My Conlangs

[Rounin Ryuuji]

My main concern is whether or not it is naturalistic for the word for White to metaphorically extend to goodness and purity but for black to not have the opposite connotation. Any thoughts?

Is there a different colour the culture associates with it? Possibly if the soil in the area where they live is red or orange or something, they might associate that with it or something.

[keenir]

My main concern is whether or not it is naturalistic for the word for White to metaphorically extend to goodness and purity but for black to not have the opposite connotation. Any thoughts?

Maybe have both white and black cover goodness and purity?

[conlangernoob]

My main concern is whether or not it is naturalistic for the word for White to metaphorically extend to goodness and purity but for black to not have the opposite connotation. Any thoughts?

Maybe have both white and black cover goodness and purity?

I like that.

[conlangernoob]

SFOTD #2: Kinship Terms

The Ancient Tongue uses the Hawaiian kinship system. All relatives of the same gender in a generation use one kinship term, while all relatives of the opposite gender in a generation use another. The words for kin are as follows:

Mēyas- Same gender relative of Ego’s generation
Kwēs - Different gender relative of Ego’s generation
Tata - Same gender relative of Ego’s parent’s generation
Ama - Different gender relative of Ego’s parent’s generation
T́osir - Same gender relative of Ego’s grandparent’s generation
Wenda - Different gender relative of Ego’s grandparent’s generation
Redid - Same gender relative of Ego’s children’s generation
Spir - Different gender relative of Ego’s children’s generation
Ēyin - Same gender relative of Ego’s grandchildren’s generation
Ikwin - Different gender relative of Ego’s grandchildren’s generation

[conlangernoob]

SFOTD #3: Number System Basic Roots

The Ancient Tongue uses base six with bijectivity. The basic roots for numbers are as follows:
Am - One (Also means “finger)
Ēyad - Two (Notice the similarity between this word and the dual suffix “-eya”)
Ēyadam - Three (A compound of “one” and “two”)
Begwi - Four (Also means “almost”)
P̄en - Five (Also means “hand”)
P̄enam - Six (A compound of “one” and “five”)

I’m fairly concerned about the naturalistic-ness of the other meanings of the words and also whether or not basic words like 3 and 6 would naturalistic-ly be compounds, so all comments are appreciated.

Also, Janko, if you're reading this, number 7-10 will come in due course (Basically, a euphemism for “whenever I feel like it” but a little sooner than that).

Until Anon,

conlangernoob

[Travis B.]

One thing I should note is that it is common for languages to have quinary number systems for at last part of their numerals. For instance, you could have numbers "one" through "five", and then define numbers six through nine as "five-and-one" through "five-and-four". Generally one would have a dedicated number for ten, then repeat the process with "ten-and-one" through "ten-and-four", and then "ten-and-five-and-one" through "ten-and-five-and-four", and so on. One may also have a dedicated number for "twenty" as well, which would function like "ten" here.

[conlangernoob]

Question: What are some non-english ways to handle subordinate clauses?

Thanks,

conlangernoob

[conlangernoob]

Announcing: GFOTD (Grammatical Feature of the Day). Every day, for the next few weeks (minus weekends) I will post one grammatical feature from language that I have worked on. The grammatical feature must be at least 100 words long and have been entirely written on that day.

Until anon,

conlangernoob

[conlangernoob]

GFOTD #1: What do the verb inflections do in my conlang?

Verbs are inflected for either the perfective aspect, the imperfective aspect, and the irrealis mood. The situations in which these three inflections are used follows:

The Perfective
The perfective aspect is marked with a null morpheme and is used in the following situations:
Explicit performatives
Imperatives
Planned future events
Past events with emphasis on the fact that the action has been completed

The Imperfective
The imperfective aspect is marked with the suffix “-ōs” and is used in the following situations:
Habitual actions
All present actions that are not covered by the perfective
Past events with emphasis on the process of the action

The Irrealis
The irrealis is marked with the suffix “-am” and is used in the following situations:
Future events that are not covered by the perfective
All other events with deontic modality

[bradrn]

Question: What are some non-english ways to handle subordinate clauses?

What kind of subordinate clauses? There are lots of subtypes, each language chooses to use different ones, and each type of subordinate clause can be handled in numerous ways. If you’re interested in a resource, a nice starting point is ed. Shopen’s Language Typology and Syntactic Description (2007; as I recall vol. 2 is particularly helpful), as well as Payne’s Describing Morphosyntax (1997).

[Travis B.]

One thing for subordinate clauses is that it is very common to privilege the subject or agent, and require various workarounds if one wants to relativize something else - and some languages even do not permit relativizing anything other than the subject or agent.

[bradrn]

One thing for subordinate clauses is that it is very common to privilege the subject or agent, and require various workarounds if one wants to relativize something else - and some languages even do not permit relativizing anything other than the subject or agent.

That only goes for relative clauses, though, and not any other type of subordinate clause I’m aware of. (e.g. complementation tends to involve a whole VP, clause-chaining systems usually have both same-subject and different-subject forms, and adverbial clauses often don’t involve the subject/object distinction in the first place.)

[Travis B.]

One thing for subordinate clauses is that it is very common to privilege the subject or agent, and require various workarounds if one wants to relativize something else - and some languages even do not permit relativizing anything other than the subject or agent.

That only goes for relative clauses, though, and not any other type of subordinate clause I’m aware of. (e.g. complementation tends to involve a whole VP, clause-chaining systems usually have both same-subject and different-subject forms, and adverbial clauses often don’t involve the subject/object distinction in the first place.)

Oh, my brain for some reason mixed up "relative" and "subordinate" clause there...

[bradrn]

One thing for subordinate clauses is that it is very common to privilege the subject or agent, and require various workarounds if one wants to relativize something else - and some languages even do not permit relativizing anything other than the subject or agent.

That only goes for relative clauses, though, and not any other type of subordinate clause I’m aware of. (e.g. complementation tends to involve a whole VP, clause-chaining systems usually have both same-subject and different-subject forms, and adverbial clauses often don’t involve the subject/object distinction in the first place.)

Oh, my brain for some reason mixed up "relative" and "subordinate" clause there...

Relative clauses are usually considered a type of subordinate clause, so it’s understandable. Most sources I’ve seen identify the three main types of subordinate clauses as relative, adverbial and complement clauses. (This has led to some accusations of ‘subordinate’ being an unhelpful category, since those three kinds of clauses really don’t have much to do with each other; I’m quite sympathetic to this position, given that there’s so many other traditional yet meaningless terms still floating around the literature.)

[conlangernoob]

SFOTD #4: Head-Related Body Parts

Interestingly, the Ancient Tongue has no distinction between beard and mustache, or jaw and chin. However, they do have a separate for the side of the face, between the eye and the ear. The roots are as follows:

Dir - Cheek
Mēt - Eye
Esmi - Face
Yam - Forehead
Apir - Hair
Kala - Head
Ḱwēr - The lips
T́es - Mouth
Hem - Neck
Ahra - Nose
Aros - Tongue
Titar - Tooth
Gwor - Jaw or chin
Es - Beard or mustache
Lawē - The side of the face
Ayad - Bald
Begros - To shave

Until Anon,

conlangernoob

[conlangernoob]

GFOTD (grammatical feature of the day) is now cancelled. Too impractical. SFOTD (Semantic Field of the Day) is still going, though.

[conlangernoob]

SFOTD #5: Basic Body Parts

The basic body parts are as follows:

Ligrēm - Arm or hand | Also means: Forefoot, limb of a bow, a constellation
Re - The back
Bela - Body | Also means: Person
Ḱwat́os - Breast or chest
Dōs - Finger, toe, or thumb | Also means: One
Bitar - Fist | Also means: To fight with fists
Bir - Flesh | Also means: Meat
Genu - Foot or leg
Wes - Knee or elbow
Yēt - Shoulder
Ṕas - Skin

Let me know what you think about the alternate meanings,

conlangernoob

[conlangernoob]

SFOTD #6: Existence

As - To temporarily been in a state or locative (transitive)
Ēyas - Used is basic existentials (intransitive)
Em - To make (transitive)
Ari - To destroy (transitive)
Gwōs - 1 A origin 2 To originate (intransitive) 3 To be born (intransitive)
Ner - To become (transitive)

Considering that I have a morphological causative, I could narrow the list down, but I thought that lexical causatives should exist considering the commonness of these words.

Let me know what you guys think,

conlangernoob

[conlangernoob]

By the way, SFOTD is cancelled forever due to me not liking my language very much and restarting it. I will be back with more of my restarted language soon.

[xxx]

give it a chance...

I remember a time when I couldn't stand my conlang's rendering nor its philosophy of the world, and I dropped it...
it was more than thirty years ago...

since then it has its own life, it builds itself according to its original pattern, and I follow it as a parallel and exotic reality that has gradually merged with my vision of life...

at worst put all your documentation in a corner and move on...
it will know how to remember you...