have another conlang, which people have told me is split ergative, being morphologically ergative but semantically nominative-accusative. I think this conlang does the same thing. That's what I meant by the S argument being an agent.

What do you mean by ‘semantically nominative-accusative’? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

I can't remember exactly, but I think it was that if the S argument is typically an agent, but has absolutive case, then it's morphologically ergative but semantically nominative-accusative.

Yes, I think you’re right. You do mention in the grammar that ‘transitive sentences are ergative while intransitive sentences are nominative’, but this is exactly the same as the language just being ergative.

Aha. Then I'd happy to remove all mentions of split ergativity and nominative-absolutive case.

I have been thinking about how I can change the language so it will make more sense. In these examples I've skipped all tense marking, aspect marking, etc. to make things clearer. X and Y stand for conjugations that I don't know what to call. I'm using .TR and .INTR to mark which verbs are by default transitive or intransitive. So these are not any kind of conjugation forms, it's just lexically determined.

1)
1SG-ABS run.INTR-X
I run.

2)
house-ABS burn.INTR-X
The house burns.

3)
girl-ABS sing.TR-X
The girl sings.

4)
song-ABS sing.TR-PASS
The song is sung.

5)
girl-ERG song-ABS sing.TR-Y
The girl sings a song.

6)
*1SG-ERG marathon-ABS run.INTR-Y (illegal sentence)
I run a marathon.

7)
arsonist-ERG house-ALL burn.INTR-CAUS
The arsonist burns the house.

This can be summarized in a chart like this:

Code: Select all

           Intr-A Intr-P Tr-A Tr-P
Monovalent 1,X    2,X    3,X  4,PASS
Divalent   *6,Y   7,CAUS 5,Y  5,Y

Intr-A means an intransitive verb which takes an agent-like S. Intr-P means an intransitive which takes a patient-like S. Tr-A means a transitive verb with at least an agent argument. Tr-P means a transitive verb with at least a patient argument.

The Y thingy can only be used on verbs that are intransitive by default. The X thingy is normally used on intransitives, but it can also be used on a transitive verb to remove the object.

Does all of this make sense? What should I call X and Y?

[bradrn]

I have another conlang, which people have told me is split ergative, being morphologically ergative but semantically nominative-accusative. I think this conlang does the same thing. That's what I meant by the S argument being an agent.

What do you mean by ‘semantically nominative-accusative’? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

I can't remember exactly, but I think it was that if the S argument is typically an agent, but has absolutive case, then it's morphologically ergative but semantically nominative-accusative.

Are you sure you didn’t mean the A argument? Because the S argument is the argument of an intransitive verb, and so you don’t have any choice in how it’s case-marked: it will always be marked with the absolutive in an ergative language, whether it’s ‘semantically nominative-accusative’ or ‘semantically ergative-absolutive’.

On the other hand, if you did mean the A argument, then ‘semantically nominative-accusative’ or ‘semantically ergative-absolutive’ doesn’t matter either: according to Dixon (1994), ‘the transitive subject function prototypically codes a volitional agent’, in both nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages, so ergative-absolutive languages usually code the agent using the ergative rather than the absolutive. Or, to use your term, just about every natlang is ‘semantically nominative-accusative’, and ‘semantically ergative-accusative’ languages are practically nonexistent. So semantic nominative-accusativity isn’t really noteworthy enough to mention explicitly.

(If you’re want a natlang example of this in an ergative language, Dixon supplies an example from Chukchi where the semantic agent is coded with the ergative, but when the same sentence is reworded to make that argument the semantic patient (by using noun incorporation), it switches to the accusative:

ətləg-e

father-ERG

ən-in

3sg-POSS

lʼulqəl

face + ABS

rə-gtəkwan-nen

CAUS-freeze-3sg + 3sg + AORIST

Father (agent) suffered frost-bite on his face

ətləg-ən

father-ABS

lʼo-nə-gtəkwat-gʼe

face-CAUS-freeze-3sg + AORIST

Father (patient) got frost-bitten on his face (lit. Father got face-frozen)

So, using your terminology, Chukchi is ‘semantically nominative-accusative’.)

Yes, I think you’re right. You do mention in the grammar that ‘transitive sentences are ergative while intransitive sentences are nominative’, but this is exactly the same as the language just being ergative.

Aha. Then I'd happy to remove all mentions of split ergativity and nominative-absolutive case.

I think this is probably the best course of action. (Unless of course you want to change this language so it’s actually split-ergative…)

I have been thinking about how I can change the language so it will make more sense. In these examples I've skipped all tense marking, aspect marking, etc. to make things clearer. X and Y stand for conjugations that I don't know what to call. I'm using .TR and .INTR to mark which verbs are by default transitive or intransitive. So these are not any kind of conjugation forms, it's just lexically determined.

…

This can be summarized in a chart like this:

Code: Select all

           Intr-A Intr-P Tr-A Tr-P
Monovalent 1,X    2,X    3,X  4,PASS
Divalent   *6,Y   7,CAUS 5,Y  5,Y

Intr-A means an intransitive verb which takes an agent-like S. Intr-P means an intransitive which takes a patient-like S. Tr-A means a transitive verb with at least an agent argument. Tr-P means a transitive verb with at least a patient argument.

The Y thingy can only be used on verbs that are intransitive by default. The X thingy is normally used on intransitives, but it can also be used on a transitive verb to remove the object.

Does all of this make sense? What should I call X and Y?

For the most part, this makes sense, after a couple of read-throughs. The only things I’m confused about are:

• You say that Y can only be applied to intransitive verbs. However, your glosses imply that sing is a transitive verb here, yet you apply Y to it. Was this meant to read ‘Y … can only be used on verbs that are transitive by default’?
• What exactly does Y do? You say that X simply marks an intransitive verb, and removes the object of a transitive verb, but you never say what Y does.
• How do you translate a simple sentence like ‘I see you’, or ‘I break the window’? For these neither X nor Y seem to apply.
• What exactly makes sentence 6 (*1SG-ERG marathon-ABS run.INTR-Y ‘I run a marathon’) illegal? How can that sentence be translated legally?

As for naming: I’m not sure about Y until the above issues are clarified, but X applied to transitive verbs is pretty clearly an antipassive , which is very typical of ergative languages. X applied to intransitive verbs seems could be called an ‘intransitivity marker’, although that would be pretty weird — I believe that transitivity markers are more usual.

[Hallow XIII]

What do you mean by ‘semantically nominative-accusative’? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

I can't remember exactly, but I think it was that if the S argument is typically an agent, but has absolutive case, then it's morphologically ergative but semantically nominative-accusative.

Are you sure you didn’t mean the A argument? Because the S argument is the argument of an intransitive verb, and so you don’t have any choice in how it’s case-marked: it will always be marked with the absolutive in an ergative language, whether it’s ‘semantically nominative-accusative’ or ‘semantically ergative-absolutive’.

This is not true. Differential case marking of the intransitive argument is absolutely a thing. There are even special terms for when it is lexically conditioned ("Split-S") and when it can be chosen by the speaker to convey further information about the described act ("Fluid-S").

[bradrn]

I can't remember exactly, but I think it was that if the S argument is typically an agent, but has absolutive case, then it's morphologically ergative but semantically nominative-accusative.

Are you sure you didn’t mean the A argument? Because the S argument is the argument of an intransitive verb, and so you don’t have any choice in how it’s case-marked: it will always be marked with the absolutive in an ergative language, whether it’s ‘semantically nominative-accusative’ or ‘semantically ergative-absolutive’.

This is not true. Differential case marking of the intransitive argument is absolutely a thing. There are even special terms for when it is lexically conditioned ("Split-S") and when it can be chosen by the speaker to convey further information about the described act ("Fluid-S").

I am well aware of this, although in retrospect I should have mentioned this in my post. But I was writing specifically about nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive languages, and my argument is that these languages almost never use semantic marking, instead preferring to mark the arguments of a verb depending on their syntactic position. In these languages, the subject is always marked with the nominative/ergative, the object is always marked with the accusative/absolutive, and the experiencer is always marked with the nominative/absolutive, regardless of their actual semantic rule.