An IAL

[Travis B.]

Expressing distance

Motion verbs and locative SVC's can express distance, or lack thereof, through being combined with adverbs. Adverbial demonstratives kama (near) and rama (far) express distance from the speaker, while the adverbs kuta (near) and owa (far) express distance from the subject. Note that an adverb expressing distance from the speaker can be used at the same time has an adverb expressing distance from the subject Take, for instance:

Kani rina owa kama.
dog run SUBJ.FAR NEAR
"The dog is running over here."

Kani rina owa rama.
dog run SUBJ.FAR FAR
"The dog is running over there."

Kani rina yara owa lina.
dog run ALL SUBJ.FAR stick
"The dog is running over to the stick."

Kani rina yara kuta lina.
dog run ALL SUBJ.NEAR stick
"The dog is running a short distance to the stick."

[Qwynegold]

Kani rina owa kama.
dog run SUBJ.FAR NEAR
"The dog is running over here."

I'm trying to understand these words. Should this be interpreted like it's running at a place that's far from itself, or that it's running far away from itself?

Btw, have you come up with a name for the conlang yet?

[Travis B.]

Kani rina owa kama.
dog run SUBJ.FAR NEAR
"The dog is running over here."

I'm trying to understand these words. Should this be interpreted like it's running at a place that's far from itself, or that it's running far away from itself?

The dog is running to a place far from where it started and which is close to the speaker.

Btw, have you come up with a name for the conlang yet?

A tentative name is rinkwa awkasi, which should be transparent.

[Qwynegold]

The dog is running to a place far from where it started and which is close to the speaker.

Mhm. Would you ever say "kani rina kuta kama"?

A tentative name is rinkwa awkasi, which should be transparent.

Lingua... all case?

[Travis B.]

The dog is running to a place far from where it started and which is close to the speaker.

Mhm. Would you ever say "kani rina kuta kama"?

You could say that but you probably would just say "kani rina kama".

A tentative name is rinkwa awkasi, which should be transparent.

Lingua... all case?

Lingua auxi(liary)

[Qwynegold]

Oh, I see. I don't think you've written anything about how you assimilate words into this phonology?

[Travis B.]

Oh, I see. I don't think you've written anything about how you assimilate words into this phonology?

Obviously all explosives are deaspirated and devoiced except intervocalic /b/ in Germanic loans may become /w/; note that all sibilants become /s/. /f/ becomes /p/ and /h x ç/ become /k/. /v/ becomes /w/. Coda nasals become /n/. Coda /r l/ are generally lost, except coda /l/ may become /w/. Disallowed coda consonants are either followed by /a/ or may be elided. Disallowed consonant clusters which are not reduced through elision are broken up by inserting /a/.

Unrounded open, near-open front and back, and open-mid back vowels, as well as near-open, open-mid, and mid central vowels become /a/. Rounded open, near-open, and open-mid and all close-mid back and rounded close-mid central vowels become /o/. All near-close and close back vowels and rounded near-close and close central vowels become /u/. Unrounded open-mid and close-mid front and unrounded close-mid central vowels become /e/. Unrounded near-close and close front and central vowels become /i/. Rounded open-mid and close-mid front vowels become /jo/. Rounded near-close and close front vowels become /ju/.

[Qwynegold]

The only thing I thought is a little odd is b > w in Germanic.

[Travis B.]

The only thing I thought is a little odd is b > w in Germanic.

That is based on that intervocalic /b/ in High German varieties often corresponds to intervocalic /v/ in non-High Germanic varieties, and it is a short step from /v/ to /w/.

[Travis B.]

I should do more work on this, but I am caught up in working on zeptoforth.

[Travis B.]

I should do more work on this language - it's been a good while since I've touched it.

[Travis B.]

I'm going to rework my passives, because get-passives actually seem resultative to me at second thought, and as this is an IAL, I might not want to privilege them.

[bradrn]

I'm going to rework my passives, because get-passives actually seem resultative to me at second thought, and as this is an IAL, I might not want to privilege them.

I’ve heard there’s a tendency for passive SVCs to use a word meaning ‘touch’, e.g. Kristang (Aikhenvald 2006):

aké

that

pesi

fish

ja

PER

toka

touch

kumí

eat

di

SOURCE

gatu

cat

The fish got eaten by the cat

Though I don’t really understand the pathway of grammaticalisation here.

[Travis B.]

I am going to steal this concept:

toka	touch, dynamic passive

For instance,

Powi ya toka tipan taynasora.
cow PST.PFV PASS.DYN eat dinosaur
"(The) cow got eaten by (the) dinosaur."

Powi ya toka tipan.
cow PST.PFV PASS.DYN eat
"(The) cow got eaten."

For mental state verbs that only have a stimulus, the static passive sera is used, as in:

Si sera satyora.
3S PASS.ST annoy
"He is annoying."

[Imralu]

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t		k
Fricative		s
Approximants	w	ɾ ⟨r⟩	j ⟨y⟩

Note that coronals are optionally palatalized before /i j/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Additionally, /ɾ/ may be realized as [r ɹ ɻ ʁ ʀ l ɫ ɺ] and /w/ may be realized as [v ʋ].

Kani rina yara owa lina.
dog run ALL SUBJ.FAR stick
"The dog is running over to the stick."

There is no /l/ in your phoneme inventory and /r/ covers L-like sounds, so how are "rina" and "lina" possibly distinguished?

[Travis B.]

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p	t		k
Fricative		s
Approximants	w	ɾ ⟨r⟩	j ⟨y⟩

Note that coronals are optionally palatalized before /i j/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Additionally, /ɾ/ may be realized as [r ɹ ɻ ʁ ʀ l ɫ ɺ] and /w/ may be realized as [v ʋ].

Kani rina yara owa lina.
dog run ALL SUBJ.FAR stick
"The dog is running over to the stick."

There is no /l/ in your phoneme inventory and /r/ covers L-like sounds, so how are "rina" and "lina" possibly distinguished?

That was a mistake on my part there - I forgot there was no /l/.