Conlang Random Thread

[Creyeditor]

There is a paper by Dalrymple and Mofu (2012) on Indonesian number semantics. Maybe they talk about it or give some reference.

[malloc]

One solution to this is to use passives whenever inanimate objects interact. Another solution is to not use a simple animate versus inanimate distinction but rather relative personhood/animacy/topicality so that one inanimate object can still be higher on the hierarchy than another inanimate object if it is more topical.

I have considered both of those options and have been sorting through the advantages and problems of each. Perhaps I should research how Algonquian (and other languages with animacy) handle this situation.

[bradrn]

One solution to this is to use passives whenever inanimate objects interact. Another solution is to not use a simple animate versus inanimate distinction but rather relative personhood/animacy/topicality so that one inanimate object can still be higher on the hierarchy than another inanimate object if it is more topical.

I have considered both of those options and have been sorting through the advantages and problems of each. Perhaps I should research how Algonquian (and other languages with animacy) handle this situation.

I think it’s simply very rare to have restrictions on the animacy of semantic roles, at least for core arguments. My understanding is that Algonquian languages worry only about the relative animacy of the arguments: the agent must be more animate than the patient, and the verb takes inverse morphology when this is not the case.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

A possibly amusing random language building detail:

English uses the word spring to refer to both a season in which plants tend to return from dormancy, and flowers to bloom, but also to some source of water from other the ground.

The words in Ineshîmé are:

春 (also spelled 清季 or 大季)「しんぎい」shinji [ɕíɴ.ʑì] "spring, season when plants emerge from dormancy and many flowers bloom"
源 (not having variant spellings)「しんじ」shinji [ɕíɴ.ʑì] "spring, wellspring, source of water"

The two are etymologically unconnected — compare Proto-Tinasan-Ineshîmé *singi "great season, great era"; but *simzik, from elements meaning "soak" and "spread", referring originally to groundwater seeping up from the ground — unlike the English words, which seem to be etymologically identical, but having differentiated in meaning. I didn't intend this to happen, but there was a period in the history of the language when homophones became more common, but this is what struck me as the most amusing example.

Addendum: "spring" as in a bouncy coil is not a homophone — 捲「にぜい」nize [ɲíˑ.z̪è̞].

Anybody else have weird coincidences like this?

[Travis B.]

I think it’s simply very rare to have restrictions on the animacy of semantic roles, at least for core arguments. My understanding is that Algonquian languages worry only about the relative animacy of the arguments: the agent must be more animate than the patient, and the verb takes inverse morphology when this is not the case.

Furthermore, as I mentioned, person, whether something is referred to with a demonstrative or a proper name, and how topical something is also takes a major role in many direct-inverse languages.

[bradrn]

I think it’s simply very rare to have restrictions on the animacy of semantic roles, at least for core arguments. My understanding is that Algonquian languages worry only about the relative animacy of the arguments: the agent must be more animate than the patient, and the verb takes inverse morphology when this is not the case.

Furthermore, as I mentioned, person, whether something is referred to with a demonstrative or a proper name, and how topical something is also takes a major role in many direct-inverse languages.

Person, demonstratives and names are usually considered part of the animacy hierarchy. I wouldn’t know about topicality interactions.

[Richard W]

In some languages, like Indonesian, plural is only used for an unspecific number of things or people. With cardinal numerals the unmarked singular is used. The unmarked form can also be used for plural referents, but I am not sure what the conditions are.

The first two sentences apply to at least one variety of English, probably more.

[Pabappa]

Im going to revive a childhood project I called Moonshine as an in-world auxiliary language, and this will be my first attempt at an unnaturalistic language since 2004 when I was working on Xap II and Xap III.

To clarify, while Poswa and Pabappa may seem wildly unnaturalistic by Earth standards, they dutifully obey the general laws of lingustics in their world, which are looser than ours on how a phonology might end up, but still strict on what sound changes may occur to bring it there. Likewise with grammar .... Poswa's grammar is extreme, but not so far off from that of Inuktitut. Likewise, the language I call Classical Moonshine is at a different extreme, but still naturalistic in the means by which it evolved.

This new IAL .... I dont have a good name for it, but I may go with "Medical Moonshine" .... will be unnaturalistic even by the standards of its planet, and have features which are useful but very difficult to evolve naturally, such as circular grammatical operations (a vowel chain of a > i > u > a, for example), and mirror changes to show binary categories .... e.g. change the voicing of any morpheme to get its opposite.

Ive been more busy lately, though, and may not have much to show for this for quite a while. Sometimes what feels like days is over a month and I realize that I havent done much in more than a year.

[bradrn]

Sounds interesting. Unnaturalistic languages are always fun. Will you be posting about it here?

One thing I’d quite like to see, if you’re interested, would be a complete reference grammar of either Poswa or Pabappa. They always seem so interesting when you post about them, and I’d love to know more. (I know there’s some stuff on FrathWiki but it’s a bit incomplete and hard to follow.)

[malloc]

Apart from such technical problems, the combination of animacy and obviation is distinctly Algonquian and I worry that one could consider it cultural appropriation. Normally such concerns would seem rather minor, even regarding non-Western languages. One could hardly argue that Mandarin or Arabic are more marginalized than say, Welsh, which has inspired plenty of conlangs without controversy, so borrowing from them seems less of an issue. Whereas the Algonquian peoples and their culture are indisputably marginalized and borrowing from them feels more problematic.

[Travis B.]

I do not see how using a feature of a minority language in a conlang could actually be considered "cultural appropriation" since cultural appropriation is an entirely different matter, where privileged people take up features of other cultures and market them so as to compete with those they took up the cultural features from. This certainly is not the case in using features of Algonquian languages in your conlang, especially since you are not marketing anything!

[Karch]

Jesus Christ, Eddy, you're overthinking it - calm down and just start conlanging if you feel inspired - it's not like you're selling imitation headdresses!

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I now know what obviation is. It never occurred to me that such a feature might exist.

[bradrn]

Apart from such technical problems, the combination of animacy and obviation is distinctly Algonquian and I worry that one could consider it cultural appropriation. Normally such concerns would seem rather minor, even regarding non-Western languages. One could hardly argue that Mandarin or Arabic are more marginalized than say, Welsh, which has inspired plenty of conlangs without controversy, so borrowing from them seems less of an issue. Whereas the Algonquian peoples and their culture are indisputably marginalized and borrowing from them feels more problematic.

One of my more recent conlangs has a closed verb class and extensive SVCs and coverb constructions. This combination of features is distinctly Trans–New Guinea — actually, it’s worse than that, it’s distinctly Kalam. As yet, no Kalam person has yet come accuse me of stealing their language.

Anyway, I’d argue it isn’t ‘appropriation’ at all. Presumably you’re using the feature because you like it, and thoroughly understand how it works, and appreciate where it came from; as I understand it, that’s the opposite of cultural appropriation.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

On that note, I don't think a hobby like this could ever be mainstream enough for such an idea to ever matter. People might admire others' invented languages, but only rarely do they go around learning and using them. Cultural appropriation in this case would be taking the actual language and its associated culture, and creating some work of creative expression, and doing so in such a way as materially reduced the chances of members of the culture itself from having their own creative expressions taken seriously.

[bradrn]

I now know what obviation is. It never occurred to me that such a feature might exist.

Just wait till you hear about logophoricity! (And also egophoricity, which confusingly is a totally different thing.)

Cultural appropriation in this case would be taking the actual language and its associated culture, and creating some work of creative expression, and doing so in such a way as materially reduced the chances of members of the culture itself from having their own creative expressions taken seriously.

I think this is the best definition of cultural appropriation I’ve seen yet, so thank you for clarifying this concept for me.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I now know what obviation is. It never occurred to me that such a feature might exist.

Just wait till you hear about logophoricity! (And also egophoricity, which confusingly is a totally different thing.)

So logophoricity is when an anaphoric pronoun is marked differently if it references something whose thoughts and feelings are being reported, but egophoricity is a verbal marking that notes that something is from the speaker's perspective? Have I understood that correctly? I also did not imagine such features existed.

Cultural appropriation in this case would be taking the actual language and its associated culture, and creating some work of creative expression, and doing so in such a way as materially reduced the chances of members of the culture itself from having their own creative expressions taken seriously.

I think this is the best definition of cultural appropriation I’ve seen yet, so thank you for clarifying this concept for me.

I'm happy it was helpful.

I should probably append that this is my personal understanding and interpretation of cultural appropriation, and the opinions of others on this point seem to vary considerably. I also don't consider it to be a strictly coloured issue, insofar as I would be hard-pressed to view Japanese culture as appropriatable (and, in a few decades, the same will probably be true of the South Korean and Han Chinese, which are coming to occupy a greater place in Western cultural consciousness) since it's already so widely broadcast, but I should think Welsh, Scottish, and Basque culture (none of which are, to my knowledge, extremely widely broadcast, despite being European) might be. I would also include in appropriation ideological use of a culture, as of some extremist groups using Norse-derived visual symbolism, which can cause confusion between expressions of tradition and heritage, and expressions of bigotry (thereby impairing the group from which it was appropriated from engaging in creative expression using traditional materials).

[bradrn]

I now know what obviation is. It never occurred to me that such a feature might exist.

Just wait till you hear about logophoricity! (And also egophoricity, which confusingly is a totally different thing.)

So logophoricity is when an anaphoric pronoun is marked differently if it references something whose thoughts and feelings are being reported

Possibly. I never properly understood the concept myself.

but egophoricity is a verbal marking that notes that something is from the speaker's perspective?

Sort of. I need to read more about it, but basically an ‘egophoric’ marker is something which indicates the speaker in declarative sentences, but the listener in interrogative sentences. So something like:

I like-EGO egophoricity.
You like-ALL egophoricity.
They like-ALL egophoricity.

Do I like-ALL egophoricity?
Do you like-EGO egophoricity?
Do they like-ALL egophoricity?

The nice thing about this is that you can use the same markers for questions and responses: if I ask you Do you like-EGO egophoricity?, you can respond with I like-EGO egophoricity.

I should probably append that this is my personal understanding and interpretation of cultural appropriation, and the opinions of others on this point seem to vary considerably. I also don't consider it to be a strictly coloured issue, insofar as I would be hard-pressed to view Japanese culture as appropriatable (and, in a few decades, the same will probably be true of the South Korean and Han Chinese, which are coming to occupy a greater place in Western cultural consciousness) since it's already so widely broadcast, but I should think Welsh, Scottish, and Basque culture (none of which are, to my knowledge, extremely widely broadcast, despite being European) might be. I would also include in appropriation ideological use of a culture, as of some extremist groups using Norse-derived visual symbolism, which can cause confusion between expressions of tradition and heritage, and expressions of bigotry (thereby impairing the group from which it was appropriated from engaging in creative expression using traditional materials).

I agree this is a sensible position.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

So logophoricity is when an anaphoric pronoun is marked differently if it references something whose thoughts and feelings are being reported

Possibly. I never properly understood the concept myself.

I find the wording in many articles about linguistic things confusingly jargon-laden, including the one on Wikipedia I read trying to understand logophoricity.

but egophoricity is a verbal marking that notes that something is from the speaker's perspective?

Sort of. I need to read more about it, but basically an ‘egophoric’ marker is something which indicates the speaker in declarative sentences, but the listener in interrogative sentences. So something like:

I like-EGO egophoricity.
You like-ALL egophoricity.
They like-ALL egophoricity.

Do I like-ALL egophoricity?
Do you like-EGO egophoricity?
Do they like-ALL egophoricity?

The nice thing about this is that you can use the same markers for questions and responses: if I ask you Do you like-EGO egophoricity?, you can respond with I like-EGO egophoricity.

That is rather elegant in how balanced it is, but also very "odd" compared with what languages I do know.

Something long that was cut to reduce the space this post takes up.

I agree this is a sensible position.

I might not always succeed, but I do try to be a sensible person.

[bradrn]

So logophoricity is when an anaphoric pronoun is marked differently if it references something whose thoughts and feelings are being reported

Possibly. I never properly understood the concept myself.

I find the wording in many articles about linguistic things confusingly jargon-laden, including the one on Wikipedia I read trying to understand logophoricity.

Wikipedia’s linguistics articles are generally terrible. I’d advise reading academic publications instead, which curiously enough are often easier to understand than Wikipedia.

but egophoricity is a verbal marking that notes that something is from the speaker's perspective?

Sort of. I need to read more about it, but basically an ‘egophoric’ marker is something which indicates the speaker in declarative sentences, but the listener in interrogative sentences. So something like:

I like-EGO egophoricity.
You like-ALL egophoricity.
They like-ALL egophoricity.

Do I like-ALL egophoricity?
Do you like-EGO egophoricity?
Do they like-ALL egophoricity?

The nice thing about this is that you can use the same markers for questions and responses: if I ask you Do you like-EGO egophoricity?, you can respond with I like-EGO egophoricity.

That is rather elegant in how balanced it is, but also very "odd" compared with what languages I do know.

Many areas of linguistics are like this.