eskabaskan scratchpad

[bbbosborne]

hello everyone
eskabaskan is my conlang that draws from a lot of eskimo-aleut and athabaskan languages

verb derivation
verbs have a choice of an oblique argument

intransitive verbs
intransitive verbs have a 4-slot derivation template (referred to as the stem):
I PREVERB - II ACTION - III OBJECT/QUALITY - IV COMPARATIVE/POSTPOSITION

slots III and IV are the oblique argument of the verb--the two slots must coexist, they cannot exist by themselves
only slot II is obligatory
more qualities can proceed objects/qualities, e.g. be blue-green (bluish green); eat a poor man; catch a fast fish
the above hold for transitives too

oblique arguments are not considered objects and do not receive agreement with verb agreement affixes

examples:
to walk: ∅-walk-∅-∅
to walk on grass: ∅-walk-grass-on
to walk as a warrior: ∅-walk-warrior-as
to eat with hands: ∅-eat-hand-DU-with
to suddenly collapse onto snow: suddenly-fall-snow-on

transitive verbs
transitive verbs have a 5-slot derivation template, again referred to as the stem
I PREVERB - II ACTION - III OBJECT/QUALITY - IV COMPARATIVE/POSTPOSITION - V OBJECT/QUALITY
slots IV and V are the oblique argument

examples:
to destroy: ∅-destroy-∅-∅-∅
to destroy a building: ∅-destroy-building-∅-∅
to destroy a building with telekinesis: ∅-destroy-building-with-telekinesis
to constantly rule a kingdom with an iron first: always-govern-kingdom-with-law-strict


one major rule for all verbs: any incorporated nouns/obliques cannot be inflected, except for number

[akam chinjir]

Are there natlangs in which incorporated nouns can be inflected for number? (I don't mean that as an implied criticism, just hoping to learn more.)

[bbbosborne]

yes, there is an example in the ALC:
Gii-bi-mdaaswi-shi-niizhdaabaan'gizwag
past-come-ten-and-two-be.carload-3p
they came in 12 carloads

[Zaarin]

Are there natlangs in which incorporated nouns can be inflected for number? (I don't mean that as an implied criticism, just hoping to learn more.)

It's very atypical of incorporation, but it does happen. The more usual construct (as found, for instance, in Iroquois or Maya) is to use an independent number or adjective to modify the incorporated noun.

As a big fan of Na-Dene, I'll be following this with interest.

[bbbosborne]

morphosyntax
there are 3 genders: animate, inanimate, and abstract
verbs change according to these genders and transitivity
verb gender is determined by the subject's gender

eskabaskan is also a split-ergative language:
animates receive nom/acc alignment, and sentences have SVO order
abstracts and inanimates (referred to as non-sentient) receive erg/abs alignment, and sentences have VSO order

independent order templates
V = verb
T = transitive
A = animate
I = inanimate/intransitive
B = abstract
codes are V(transitivity)(gender), e.g. VTA

VTA.
CLASSIFIER - PREVERB - VOLITION - VERB - NEG - ACC - NOM - DAT - valence - TNS - ASP - MOD - Q
VTI.
CLASSIFIER - PREVERB - VOLITION - NEG - VERB - ERG - ABS - TNS - ASP - MOD - DAT - valence - Q
VIA.
CLASSIFIER - PREVERB - VOLITION - VERB - NEG - NOM - valence - ASP -TNS - MOD - Q
VII.
CLASSIFIER - PREVERB - VOLITION - NEG - VERB - valence - ABS - ASP - TNS - MOD - Q
VTB.
CLASSIFIER - PREVERB - VOLITION - NEG - VERB - valence - ERG - ABS - DAT - TNS - ASP - MOD - Q

the intransitive abstract is collapsed into the intransitive inanimate, i.e. they have the same template

gloss
gloss terms in bold are mandatory

classifier: a prefix that precedes all prefixes and encodes the transitivity and gender of the verb, a la cheyenne.

preverb: this is only for a subordinating preverb that can be used as a relativizer, relative pronoun, or converb marker; see next section. subordinating preverbs are optional but preferred. the preverb in the verb stem handles adverbs and other layers of meaning.

volition: affixes that encode the volition of the subject to 7 degrees-- willingly, unwillingly, forced to, reluctantly but willing, reluctantly and unwillingly, by request of the gods, impulsively.

verb: the same 4- or 5-slot derivation

NEG: negation affix; if modality is being negated, the affix can go before the mood affix

valence: causatives, passives, etc.
the causative affix can encode the new subject (e.g. I make him fall, He makes him fall), otherwise it is just considered to be the original subject. this in turn demotes every other argument by one rank: e.g. NOM -> ACC, ACC -> DAT. however this is not reflected in the verbal paradigm; the NOM marker wouldn't change to agree with the causative affix.

TNS: there are 5 tenses: remote past and future, past, present, and future. remote tenses are used for events that (will) occur(ed) generations yonder. the future is not irrealis, and can only be irrealis with the potential and optative mood, see below.

ASP: there are 9 aspects: continuous, continuative, habitual, iterative, inchoative, delimitative, gnomic, prospective, and perfective. underlined aspects can appear in the future tense; prospective only appears in the future tense

MOD: there are 5 moods: indicative, potential, optative, dubitative, and imperative (unmarked).

Q: question particles: they mark verbs as yes-or-no questions, content questions, or reliability/certainty questions. e.g. Is he going to the river?, Who is going to the river?, Are you sure he is going to the river?

conjunct order templates
all subclauses are VS(O) order and follow their head
all templates remain the same and just use the conjunct forms of the polypersonal agreement affixes

sentential arguments
the finite verb receives a special object affix which agrees with the gender of the non-finite verb's (the sentential argument) subject

converbs
converbs describe events that occur simultaneously with the finite verb. the preverb slot can insert special pronouns to indicate it's a converb, e.g. while, when--as you can tell there will be overlap with subordinating preverbs and some converbial (is that a word?) preverbs.

[bbbosborne]

nominal morphology
nouns can be indefinite or definite, with one of 3 genders: animate, inanimate, abstract. gender is assigned semantically
the pronominal inflections seen in verbal morphology have singular, dual, and plural forms. other nouns can have a trial number suffix.

articles are particles that precede the noun

NP order:
DET prenoun-age-noun-number-POSS possessor

pronominal possessives
ㅤㅤㅤsg. du. pl.
1pi
1px
2
3
4

4th person is used for unspecified actors or for actors you can't think of at the moment. 4th person sg. merges with the dual

possessive suffixes
the suffix is marked on the head and declined to its own alienability and the possessor's gender
ㅤㅤㅤㅤanimate inanimate abstract
alien.
inalien.

demonstratives
there is a two way distinction for demonstratives, with plain and emphatic forms
ㅤㅤㅤplain emphatic
this
that

noun derivation
nouns can be derived with prenouns and age
prenouns are the same quality morphemes used in verb stem derivation.

nouns can inflect to various degrees of age:
brand new; just made
made recently; new
passed down; inherited
old; worn out
broken; worthless
used; worn down

conjunctions
nouns have very minimalistic conjunctions:
and/but
or
but not


postpositions and obliques
on
in
at
from
next to, alongside
behind
through, into
for
postpositions are rarely used standalone--they mostly exist only in the verb stem.
they are virtually only used for other oblique arguments. oblique argument follow their head.

[akam chinjir]

That's really interesting about noun incorporation, bbbosborne and Zaarin, I'll have to look into that more, it's really relevant to some things I'm trying to work out.

[Zaarin]

Sorry to briefly hijack the thread...

That's really interesting about noun incorporation, bbbosborne and Zaarin, I'll have to look into that more, it's really relevant to some things I'm trying to work out.

Marianne Mithun has some excellent writings on polysynthesis, noun incorporation, and various polysynthetic languages like the Iroquoian and Eskimo-Aleut languages.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. (I'm posting this publicly rather than in a PM because I figure someone else might find it useful as well.)

[bbbosborne]

Sorry to briefly hijack the thread...

That's really interesting about noun incorporation, bbbosborne and Zaarin, I'll have to look into that more, it's really relevant to some things I'm trying to work out.

Marianne Mithun has some excellent writings on polysynthesis, noun incorporation, and various polysynthetic languages like the Iroquoian and Eskimo-Aleut languages.

this is extremely useful, thank you for sharing!



more morphosyntax
benefactives
not sure if i'll keep this section because of how extreme is it
verb agreement affixes have a choice of a benefactive or even malefactive affix.
an extreme example: I, acting against him (malefactive), gave his food that was for you (malefactive) to my mom for them (benefactive).


applicatives
applicative affixes follow their argument.
in intrasitive verbs, they receive a new applicative agreement suffix in the valence slot.
in transitive verbs, that same suffix follows the original argument for which the oblique belongs to

when considering all of this and the verbal template, a single verb stem, including derivations, and if i counted right, can have up to 27 distinct affixes.

[Frislander]

I think there may be the odd language with a specific malefactive affix, but I think most that have them tend to subsume them under the benefactive.

Also have you worked out what your verb template is yet? Caus that's gonna affect how your applicatives work, because if it's anything like Athabaskan and Eskimo you're basically only gonna be allowed two arguments marked per verb, which limits how many applicatives/benefactives you can have.

Also I'd love to see a phonology and some actual examples.

[bbbosborne]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ

[bbbosborne]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ

[bbbosborne]

Also have you worked out what your verb template is yet?

yes, you can see it in the post titled morphosyntax

Caus that's gonna affect how your applicatives work, because if it's anything like Athabaskan and Eskimo you're basically only gonna be allowed two arguments marked per verb, which limits how many applicatives/benefactives you can have.

could you please elaborate on this?

Also I'd love to see a phonology and some actual examples.

i have no words lol but here is:

phonology
consonants
/p b p’ t d t’ tɬ tɬ’ tʃ tʃ’ k g k’ k^w g^w k^w‘ q ʔ/ <p b p’ t d t’ ƛ ƛ‘ ch ch’ k g k’ kw gw kw’ q q’ ‘>
/β θ s ɬ ʃ ʒ x x^w ʁ h/ <v th s ł sh zh x xw r h>
/l j w ʍ/ <l j w wh>
/m n/ <m n>

vowels
ɪ i: ʊ u: <i ii u oo>
e o <e o>
æ ɑ: <a aa>

long vowels are tense, short ones are lax
all lax vowels have a nasal form, marked with a
an ogonek

all vowels can have high or low (neutral) tone. low tone is unmarked, high tone has an acute accent

diphthongs: /aɪ oɪ aʊ/

diphthongs can also be nasal or high

syllable structure:
(C)(G)V(C)
G: approximant
all plosives are unaspirated
no initial glottal stop

[bbbosborne]

SHIT

[bbbosborne]

more morphosyntax
more on the derivation system
various anaphora exist which can exist as nouns, incorporated nouns and obliques.

these can range from extremely general nouns-- e.g. thing-- to specific descriptions with considerable detail-- e.g. long, thin, flexible object.

anaphora can be derived with up to 3 distinct classifiers-- length, thickness, and flexibility-- all on distinct continuums.
length: short, long, spear-length, [BODY PART]-length, river-length
thickness: thin, thick, paper thin, brick thick, [BODY PART]-width
flexibility: stiff, flexible, brittle

adverbs are expressed by using adjectival classifiers in the preverb slot of the verb template.


some syntax
adjectives
eskabaskan has no adjectives. instead it uses verbs that function as adjectives which can be inflected to act as adjectives in different ways

1. separate verb
this is the simplest method: a verb expressing an adjective is simply given to its subject and compounded with whatever other verbs.
literally it would be like "the canoe is wood and sailed to the cove" which could be translated as the wooden canoe sailed to the cove

2. relative clause
this is the next most common method. an adjectival verb receives conjunct agreement and becomes a relative clause for its subject.
literally it would be like "the canoe which is wood sailed to the cove"

3. prenoun
the same quality/classifier used in verb derivation can migrate into a prenoun. however, this never occurs in the conjunct order. adjectives in the conjuct order can only be expressed with method 1, as eskabaskan also prohibits nested conjunct sentences.

modifying incorporated nouns
eskabaskan is a predominantly head-initial language. modifiers, except determiners, always follow their heads. in the case of incorporated nouns/obliques, any modifiers such as "adjectives" must agree with the syntactic position of where the incorporated noun would otherwise be if it weren't incorported. example (with "shortened" gloss):

A dog catches the wooden stick.
INDEF dog catch.stick DEF be.wood-CONJ

sometimes an oblique argument must be modified, and if the incorporated noun has no modifier, it is ambiguous as to which noun the modifier is modifying. oblique modifiers precede the verb, and incorporated noun modifiers follow it.

He puts the bowl in the slow river.
slow put.bowl.in.river-3s.NOM

these do not clash with subject adjectives either; remember that those are explicitly marked as belonging to the subject, or they just go before it.

[bbbosborne]

number system
eskaskan uses a base-8 system. the number system is very simple; you say the number of ones, then the “tens” (in this case, eights), then the “hundreds,” etc.
e.g seven, one “ten,” three “hundreds” 207

numbers
1 izh
2 moozh
3 niish
4 sech
5 kwį
6 kwįzh
7 kwįįsh
10 kwech
hundred wech
thousand tozh
ten thousand kwetozh
hundred thousand weshtozh
million midaad
ten million kwemidaad
hundred million weshmidaad
billion tig

izh moozh kwech niish wech kwįįsh sech tozh izh kwetozh sech weshtozh moozh midaad moozh weshmidaad kwįzh tig 6,202,313,721 hope thats right

[mèþru]

kwįįsh sech tozh

I think I found a mistake
I'll rewrite to match:
If the number is written in base 8, then it should be written as 6,202,313,721₈ for clarification.
izh moozh kwech kwįįsh wech niish tozh izh kwetozh niish weshtozh moozh midaad moozh weshmidaad kwįzh tig
That's 839,489,489 in base 10.
Also, eight is still eight, even if it is in the second position. Translating it as "ten" is wrong and causes unnecessary confusion.

[JANKO GORENC]

numbers
1 izh
2 moozh
3 niish
4 sech
5 kwį
6 kwįzh
7 kwįįsh
10 (8) kwech
11 (9) ?
12 (10) ?

[mèþru]

logically it should be izh izh kwech and moozh izh kwech based off of what he has written so far
also I have numbers for an alternate history language I made (Melik sed thread)

[Dē Graut Bʉr]

When I saw the word for "million", I first read "misdaad", which means "crime" in Dutch. Is it a criminal number?