Conlang Random Thread

[Ares Land]

Thanks a lot. That's exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

[Emily]

i've used highlogic font creator in the past and i've been pretty satisfied with it. and the price is unbeatable if you pirate it

[Halian]

i've used highlogic font creator in the past and i've been pretty satisfied with it. and the price is unbeatable if you pirate it

As have I, and my review of it is basically the same as yours.

[Qwynegold]

Considering making a "reverse Japanese" conlang for the main non-human species in the space fantasy I'm writing.

That's interesting. I've had an idea for a reverse Japanese, but I was only thinking about phonology and not grammar. Too bad I can't find my notes, because I can't remember the details.

Oh, I've had another slightly related idea as well, now that I think about it. Inspired by Japanese I started thinking about a language where only the nouns are inflected and not the verbs.

[Jonlang]

How naturalistic is it for a language to have completely different paradigms for forming plurals for nouns, adjectives, and verbs? My current proposed system is:

Nouns: -i suffix if sing. ends in a consonant; -t suffix is sing. ends in a vowel.
Adjs: -ea suffix if sing. ends in -a or a consonant; -oa suffix if sing. ends in -u; -t suffix if sing. ends in -i, -e, -o.
Verbs: -l suffix if sing. ends in -e, -i; -t suffix if sing. ends in -a, -o, -u, verbs cannot end in a consonant.

Clearly the only common suffix here is -t, but this is deliberate. The Proto-lang doesn't have a -t plural marker but it came to mark nouns ending in vowels due to the commonality of its occurrence in adjectives and verbs.

[Moose-tache]

Well, I mean, there's always English:

nouns: plural marked by s
adjectives: plural always unmarked
verbs: plural marked by lack of s

[jal]

How naturalistic is it for a language to have completely different paradigms for forming plurals for nouns, adjectives, and verbs?

I would say a lot depends on what adjectives are. Verby adjectives will very likely have a paradigm similar to verbs, while nouny adjectives will have similar to that of nouns. When it's a seperate word class, they probably still go the way of nouns, as they're intimitly connected.


JAL

[Jonlang]

How naturalistic is it for a language to have completely different paradigms for forming plurals for nouns, adjectives, and verbs?

I would say a lot depends on what adjectives are. Verby adjectives will very likely have a paradigm similar to verbs, while nouny adjectives will have similar to that of nouns. When it's a seperate word class, they probably still go the way of nouns, as they're intimitly connected.

Well... when adjectives are used as nouns they take noun plurals, mostly because where English uses the singular (the Rich, the Poor, etc) my conlang uses the plural.

[bradrn]

… when adjectives are used as nouns …

This alone means that you have nouny adjectives.

[Jonlang]

… when adjectives are used as nouns …

This alone means that you have nouny adjectives.

Yeah... but that doesn't mean that a plural adjective (in agreement with a plural noun) behaves the same as an adjective used as a plural noun. So "poor" is ventu - plural in ventoa; but "the Poor" is Vennut (also incorporating consonant gradation).

[jal]

To go back to your original question, "how naturalistic is it", I'd say very much so, even looking just at PIE languages. And there's many ways it can derive at that: analogy, multiple paradigms of which some get defunct, sound changes, and so on and so forth.


JAL

[hwhatting]

As jal said. Look at German - adjectives are generally nouny, but the inflection is different from nouns and pronouns for weak adjectives for most case / number combinations (strong adljectives are basically declined like pronouns):
Sg. male ("this little dog")
Nom dieser kleine Hund-0
Acc diesen kleinen Hund-0
Gen dieses kleinen Hundes
Dat diesem kleinen Hund-0
Sg. neuter ("this little horse")
Nom / Acc dieses kleine Pferd-0
Gen dieses kleinen Pferd(e)s
Dat diesem kleinen Pferd-0
Sg. female ("this little woman")
Nom / Acc diese kleine Frau-0
Gen / Dat dieser kleinen Frau-0
Pl. (no gender distinction - "These little dogs")
Nom / acc diese kleinen Hunde
Gen dieser kleinen Hunde
Dat diesen kleinen Hunden

[Raphael]

Pardon my linguistic ignorance, but what are all those zeroes or Os doing there?

[Emily]

they're zeroes, they indicate the lack of a suffix

[jal]

they're zeroes, they indicate the lack of a suffix

And to elaborate on that a bit, they are used when the absense of an affix, clitic or other grammatical particle, indicates a specific grammatical role. So say you have the following declension:

dog - on
dog (nom) - on
dog (acc) - ona
dog (dat) - one
dog (gen) - ons

And you have a sentence like:

me vua sa ona

you can gloss it like this:

me

1s.NOM

vu-a

see-1SG.PRS

sa

that.SG.N

on-a

dog.N-ACC

"I see that dog"

and when you have a sentence like this:

on si peo

on-0

dog-NOM

si

REFL

pe-o

relieve-3SG.N.PRS

"the dog pees"

using -0 to line up with the -NOM to indicate that the nominative is implicit by the lack of a suffix.



JAL

[Raphael]

Thank you, Emily and jal!

[foxcatdog]

This needed to happen

*i(:) *y(:) *u(:)
*yu(:)
*ie(:) *yø(:) *uo(:)
*ɨ(:)
*e(:) *ø(:) *o(:)
*ɛi(:) *œy(:) *ɔu(:)
*ɛ(:) *œ(:) *ʌ(:) *ɔ(:)
*ɒu(:)
*æ(:) *ɒ(:)

The boy teaches the girl but she learns nothing as he is lazy
[ˈdɨ ˈbœy ˈti.t͡ʃʌ: ˈdɨ ˈgyu ˈbut ˈʃi ˈlɨ:n ˈnu.fɨŋ ˈæ: ˈhi ˈɨ: le.zi]

Kick the ball, lift the balls
[ˈkɨk ˈdɨ ˈbɒu ˈlɨft ˈdɨ ˈbɒu:]

The fool bets on a bet
[ˈdɨ ˈfyu ˈbʌ:t ˈɔn ˈe ˈbʌt]

Built for Brisbane Nightlife
[ˈbyut ˈfo ˈbrɨ:.bæ:n ˈnɛit.lɛif]

Boiled water
[ˈbœyu:d ˈwo.tɨ]

A black field of dead crops was left after the fire
[ˈe ˈblɛk ˈfyud ˈɔv ˈdʌd ˈkrɔ:p ˈwɒ: ˈlʌft ˈɒf.tɨ ˈdɨ ˈfie]

Sydney Perils
[ˈsɨd.ni ˈpyø:]

[Travis B.]

This needed to happen

[snip]

What horrible Anglic variety is this?

[foxcatdog]

This needed to happen

[snip]

What horrible Anglic variety is this?

Just some experimentations in future derivations of my speech.

[Travis B.]

This needed to happen

[snip]

What horrible Anglic variety is this?

Just some experimentations in future derivations of my speech.

Just where are you from?