Vedreki Scratchpad

[evmdbm]

So after a bit of thought - I decided the easiest way out was just to use a "ugh" marker for the passive in the third conjugation as well. Still has a different infinitive ending -un (not -uq) and different duoplural markers but other than that the same. Should be less weird now. Should make the slot table easier too. I have edited the verb tables and here's the new slot table

Pre-Initial	Initial	root	Ante-Pre-Final	Pre-Final	Final	Post-final
Negation	Politeness		Causative	Passive	Tense	Subject
ü(n)	pro(n)	kret(a)	ökhax	(a)gh	(a)t/s/l	ø/ -a/ -am/-amma/anef
		vox(e)		(e)gh	(e)t/s/l	ø/ -a/ -em/-emma/ enef
		nask(u)		(u)gh	(u)t/s/l	ø/-a/-ia/ unuf

Just as a ps. I have left the present passive duoplural as naskughia (not naskughutia) because the active is naskia (not naskutia)

Before I do anything else, I think I need to work out how to do the contents page - but after that: relative and subordinate clauses and then I will begin on Cheyadeneen

[evmdbm]

Let's start with relative clauses. The problem starts from a lack of relative pronouns, but in their absence relativisation can be expressed via participial constructions, and this type of adjectival construction is common – along the same lines as in German. There are essentially four basic relativisations, although matters can get more complex with indirect objects or causatives where a different construction is needed. Haven't quite worked out causatives, but I suspect that the second method outlined below would have to be used.

Participles are formed by taking the present, past or future masculine singular and adding – anef (enef or unef).

Present participle… believing is therefore kretatanef; passive… being believed kretaghatanef
Past participle…. having believed kretasanef…. having been believed kretaghasanef
Future participle…. about to believe kretalanef…. about to be believed kretaghalanef

Subject-subject: “The man who ate the fish saw me”
Martasanef brexu sireg voxes am
eat-past active part masc nom sg, fish-acc sg, man- nom sg, see-past masc sg, me-acc

Subject-object: “The man who I saw walked across the road”
Viu ae voxeghesenef sireg pediras ka irau
by me-abl, see-past pass part masc nom sg, man-nom sg, cross-past masc sg, across, road-abl sg

Object-object: I hit the man whom I had seen earlier”
A taras viu ae ghadlo voxeghenesefa sirega
I-nom sg, hit-past masc sg, by me-abl, earlier, see-pass passive part masc acc sg, man-acc sg

Object-subject: I hit the man who had spoken
A taras flakhnusefa sirega
I-nom, hit-past masc sg, speak-past active part masc acc sg, man-acc sg

Indirect object-subject: “I gave the book to the man who had crossed the road
A akhties kitieba pedirasenefet ka irau sireget
I-nom sg, give-past masc sg, book-acc sg, cross-past active part masc dat sg, across, road-abl sg, man-dat sg

Indirect object-object “I gave the book to the man whom I saw earlier"
A akhties kitieba voxeghenefet viu ae sireget
I-nom, give-past masc sg, book-acc sg, see-past pass part masdc dat sg, by, me-abl, man-dat sg

The following sentences cannot be handled by this construction, so the Vedreki resort to resumptive pronouns and the conjunction introducing a subordinate clause - bekat, a construction also possible, but rarely used in the examples above

Indirect object-indirect object “I gave the book to the priest to whom I spoke”
A akhties kitieba lenkieket, bekat a flakhnus onet
I-nom, give-past masc sg, book-acc sg, priest-dat sg, that, I-nom, speak-past masc sg, him-dat

Subject – indirect object: “The man to whom I gave the book crossed the road”
Sireg, bekat a akhties kitieba onet, ka irau pediras
Man-nom sg, that I-nom, give-past masc sgm book-acc sg, him-dat, across, road-abl sg, walk-past masc sg

object –indirect object: I saw the man to whom I had given the book”
A voxes sirega, bekat a akhties kitieba onet
I-nom, see-past masc sg, man-acc sg, that I-nom give-past masc sg book-acc sg him-dat

nominative-genitive: The king, whose laws are just, spoke
Mudrel, bekat sakonnae oneb natnae malenknae, flakhnus
King-nom sg that law-nom pl, his-gen, are-pres pl just- masc nom pl speak-past masc sg

In other types of subordinate clause we find that while a sentential subject is rare in English it is common enough in Vedreki, so we might say, “That the weather will be warm is likely” rather than “The weather is likely to be warm”. The subordinate clause can be backed but because it is still the subject no dummy is introduced.
It is likely that the weather will be warm
Bekat tarmeka sidela betaxa nata lakasa
That weather-nom be-fut fem sg warm-fem nom sg, likely-(adj) fem nom sg

Sentential objects are equally common and are found in indirect speech.
He said that he would give the book to the emperor; note that the tense used refers to the time relative to the time referred to. He said (in the past) that he will (in the future of the past (which might be in the past relative to us) give the book to the emperor.
On dakhtus bekat on akhtiel kitieba naskelenet
He-nom say-past masc sg, that he-nom give-fut masc sg, book-acc sg, emperor-dat sg

It is also used for requests – where there is no implication necessarily that the requested action occurred (unlike a causative where there is)
I asked him to go
A okhas bekat on ilal
I-nom ask/request-past masc sg, that he-nom go-fut masc sg

Conditionals come in different varieties.
If I were human, I would be rich (but I’m not human)
Ti a nat bi velnasu, a nat bi ratik
If I-nom be-pres masc sg, irrealis particle, human-nom sg, I-nom be-pres masc sg, IP, rich-masc nom sg

Remember that irrealis moods are just indicated through the use of the particle "bi". Not sure how you would gloss this incidentally.

If I had arrived sooner, I would have killed him
Ti a ullides bi xaq aratlo, a qalökhaxas bi ona
If I-nom arrive-past masc sg, IP, earlier, I-nom kill-past masc sg, IP, he-acc

I will kill him if I arrive soon
A qalökhaxal ona, ti a ullidel bi aratlo
I-nom kill-fut masc sg, he-acc, if I-nom arrive-fut masc sg, IP, soon

If it is Kingsday, the emperor goes to Parliament.
Ti only gets used in cases where something is not true, or might not be true. If in English is used in cases of definite true statements. Not in Vedreki where this is translated
Mudrelqhodnau naskenel irat ma oskaralu
Kingsday-abl pl, emperor-nom sg, go-pres masc sg, to Parliament-acc sg

An accusative and infinitive construction is used in purposive clauses
I will confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.
A akhtiel ilis qoeqatnat flakhnat, ilim ünevlekaq sanemmeq flakhnu nemix
I-nom give-fut masc sg they-dat, new-acc pl, language-acc pl, they-acc, able to-neg inf, understand-inf, language-acc sg, reflexive indefinite pronoun- gen

[evmdbm]

So a return to the scratchpad that you probably thought was done...

Well world-building is never really done, is it? I have been thinking about the global economy and how the Vedreki and Cheyadeneen fit in with that. This has some linguistic relevance as I am imagining that much commercial, economic and legal vocabulary is borrowed into Vedreki from CheyadeneenI suspect that, despite their sitting cheek by jowl the two species have different economic structures. So I had imagined that the imperial economy as a whole would look to some degree like a nineteenth century colonial empire in that the Naxaqeen territories would provide significant primary natural resources and cheap labour for assembly plants etc, but that, while the home islands ran a small trade deficit with the rest of the world the capital inflows from return on investments in the colonies exceeded that, thus allowing for a surplus which is then promptly invested in more overseas capital...

The Vedreki, being highly stratified by caste, will have a very unequal distribution of capital and income. I imagine something like the nineteenth century where the top decile, here the richest warrior caste and the majority of the noble caste, (about 4.2m people) control half the Vedreki national income. The next decile take another 20% of the national income, leaving only 30% for the worker, farmer and servant castes. Much of this income to the noble and warrior castes - certainly the top half - will be unearned, but by contrast the human end of the economy has seen the rise as in the twenty first century Earth of very high earning workers, super-managers earning the equivalent of millions of pounds (or durseks) for their work... although still being quite unequal in distribution of wealth and income, it is differently structured.

I imagine this means two or three things. One: the noble caste, who own businesses and would traditionally have a worker caste manager in place who they oversee, could well import humans to do this, albeit at a higher salary, to get better profits... this pushes worker caste Vedreki down the income hierarchy, because they cannot, or find it more difficult to get these management jobs. The flipside (second thing) is that servant caste (say) who make next to nothing can get an earnings bump by working as cleaners in human hotels - perhaps crossing the bridge from Vedreki Black City to human Kachalpa while at the same time being dirt cheap for those hotels. Thirdly, human owned technology companies will choose to do their assembly in Vedreki areas of the empire because of the lower cost of labour. If I'm right in this this must put pressure on the whole caste thing but I'm not sure how this might end up panning out.

[Bob]

Contents:

Hey, looks good. I like the qh sound. I'm a big fan of typological extremes in my conlangs, so I don't really like if a language has a noun case system a lot like Latin. Though it's common in natural languages. But I appreciate what you've done here and am just trying to say something about it.

[evmdbm]

Preferences, preferences... I do like noun case systems and agreement. It makes things nice and compact. One day I am going to do a mammoth case system with a bunch of locative cases as well, as in Finnish or Hungarian. With luck I can get rid of prepositions altogether