Conlang Random Thread

[jal]

It's just a person and number marker for the whole sentence

Isn't that just normal head marking both subject and object on the verb?


JAL

[bradrn]

It's just a person and number marker for the whole sentence

Isn't that just normal head marking both subject and object on the verb?

I agree, this sounds like perfectly normal polypersonal agreement.

A further question on this transformation:

Also the tranformation from verb + sentence type marker + noun with an optional applicative or instrumental to noun + verb + sentence type marker with an optional applicative or instrumental is seen in the language. Is this naturalistic?

How is it possible for a noun to take an applicative marker?

[Ahzoh]

How is it possible for a noun to take an applicative marker?

I imagine that it would mark the noun as an applied object.

[bradrn]

How is it possible for a noun to take an applicative marker?

I imagine that it would mark the noun as an applied object.

What do you mean by an ‘applied object’? An applicative marker, as far as I’m aware, is quite simply a valency-changing marker which promotes an indirect object to direct object status. (This is one of the very very few instances I’m aware of where linguists can actually agree on a definition.) Whatever this is, it doesn’t sound like an applicative.

[Ahzoh]

How is it possible for a noun to take an applicative marker?

I imagine that it would mark the noun as an applied object.

What do you mean by an ‘applied object’? An applicative marker, as far as I’m aware, is quite simply a valency-changing marker which promotes an indirect object to direct object status. (This is one of the very very few instances I’m aware of where linguists can actually agree on a definition.) Whatever this is, it doesn’t sound like an applicative.

It promotes oblique objects to direct objects, this promoted object is also called an "applied object". If the noun is taking an applicative marker instead of the verb, it would be like how nouns can take TAM markers instead of verbs.

[bradrn]

If the noun is taking an applicative marker instead of the verb, it would be like how nouns can take TAM markers instead of verbs.

Well, not really… I’m not aware of a case in which a so-called ‘nominal TAM marker’ has the same semantics as an actual TAM marker. If a noun takes a marker stating that it’s an ‘applied object’, I don’t see how this is different to just ordinary case marking.

[foxcatdog]

How is it possible for a noun to take an applicative marker?

The nouns an incorporate so it's considered part of the verb. Also i've abandoned the idea the other transformation since adjectives (which are often zero derived from verbs and practically the same class) appear after the nouns they modify. This would leave us with 3 distinct verb + object combinations.

verb + regular object
verb + incorporated object (most likely marked by consonant mutation however note that most morphemes will appear after the object when this happens)
regular object + adjectival verb (so game + do becomes something like "the in progress game"

The language has 3 standard word orders.
SVO (the most basic)
OSV (used when you want to emphasise the object)
VSO (used when you want to emphasise the verb)

Now since an incorporated object is just part of a verb you can front it is the VSO constructions to create sorta VOS constructions while since an adjective is part of a noun phrase you can create sorta OVS constructions with it. With certain verbs you could create sentences which technically don't have a verb but would require a verb in the english translation.

1.sg game do
"I'm playing the in progress game"

game do 1.sg
"the in progress game i'm playing"

Also with "Binding Verbs" you couldn't do the regular OSV or VSO constructions but you could possible do OVS constructions to front both which is normally not allowed.

Also the language usually puts Datives and Causatives (a.k.a Animate indirect objects) at the start of the sentence in standard SVO sentences so it could possibly appear at the start of the sentence or directly before the Subject in other sentence types through this will be disfavoured even compared to other OSV or VSO sentences. (Also since the Dative is marked by Case and the Causative by Voice it could possibly trigger the development of Causative Cases and Benefactive Voices in the daughter languages).

[bradrn]

Now since an incorporated object is just part of a verb you can front it is the VSO constructions to create sorta VOS constructions

This construction is well-attested from Niuean (Woolford 2015). You can look up ‘pseudo noun incorporation’ if you want to know more.

while since an adjective is part of a noun phrase you can create sorta OVS constructions with it.

I’m not sure I understand where this comes from — could you elaborate?

With certain verbs you could create sentences which technically don't have a verb but would require a verb in the english translation.

1.sg game do
"I'm playing the in progress game"

game do 1.sg
"the in progress game i'm playing"

Why don’t these have a verb? ‘do’ looks very verb-like, at least in the first example.

Also with "Binding Verbs" you couldn't do the regular OSV or VSO constructions but you could possible do OVS constructions to front both which is normally not allowed.

What do you mean by a ‘binding verb’?

Also the language usually puts Datives and Causatives (a.k.a Animate indirect objects) at the start of the sentence in standard SVO sentences

What happens to inanimate indirect objects?

[Ahzoh]

An interesting pathway my conlang has gone through. The language starts with /ɬ ɮ l/ distinction, merges /ɮ l/, finally reintroduces [ɮ] as an allophone of /l/ intervocalically (and possibly word finally). The cycle continues.

[Nachtswalbe]

I'm kind of interested in making a conlang creole between two related languages, or at least two languages with similar phonology and phonotactics, like an English-German creole. In rvbomally of Deviantart's Ad Astra Per Aspera space dystopia, the Coalition of Western Republics, a fascist far future descendant of an alternate fascist America speaks "American", an English-German creole that sounds like "Afrikaans or Leni Riefenstahl's accented English".

English and German are phonologically similar enough that the result would sound like German-accented English..
Also, the grammatical Endings are similar enough that I could see -t emerging as the past tense marker and -n as as the progressive tense marker, from colloquial german (sein + am + verbal noun).

Also lots of common core vocabulary.

e.g Vi glaubi ol mensh ver meik ikval
1pl. believe all man PASS make equal

[Ahzoh]

Well it seems I have run into a dilemma with regards to how my conlang deals with noun compounding.

The language forms noun compounds with a noun placed in the construct state and the dependent nouns agreeing with the head in number and case (but not gender), so I can have a noun like ṭal daṣṣum "oxhorn/horn of ox" (a type of polearm) but I would have no way to say "using their oxhorns" (ṭalākinak daṣṣūk horn-CNS.PL-3MP-INS ox-FEM.PL-INS) without, what it appears to me, breaking the "closeness" of the head-modifier relation.

[Creyeditor]

The construction looks very sensible. I am almost 100% sure there is a natlang precedent. What's the problem?

[Ahzoh]

I am almost 100% sure there is a natlang precedent.

It is hard to say when the only languages that employ a "construct state" have relatively few cases (Arabic or Akkadian) or no cases at all (Dholuo and Hebrew). And among the cased languages there is no example like "my/our/your/their X of Y" or if there is it's a possessive suffix on the head noun and the dependent modified by a possessing preposition.

What's the problem?

It feels like too many intervening elements between head and dependent that weakens the "close semantic relation by juxtaposition" (think 矛盾 máodùn "spear shield")

Relatedly, is having the dependent agree with the head in case and number still suffixaufnahme even if the language lacks a genitive case?

[zompist]

I am almost 100% sure there is a natlang precedent.

It is hard to say when the only languages that employ a "construct state" have relatively few cases (Arabic or Akkadian) or no cases at all (Dholuo and Hebrew). And among the cased languages there is no example like "my/our/your/their X of Y" or if there is it's a possessive suffix on the head noun and the dependent modified by a possessing preposition.

In Akkadian, if I'm not mistaken, nouns in the construct state can be marked for case, but only in the dual or plural. There's no instrumental, but if there was, it could behave like the genitive.

[Ahzoh]

I am almost 100% sure there is a natlang precedent.

It is hard to say when the only languages that employ a "construct state" have relatively few cases (Arabic or Akkadian) or no cases at all (Dholuo and Hebrew). And among the cased languages there is no example like "my/our/your/their X of Y" or if there is it's a possessive suffix on the head noun and the dependent modified by a possessing preposition.

In Akkadian, if I'm not mistaken, nouns in the construct state can be marked for case, but only in the dual or plural. There's no instrumental, but if there was, it could behave like the genitive.

The case system is very degenerated in the bound forms of the nouns, even so, according to my source:

Nouns with suffixes may also be modified by another noun, but ša must be used to express the genitive relationship:
eli kussīka ša ḫurāṣim
"On your throne of gold."

Which, by the way, I would translate into Vrkhazhian as nammağadmis zitîs ku

I don't think to use the instrumental to convey a genitive relationship because I couldn't think of a semantic pathway that would lead to that, unlike the semantic pathway that leads to Locative > Genitive
I think case concord (suffixaufnahme?) with the head does the job well.

I suppose the only way to make this phrase (ṭalākinak daṣṣūk horn-CNS.PL-3MP-INS ox-FEM.PL-INS) seem less weird is not to think "horn of ox" as one unit (oxhorn) but to treat the "ox" part of the phrase as like an adjective (oxlike, belonging to oxen).

[zompist]

In Akkadian, if I'm not mistaken, nouns in the construct state can be marked for case, but only in the dual or plural. There's no instrumental, but if there was, it could behave like the genitive.

The case system is very degenerated in the bound forms of the nouns, even so, according to my source:

Nouns with suffixes may also be modified by another noun, but ša must be used to express the genitive relationship:
eli kussīka ša ḫurāṣim
"On your throne of gold."

Right, but that's a prepositional phrase; I was just thinking of the construct state in the genitive case. Cf.

http://urkesh.org/EL2/Buccellati_1997_A ... guages.pdf

page 79-- if I'm reading that right, you could say mārū bēlī bītim "the sons of the masters of the house". Unfortunately none of the grammars I have actually give an example of the construct case in the genitive, though they all say it exists.

[Ahzoh]

page 79-- if I'm reading that right, you could say mārū bēlī bītim "the sons of the masters of the house". Unfortunately none of the grammars I have actually give an example of the construct case in the genitive, though they all say it exists.

The genitive suffix of a bound noun is always -ī and incidentally it is everywhere where there is a preposition as all nouns modified by prepositions are in the genitive case. The sentence from my source demonstrates this.

Still, you just don't see things like bēlūšunu bītim "their (m.) head (nom.) of the house (gen.). Although I see now that Akkadian is a bad example language to express this issue since it still mainly uses the construct state for direct and transparent possession rather than general noun compounding

No, more better is Hebrew with such nouns like (as per Wiki) orekh din "lawyer", menorat kir "wall lamp", and more derekh "guide" but which mean literally mean, respectively, "arranger of law", "lamp of wall", and "teacher of way". I have never seen any examples but I guess they might use the possessive suffixes on the head nouns to say "their lawyers" or "my wall lamp" or "her guides"?

[Richard W]

No, more better is Hebrew with such nouns like (as per Wiki) orekh din "lawyer", menorat kir "wall lamp", and more derekh "guide" but which mean literally mean, respectively, "arranger of law", "lamp of wall", and "teacher of way". I have never seen any examples but I guess they might use the possessive suffixes on the head nouns to say "their lawyers" or "my wall lamp" or "her guides"?

No, the suffixes go on the second element.

[Ahzoh]

No, the suffixes go on the second element.

That seems weird since I figured possessive suffixes (rather than clitics) would only go on head nouns.

[Richard W]

No, the suffixes go on the second element.

That seems weird since I figured possessive suffixes (rather than clitics) would only go on head nouns.

That probably reflects the tightness of the compounds. Though for these compounds, the literal meaning doesn't seem too bad, e.g. 'the lamp of my wall' instead of 'my lamp for a wall'.