Conlang Random Thread

[bradrn]

The reason it has 'tense particles' is because I was too lazy to come up with actual, proper inflections for tense. Hence, I will eat -> Harizu pe. So I just added particles (didn't know that was the term for them at the time) and told myself 'relax, it'll be fiiiine, that'll do until we think of something else". But then I sort of realized that I could make this work, actually, if I was careful about it. It's even found its way into a related language, Estreri, that I recently started as well.

Particles and affixes are really very similar. Indeed, one could easily say that the only difference between harizu pe and harizupe is the orthography.

Oh, and by the way, I've going through the pronouns on my second conlang and, it occurred to me: Can you make possessive pronouns double as possessive adjectives or not?

What do you mean by that?

[AwfullyAmateur]

Basically, can you use the same word in herdog and that dog is hers?

[bradrn]

Basically, can you use the same word in herdog and that dog is hers?

I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t.

(Bhat’s Pronouns is my usual resource for checking things like this, but I’m not at home right now so can’t access it…)

[Travis B.]

Particles and affixes are really very similar. Indeed, one could easily say that the only difference between harizu pe and harizupe is the orthography.

A good rule of thumb w.r.t. a particle versus an affix is whether it is strongly tied to a verb stem or not, e.g. can a single morpheme be shared by two verbs tied together with a conjunction (which strongly implies that it is a particle), or must it be repeated for each verb (which strongly implies that it is an affix). Another good rule of thumb is whether a morpheme has relatively free word order (which strongly implies that it is a particle), or does it have a fixed slot in a verb complex (which strongly implies that it is an affix).

[Travis B.]

Note that the above is not related to how words are written; English possessive -'s is strictly speaking a postposition and not a case affix despite being written together with the preceding NP. In this case the key test is that the English possessive can be applied to entire noun phrases and not just individual nouns at a time.

[bradrn]

Particles and affixes are really very similar. Indeed, one could easily say that the only difference between harizu pe and harizupe is the orthography.

A good rule of thumb w.r.t. a particle versus an affix is whether it is strongly tied to a verb stem or not, e.g. can a single morpheme be shared by two verbs tied together with a conjunction (which strongly implies that it is a particle), or must it be repeated for each verb (which strongly implies that it is an affix). Another good rule of thumb is whether a morpheme has relatively free word order (which strongly implies that it is a particle), or does it have a fixed slot in a verb complex (which strongly implies that it is an affix).

Well, I’m of the opinion that wordhood is a nonsensical concept anyway. But yes, such criteria are commonly mentioned.

[keenir]

EDITTING in my disclaimer: I fear i misunderstood the question...but, if it helps spark any ideas, here it is:

Oh, and by the way, I've going through the pronouns on my second conlang and, it occurred to me: Can you make possessive pronouns double as possessive adjectives or not?

I don't see why not.

Either by just placing them beside one another (POSS_adjective) or attaching them (POSS-adjective)...maybe the conlang's speakers use it for deliberate ambiguity (at least back when they first started doing it historically), or maybe they use it deliberately -- or both. ie,

1p POSS adjective
My silly (literal reading)
I'm silly (intended reading)

...then I realized I wasn't sure if you meant that a possessive could be part of the adjective, leaving the pronoun behind; I still think its very possible. ie,

3p POSS adjective POSS
Your green's (literal)
Your gentleness / Your caring (intended)
{from the care needed to tend to newly-budded leaves}

[AwfullyAmateur]

Just a thought: Anyone got any puns in their conlangs that don't translate into any natlangs? I've got one about a type of pastry (samaya) and caves (singular: samatha) but not enough words to tell proper jokes yet.

[Richard W]

Oh, and by the way, I've going through the pronouns on my second conlang and, it occurred to me: Can you make possessive pronouns double as possessive adjectives or not?

The simple answer is 'yes' (e.g. Latin), but there may be implicational universals around. For example, if there is no difference between possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives, perhaps the should be no difference between demonstrative pronouns and adjectives.

[Richard W]

...then I realized I wasn't sure if you meant that a possessive could be part of the adjective, leaving the pronoun behind; I still think its very possible. ie,

I'm pretty sure that Awfully Amateur was referring to the notion in traditional English grammar of possessive adjectives (my, his, her, its, our, your, their) compared to that of possessive pronouns (mine, his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs). I think the distinction in English is actually simply that the former precede a portion of a noun phrase and the latter don't - does That book is John's contain a pronoun?

[bradrn]

...then I realized I wasn't sure if you meant that a possessive could be part of the adjective, leaving the pronoun behind; I still think its very possible. ie,

I'm pretty sure that Awfully Amateur was referring to the notion in traditional English grammar of possessive adjectives (my, his, her, its, our, your, their) compared to that of possessive pronouns (mine, his, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs). I think the distinction in English is actually simply that the former precede a portion of a noun phrase and the latter don't - does That book is John's contain a pronoun?

In Dixon’s A Semantic Approach to English Grammar, he labels the former as ‘modifier’ and the latter as ‘NP head’, which sounds reasonable to me.

But does any non-IE language even make this distinction? Or — for that matter — is it present outside of Germanic?

[willm]

French isn't (quite) Germanic, and it distinguishes e.g. mon "my" from le mien "mine". But the other language I'm familiar with, Mandarin Chinese, uses the same construction for both: 我的 "my, mine".

[Richard W]

But does any non-IE language even make this distinction? Or — for that matter — is it present outside of Germanic?

Well, there are languages where don't really have possessive adjectives, but possession is more like inflection, such as Uralic, Afroasiatic languages and Persian. Most of these therefore have the equivalent of possessive pronouns, or use a preposition+pronoun compound. Closer to home (geographically), what does Welsh do? Siamese has /pʰǔːa cʰán/ lit. "husband me" for 'my husband', so 'mine' has to be /kʰɔ̌ŋ cʰán/, where /kʰɔ̌ŋ/ means 'thing' or 'of', but one has the possibility of /pʰǔːa kʰɔ̌ŋ cʰán/ for 'my husband' - translating it as 'husband mine' would be word play.

In Pali, admittedly Indo-European, there are possessive pronouns such as māmaka available for when we want the sense of a possessive adjective but without a noun to mark the inflections, but normally one just uses the genitive of the personal pronoun.

[bradrn]

But does any non-IE language even make this distinction? Or — for that matter — is it present outside of Germanic?

Well, there are languages where don't really have possessive adjectives, but possession is more like inflection, such as Uralic, Afroasiatic languages and Persian. Most of these therefore have the equivalent of possessive pronouns, or use a preposition+pronoun compound.

I don’t really understand what you mean here. Thinking about the one Afroasiatic language I know, Biblical Hebrew had pronominal suffixes for possession, which in Modern Hebrew have become possessive adjectives (more or less). Could you give an example of what you mean by this?

Closer to home (geographically), what does Welsh do?

Well, what does Welsh do?

[Richard W]

But does any non-IE language even make this distinction? Or — for that matter — is it present outside of Germanic?

Well, there are languages where don't really have possessive adjectives, but possession is more like inflection, such as Uralic, Afroasiatic languages and Persian. Most of these therefore have the equivalent of possessive pronouns, or use a preposition+pronoun compound.

I don’t really understand what you mean here. Thinking about the one Afroasiatic language I know, Biblical Hebrew had pronominal suffixes for possession, which in Modern Hebrew have become possessive adjectives (more or less). Could you give an example of what you mean by this?

I was referring to the use of pronominal suffixes. They are not available for use as the heads of noun phrases. Arabic and Middle Egyptian have simple suffixes corresponding to the English 'possessive adjective', while corresponding to the English 'possessive pronoun' Arabic has a preposition inflected for person. It seems that Late Egyptian uses a determiner-type base with inflection for person for both 'adjective' and 'pronoun'.

Closer to home (geographically), what does Welsh do?

Well, what does Welsh do?

I don't know, which is why I was asking. Using the possessive adjectives as predicates or pronouns feels weird.

[bradrn]

Well, there are languages where don't really have possessive adjectives, but possession is more like inflection, such as Uralic, Afroasiatic languages and Persian. Most of these therefore have the equivalent of possessive pronouns, or use a preposition+pronoun compound.

I don’t really understand what you mean here. Thinking about the one Afroasiatic language I know, Biblical Hebrew had pronominal suffixes for possession, which in Modern Hebrew have become possessive adjectives (more or less). Could you give an example of what you mean by this?

I was referring to the use of pronominal suffixes. They are not available for use as the heads of noun phrases. Arabic and Middle Egyptian have simple suffixes corresponding to the English 'possessive adjective', while corresponding to the English 'possessive pronoun' Arabic has a preposition inflected for person. It seems that Late Egyptian uses a determiner-type base with inflection for person for both 'adjective' and 'pronoun'.

How closely are those really to being a ‘possessive pronoun’, though? In Hebrew, sheli/shelanu/etc. are close to ‘possessive adjectives’, if anything. Can the Arabic forms be used as NP heads?

[Richard W]

I'm getting the strong impression that Welsh doesn't have an equivalent of the English possessive pronoun, but rather a translator must recast the sentence.

[Richard W]

I don’t really understand what you mean here. Thinking about the one Afroasiatic language I know, Biblical Hebrew had pronominal suffixes for possession, which in Modern Hebrew have become possessive adjectives (more or less). Could you give an example of what you mean by this?

I was referring to the use of pronominal suffixes. They are not available for use as the heads of noun phrases. Arabic and Middle Egyptian have simple suffixes corresponding to the English 'possessive adjective', while corresponding to the English 'possessive pronoun' Arabic has a preposition inflected for person. It seems that Late Egyptian uses a determiner-type base with inflection for person for both 'adjective' and 'pronoun'.

How closely are those really to being a ‘possessive pronoun’, though? In Hebrew, sheli/shelanu/etc. are close to ‘possessive adjectives’, if anything. Can the Arabic forms be used as NP heads?

I think these AA forms are much closer to being the predicative form of adjectives, the commoner use of the English possessive pronouns. In fact I was surprised that the Ivrit form could be used as a predicative adjective. (Or perhaps it can't.)

[jal]

I don't think anyone has dropped the term "clitic" yet, but it's a common type of particle.

Also, a language needn't have "possessive adjectives", it could use a genitive or other possessive construction in combination with a personal pronouns. A language also needn't have "possessive pronouns", it could use the same genitive, perhaps in a nomalized form.

Dutch, for example, does have possessive substantives ("de mijne", "de jouwe", "de zijne/hare", "de onze" - but it's defective, there's no 2PL form, and 3PL "de hunne" sounds odd or very informal), but the normal way would be "van" ("of") + object pronoun ("van mij", "van jou" etc.). So instead of "dat is de mijne" (litt. "that's the mine") you'd say "die is van mij" (litt. "that's of me"). Funfact: children often say "joune" instead of "jouwe", and make the possessive pronouns double possessive (if that's the right term): "mijnes" ("dat is mijnes"), "jounes" ("dat is jounes") etc. Also a nice case of peer transfer of language - kids will never hear adults use these, only other kids.


JAL

[AwfullyAmateur]

Imagine a language where you have to conjugate nouns, eg. Ebofig = Rock, Ebofiga = (I talk about) the rock), and Ebofigu (You talk about) the rock. Would a language like that conjugate verbs as well, do you think?