What have you accomplished today?

[Moose-tache]

I'd say you have nominative, accusative/dative, and then two adverbial/oblique cases. The only thing on the hierarchy that gets skipped is genitive, and that happens sometimes when possession works in weird ways. I think there are//were some Tungusic languages that "skipped" the genitive as well.

[Travis B.]

I'd say you have nominative, accusative/dative, and then two adverbial/oblique cases. The only thing on the hierarchy that gets skipped is genitive, and that happens sometimes when possession works in weird ways. I think there are//were some Tungusic languages that "skipped" the genitive as well.

Consider the case of many German dialects, which have nominative, accusative, and dative cases but no genitive case.

[Ahzoh]

I'd say you have nominative, accusative/dative, and then two adverbial/oblique cases. The only thing on the hierarchy that gets skipped is genitive, and that happens sometimes when possession works in weird ways. I think there are//were some Tungusic languages that "skipped" the genitive as well.

In my language, the instrumental is a syntactic case, like the dative is in many other languages

[Moose-tache]

I'd say you have nominative, accusative/dative, and then two adverbial/oblique cases. The only thing on the hierarchy that gets skipped is genitive, and that happens sometimes when possession works in weird ways. I think there are//were some Tungusic languages that "skipped" the genitive as well.

In my language, the instrumental is a syntactic case, like the dative is in many other languages

Is it though? I mean, the "standard" classification is that the pencil in "give sally a pencil" is a core argument. But your other example "shower him with love" suggests that the instrumental is working as a non-core argument. In other words, how do we know "give Sally a pencil" is not "present Sally with a pencil" or "award Sally with a pencil," just dressed up to match an English word with totally different syntax? That would also explain why you use the same case for Sally in "I hate Sally" and "I give Sally a pencil."

[Ahzoh]

Is it though? I mean, the "standard" classification is that the pencil in "give sally a pencil" is a core argument. But your other example "shower him with love" suggests that the instrumental is working as a non-core argument. In other words, how do we know "give Sally a pencil" is not "present Sally with a pencil" or "award Sally with a pencil," just dressed up to match an English word with totally different syntax? That would also explain why you use the same case for Sally in "I hate Sally" and "I give Sally a pencil."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secundative_language

In my language, "Sally showers him (with) love" is syntactically identical to "Sally gives him (with) a pencil", love and pencil are both core arguments and the verbs require their inclusion to complete the meaning. There is a distinction in the language between "I write my friend-ACC a letter-INS with a pen" and "I write a letter with a pen (to my friend)" where the latter takes a causative/applicative verb form and basically means "I cause pen-ACC to write (my friend-ACC) a letter-INS"

[KathTheDragon]

I'd say the only "unusual" thing about your case system, with respect to the hierarchy, is the similative. And to be honest, I suspect the case hierarchy could be phrased more effectively in terms of grammaticalised functions, rather than cases, which aren't necessarily comparable based on what linguists have decided to call them.

[Man in Space]

Redoing CT cuneiform yet again, based on zompist’s explanation in the MECK. I’m debating whether to write them in hieroglyphics instead, but at least I have some preliminary studies based on CK monumental script.

[doctor shark]

Made more money. (I like money.)

More: show

[hwhatting]

Nice work!
Where is that church in "real life"?

[doctor shark]

Nice work!
Where is that church in "real life"?

Thanks! It's actually in Metz, France.

[hwhatting]

Thanks! It's actually in Metz, France.

Thanks! It looked like something I would have placed somewhere between Elbe and Loire architecture-wise.

[Ahzoh]

Reworked Vrkhazhian verbs, verbs have more strictly defined theme vowels
a = transitive
u = dynamic intransitive
i = stative intransitive


This leads to an interesting distinctions in passive ablaut forms (in English this can be analogized with "be-passives" and "get-passives"):

Code: Select all

Intransitive                > Transitive
ḳᵊwus- "lie down" (dynamic) > ḳᵊwas- "lay down"
dᵊğul- "shout"    (dynamic) > dᵊğal- "make shout"
bᵊtuḥ- "rebel"    (dynamic) > bᵊtaḥ- "agitate"
sᵊğil- "be old"   (stative) > sᵊğal- "make old"
wᵊṣiḫ- "be loyal" (stative) > wᵊṣaḫ- "make loyal"
ñᵊtiṭ- "stand"    (stative) > ñᵊtaṭ- "build, set up"

Transitive              > Intransitive
ṣᵊbay- "seek" (dynamic) > ṣᵊbuy- "got sought" (nonfuture is more past-like)
ṣᵊran- "push" (dynamic) > ṣᵊrun- "got pushed" (ditto)
mᵊlah- "heal" (dynamic) > mᵊluh- "got healed" (ditto)
ṣ́ᵊmar- "know" (stative) > ṣ́ᵊmir- "is known" (nonfuture is more present-like)
sᵊlad- "love" (stative) > sᵊlid- "is loved" (ditto)
zᵊgaw- "want" (stative) > zᵊgiw- "is wanted" (ditto)

When the conjugation system is fully developed is results in paradigms like these:
(Medio)Passive/Intransitive Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-R-N "pushing"	ṣurun-na	"I got pushed"	na-ṣrun-na	"I will get pushed"
Ṣ́-M-R "knowing"	ṣ́imir-na	"I am known"	na-ṣ́mir-na	"I will be known"

Active/Transitive Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-R-N "pushing"	ṣaran-na	"I pushed"	na-ṣran-na	"I will push"
Ṣ́-M-R "knowing"	ṣ́amar-na	"I know"	na-ṣ́mar-na	"I will know"

Applicative Voice (not sure if promotes Oblique to Primary or Secondary Object)

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-R-N "pushing"	ta-ṣran-na	"I caused to push"	na-ṣ-ṣaran-na	"I will cause to push"
Ṣ́-M-R "knowing"	ta-ṣ́mar-na	"I cause to know"	na-ṣ́-ṣ́amar-na	"I will cause to know"

When it comes to Middle-Weak and Final-Weak roots, the ablaut system is mostly destabilized (only the II-y,w and III-y,w weak roots) where there is no distinction between the passive and active forms.
(Medio)Passive/Intransitive Voice and

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-B-Y "seeking"	ṣabī-na	"I got sought"	na-ṣbī-na	"I will get sought"
Z-G-W "wanting"	zagū-na	"I am wanted"	na-zgū-na	"I will be wanted"

Active/Transitive Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-B-Y "seeking"	ṣabī-na	"I sought"	na-ṣbī-na	"I will seek"
Z-G-W "wanting"	zagū-na	"I want"	na-zgū-na	"I will want"

Applicative Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-B-Y "seeking"	ta-ṣbī-na	"I assigned [a task]"	na-ṣ-ṣabī-na	"I will assign [a task]"
Z-G-W "wanting"	ta-zgū-na	"I cause to want"	na-z-zagū-na	"I will cause to want"

[cedh]

Reworked Vrkhazhian verbs, verbs have more strictly defined theme vowels
a = transitive
u = dynamic intransitive
i = stative intransitive

[...]

When it comes to Middle-Weak and Final-Weak roots, the ablaut system is mostly destabilized (only the II-y,w and III-y,w weak roots) where there is no distinction between the passive and active forms.

I like this pattern of syncretism!

It's probably going to be "repaired" though, because your language's speakers will want to distinguish between passive and active voice. One option would be to innovate an auxiliary passive construction, maybe something like "I got taken for seeking" or "I am held for wanting".

But there could also be a morphological repair strategy, seeing as other verbs have a CuCuC/CiCiC pattern for passive/intransitive and a CaCaC pattern for active/transitive, whereas weak roots have CaCī/CaCū for both, with a fixed /a/ in the first slot. By analogy, this first vowel might be assimilated to the second vowel for the passive/intransitive voice, giving a paradigm something like this:

(Medio)Passive/Intransitive Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-B-Y "seeking"	ṣibī-na	"I got sought"	n-iṣbī-na	"I will get sought"
Z-G-W "wanting"	zugū-na	"I am wanted"	n-uzgū-na	"I will be wanted"

Active/Transitive Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
Ṣ-B-Y "seeking"	ṣabī-na	"I sought"	na-ṣbī-na	"I will seek"
Z-G-W "wanting"	zagū-na	"I want"	na-zgū-na	"I will want"

(Yes I know this is, with these two verbs, backwards from the usual distribution of /u/ vs. /i/ connected to dynamic vs. stative, but that'd be a much smaller mismatch, and much more sustainable, than not distinguishing active vs. passive at all.)

By the way, these are both Final-Weak roots. How would the paradigms of Middle-Weak roots look?

[WeepingElf]

Actually, the day before yesterday, but forgot to post here:

Old Albic nominal ablaut classes

[Ahzoh]

Reworked Vrkhazhian verbs, verbs have more strictly defined theme vowels
a = transitive
u = dynamic intransitive
i = stative intransitive

[...]

When it comes to Middle-Weak and Final-Weak roots, the ablaut system is mostly destabilized (only the II-y,w and III-y,w weak roots) where there is no distinction between the passive and active forms.

I like this pattern of syncretism!

It's probably going to be "repaired" though, because your language's speakers will want to distinguish between passive and active voice. One option would be to innovate an auxiliary passive construction, maybe something like "I got taken for seeking" or "I am held for wanting".

It would not need to, plenty of languages have "ambitransitive verbs" like English and context is quite good enough to distinguish "the cup broke" and "someone broke the cup". Vrkhazhian also requires explicit objects of transitive verbs except for relativized verbs (marked with a relativizer affix, which behave like participles).

There are many ways the analogizing could have gone, depending on if the diphthongization /aj aw ij uj iw uw/ > /i: u: i: i: u: u:/ occurred before or after the <ᵊ> became a full-on echo vowel. Might even look better if both passive and active are simple CiCī and CuCū, which would serve to "mark" the class of verbs as being even more defiant of the standard rules. Turning them into, essentially, athematic verbs.

Or, they analogize with the glottal final weak patterns, assimilating completely with the theme vowel (although Vrkhazhian prefers anticipatory assimilation) :

Code: Select all

M-L-H "heal"  > mulū-na "I got healed" / malā-na "I heal"    / ta-mlā-na "I cause to heal"
B-T-Ḥ "rebel" > butū-na "I rebelled"   / betē-na "I agitate" / ta-btē-na "I cause to agitate"

By the way, these are both Final-Weak roots. How would the paradigms of Middle-Weak roots look?

/ja wa ji ju wi wu/ > /i: u: i: i: u: u:/ (within morpheme)
/ja wa ji ju wi wu/ > /i: u: i: u: i: u:/ (between morphemes)

(Medio)Passive/Intransitive Voice and

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
D-W-L "digging up, revealing"	dūl-na	"I got dug up"	na-dūl-na	"I will get dug up"
T-Y-L "perishing"	tīl-na	"I perish"	na-tīl-na	"I will perish"

Active/Transitive Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
D-W-L "digging up, revealing"	dūl-na	"I dug up"	na-dūl-na	"I will dig up"
T-Y-L "perishing"	tīl-na	"I destroy"	na-tīl-na	"I will destroy"

Applicative Voice

Root	Nonfuture	Meaning	Future	Meaning
D-W-L "digging up, revealing"	ta-dūl-na	"I forced to confess"	na-d-dūl-na	"I will force to confess"
T-Y-L "perishing"	ta-tīl-na	"I cause to destroy"	na-t-tīl-na	"I will cause to destroy"

---

Multi-weak verbs are gonna be a pain in the ass to deal with

[fusijui]

Actually, the day before yesterday, but forgot to post here:

Old Albic nominal ablaut classes

Hey, it's great to see new material from your -- I don't know what to call it, 'legendarium'? 'conlang-ecosphere'? In any case, I really enjoy your work and find it inspiring, intriguing, etc. I hope there's a lot more of this coming our way.

[Edit: And, also belatedly, happy birthday!!!]

[WeepingElf]

Thank you! The Old Albic nominal morphology still needs some fine-tuning, and some forms will probably end up somewhat different from what I posted.

[hwhatting]

Oh, du hattest Geburtstag? Herzlichen Glückwunsch nachträglich!

[WeepingElf]

Oh, du hattest Geburtstag? Herzlichen Glückwunsch nachträglich!

Danke!

[Ahzoh]

Decided to reconstruct Vrkhazhian's Case System as

Code: Select all

      F.SG |  F.PL  
NOM: -u-m  / -u-nᵊ-m
VOC: -u-h  / -u-nᵊ-h
ACC: -u-s  / -u-nᵊ-s
INS: -u-k  / -u-nᵊ-k

Code: Select all

      M.SG |  M.PL  
NOM: -i-m  / -i-nᵊ-m
VOC: -i-h  / -i-nᵊ-h
ACC: -i-s  / -i-nᵊ-s
INS: -i-k  / -i-nᵊ-k

Debating if the vocative ending is -h or they would be diphthongs -ay and -aw