Here's my attempt at the approach bradrn took in presenting a conlang via annotated text (here). I started writing a story but it's been languishing unfinished for a while, so I thought I may as well post what I have. Full text so far below, gloss and discussion to follow.
De dem el Raimra ed Eine hannai inai. Degno hou nedon rug omyemhu naad oi uno egiru Mihineid.
Du eollei deho aidemun heumun wain goedumu allou Eine. Du anein deho maunye maram eun engihmiru allou Raimra. Deg hannaid alloryaro allad doideneu houh aimuhi, allugum hingim alluno hodig eunai. Degwe gimra yoer meih oengen em Lohnamih goud rug duma eraig ohwe. Dain oengen roameir ad hoaneo geo dad ehidoh hihaine.
Du Eine araug hou hannai, "Weayedain ouh gei homu oem ad hilleo rug ehidode di dallih. Yoin hau idyeana gimra yoer ouh."
Goud du Raimra araug, "Ad humen araugeon deana. Wa wemen dihmagi elde geo yedaina neohaini." Yoin du Eine edigwe rug hingim erdihmagi.
Allug hud oh ouh hi, don Raimra yaige henur u araug houhwe dihyoer goah hean, weid donwe leo urimumeon. Dugwe yoi wan daldumeon gei. Goud dugwe erneohaini hannai edaraug, "Dona yaige henur u araug weid dona leo urimu allumeon araugado."
Goud du Eine araug, "Wa men yaige oni, geo yea yaige eunen."
Duno yaige ad eihene, yoin Eine wedad halmogem yoin wedainwe dihmagi. Don Raimra yaige henur u araug nu gene, weid donwe leo urimumeon allad ideid. Allad meid orya heldou hi, dugwe yoi geo daldumeon gei. Goud dugwe erneohaini hannai oni.
Du Eine araug, "Ad ehidoh hihaine. Arug moira, wa men leo naidyoi edyaige edanleo. Geam wa leo neohainina." Goud wedainwe dihmagi oni.
Yoin du Raimra geirog. Donwe yaige henur u araug nu mone, geo dugwe leo yoi. Dugwe yaige henur yoer eihene, geo donwe leo urimureo allumeon araugado nu elleo.
Leima
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quinterbeck
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Re: Leima
De dem el-Raimra ed-Eine hannai inai.
/dɛ dɛm ɛlˈɾajmɾa ʔɛˈdəjnɛ ˈhanːaj ˈʔinaj/
Raimra and Eine were brothers.
The narrative begins with an evidential particle - the reportative de.
Leima has fifteen auxiliaries, each of which specifies a type of relationship between two ordered arguments (A, B) - and they are the sole word class able to carry tense and aspect marking. Auxiliaries appear in two primary syntactic constructions:
New auxiliaries:
em (ID) identity - 'A is B' 'A in class B'
in (GEN) genitive - 'A of B', covering: alienable possession, producer, membership
The identity auxiliary em heads the clause, and puts el-Raimra ed-Eine 'Raimra and Eine' in identity with hannai inai 'brother of each other'. The brother's names are coordinated by ed- 'and', prefixed to the head of each substantive phrase in the coordination set, except in simple lists where it may be omitted from the first item.
The genitive auxiliary in modifies hannai, taking the reciprocal marker -ai in its B slot, and generally has a typical genitive sense 'A of B', 'B possesses/produces A'.
Archetypally, the past prefix is d- and the future prefix is ye-, but their actual forms depend on the form of the auxiliary, and in most cases they displace the onset where present (e.g. stative present wain > past dain). Because of that it's easier to always gloss it as unsegmented, thus PST:ID dem rather than PST-ID d-em.
Degno orya nedon rug omyemhu naad oi uno egiru Mihineid.
/ˈdɛŋnɔ ˈʔɔɾja nɛˈdɔn ɾug ɔmˈjɛmhu nɑːd ɔj ˈʔunɔ ˈʔɛgiɾu ˈmihinəjd/
They went from their home in the mountains to hunt the Mihineid
New auxiliaries:
u (ACT) action - 'A does B' 'A causes B', where A is agent-like
heg (GO) motion - 'A changes location in manner B'
rug (LOC) locative - 'A at/in B' (past durug, future yerug)
orya (ABL) ablative - 'A from B'
The motion auxiliary heg is exceptional in permitting an empty B slot. The ablative (A from B) implicitly modifies the auxiliary phrase here (as a constituent of the clause) - I call this a clausal modifier. The locative modifies a substantive.
The conjunction naad introduces a new clause, which has a mood particle - the subjunctive. This is the fixed order for clause-initial particles.
The action auxiliary is the most frequently used, here hosting an agent argument for the substantive phrase egiru Mihineid 'hunting the Mihineid' (a creature of somekind). Substantives divide into two subclasses of verbs and nouns (kind of). Verbs are monovalent, able to take a single patient-like argument. Here egiru does just that.
Du eollei deho aidemun heumun wain goedumu allou Eine.
/du ˈɜːlːəj ˈdɛhɔ ˈʔajdɛmun ˈhɛwmun wajn ˈgɜːdumu ˈʔalːəw ˈʔəjnɛ/
Their mother gave Eine a coil of long rope.
Nouns are avalent. A substantive following a noun has an attributive and associative meaning. Here heumun 'length, long thing' describes aidemun, which is further modified by the state auxiliary.
New auxiliaries:
wain (STA) state - 'A in state B'
houh or hou (ALL) allative - 'A to/towards/for B'
The allative heads a clausal modifer (with the main phrase being everything up to goedumu), here made explicit by the presence of relative marking, which involves modifying the onset of the auxiliary and prefixing a- (the a- prefix is dropped in the present for some auxiliaries). In this process, the archetypal past d- becomes all- (thus hou > dou > allou).
Both clausal modifiers and relative clauses can use relative marking. A relative clause contains an internal A argument and a resumptive pronoun, and has its own tense marking. A clausal modifier has an auxiliary phrase as its A argument, and must agree in tense with that auxiliary phrase. Two resumptive particles/prefixes can be used to disambiguate clausal modifiers if necessary. For example, using nu; nullou Eine would be an acceptable alternative in this sentence.
Du anein deho maunye maram eun engihmiru allou Raimra.
/du ˈanəjn ˈdɛhɔ ˈmawnjɛ ˈmaɾam ɛwn ɛŋˈgixmiɾu ˈʔalːəw ˈɾajmra/
Their father gave Raimra a strong bow and twelve arrows.
New auxiliaries:
eun (COM) comitative - 'A with B' in the accompaniment sense
Numbers are full words meaning 'a set of size x' - e.g. goe 'two, pair, dyad', and have reduced forms that prefix to counted nouns. One to three are reduced down to a single consonant before vowels. Numbers 11 to 99 can be expressed by stringing prefixes together in the order [tens]-en-[units]. Powers of a hundred have full, non-reducible nouns nouns, e.g. naum 'hundred'.
/dɛ dɛm ɛlˈɾajmɾa ʔɛˈdəjnɛ ˈhanːaj ˈʔinaj/
- De
- REP
- dem
- PST:ID
- ed-Raimra
- and-Raimra
- ed-Eine
- and-Eine
- hannai
- brother
- in-ai.
- GEN-RECP
Raimra and Eine were brothers.
The narrative begins with an evidential particle - the reportative de.
Leima has fifteen auxiliaries, each of which specifies a type of relationship between two ordered arguments (A, B) - and they are the sole word class able to carry tense and aspect marking. Auxiliaries appear in two primary syntactic constructions:
- auxiliary phrase ([aux] A B) - this is the minimal requirement of a clause
- modifier (A [aux] B) - both substantive phrases and auxiliary phrases can be modified
New auxiliaries:
em (ID) identity - 'A is B' 'A in class B'
in (GEN) genitive - 'A of B', covering: alienable possession, producer, membership
The identity auxiliary em heads the clause, and puts el-Raimra ed-Eine 'Raimra and Eine' in identity with hannai inai 'brother of each other'. The brother's names are coordinated by ed- 'and', prefixed to the head of each substantive phrase in the coordination set, except in simple lists where it may be omitted from the first item.
The genitive auxiliary in modifies hannai, taking the reciprocal marker -ai in its B slot, and generally has a typical genitive sense 'A of B', 'B possesses/produces A'.
Archetypally, the past prefix is d- and the future prefix is ye-, but their actual forms depend on the form of the auxiliary, and in most cases they displace the onset where present (e.g. stative present wain > past dain). Because of that it's easier to always gloss it as unsegmented, thus PST:ID dem rather than PST-ID d-em.
Degno orya nedon rug omyemhu naad oi uno egiru Mihineid.
/ˈdɛŋnɔ ˈʔɔɾja nɛˈdɔn ɾug ɔmˈjɛmhu nɑːd ɔj ˈʔunɔ ˈʔɛgiɾu ˈmihinəjd/
- Deg-no
- PST:GO-3p
- orya
- ABL
- nedon
- home
- rug
- LOC
- omyemhu
- mountain
- naad
- in.order.to
- oi
- SBJ
- u-no
- ACT-3p
- egiru
- hunt
- Mihineid.
- Mihineid
They went from their home in the mountains to hunt the Mihineid
New auxiliaries:
u (ACT) action - 'A does B' 'A causes B', where A is agent-like
heg (GO) motion - 'A changes location in manner B'
rug (LOC) locative - 'A at/in B' (past durug, future yerug)
orya (ABL) ablative - 'A from B'
The motion auxiliary heg is exceptional in permitting an empty B slot. The ablative (A from B) implicitly modifies the auxiliary phrase here (as a constituent of the clause) - I call this a clausal modifier. The locative modifies a substantive.
The conjunction naad introduces a new clause, which has a mood particle - the subjunctive. This is the fixed order for clause-initial particles.
The action auxiliary is the most frequently used, here hosting an agent argument for the substantive phrase egiru Mihineid 'hunting the Mihineid' (a creature of somekind). Substantives divide into two subclasses of verbs and nouns (kind of). Verbs are monovalent, able to take a single patient-like argument. Here egiru does just that.
Du eollei deho aidemun heumun wain goedumu allou Eine.
/du ˈɜːlːəj ˈdɛhɔ ˈʔajdɛmun ˈhɛwmun wajn ˈgɜːdumu ˈʔalːəw ˈʔəjnɛ/
- Du
- PST:ACT
- eollei
- mother
- deho
- give
- aidemun
- rope
- heumun
- long
- wain
- STA
- goedumu
- coil
- allou
- REL.PST:ALL
- Eine.
- Eine
Their mother gave Eine a coil of long rope.
Nouns are avalent. A substantive following a noun has an attributive and associative meaning. Here heumun 'length, long thing' describes aidemun, which is further modified by the state auxiliary.
New auxiliaries:
wain (STA) state - 'A in state B'
houh or hou (ALL) allative - 'A to/towards/for B'
The allative heads a clausal modifer (with the main phrase being everything up to goedumu), here made explicit by the presence of relative marking, which involves modifying the onset of the auxiliary and prefixing a- (the a- prefix is dropped in the present for some auxiliaries). In this process, the archetypal past d- becomes all- (thus hou > dou > allou).
Both clausal modifiers and relative clauses can use relative marking. A relative clause contains an internal A argument and a resumptive pronoun, and has its own tense marking. A clausal modifier has an auxiliary phrase as its A argument, and must agree in tense with that auxiliary phrase. Two resumptive particles/prefixes can be used to disambiguate clausal modifiers if necessary. For example, using nu; nullou Eine would be an acceptable alternative in this sentence.
Du anein deho maunye maram eun engihmiru allou Raimra.
/du ˈanəjn ˈdɛhɔ ˈmawnjɛ ˈmaɾam ɛwn ɛŋˈgixmiɾu ˈʔalːəw ˈɾajmra/
- Du
- PST:ACT
- anein
- father
- deho
- give
- maunye
- bow
- maram
- strong
- eun
- COM
- en-g-ihmiru
- ten-two-arrow
- allou
- REL.PST:ALL
- Raimra.
- Raimra
Their father gave Raimra a strong bow and twelve arrows.
New auxiliaries:
eun (COM) comitative - 'A with B' in the accompaniment sense
Numbers are full words meaning 'a set of size x' - e.g. goe 'two, pair, dyad', and have reduced forms that prefix to counted nouns. One to three are reduced down to a single consonant before vowels. Numbers 11 to 99 can be expressed by stringing prefixes together in the order [tens]-en-[units]. Powers of a hundred have full, non-reducible nouns nouns, e.g. naum 'hundred'.
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quinterbeck
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Re: Leima
Yes. Leima's phoneme inventory is /d g m n ɾ h j w i u ɛ ɔ a/ with an allophonic chain d > ɾ > l in various contexts.
I originally had /ɨ ʉ/ instead of /i u/, but eventually gave up on /ɨ/. Alternation of /u~ʉ/ still lingers, but it's not well defined. Now that I think about it, since that alternation appears in the closing diphthongs, I probably should transcribe them with vowels rather than glides. E.g. ou is typically [ə͡ʉ]. But it feels a bit silly to be writing ʉ all over a broad transcription.
Re: Leima
Ooh, look, a language with a closed verb class! My favourite type. It’s good to see a conlang experimenting with word classes.
(And, to forestall any argument, I would analyse these ‘auxiliaries’ as a closed class of 15 verbs — they seem to be used in predominantly verbal contexts. The monovalent ‘verbs’ I would then call coverbs; you don’t see coverbs as a separate word class very often, but they tend to pop up in languages such as this where the verb class is small and/or closed.)
The one thing I’m really confused about is the ‘modifier’ function of the verbs — the text has some examples, but they seem to be somewhat inconsistent with each other, and I suspect you may be accidentally conflating two separate constructions. For instance, in the first sentence:
(That being said, some northern Vanuatuan languages do indeed treat SVCs as being a consequence of one verb modifying another one. But that results in a very different sort of SVC than what you’ve got.)
(And, to forestall any argument, I would analyse these ‘auxiliaries’ as a closed class of 15 verbs — they seem to be used in predominantly verbal contexts. The monovalent ‘verbs’ I would then call coverbs; you don’t see coverbs as a separate word class very often, but they tend to pop up in languages such as this where the verb class is small and/or closed.)
The one thing I’m really confused about is the ‘modifier’ function of the verbs — the text has some examples, but they seem to be somewhat inconsistent with each other, and I suspect you may be accidentally conflating two separate constructions. For instance, in the first sentence:
The verb in ‘belong to’ seems to be acting almost as a relative clause — ‘Raimra and Eine are brothers [who belong to each other]’. Yet here:quinterbeck wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 2:23 pm De dem el-Raimra ed-Eine hannai inai.
/dɛ dɛm ɛlˈɾajmɾa ʔɛˈdəjnɛ ˈhanːaj ˈʔinaj/
- De
- REP
- dem
- PST:ID
- ed-Raimra
- and-Raimra
- ed-Eine
- and-Eine
- hannai
- brother
- in-ai.
- GEN-RECP
Raimra and Eine were brothers.
…
The genitive auxiliary in modifies hannai, taking the reciprocal marker -ai in its B slot, and generally has a typical genitive sense 'A of B', 'B possesses/produces A'.
The ‘auxiliaries’ seem to take part in what looks like a bog-standard serial verb construction — ‘They go leave home be.at mountain in order to do hunting of the Mihineid’. (This is one of the reasons why I’d prefer to analyse these as full verbs rather than just ‘auxiliaries’.) And in this one we see two ‘modifiers’, but wain seems to act as a relative clause while du … allou seems to be another SVC:Degno orya nedon rug omyemhu naad oi uno egiru Mihineid.
/ˈdɛŋnɔ ˈʔɔɾja nɛˈdɔn ɾug ɔmˈjɛmhu nɑːd ɔj ˈʔunɔ ˈʔɛgiɾu ˈmihinəjd/
- Deg-no
- PST:GO-3p
- orya
- ABL
- nedon
- home
- rug
- LOC
- omyemhu
- mountain
- naad
- in.order.to
- oi
- SBJ
- u-no
- ACT-3p
- egiru
- hunt
- Mihineid.
- Mihineid
They went from their home in the mountains to hunt the Mihineid
…
The ablative (A from B) implicitly modifies the auxiliary phrase here (as a constituent of the clause) - I call this a clausal modifier. The locative modifies a substantive.
That is, ‘Mother did giving long rope [which was a coil] go.to Eine’. Given the obvious differences in both syntax and semantics between the ‘relative clause’ and ‘serial verb’ usages, I’d therefore suggest treating them as two entirely separate constructions, rather than subsuming both under the ‘modifier’ label.Du eollei deho aidemun heumun wain goedumu allou Eine.
/du ˈɜːlːəj ˈdɛhɔ ˈʔajdɛmun ˈhɛwmun wajn ˈgɜːdumu ˈʔalːəw ˈʔəjnɛ/
- Du
- PST:ACT
- eollei
- mother
- deho
- give
- aidemun
- rope
- heumun
- long
- wain
- STA
- goedumu
- coil
- allou
- REL.PST:ALL
- Eine.
- Eine
Their mother gave Eine a coil of long rope.
… Here heumun 'length, long thing' describes aidemun, which is further modified by the state auxiliary. … The allative heads a clausal modifer (with the main phrase being everything up to goedumu) …
(That being said, some northern Vanuatuan languages do indeed treat SVCs as being a consequence of one verb modifying another one. But that results in a very different sort of SVC than what you’ve got.)
Conlangs: Scratchpad | Texts | antilanguage
Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
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Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
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quinterbeck
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- Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:19 pm
- Location: UK
Re: Leima
Thanks! Reanalysis is very welcome, as the current terminology I have is conventionalised and hasn't changed since 2014. It was an approach that helped me think outside the box, but it's due for improvement!bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:07 am Ooh, look, a language with a closed verb class! My favourite type. It’s good to see a conlang experimenting with word classes.
(And, to forestall any argument, I would analyse these ‘auxiliaries’ as a closed class of 15 verbs — they seem to be used in predominantly verbal contexts. The monovalent ‘verbs’ I would then call coverbs; you don’t see coverbs as a separate word class very often, but they tend to pop up in languages such as this where the verb class is small and/or closed.)
The one thing I’m really confused about is the ‘modifier’ function of the verbs — the text has some examples, but they seem to be somewhat inconsistent with each other, and I suspect you may be accidentally conflating two separate constructions.
I will confess to conflating a bunch of stuff under 'modifier' (not so much accidentally as inadvisably) - I have trouble disentangling the different constructions as they look similar. I'll try to list them here, and switch to using the terms verb and coverb, with A and B becoming the verb's subject and object.
Verb phrase (or a predicate? it contains the subject): VP = (ASPECT-)(TENSE-)VERB (NEGATION) SUBJECT1 (RP2) OBJECT
Relative clause:
These can modify coverbs and nouns.
When the head is the subject of the relativised verb, and between them is...
- no intervening material: RC = (ASPECT-)(TENSE-)VERB (NEGATION) OBJECT
- intervening material: RC = di2 (ASPECT-)RELATIVE-(TENSE-)VERB (NEGATION) OBJECT
RC = (ASPECT-)RELATIVE-(TENSE-)VERB (NEGATION) SUBJECT1 (RP_di2) OBJECT
Serial verb (?) phrase: SVP = (nu2) (ASPECT-)(RELATIVE-TENSE3-)VERB (NEGATION) OBJECT
Note that a construction can be ambiguous between this and a relative clause.
Clause: C = (COORDINATION) (MOOD) VP {SVP}
1 Affixal subjects (e.g. pronouns) attach to the verb and the negation particle follows the verb+affix complex
2 di and nu are resumptive particles, indicating that the next item modifies something higher up in the syntax tree; nu points to the highest verb phrase, while di points to any other higher level. If no aspect marking intervenes, these particles prefix to the verb, supplanting the a- element of the relative marking if present. (Would it be right to say they cliticise?)
3 The tense on an adverbial phrase must agree with the main verb, but only appears if the verb is marked.
So I think your analysis is correct, although for me a natural reading of Degno orya nedon rug omyemhu is that rug omyemhu is a relative clause.
I already typed out a bunch of stuff on the next few sentences, so I'll post that next and keep the existing terminology.
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quinterbeck
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Re: Leima
Deg hannaid alloryaro allad doideneu houh aimuhi, allugum hingim alluno hodig eunai.
/dɛg ˈhanːajd alːˈɔɾjaɾɔ ˈʔalːad ˈdɔjdɛnu həwx ajˈmuhi ˈalːugum ˈhiŋgim ˈalːunɔ ˈhɔdig ˈɛwnaj/
The brothers left before dawn, in the boat they had built together.
New auxiliaries:
ad (PROP) property - 'A has property B' 'A has the capacity to do B'
gum (INST) instrument - 'A using B', 'A in manner B'
This sentence has three clausal modifiers explicitly marked, followed by a relative clause (headed by ACT). Leima has five impersonal pronouns, each with a singular and plural form (pronouns are the only place grammatical number appears in Leima), and 'boat' gets the appropriate retained pronoun in the relative clause, the animate, which includes live animals, groups of people and animals, nations, vehicles, and body parts. I thought 'with each other' is a nice way of rendering 'together'.
The comparative -eu is one of eleven degree suffixes. The standard of comparison is usually marked with the ablative - use of the allative here is conditioned by the flow of time.
Degwe gimra yoer meih oengen em Lohnamih goud rug duma eraig ohwe.
/ˈdɛgwɛ ˈgimɾa jɜːɾ məjx ˈɜːŋgɛn ɛm ˈlɔxnamix gəwd ɾug ˈduma ˈʔɛɾajg ˈɔxwɛ/
They went down the river called Lohnamih, until the trees surrounded them.
New auxiliaries:
yoer (VIA) vialis - 'A through B', 'A along path B'
oh or =h (PART) partitive - 'A of B' covering: inalienable possession, part, aspect, position, material
Leima speakers are spread across the valley system of a river basin. It's common to travel by river, which is why 'boat travel' gets its own verb. Speakers prefer to orient their speech relative to their boat or the nearest river.
Position is indicated using relational nouns, often with the partitive auxiliary connecting it to the frame of reference. A number of these cover position and orientation - e.g. mei means 'upstream' or 'directly behind, facing the same direction', here indicating they are passively following the flow of the river. Relational nouns ending in a vowel often appear with a reduced form of the partitive, even when the partitive carries a suffix, e.g. meiha 'behind me' (behind=PART-1s). (I'm pretty sure it makes sense to gloss this as a clitic?)
The conjunction goud is used for sequential events, and covers 'and then', 'until' and 'before'.
Dain oengen roameir ad hoaneo geo dad ehidoh hihaine.
/dajn ˈɜːŋgɛn ˈɾɔ͡əməjɾ ad hɔ͡əˈnɜː gɜː dad ˈɛhidɔx hiˈhajnɛ/
The river ran fast and the forest was very quiet.
"The river was in a state of fast flow" - hmm, roameir looks avalent to me, so perhaps PROP is redundant here!
Another conjunction geo 'when/while' or 'and' for simultaneous events - there's also nen 'before.which/after/since' and the generic geam 'and'. They all have disjunctive counterparts.
The degree suffix -ne covers 'much', 'many' and 'very'.
Du Eine araug hou hannai,
/du ˈʔəjnɛ ʔaˈɾawg həw ˈhanːaj/
Eine said to his brother,
Oh dear, technically the entire utterance is the object of araug, and the syntax doesn't allow modifying material to intervene between verb and object. I'll let this one slide for now...
"Weayedain ouh gei homu oem ad hilleo rug ehidode di dallih.
/ˈwɛ͡əjɛdajn əwx gəj ˈhɔmu ʔɜːm ad ˈhilːɜː ɾug ˈɛhidodɛ di ˈdalːix/
"Night will fall soon but there is nowhere to camp in this forest.
The stative wain gets future tense and inceptive aspect marking. On most auxiliaries the future prefix ye- displaces the onset, but when that onset is a glide, the past form is used as a base. The inceptive prefix requires some epenthesis here, as a simple vowel is disallowed before a glide. Simple /e/ is extended to the combined vowel /ea/, which is a centralising diphthong [ɛ͡ə]. Note that all VV sequences in Leima are tautosyllabic, being either diphthongs or long vowels (e.g. /aa/ [ɑː]).
The B argument of wain is gei, the dummy substantive, whose sense depends on the auxiliary. The simple present Wain ouh gei would literally be 'night is happening'. Were something particular entering a state of night, it might be specified, but it's not, so ouh appears as argument A, and gei as B, since both arguments are always required. If Eine wasn't such a rural fellow, he might have chosen to use the inceptive full verb weih 'begin', and said "Yedain ouh weih".
Likewise, dallih 'rest' is a full verb counterpart of the pausative aspect prefix dar-. Here it's the B argument of PROP, literally 'nowhere ... is restful'. The resumptive particle di appears before it because of the distance the modifier introduces between it and the auxiliary. Without it, it could feel like a garden path sentence: 'nowhere in this restful forest is...' (...is what??)
We also have two adverbs, homu 'soon' and hilleo 'nowhere'. Aside from a few specials (that I might revise), these are built from a base noun plus one of the demonstrative, quantifier, or degree suffixes - which is a regular productive process. Their special property as adverbs is that they can appear modifying at clause level without an auxiliary head (the implicit auxiliary is the locative rug).
homu 'soon' = ho 'time forward from, hence' + -mu -MED (medial demonstrative)
hilleo 'nowhere' = hir 'place' + -reo 'no, none' (negative quantifier)
In this sentence, hilleo is the A argument of PROP, so it's not technically being utilised as an adverb. The other base nouns for adverbial use are: mo 'way/manner', er 'point in time', and gau 'ago, time back from'.
Demonstrative deixis is three way: proximal -d(e) near the speaker, medial -m(u) near the addressee, and distal -ro far from both SPs - spatially at least; it's just linear for temporal deixis. Demonstratives are determiners when attached to nouns, and pronouns when attached to verbs and auxiliaries. We've seen -ro behaving as a demonstrative pronoun above, in alloryaro 'from there' - literally 'from that' (REL.PST:ABL-DIST), but the spatial semantics of the ablative are sufficient that the full adverb hillo 'there' is not required.
The conjunction oem 'but' is the disjunctive counterpart of geam.
Yoin hau idyeana gimra yoer ouh."
/jɔjn haw ʔidjɛ͡əna gimɾa jɜːɾ əwx/
We should continue travelling through the night."
Another conjunction yoin 'so, thus, therefore', followed by the hortative mood particle, and then continuative aspect on the auxiliary. With first and second person pronouns, the basic active auxiliary (i.e. not the relative form) is fused, with /u/ being elided. In the present tense, the epenthetic /m/ is retained, e.g. ma ACT.1s, while in the past and future, the pronoun and tense affixes attach directly, e.g. ye-en > yean FUT.ACT.2s.
/dɛg ˈhanːajd alːˈɔɾjaɾɔ ˈʔalːad ˈdɔjdɛnu həwx ajˈmuhi ˈalːugum ˈhiŋgim ˈalːunɔ ˈhɔdig ˈɛwnaj/
- Deg
- PST:GO
- hannai-d
- brother-PROX
- allorya-ro
- REL.PST:ABL-DIST
- allad
- REL.PST:PROP
- doidene-eu
- early-more
- houh
- ALL
- aimuhi,
- dawn
- allugum
- REL.PST:INST
- hingim
- boat
- allu-no
- REL.PST:ACT-3p
- hod-ig
- create-anim.sg
- eun-ai.
- COM-RECP
The brothers left before dawn, in the boat they had built together.
New auxiliaries:
ad (PROP) property - 'A has property B' 'A has the capacity to do B'
gum (INST) instrument - 'A using B', 'A in manner B'
This sentence has three clausal modifiers explicitly marked, followed by a relative clause (headed by ACT). Leima has five impersonal pronouns, each with a singular and plural form (pronouns are the only place grammatical number appears in Leima), and 'boat' gets the appropriate retained pronoun in the relative clause, the animate, which includes live animals, groups of people and animals, nations, vehicles, and body parts. I thought 'with each other' is a nice way of rendering 'together'.
The comparative -eu is one of eleven degree suffixes. The standard of comparison is usually marked with the ablative - use of the allative here is conditioned by the flow of time.
Degwe gimra yoer meih oengen em Lohnamih goud rug duma eraig ohwe.
/ˈdɛgwɛ ˈgimɾa jɜːɾ məjx ˈɜːŋgɛn ɛm ˈlɔxnamix gəwd ɾug ˈduma ˈʔɛɾajg ˈɔxwɛ/
- Deg-we
- PST:GO-3p
- gimra
- boat.travel
- yoer
- VIA
- mei=h
- behind=PART
- oengen
- river
- em
- ID
- Lohnamih
- Lohnamih
- goud
- and.then
- rug
- LOC
- duma
- tree
- eraig
- around
- oh-we.
- PART-3p
They went down the river called Lohnamih, until the trees surrounded them.
New auxiliaries:
yoer (VIA) vialis - 'A through B', 'A along path B'
oh or =h (PART) partitive - 'A of B' covering: inalienable possession, part, aspect, position, material
Leima speakers are spread across the valley system of a river basin. It's common to travel by river, which is why 'boat travel' gets its own verb. Speakers prefer to orient their speech relative to their boat or the nearest river.
Position is indicated using relational nouns, often with the partitive auxiliary connecting it to the frame of reference. A number of these cover position and orientation - e.g. mei means 'upstream' or 'directly behind, facing the same direction', here indicating they are passively following the flow of the river. Relational nouns ending in a vowel often appear with a reduced form of the partitive, even when the partitive carries a suffix, e.g. meiha 'behind me' (behind=PART-1s). (I'm pretty sure it makes sense to gloss this as a clitic?)
The conjunction goud is used for sequential events, and covers 'and then', 'until' and 'before'.
Dain oengen roameir ad hoaneo geo dad ehidoh hihaine.
/dajn ˈɜːŋgɛn ˈɾɔ͡əməjɾ ad hɔ͡əˈnɜː gɜː dad ˈɛhidɔx hiˈhajnɛ/
- Dain
- PST:STA
- oengen
- river
- roameir
- flow
- ad
- PROP
- hoaneo
- speed
- geo
- and.simult
- dad
- PST:PROP
- ehidoh
- forest
- hihai-ne.
- quiet-much
The river ran fast and the forest was very quiet.
"The river was in a state of fast flow" - hmm, roameir looks avalent to me, so perhaps PROP is redundant here!
Another conjunction geo 'when/while' or 'and' for simultaneous events - there's also nen 'before.which/after/since' and the generic geam 'and'. They all have disjunctive counterparts.
The degree suffix -ne covers 'much', 'many' and 'very'.
Du Eine araug hou hannai,
/du ˈʔəjnɛ ʔaˈɾawg həw ˈhanːaj/
- Du
- PST:ACT
- Eine
- Eine
- araug
- say
- hou
- ALL
- hannai,
- brother
Eine said to his brother,
Oh dear, technically the entire utterance is the object of araug, and the syntax doesn't allow modifying material to intervene between verb and object. I'll let this one slide for now...
"Weayedain ouh gei homu oem ad hilleo rug ehidode di dallih.
/ˈwɛ͡əjɛdajn əwx gəj ˈhɔmu ʔɜːm ad ˈhilːɜː ɾug ˈɛhidodɛ di ˈdalːix/
- "We-a-yedain
- INC-E-FUT:STA
- ouh
- night
- gei
- do
- homu
- soon
- oem
- but.also
- ad
- PROP
- hilleo
- nowhere
- rug
- LOC
- ehido-de
- forest-PROX
- di
- RS
- dallih.
- rest
"Night will fall soon but there is nowhere to camp in this forest.
The stative wain gets future tense and inceptive aspect marking. On most auxiliaries the future prefix ye- displaces the onset, but when that onset is a glide, the past form is used as a base. The inceptive prefix requires some epenthesis here, as a simple vowel is disallowed before a glide. Simple /e/ is extended to the combined vowel /ea/, which is a centralising diphthong [ɛ͡ə]. Note that all VV sequences in Leima are tautosyllabic, being either diphthongs or long vowels (e.g. /aa/ [ɑː]).
The B argument of wain is gei, the dummy substantive, whose sense depends on the auxiliary. The simple present Wain ouh gei would literally be 'night is happening'. Were something particular entering a state of night, it might be specified, but it's not, so ouh appears as argument A, and gei as B, since both arguments are always required. If Eine wasn't such a rural fellow, he might have chosen to use the inceptive full verb weih 'begin', and said "Yedain ouh weih".
Likewise, dallih 'rest' is a full verb counterpart of the pausative aspect prefix dar-. Here it's the B argument of PROP, literally 'nowhere ... is restful'. The resumptive particle di appears before it because of the distance the modifier introduces between it and the auxiliary. Without it, it could feel like a garden path sentence: 'nowhere in this restful forest is...' (...is what??)
We also have two adverbs, homu 'soon' and hilleo 'nowhere'. Aside from a few specials (that I might revise), these are built from a base noun plus one of the demonstrative, quantifier, or degree suffixes - which is a regular productive process. Their special property as adverbs is that they can appear modifying at clause level without an auxiliary head (the implicit auxiliary is the locative rug).
homu 'soon' = ho 'time forward from, hence' + -mu -MED (medial demonstrative)
hilleo 'nowhere' = hir 'place' + -reo 'no, none' (negative quantifier)
In this sentence, hilleo is the A argument of PROP, so it's not technically being utilised as an adverb. The other base nouns for adverbial use are: mo 'way/manner', er 'point in time', and gau 'ago, time back from'.
Demonstrative deixis is three way: proximal -d(e) near the speaker, medial -m(u) near the addressee, and distal -ro far from both SPs - spatially at least; it's just linear for temporal deixis. Demonstratives are determiners when attached to nouns, and pronouns when attached to verbs and auxiliaries. We've seen -ro behaving as a demonstrative pronoun above, in alloryaro 'from there' - literally 'from that' (REL.PST:ABL-DIST), but the spatial semantics of the ablative are sufficient that the full adverb hillo 'there' is not required.
The conjunction oem 'but' is the disjunctive counterpart of geam.
Yoin hau idyeana gimra yoer ouh."
/jɔjn haw ʔidjɛ͡əna gimɾa jɜːɾ əwx/
- Yoin
- so
- hau
- HORT
- id-yean-a
- CONT-FUT.ACT.2s-1s
- gimra
- boat.travel
- yoer
- VIA
- ouh."
- night
We should continue travelling through the night."
Another conjunction yoin 'so, thus, therefore', followed by the hortative mood particle, and then continuative aspect on the auxiliary. With first and second person pronouns, the basic active auxiliary (i.e. not the relative form) is fused, with /u/ being elided. In the present tense, the epenthetic /m/ is retained, e.g. ma ACT.1s, while in the past and future, the pronoun and tense affixes attach directly, e.g. ye-en > yean FUT.ACT.2s.
Re: Leima
I dunno, those ‘modifier’ constructions seemed quite different to me — though on the other hand, if they do turn out to be as similar as you say, then it could well be more parsimonious to analyse them as one construction.quinterbeck wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:02 pm I will confess to conflating a bunch of stuff under 'modifier' (not so much accidentally as inadvisably) - I have trouble disentangling the different constructions as they look similar. I'll try to list them here, and switch to using the terms verb and coverb, with A and B becoming the verb's subject and object.
I’d call the initial part (ASPECT-)(TENSE-)VERB (NEGATION) the ‘verb complex’ or ‘predicate’, with the other parts of this being its arguments. I’d avoid the term ‘verb phrase’ in a descriptive grammar, especially for a VSO language.Verb phrase (or a predicate? it contains the subject): VP = (ASPECT-)(TENSE-)VERB (NEGATION) SUBJECT1 (RP2) OBJECT
I think it’s worth pointing out here that in many languages, coverbs are distinguished from nouns specifically in that the latter can be modified while the former cannot. Not that you have to take this approach, of course. (Some languages take an intermediate approach; e.g. Skou IIRC allows only certain types of coverbs to be modified with difficulty.)Relative clause:
These can modify coverbs and nouns.
Hmm, I’m having second thoughts about analysing this as a SVC. If these phrases are always contiguous with the verb or object, and always occur in a specific order, then that name may be justified; but if they have some greater degree of freedom within the sentence, then… actually, now that I think of it, I’m not quite sure what you would call such a thing. ‘Prepositional verb’, maybe? Your name of ‘clausal modifier’ was probably fine, actually.Serial verb (?) phrase: SVP = (nu2) (ASPECT-)(RELATIVE-TENSE3-)VERB (NEGATION) OBJECT
Sounds interesting — can you give an example please?Note that a construction can be ambiguous between this and a relative clause.
Yeah, if you define a clitic as ‘something which is phonologically an affix but syntactically an independent word’, then that sounds about right. Though in practise, ‘clitic’ really tends to get used for ‘anything which is sort of affixy and sort of wordy’, and no-one’s going to say your terminology is incorrect no matter how much you (mis)use it.2 di and nu are resumptive particles … If no aspect marking intervenes, these particles prefix to the verb, supplanting the a- element of the relative marking if present. (Would it be right to say they cliticise?)
I like all of this!quinterbeck wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:07 pm Leima speakers are spread across the valley system of a river basin. It's common to travel by river, which is why 'boat travel' gets its own verb. Speakers prefer to orient their speech relative to their boat or the nearest river.
Position is indicated using relational nouns, often with the partitive auxiliary connecting it to the frame of reference. A number of these cover position and orientation - e.g. mei means 'upstream' or 'directly behind, facing the same direction', here indicating they are passively following the flow of the river. Relational nouns ending in a vowel often appear with a reduced form of the partitive, even when the partitive carries a suffix, e.g. meiha 'behind me' (behind=PART-1s). (I'm pretty sure it makes sense to gloss this as a clitic?)
Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about this — my understanding is that direct speech tends to be a bit wonky compared to ‘regular’ objects. If you want to avoid this, one option which comes to mind is allowing the ‘clausal modifier‘ to move back next to the verb: Du hou hannai Eine araug, ‘…’. Or if you want to keep the current word order, you could analyse araug as being a monovalent verb ‘talk’, with an apposed direct quote, in which case a literal translation would be ‘Eine did talking to his brother, ‘Night will fall soon …’’.Du Eine araug hou hannai,
/du ˈʔəjnɛ ʔaˈɾawg həw ˈhanːaj/
- Du
- PST:ACT
- Eine
- Eine
- araug
- say
- hou
- ALL
- hannai,
- brother
Eine said to his brother,
Oh dear, technically the entire utterance is the object of araug, and the syntax doesn't allow modifying material to intervene between verb and object. I'll let this one slide for now...
(Not sure I have time to read the rest now, but I’ll try to come back to it at some point.)
Conlangs: Scratchpad | Texts | antilanguage
Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
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Software: See http://bradrn.com/projects.html
Other: Ergativity for Novices
(Why does phpBB not let me add >5 links here?)
-
quinterbeck
- Posts: 382
- Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:19 pm
- Location: UK
Re: Leima
The thing that makes it confusing is that I decided to use the same morphological marking in slightly different ways for these two different things.
Even when the subject can intrude into the verb complex? This happens with pronouns, demonstratrives and quantifiers, which are all suffixes, e.g.
Durugwe leo hillo euhida
- Durug-we
- PST:LOC-3s
- leo
- NEG
- hillo
- there
- euhida
- yesterday
He was not there yesterday
This might well be true in Leima. So far I'm failing to find an example of a modified coverb.bradrn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 10:30 am I think it’s worth pointing out here that in many languages, coverbs are distinguished from nouns specifically in that the latter can be modified while the former cannot. Not that you have to take this approach, of course. (Some languages take an intermediate approach; e.g. Skou IIRC allows only certain types of coverbs to be modified with difficulty.)
Da dageh oan gum ihnin
- Da
- PST.ACT.1s
- dageh
- fight
- oan
- man
- gum
- INST
- ihnin
- knife
I fought a man with a knife
Here it's a similar ambiguity to the English preposition. This could be "I fought a man (who uses a knife)" or "(I fought a man) using a knife". The second reading can be disambiguated by explicitly marking the clausal modifier.
Da dageh oan allugum ihnin
- Da
- PST.ACT.1s
- dageh
- fight
- oan
- man
- allugum
- REL.PST:INST
- ihnin
- knife
I fought a man with a knife
As for the first, I don't currently have a strategy for disambiguating this kind of relative clause (head coinciding with subject of relative), perhaps the subject could have a retained pronoun rather than get gapped?
Da dageh oan ?agumwe ihnin
- Da
- PST.ACT.1s
- dageh
- fight
- oan
- man
- ?agum-we
- ?REL:INST-3s
- ihnin
- knife
I fought a man (who uses/used a knife)
Hmm, not sure I like it. This idea needs more road testing.
Thanks for reading!
-
quinterbeck
- Posts: 382
- Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:19 pm
- Location: UK
Re: Leima
Numbers (for Janko)
Leima has names for numbers one to ten and powers of one hundred. One to ten have two forms - a full word meaning 'a set of size x', and a reduced prefix.
Bracketed vowels appear when prefixed to a consonant. Prefixes can be combined for numbers 11 to 99, in the form [tens]-'ten'-[units]:
iggengea /ˈiŋːɛŋgɛ͡ə/ (igg-en-gea) - eighty-two
One irregularity: thirty is mon rather than expected men.
For counting nouns, numbers 1 to 99 are prefixed to the noun phrase. Larger numbers are treated like normal nouns, and are modified by the noun phrases being counted. To get more specific than a power of a hundred, smaller numbers are co-ordinated with ed- 'and' after the counted noun phrase
momair /ˈmɔmajɾ/ (mo-mair) - three people
amnaum /ˈamnawm/ (am-naum) - 400
amnaum mair /ˈamnawm majɾ/ - 400 people
edamnaum mair edorengea /ɛdˈamnawm ˈmajɾ ˈɛdɔɾɛŋgɛ͡ə/ (ed-am-naum mair ed-or-en-gea) - 452 people (lit. four hundred people and fifty-two)
There are numeral-specific derivation affixes:
Another irregularity: 'tenth' (ordinal) is ennoi, not enne, including multiples of ten, e.g. mehennoi 'sixtieth'.
Ordinals and multipliers are nouns, so they follow the described noun, while fractions and distributives tag onto normal numeral behaviour:
aaga gen - the second cup
aaga gerai - twice the cups
igaaga - half a cup
hegaaga - two cups each
Multipliers are for quantities and degrees, not number of times, which uses er 'time, instant, moment', e.g. der 'once'. Darai 'as much' is very emphatic since Leima already has a degree suffix -aa 'as much, this much'.
Age uses the comitative verb eun 'with':
Euna genanlehwai.
I am twenty-seven years old.
Frequency is expressed as 'x-time at each-y-period':
orel rug hedaram
five times a day
Leima has names for numbers one to ten and powers of one hundred. One to ten have two forms - a full word meaning 'a set of size x', and a reduced prefix.
| Full word | Prefix | Value |
| daa /dɑː/ | d(a)- | one |
| gea /gɛ͡ə/ | g(e)- | two |
| moe /mɜː/ | m(o)- | three |
| ame /ˈamɛ/ | am- | four |
| oru /ˈɔɾu/ | or- | five |
| meh /mɛx/ | meh- | six |
| anle /ˈanlɛ/ | anl(e)- | seven |
| igge /ˈiŋːɛ/ | igg(e)- | eight |
| hih /hix/ | hih- | nine |
| en /ɛn/ | en- | ten |
| naum /nawm/ | 100 | |
| euge /ˈɛwgɛ/ | 10,000 | |
| ogaida /ɔˈgajda/ | 1,000,000 | |
| realdeuh /ˈɾɛ͡əldɛwx/ | 100,000,000 |
Bracketed vowels appear when prefixed to a consonant. Prefixes can be combined for numbers 11 to 99, in the form [tens]-'ten'-[units]:
iggengea /ˈiŋːɛŋgɛ͡ə/ (igg-en-gea) - eighty-two
One irregularity: thirty is mon rather than expected men.
For counting nouns, numbers 1 to 99 are prefixed to the noun phrase. Larger numbers are treated like normal nouns, and are modified by the noun phrases being counted. To get more specific than a power of a hundred, smaller numbers are co-ordinated with ed- 'and' after the counted noun phrase
momair /ˈmɔmajɾ/ (mo-mair) - three people
amnaum /ˈamnawm/ (am-naum) - 400
amnaum mair /ˈamnawm majɾ/ - 400 people
edamnaum mair edorengea /ɛdˈamnawm ˈmajɾ ˈɛdɔɾɛŋgɛ͡ə/ (ed-am-naum mair ed-or-en-gea) - 452 people (lit. four hundred people and fifty-two)
There are numeral-specific derivation affixes:
| Affix | Derives | E.g. one, two, three become: |
| -ne | ordinal | first, second, third |
| -rai | multiplier | as much*, twice, thrice |
| i- | fraction | whole, half, third |
| he- | distributive | one each/one by one etc. |
Another irregularity: 'tenth' (ordinal) is ennoi, not enne, including multiples of ten, e.g. mehennoi 'sixtieth'.
Ordinals and multipliers are nouns, so they follow the described noun, while fractions and distributives tag onto normal numeral behaviour:
aaga gen - the second cup
aaga gerai - twice the cups
igaaga - half a cup
hegaaga - two cups each
Multipliers are for quantities and degrees, not number of times, which uses er 'time, instant, moment', e.g. der 'once'. Darai 'as much' is very emphatic since Leima already has a degree suffix -aa 'as much, this much'.
Age uses the comitative verb eun 'with':
Euna genanlehwai.
- Eun-a
- COM-1s
- g-en-anl-ehwai
- two-ten-seven-year
I am twenty-seven years old.
Frequency is expressed as 'x-time at each-y-period':
orel rug hedaram
- or-el
- five-time
- rug
- LOC
- he-da-ram
- each-one-day
five times a day