Conlang Random Thread

[bradrn]

I've done some "interesting" morphological changes in the past (e.g. with Alũbetah), but this is a whole 'nother level . I bow to the king! Congrats .

Why, thank you!

(Though I must say that I actually like Alũbetah more than this one: I’m good at thinking up weird changes which wreak havoc on the entire morphology, but I find it much more difficult to figure out changes which are actually realistic! And the fact that you’ve described it in so much depth just makes it even better.)

[Man in Space]

Áʕe ðétluk sonen tían úh hékik n hé hé hégék.
áʕe ðétluk sonen tían úh hékik n hé hé hégék
COP gentle then reveal PASS.PTCP understand GEN 3SG 3SG possibly
'Be kind and he may share his knowledge'

From the /r/conlangs CDN, someone said that and it was commented upon that it'd make for a good example sentence.

[bradrn]

Wooreebemʔooneng yaagiylaamnem yaagiweyziingaameng.
/woːreːbemʔoːneŋ jaːɡijlaːmnem jaːɡiwejziːŋaːmeŋ/

Be kind and he may share his knowledge.

woo-reebem-ʔoon=eng

2s.ABS-be.good-IMP=CONJ

yaagi-y-laam=nem

3p.ABS-3s.ERG-know=REL

yaagi-we-y-ziing-aam=eng

3p.ABS-2s.DAT-3s.ERG-give-SPEC=CONJ

EDIT: Oops, I thought that this was the Conlang Fluency Thread. (Someone just commented there that it would be nice to have a translation challenge.)

[Man in Space]

So the CT consonants look like this:

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ ð s ł g h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l ʕ

Should I change this to…

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ z s ś ḫ h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l g

? If the latter, should I keep /θ/ ð?

[bradrn]

So the CT consonants look like this:

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ ð s ł g h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l ʕ

Should I change this to…

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ z s ś ḫ h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l g

? If the latter, should I keep /θ/ ð?

I’d prefer a less complicated romanization, with fewer special characters:

/m n ŋ/ ⟨m n ŋ⟩
/t k/ ⟨t k⟩
/θ s ɬ x h/ ⟨c s ł x h⟩
/ɹ l ʕ/ ⟨r l g⟩

[HazelFiver]

Either the conlang fluency thread is not very active lately or my suggested challenges went over like a lead balloon. Maybe text related to animal research is difficult or unappealing.

[Moose-tache]

So the CT consonants look like this:

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ ð s ł g h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l ʕ

Should I change this to…

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ z s ś ḫ h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l g

? If the latter, should I keep /θ/ ð?

Like Bradrn, I think you could make it simpler. I like the {g} as /N/, but the fricatives are a bit weird. It would be more intuitive to add a diacritic to the voiceless plosives, if you're dead set against digraphs or IPA characters.

[cedh]

So the CT consonants look like this:

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ ð s ł g h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l ʕ

Should I change this to…

/m n ŋ/ m n ĝ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ z s ś ḫ h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l g

? If the latter, should I keep /θ/ ð?

I would personally almost always use θ s ł for /θ s ɬ/. For /ŋ/ you could use either of ŋ g q, for /x/ you could use either of x ḫ ħ, and for /ʕ/ you could use either of ʕ g q x, though of course not all of these can be combined with each other.

My own personal choice would probably be something like this:

/m n ŋ/ m n ŋ
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ θ s ł x h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l q

EDIT: If you're going for a vaguely Ancient Mesopotamian feel, what about this:

/m n ŋ/ m n g
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ z s ś ḫ h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l q

[vegfarandi]

EDIT: If you're going for a vaguely Ancient Mesopotamian feel, what about this:

/m n ŋ/ m n g
/t k/ t k
/θ s ɬ x h/ z s ś ḫ h
/ɹ l ʕ/ r l q

Second this one.

[Man in Space]

Thanks, everyone.

I've had a thought for a descendant of CT—there's productive zero-derivation between nouns and verbs, and the conjunctions used change depending on whether something is a noun or a verb…so…maybe have nouns marked as such with affixes descended from the original conjunctions?

[jal]

(Though I must say that I actually like Alũbetah more than this one: I’m good at thinking up weird changes which wreak havoc on the entire morphology, but I find it much more difficult to figure out changes which are actually realistic! And the fact that you’ve described it in so much depth just makes it even better.)

Thanks! I never worked out the full back story of these crazy changes, although I have a lot of notes in some Google doc. I really should look into them again, if I ever have time...


JAL

[jal]

Mmm, I was translating "when obviously the exact truth would not do at all" (from The Hobbit), and I realized it would be "wen taym fo ray ray ray ray in go nof atol" (or perhaps "... fo ray ray ray raynis"), so I probably have to reword that a bit for it to not look quite ridiculous...


JAL

[bradrn]

Mmm, I was translating "when obviously the exact truth would not do at all" (from The Hobbit), and I realized it would be "wen taym fo ray ray ray ray in go nof atol" (or perhaps "... fo ray ray ray raynis"), so I probably have to reword that a bit for it to not look quite ridiculous...

Could we get a gloss to see what’s happening in that sentence?

[foxcatdog]

Say you marked gender (of subjects) on verbs and also numbers with marking on verbs looking like this
Feminine: Front vowels
Masculine: Back vowels
Exalted: Front vowels + final *n
Neuter: Back vowels + final *s

Would this be a valid way to mark gender on numbers since it differs from the method of marking gender on verbs to a degree.
Feminine/Masculine/Exalted/Neuter
*iná/aná/inári/amás “one”
*bísi/búsi/býsiri/bémis “two”
*diḷú/duḷú/dyḷúri/deḷmús “three”
*ṇelá/ṇolá/ṇelári/ṇelmás “four”
*enkais/onkais/enkairi/omais “five”
*ñjírai/ñjúrai/ñjírairi/ñjúrmais “six”
*díʎa/dáʎa/dýʎari/dálmas “seven”
*źyhó/źuhó/źyhóri/źymós “eight”
*nír/nár/níri/ním “nine”
*dasa/daosa/dasari/damas “ten”

Also how do languages that derive adjectives from nouns work would say
bí ɟanú en noará
DEF-F animal.fat LNK girl
“The healthy girl”
be a valid way of expressing the concept.

[bradrn]

Also how do languages that derive adjectives from nouns work would say
bí ɟanú en noará
DEF-F animal.fat LNK girl
“The healthy girl”
be a valid way of expressing the concept.

Many languages simply allow nouns to directly modify other nouns, as English does: ‘the stone wall’ and ‘the red wall’ have the same syntax, regardless of whether the modifier is a noun or an adjective. Imbabura Quechua — a language where ‘adjectives’ are just a (poorly-defined) subclass of nouns — acts similarly:

jatun

big

runa

man

A big man

rumi

stone

wasi

house

A stone house

On the other hand, Lonkundo — another language with nouny adjectives — uses a possessive construction, similarly to your example:

y-ǒmba

CL5sg-thing

y-ǎ

CL5sg-POSS

bɔ-lɔ́tsi

CL2sg-goodness

A good thing

Additionally I know that some other languages require the use of classifiers when nouns are modified by adjectives, but as far as I’m aware all of those languages have verby rather than nouny adjectives.

[foxcatdog]

Also how do languages that derive adjectives from nouns work would say
bí ɟanú en noará
DEF-F animal.fat LNK girl
“The healthy girl”
be a valid way of expressing the concept.

Many languages simply allow nouns to directly modify other nouns, as English does: ‘the stone wall’ and ‘the red wall’ have the same syntax, regardless of whether the modifier is a noun or an adjective. Imbabura Quechua — a language where ‘adjectives’ are just a (poorly-defined) subclass of nouns — acts similarly:

jatun

big

runa

man

A big man

rumi

stone

wasi

house

A stone house

On the other hand, Lonkundo — another language with nouny adjectives — uses a possessive construction, similarly to your example:

y-ǒmba

CL5sg-thing

y-ǎ

CL5sg-POSS

bɔ-lɔ́tsi

CL2sg-goodness

A good thing

Additionally I know that some other languages require the use of classifiers when nouns are modified by adjectives, but as far as I’m aware all of those languages have verby rather than nouny adjectives.

I should probably tell you the languages "linkers" inflect for the gender of the noun they modify and that if multiple adjectives modify a noun it requires multiple linkers. The linkers also have negative forms to express when something is not alike which can co-occur with positive linkers in the same noun phrase. Is this naturalistic i like it because it leads to a great deal of specification so i think its a useful system.

bí hana’n nara
DEF-F flower LNK woman
“The beautiful woman”

hana'n zúra ina ʎi
DEF-F flower LNK storm LNK-NEG 3-SG
“She was beautiful and not angry”

e norao'l norao'l básu
INDEF-M good LNK good LNK boy
“A very good boy”

[bradrn]

I should probably tell you the languages "linkers" inflect for the gender of the noun they modify and that if multiple adjectives modify a noun it requires multiple linkers. The linkers also have negative forms to express when something is not alike which can co-occur with positive linkers in the same noun phrase. Is this naturalistic i like it because it leads to a great deal of specification so i think its a useful system.

bí hana’n nara
DEF-F flower LNK woman
“The beautiful woman”

bí hana'n zúra ina ʎi
DEF-F flower LNK storm LNK-NEG 3-SG
“She was beautiful and not angry”

e norao'l norao'l básu
INDEF-M good LNK good LNK boy
“A very good boy”

That sounds fairly similar adjectival classifiers (which I mentioned briefly at the end of my post), as found in e.g. Thai:

nók

bird

tua

CL:BODY

sĭi-khĭaw

green

tua

CL:BODY

jàj

big

The big green bird

This sort of system is also found in Terêna, Yawalapiti, Kilivila, Newari, Waurá, Cantonese, Yagua etc., so it’s actually fairly common. One subtlety is that, in all systems I know of, such classifiers are also used with other categories, most commonly numbers and demonstratives: I know of no language where classifiers are used only for adjectives.

The only component of your system which I haven’t encountered before is the distinction between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ classifiers. I haven’t heard of any language with such a system, but it doesn’t seem too implausible: if your negatives go after the head, you could get it diachronically by fusing ‘adj NEG LNK’ into ‘adj NEG.LNK’.

[cedh]

I also think that this system looks plausible.

bí hana'n zúra ina ʎi
DEF-F flower LNK storm LNK-NEG 3-SG
“She was beautiful and not angry”

Can this sentence also be read as "she was not like a beautiful storm"? And if not, what would be the difference?

[foxcatdog]

I also think that this system looks plausible.

bí hana'n zúra ina ʎi
DEF-F flower LNK storm LNK-NEG 3-SG
“She was beautiful and not angry”

Can this sentence also be read as "she was not like a beautiful storm"? And if not, what would be the difference?

ʎi aim ṇo hana'r žúra asu
3-SG be.like-F NEG flower LNK storm-ACC COP
"she was not like a beautiful storm"
Would be the more correct translation
Note the copula is required because the verb is negated which i'm modelling of how certain tenses in english require the copula.

Also i screwed up one of the first translations it does not need the definite article because it uses a pronoun

[jal]

Mmm, I was translating "when obviously the exact truth would not do at all" (from The Hobbit), and I realized it would be "wen taym fo ray ray ray ray in go nof atol" (or perhaps "... fo ray ray ray raynis"), so I probably have to reword that a bit for it to not look quite ridiculous...

Could we get a gloss to see what’s happening in that sentence?

Sure! It follows the English quite closely:

wen taym

when

fo ray

certainly

ray ray

exact

ray

truth

in

NEG

go

IRR

nof

much

atol

enitrely

So we have "fo ray", that means "actually, really, in reality, in fact, as a matter of fact; of course; indeed" (not litterally "obviously", but close enough), "ray ray" meaning "exactly, precisely" and "ray" that as a noun means "truth".


JAL