Fad'ami Was: A scratchpad

[Travis B.]

• tell (trans.), fah
• display (trans.), nih
• block (n.), aka
• human, sooru
• fake, false, gaw
• believe, hiib'u
• random, jomme
• stream, qaana
• bits (coll.), bit
• sleep (intr.), k'owwi
• day, faaya
• cool, neat, cille
• inspire, yokki
• Romanian, romana
• money (mass), fiika
• case, kas
• genitive, jenitif
• Romance, romanca
• for example (adv.), kamme
• excrement, jaku
• wonder, tuuri
• perfect (ling.) (adj.), ferfet'
• aspect (ling.), asfet'
• perfective (ling.) (adj.) ferfet'if
• imperfective (ling.) (adj.) imferfet'if
• now (n.), malah
• past (n.), kaate
• phonemes (ling., coll.), foonem
• number, k'iixa
• cromulent, lemaahe
• understand (trans.), lahu
• blather (intr.), maab'i
• assume (trans.), faayi
• sounds (coll.), lagad
• smooth, seewa
• abjad (ling.) abjad
• silly, joori
• suggest, imply, d'oxa
• live at, req'ad
• permit, himma
• customs, yogti
• life, neelu
• safe, willa
• evil, xaga
• rain (intr., impersonal), seh
• flood (intr., impersonal), wiirat
• recently, xanna
• while ago, laddi
• nearly, jootu
• areas, t'uga
• some, min
• feel anxious (intr.), qatti
• forget (trans.), k'uuge
• add to (trans.), soham
• store (trans.), lifa
• take a break (intrans.), k'allem

[Travis B.]

One thing I have decided is that if a verb is intransitive, whether inherently or due to its voice (e.g. antipassive), and an applicative is attached to it, the verb agrees with the applied argument as a patient.

[Travis B.]

I did not like the three-way contrast between unaspirated, aspirated, and ejective voiceless plosives so I replaced it with a two-way contrast between aspirated and ejective voiceless plosives.

[bradrn]

One thing I have decided is that if a verb is intransitive, whether inherently or due to its voice (e.g. antipassive), and an applicative is attached to it, the verb agrees with the applied argument as a patient.

Isn’t this simply the definition of an applicative? It’s something which promotes an indirect object to patient.

[Travis B.]

One thing I have decided is that if a verb is intransitive, whether inherently or due to its voice (e.g. antipassive), and an applicative is attached to it, the verb agrees with the applied argument as a patient.

Isn’t this simply the definition of an applicative? It’s something which promotes an indirect object to patient.

This is in contrast to transitive verbs, where applicatives here make them ditransitive, and the third argument isn't first-class (e.g. the verb does not agree with it). I also wanted to emphasize that due to applicatives one could have transitive clauses with agreement as such where the verb is marked as antipassive.

[Travis B.]

I have decided that in ditransitive clauses where the indirect object is a 1, 1+2, or 2 argument, and especially if the direct object is lengthy, the word order is liable to be swapped such that the indirect object comes before the direct object rather than after it, unlike the usual word order of ditransitive clauses. This does not lead to ambiguity, as a 1, 1+2, or 2 direct object would be marked on the verb itself in the first place.

[Travis B.]

Now, material for Janko...

• one, ni*
• two, ca*
• three, sam*
• four, dura*
• five, lise
• six, mik
• seven, yola
• eight, wat
• nine, lahi
• ten, tim
• eleven, ni* ut tim
  [snip]
• twenty, yen
• twenty-one, ni* ut yen
  [snip]
• thirty, tim ut yen
• thirty-one, ni* ut tim ut yen
• forty, yen ca
  [snip]
• one hundred, lodde
  [snip]
• two hundred, lodde ca
• one thousand, haswa
• nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety nine, lahi ut tim ut yen dura ut lodde lahi ut haswa lahi
• one myriad, yiseka

I am sick of defining number so this is as many as Janko will get.

* note that this is treated like an adjective when used attributively

I have decided to revamp how numbers work. Now all numbers function as nouns, with the things they are numbers of following them in genitive case and plural number (except for one). This gives:

• one computer, ni yeerat
• two computers, ca yeeratam
• three computers, sam yeeratam
• four computers, dura yeeratam
• five computers, lise yeeratam
• six computers, mik yeeratam
• seven computers, yola yeeratam
• eight computers, wat yeeratam
• nine computers, lahi yeeratam
• ten computers, tim yeeratam
• eleven computers, ni ut tim yeeratam
• twenty computers, yen yeeratam
• twenty-one computers, ni ut yen yeeratam
• thirty computers, tim ut yen yeeratam
• forty computers, ca yenit yeeratam
• fifty computers, tim ut ca yenit yeeratam
• sixty computers, sam yenit yeeratam
• seventy computers, tim ut sam yenit yeeratam
• eighty computers, dura yenit yeeratam
• ninety computers tim ut dura yenit yeeratam
• ninety-nine computers, lahi ut tim ut dura yenit yeeratam
• one hundred computers, lodde yeeratam
• nine hundred and ninety nine computers, lahi ut tim ut dura yenit ut lahi loddet yeeratam

etc.

Note that numbers other than ni function as collective nouns, and verbs agree with them in the plural (except for ca, which verbs agree with in the dual).

[Travis B.]

Ordinal numbers are expressed by placing the numbers in genitive case with the nouns qualified before them, in a reverse of cardinal numbers, which are expressed by placing the nouns qualified in genitive case after the numbers.

[Raphael]

Ordinal numbers are expressed by placing the numbers in genitive case with the nouns qualified before them, in a reverse of cardinal numbers, which are expressed by placing the nouns qualified in genitive case after the numbers.

Interesting approach.

[Travis B.]

I have decided to adopt Suffixaufnahme for Fad'ami where dependent nouns agree with their heads in case and number. I have also decided that dependent adjectives agree with their heads in the same fashion.

[Travis B.]

I have been using applicatives in a rather ad-hoc fashion in the conlang fluency thread to express a variety of things, but I have not really written them down. Consequently, I feel I should actually solidify these, so here goes:

Applicative	Meanings
dative	recipient, benefactive, predicative possessor
instrumental	instrument, with means, through action, due to state/event (at same time)
comitative	comitative, cumulative conjunction, state or event applies at time (without implied causation)
locative	at location, at time, when condition is true (often implying causation), when state/event applies
ablative	from location, source, away from location, off of something, after time, after condition is true, due to (after) state/event
allative	to location, destination, on to something, before time, up to time, before condition is true, causing state/event

[Travis B.]

I have changed my mind on the existence or lack thereof of adpositions, and I have decided that the ga 'exist' - applicative pairs will be reduced into actual attributive adpositions. In particular, in this case ga will be lost and the former verb complex will lose all its agreement, tense, aspect, evidential, or inverse marking. However, it will still have negative marking. This gives the following:

	Affirmative	Negative
dative	di	dit'a
instrumental	lee	leet'a
comitative	xaa	xaat'a
locative	c'a	c'at'a
ablative	bi	bit'a
allative	yo	yot'a

Additionally, here comitative attributive adpositions will be used with a meaning similar to ut or English and or along with.

Note that more complex meanings are formed with relational nouns, as mentioned earlier.

[Travis B.]

I change my mind again. These will actually retain tense, aspect, and evidential marking.

[Travis B.]

I have decided to get rid of complementizers; now subordinate and quoted clauses are to be referred to without ha before them. Conversely, though, relative clauses will have their verbs receive a relativizing prefix yi- (or if the verb starts with a vowel, y-). I have also changed my mind on what I was saying before would be prepositions. They rather would be like normal relative clauses except that the original ga will have merged with yi- as ya.

[Travis B.]

I am now going to reuse ha* as a relative pronoun. It will not be used when the relativized argument is the subject or object of the immediately relativized verb, because that will be unambiguous in most cases (because it will have the greatest personhood of any core verb argument except for 1st and 2nd person verb arguments, which will always be unambiguously marked on the verb). However, when the relativized argument is an applicative argument, or a "long distance" argument deeper within the relative clause, it will be used.

Edit:

* I have decided to make the relative pronoun be marked for number and gender:

	Sg.	Du.	Pl.
Anim.	ha	het	he
Inam.	ja	jet	je

[Travis B.]

Even though the basic word order of Fad'ami is VSO, it also permits VOS, SVO, and OVS word orders in main clauses, along with fronting of adverbs and applicative arguments, for the purposes of topicalization and emphasis. Note that only one argument or adverb other than vocative arguments may be placed in front of the verb of the main clauses. When an argument is placed before the verb it has the greatest personhood of all arguments aside from 1st and 2nd person arguments.

Arguments in subordinate clauses and relative clauses can be dislocated and fronted outside of the clauses. However, a demonstrative must be left in their place in the original clause, agreeing with the dislocated argument. One note is that when this is done with a relative clause the dislocated argument will have greater personhood than the relative argument, so if it is a core argument the relative verb must be marked as inverse.