Workshopping a conlang with Describing Morphosyntax

[dewrad]

Controversial opinion perhaps, but personally I don't think that the traditional "grammar" sequence is actually all that useful for creating a language. Going from phonology to morphology to syntax just doesn't really cut it for me. It's a great way to present a language, sure, but not helpful when you're still building it.

Similarly, I love the scratchpad format for spitballing and playing with ideas. However, as an inherently free-form thing, it lacks structure and focus, which means that you could end up with (for example) an extremely detailed description of how valence adjusting is instantiated in your language, but no clue whatsoever about what kind of numerals your language uses for counting.

There is a third way, however. Most of you are going to be familiar with Describing Morphosyntax, by Thomas E Payne. Each chapter has a list of prompts for writing a "typological" grammar sketch, which invite you to think about how the language you're describing works, and the chapters go from "broad-brush" down to "narrow". See for yourself: a list of the questions in the book can be found here.

What I'm proposing is to use this list of questions to "workshop" a conlang. I'm currently in the middle of essentially re-creating all of my conworld's languages, and this seems an efficient way of doing so. The language I'll be creating is Proto-Oxaric, the triconsonantal language I talk about here, which in turn is derived from the language I mentioned [url=
http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t ... =20#p26834]here[/url].

TL;DR -

What? I'm creating a language. It's triconsonantal.

How? Using "Describing Morphosyntax" as a template.

Why? Uh, because that's what we do here.

No, why here? Because I crave that sweet sweet validation during lockdown.

[din]

I agree, I like that approach too. But to me Payne's book is best used a starting point and in combination with other material, because as much as I like it, I've always felt it was a little unfinished. Like a bunch of lecture notes thrown together and bound as a book. Which, if my memory serves me correctly, it actually was.

[dewrad]

I believe it was, yes. Also, in some areas, I believe it's actually a touch outdated; although its focus on "General Linguistic Theory" has, in my opinion, made it less prone to this than some other textbooks I've come across.

As I go through I'll throw out some references and recommendations to other books or papers that I've found useful. For example, they're basic, I know, but I always find myself returning to the Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics series.

[Curlyjimsam]

I find it's helpful to have sketched out at least the principal details of phonology before trying anything morphosyntactic, so you know what phonologically acceptable words actually are before you start putting them together and putting them into sentences. But yeah, treating "morphology" and "syntax" separately isn't terribly helpful a lot of the time, and Describing Morphosyntax is a far from terrible way of doing things.

I'll be interested to see how this works out! I think whenever I've tried to keep too closely to the book I've either not had the patience to stick it out, and/or grown frustrated that it hasn't been asking quite the questions I've been wanting to answer. But it has still informed my grammar writing a lot - I think most of my developed grammars include headings like "Predicate nominals and related constructions", "Clause combinations" etc.

[Vardelm]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out. I'm not familiar with the book at all: just curious to see what the approach looks like.

I have found that for some of my work (still woefully incomplete after many years) it was very helpful to think about syntax & semantics in the abstract. I wrote down glosses & translations, but without the original conlang words, so phonology wasn't necessary. It helped figure out how some of the parts were going to work together.

No, why here? Because I crave that sweet sweet validation during lockdown.

HAH!

[dewrad]

A few points before I begin:

• prompts from DM will be given in this colour italics.
• I will be skipping those which are not relevant to the language: there's no value in having a grammar with content like Section 13.2.1.0.0.14.2 Language does not have this.
• the end goal of this is not to have a grammar in the sense of a document that can be pointed at and called A Concise Grammar of Proto-Oxaric, but rather a set of notes that enables me to create such a document should I wish to do so.
• using DM as a template in this way means a heavy emphasis on typology. My natural instinct as a conlanger veers far closer to diachrony as a basis: as such I don't feel particularly bound by the concept of "this language exhibits X perameter, which implies Y and Z". Such considerations are useful as a starting point, but I flatter myself that I know the rules well enough to break them by now.
• no, I'm not going to give a phonology. Assume IPA values except y for /j/ and the acute marking stress.

[dewrad]

1. Demographic and ethnographic information

1.1 The name of the language

What is the language known as to outsiders?

While the majority of the modern Oxaric languages are spoken in and around the Ziani Mountains, the name of the family is derived from Oxareia, the historical locus of the classical Oxaric-speaking civilisations. The Lacaino term Oxareia itself derives from the Qári word ukxár, meaning 'plain'.

There is persuasive evidence that the speakers of late Proto-Oxaric are those to whom the Qári texts refer as yeye nuhrá 'goat people'.

What term do the people use to distinguish themselves from other language groups?

It is not possible to reconstruct a name for the entire Oxaric-speaking ethnos, and it is far from certain that a common self-reference even existed (see below, however). Nevertheless, there is enough commonality in the "auto-ethnonymic" constructions of the daughter languages that we can make relatively confident assertions about how the early Oxaric tribes named themselves.

It is likely that tribes (ʔənáš) named themselves after an apical ancestor, possibly mythical in nature, in a possessive construction with ʔətár 'descendants, nephews'. For example, the tribe considering themselves to be the descendants of Wáwda 'snake' would call themselves ʔətár Wáwda 'the nephews of Snake'.

Notwithstanding the above, the Northeastern branch of the family suggests a possible self-identifier in the root mtʼy 'to speak clearly', derivatives of which provide the names for a number of Oxaric-speaking ethnic groups in the Ziani Mountains. However, its status for the proto-language is unclear, as the Southwestern languages apply this root primarily to the concept of translation (e.g. Achaunese qaṭṭáy 'dragoman').


1.2 Ethnography

What is the dominant economic activity of the people?

The speakers of Proto-Oxaric were transhumant pastoralists, herding sheep and goats in the northern foothills of the Ziani mountains.

Briefly describe the ecosystem, material culture and cosmology.

The northern foothills of the Ziani mountains form the southern margin of the semi-arid Esseilan steppe, subject to large variations in temperature between winter and summer. In during the summer months, the speakers of Proto-Oxaric would, in small family units (wan) move their flocks to graze the highland pastures. In the winter months, the five or six wan forming a clan (naš) would gather in their ancestral valley.

Their technological level was in the main neolithic, and they lacked metalworking. However, the Late Proto-Oxaric period likely saw the introduction of bronze tools and weapons from the Qár to the south, although it is unlikely that the Proto-Oxaric speakers themselves possessed the technical knowledge to produce bronze themselves.

1.3 Demography

Where is the language spoken, and how are the people distributed in this area?

As stated above, the Proto-Oxaric Urheimat was likely in the northern foothills of the Ziani Mountains. It is assumed that population density was low, and settlement patterns changed according to the season.

Are there other language groups inhabiting the same area?

We have archaelogical and some linguisitc evidence suggesting that the speakers of Proto-Oxaric were surrounded by the following groups:

• To the north-west in the steppe proper were the ancestors of the Kalpo-Lacarans, who by this point had domesticated cattle but not horses. The Kalpo-Lacaran word for 'sheep' (*peksás-) is clearly a loan from the Proto-Oxaric pʼəkθə́t.
• To the south and south-east, further into the Ziani mountains, were the proto-Gultians. It appears that these were already mining tin in the mountains and engaged in trade for this with the Qár.
• To the south-west in Oxareia itself were the Qár, who were sedentary and living in the first Esseilan states, with knowledge of bronze working.
• To the north and east, particularly around Lake Rugera were the ancestors of the Tzedu, who seem to still have had a hunter-gatherer economy.

What is the nature of the interaction with these groups? Economic? Social? Freindly? Belligerent?

Evidence for interaction between these groups is patchy at best, leaving only a few linguistic clues in the shape of loanwords. Words for 'sheep' and 'felt' appear to have spread from Oxaric to Kalpo-Lacaran, while words for 'cattle', 'horse' and 'travois' appear to have flowed in the opposite direction. Mythical themes reconstructable to the Oxaric level where the ʔətár ʔərtaɣá 'nephews of the cow' played the part of antagonists certainly implies that the speakers of Proto-Oxaric were the target of raids from Kalpo-Lacaran peoples.

1.4 Genetic affiliation

What language family does this language belong to?

Proto-Oxaric forms part of the well-established Arrhosic macrofamily, which comprises the majority of languages spoken in northern and central Esseila.

What are its closest relatives?

Proto-Oxaric is probably the most divergent of the Arrhosic languages, suggesting that it was one of the first to branch off from the protolanguage. Similarities to the Kalpo-Lacaran and Gultian languages can clearly be seen, although is it unclear to what degree these are due to areal influence or common inheritance.

[chris_notts]

But yeah, treating "morphology" and "syntax" separately isn't terribly helpful a lot of the time, and Describing Morphosyntax is a far from terrible way of doing things.

But it has still informed my grammar writing a lot - I think most of my developed grammars include headings like "Predicate nominals and related constructions", "Clause combinations" etc.

Grammar chapters by functional area is definitely the way to go. For example, my most recent grammar has a chapter on complementation that covers aspects of: SVCs, finite complements and apposition / coordination. Some of these aren't formally subordination, but they fulfill the functional role of subordinate clauses in other languages.

One advantage of doing things this way is that it forces you to thing systematically about how to divide up different functional domains instead of accidentally carrying over structures from your native language.

The downside of the functional approach is that you do also need reference descriptions for inflectional systems etc., so to the extent that a functional domain cross-cuts many systems you may end up documenting things twice, onces per domain systematically and once piece-wise in the functional chapters.

[Imralu]

The downside of the functional approach is that you do also need reference descriptions for inflectional systems etc., so to the extent that a functional domain cross-cuts many systems you may end up documenting things twice, onces per domain systematically and once piece-wise in the functional chapters.

You could have inflection tables in an appendix or on a separate page if online. (If you're good with webby stuff, you could have the inflectional tables open up in a pop up window linked wherever they're mentioned.)

[Richard W]

[*]I will be skipping those which are not relevant to the language: there's no value in having a grammar with content like Section 13.2.1.0.0.14.2 Language does not have this.

So how do you document the absence of the feature? Not mentioning it could otherwise be an omission.

[dewrad]

[*]I will be skipping those which are not relevant to the language: there's no value in having a grammar with content like Section 13.2.1.0.0.14.2 Language does not have this.

So how do you document the absence of the feature? Not mentioning it could otherwise be an omission.

There is a difference between documenting the absence of a feature the presence of which would otherwise normally be expected, perhaps because it is pervasive in the area (e.g. "Unlike most languages in Western Europe, English lacks the category of grammatical gender in nouns"), which can be done in passing where relevant and a big list of stuff a language doesn't have (e.g. "English lacks polypersonal agreement and lexical tone"), which doesn't really need to be mentioned at all.

[Richard W]

There is a difference between documenting the absence of a feature the presence of which would otherwise normally be expected, perhaps because it is pervasive in the area (e.g. "Unlike most languages in Western Europe, English lacks the category of grammatical gender in nouns"), which can be done in passing where relevant and a big list of stuff a language doesn't have (e.g. "English lacks polypersonal agreement and lexical tone"), which doesn't really need to be mentioned at all.

Do you expect your readers to be aware of areal features in the region of the Oxaric languages, especially in as remote a period as that of Proto-Oxaric?

As lexical tone or similar turns up in continental Scandinavian languages and at least one West Germanic language (Limburgish), I'm not persuaded that the absence of lexical tone shouldn't be recorded for English.

[chris_notts]

In a detailed grammar, anything not mentioned should be at best marginal. Of course this doesn't apply so strictly to a short sketch, but I assume dewrad's goal is a "complete" grammar, inasmuch as any grammar can be complete.

If I read a detailed language grammar that failed to mention that the language in question had tonal distinctions, and those distinctions distinguished more than a few pairs of infrequent morphemes, then I'd say the omission was significant enough for the grammar to just be plain wrong, assuming it was written with the intention of helping others to speak the language. In this example, you couldn't put together a single correct sentence without knowing about the tonal distinctions, so how could our hypothetical grammar author think it was reasonable not to mention them?

[KathTheDragon]

There is a difference between documenting the absence of a feature the presence of which would otherwise normally be expected, perhaps because it is pervasive in the area (e.g. "Unlike most languages in Western Europe, English lacks the category of grammatical gender in nouns"), which can be done in passing where relevant and a big list of stuff a language doesn't have (e.g. "English lacks polypersonal agreement and lexical tone"), which doesn't really need to be mentioned at all.

Do you expect your readers to be aware of areal features in the region of the Oxaric languages, especially in as remote a period as that of Proto-Oxaric?

As lexical tone or similar turns up in continental Scandinavian languages and at least one West Germanic language (Limburgish), I'm not persuaded that the absence of lexical tone shouldn't be recorded for English.

By what criteria does this make lexical tone expected in English? It's not an areal feature of Western Europe, it's not a typical feature of the (West) Germanic family... The default assumption for anything left unmentioned is and should be that the feature is not present. Adopting the opposite position is utterly absurd, since as Dewrad said, you just end up with a huge long list of features that aren't present. Where's the utility in this? Why waste space on information that's easily inferred?

[Nortaneous]

By what criteria does this make lexical tone expected in English? It's not an areal feature of Western Europe,

It's not an areal feature of Western Europe because it's an areal feature of Northern Europe -- Baltic, North Germanic, Limburgish and Central Franconian, a handful of Scottish Gaelic dialects, Estonian if Wikipedia can be trusted

[Richard W]

The default assumption for anything left unmentioned is and should be that the feature is not present. Adopting the opposite position is utterly absurd, since as Dewrad said, you just end up with a huge long list of features that aren't present. Where's the utility in this? Why waste space on information that's easily inferred?

What principal of inference are you using? Absence of evidence is evidence of absence? In a description of a real language, how does one distinguish an omission in the description from an absence in the language? For a conlang, how do you distinguish undecided from absent? Tones are quite likely to be omitted in a practical alphabetic-type writing system - vowels are frequently severely underdifferentiated - so the presence of tones could be bolted on even after a 'native' literature has been composed for a conlang.

I suppose if a checklist of features is included in the metadocumentation, an absence of mention could be read as indicating absence - but only so far as one can trust the author to have followed the checklist. Definitive lists are one way of ruling out some features - I would expect polypersonal agreement to be ruled out in that fashion.

[KathTheDragon]

Clearly you haven't read the first sentence of my post. Please read it again, and don't skip any words this time.

If a feature of the language is erroneously missing, then it's a deficiency of the grammar and the grammar is incomplete. This is hardly a justification to start saying what the language doesn't have.

[alynnidalar]

Stay tuned for my upcoming grammar of English! The phonology section is 800 pages long and consists of an exhaustive list of every single sound producible by the human vocal tract that isn’t in English. How else will my readers know that English doesn’t have /ᵑ̊ǁʰ/?

[Richard W]

Clearly you haven't read the first sentence of my post. Please read it again, and don't skip any words this time.

If a feature of the language is erroneously missing, then it's a deficiency of the grammar and the grammar is incomplete. This is hardly a justification to start saying what the language doesn't have.

Nortaneous's post actually makes me wonder whether any English dialects had, or indeed still do have, lexical tone. Indeed, as Scandinavian Germanic and some Low German have lexical tone, I am not sure that it isn't odd that English hasn't developed it. Is it absent because the Normans didn't perceive it?

[Richard W]

Stay tuned for my upcoming grammar of English! The phonology section is 800 pages long and consists of an exhaustive list of every single sound producible by the human vocal tract that isn’t in English. How else will my readers know that English doesn’t have /ᵑ̊ǁʰ/?

Wouldn't a declaredly exhaustive list of clicks used in conversations in English suffice?

How do you handle the infinitely many vowels?