Conlang Random Thread

[Skookum]

In tonogenesis, what are some patterns for how syllables without a tone specifying consonant might develop? Say for instance final voiced stops induce low tone on a preceeding vowel and final voiceless stops induce high tone before final consonants are dropped. Is it plausible for syllables ending in other consonants (fricatives, nasals etc) to gain an unmarked mid tone? Or maybe one of the two tones is more common and analyzed as unmarked, and therefore all nontonal syllables gain that tone?

[bradrn]

In tonogenesis, what are some patterns for how syllables without a tone specifying consonant might develop? Say for instance final voiced stops induce low tone on a preceeding vowel and final voiceless stops induce high tone before final consonants are dropped. Is it plausible for syllables ending in other consonants (fricatives, nasals etc) to gain an unmarked mid tone? Or maybe one of the two tones is more common and analyzed as unmarked, and therefore all nontonal syllables gain that tone?

I can see either happening. Though in the latter case I would describe the net effect differently: I would say that one of those consonant sets induces tone, while all other consonants yield the opposite tone.

[Creyeditor]

In tonogenesis, what are some patterns for how syllables without a tone specifying consonant might develop? Say for instance final voiced stops induce low tone on a preceeding vowel and final voiceless stops induce high tone before final consonants are dropped. Is it plausible for syllables ending in other consonants (fricatives, nasals etc) to gain an unmarked mid tone? Or maybe one of the two tones is more common and analyzed as unmarked, and therefore all nontonal syllables gain that tone?

In tonogenesis, a mid-tone (i.e. a f0 target in the neutral pitch range of the speaker) is often assigned as a default. In other languages, where the high tome is more 'marked', a low tone can be assigned as a default. In yet other languages, such syllables stay toneless. What does this mean? They can either get their tone from phonetic interpolation (no f0 target, i.e. you glide smoothly from a preceding tonal target to the following one) or by phonological rules. Phonological rules often include high tone spreading and/or high tone polarity.

[Travis B.]

I have found in my languages that a direct-ergative-accusative-genitive case-marking scheme works so "well" that I rarely if ever have to mark core arguments for case (as direct case is unmarked). In practice it is uncommon for inanimate nouns to be agents (and thus be marked with ergative case) and it is infrequent that I find myself specifying animate nouns as patients (and thus be marked with accusative case).

[Ahzoh]

I am not the only one who came up with the idea of negative subject pronouns:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hejazi_Ar ... t_pronouns

[malloc]

Now admittedly, I know much less about tone than other areas of phonology. For that matter, I find it much harder to intuit many of the principles and tendencies of tone. It seems like natural tone systems are full of rules that make little conceptual sense, with tones jumping around far off their original syllable or even sometimes word. It seems difficult to discern what constitutes a plausible tonal rule or even how tone manages to distinguish morphemes effectively when it shifts so much.

[Creyeditor]

Reading up on autosegmental phonology really helped me in understanding tone.

[Ahzoh]

I find myself constantly vacillating between what cases I want. A lot of the issue is that while having a lot of cases is neat and interesting, I find myself having difficulties finding use for many cases that can't be satisfied with a preposition phrase. At the same time, I feel like I need a certain number of cases since apparently having specifically 4-5 cases is overrepresented in conlangs and rarer in natlangs.

To begin with, from the Vrkhazhian's perspective, cases are divided into two categories: syntactic cases and adnominal cases. Cases like the Nominative (and Vocative, which I consider a subcase of Nominative), Accusative, Ergative, and Instrumental cases would be syntactic cases as they can exist independently and contribute to the structure of the sentence. Adnominal cases would include the Genitive, Equative, Ablative, Locative, Comitative, Ornative (possessing X), and Privative (lacking X) cases, because they do not exist independently and instead serve as modifiers of other nouns and verbs. Could say they're adjectivized/adverbialized nouns.

So, I've gone back and forth between a "minimal" case system of Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, and Equative and expanding the system to include the Instrumental (main purpose is to indicate the theme/secondary object of a ditransitive verb), the Ergative, Ablative, Locative, Ornative, and Private. But again I always think "these could be convey with a preposition phrase", so I often remove them.

I am always uncertain about having a third case for the second object of a ditransitive since I insist on having a secundative alignment (D=A, R=P, T=special) instead of the more common indirective (or dative) alignment (D=A, T=P, R=special) because I find it boring. However, it's hard to distinguish a ditransitive verb with two core objects from a monotransitive verb with one core object and an oblique argument (e.g. the verb "speak" and its variations "speak to" and "speak with"). Omissibility of the oblique is not always reliable.

Anyways, I also have an applicative voice, which promotes oblique arguments to core arguments. So it always feels weird to mark the promoted oblique with accusative while the original core object is seemingly "demoted" from accusative marked to instrumental marked. I feel like the indirective alignment would have no such problem, since the original object does not change case marking while the oblique is simply marked with the dative case. But again, indirective/dative alignment is boring.
My possible work around is that only "inherent" ditransitives (not causative or applicative voice-marked) such as "give" have secundative alignment while causative and applicatives are employ double object construction.

[bradrn]

Now admittedly, I know much less about tone than other areas of phonology. For that matter, I find it much harder to intuit many of the principles and tendencies of tone. It seems like natural tone systems are full of rules that make little conceptual sense, with tones jumping around far off their original syllable or even sometimes word.

I second Creyeditor’s suggestion — read up on autosegmental phonology. Yip’s book Tone is a particularly good guide, though it goes a bit heavy on the Optimality Theory. Then again, OT is precisely the theory which attempts to explain where all the rules come from, so it may well be worth knowing.

[Travis B.]

I have decided that I really, really like the direct-ergative-accusative-genitive case system myself. For those here not familiar with such systems, direct is the default, unmarked case, while ergative is the case of inanimate agents and accusative is the case of animate objects. In Rihalle Kaafi I limited these to transitive clauses and adpositions, with intransitive clauses always taking direct case (in the modern language adpositions take direct case for inanimate arguments and accusative case for animate arguments but in the classical language certain adpositions such as the dative take direct case for animate arguments and ergative case for inanimate arguments). However these can be extended to intransitive clauses as part of split-S and fluid-S arrangements.

[Ahzoh]

I have decided that I really, really like the direct-ergative-accusative-genitive case system myself. For those here not familiar with such systems, direct is the default, unmarked case, while ergative is the case of inanimate agents and accusative is the case of animate objects. In Rihalle Kaafi I limited these to transitive clauses and adpositions, with intransitive clauses always taking direct case (in the modern language adpositions take direct case for inanimate arguments and accusative case for animate arguments but in the classical language certain adpositions such as the dative take direct case for animate arguments and ergative case for inanimate arguments). However these can be extended to intransitive clauses as part of split-S and fluid-S arrangements.

The direct case doesn't sound too different in function from what one might call "nominative-absolutive":
https://wals.info/chapter/28

"Comparing the distribution of case marking across these two classes, one is able to set up a system of three cases: ergative, nominative-absolutive and accusative, whereby the nominative-absolutive is syncretic with the ergative for some words and with the accusative for others"

[bradrn]

I have decided that I really, really like the direct-ergative-accusative-genitive case system myself. For those here not familiar with such systems, direct is the default, unmarked case, while ergative is the case of inanimate agents and accusative is the case of animate objects. In Rihalle Kaafi I limited these to transitive clauses and adpositions, with intransitive clauses always taking direct case (in the modern language adpositions take direct case for inanimate arguments and accusative case for animate arguments but in the classical language certain adpositions such as the dative take direct case for animate arguments and ergative case for inanimate arguments). However these can be extended to intransitive clauses as part of split-S and fluid-S arrangements.

The direct case doesn't sound too different in function from what one might call "nominative-absolutive":
https://wals.info/chapter/28

"Comparing the distribution of case marking across these two classes, one is able to set up a system of three cases: ergative, nominative-absolutive and accusative, whereby the nominative-absolutive is syncretic with the ergative for some words and with the accusative for others"

From what I recall of Travis’s conlangs, this is correct. It’s nothing particularly unusual — just the unmarked case in a split ergative case system. Often people just call it a ‘nominative’.

[Travis B.]

From what I recall of Travis’s conlangs, this is correct. It’s nothing particularly unusual — just the unmarked case in a split ergative case system. Often people just call it a ‘nominative’.

The problem with calling it a 'nominative' case is then that the typical object is 'nominative', which goes against the very idea that the nominative is a subject case. Calling it 'direct' avoids this by emphasizing that an argument is unmarked as opposed to being either a marked subject or a marked object. 'Nominative-absolutive' works too but is a mouthful.

[Ahzoh]

From what I recall of Travis’s conlangs, this is correct. It’s nothing particularly unusual — just the unmarked case in a split ergative case system. Often people just call it a ‘nominative’.

The problem with calling it a 'nominative' case is then that the typical object is 'nominative', which goes against the very idea that the nominative is a subject case. Calling it 'direct' avoids this by emphasizing that an argument is unmarked as opposed to being either a marked subject or a marked object. 'Nominative-absolutive' works too but is a mouthful.

Calling it direct would imply that the animate and inaminate have unique forms separate from ergative and accusative rather than something like this:

spliterg.png (10.1 KiB) Viewed 118 times

[Travis B.]

From what I recall of Travis’s conlangs, this is correct. It’s nothing particularly unusual — just the unmarked case in a split ergative case system. Often people just call it a ‘nominative’.

The problem with calling it a 'nominative' case is then that the typical object is 'nominative', which goes against the very idea that the nominative is a subject case. Calling it 'direct' avoids this by emphasizing that an argument is unmarked as opposed to being either a marked subject or a marked object. 'Nominative-absolutive' works too but is a mouthful.

Calling it direct would imply that the animate and inaminate have unique forms separate from ergative and accusative rather than something like this:
[snip]

I don't think 'direct' implies a three-way distinction existing for some nouns (i.e. tripartite alignment). Rather, it just implies a most unmarked case for expressing core arguments which may be used for expressing intransitive subject, agent, and patient.

[WeepingElf]

The problem with calling it a 'nominative' case is then that the typical object is 'nominative', which goes against the very idea that the nominative is a subject case. Calling it 'direct' avoids this by emphasizing that an argument is unmarked as opposed to being either a marked subject or a marked object. 'Nominative-absolutive' works too but is a mouthful.

Calling it direct would imply that the animate and inaminate have unique forms separate from ergative and accusative rather than something like this:
[snip]

I don't think 'direct' implies a three-way distinction existing for some nouns (i.e. tripartite alignment). Rather, it just implies a most unmarked case for expressing core arguments which may be used for expressing intransitive subject, agent, and patient.

Yes. "Direct" is just an agnostic term for the least marked case, whatever the alignment may be.

[Ahzoh]

The problem with calling it a 'nominative' case is then that the typical object is 'nominative', which goes against the very idea that the nominative is a subject case. Calling it 'direct' avoids this by emphasizing that an argument is unmarked as opposed to being either a marked subject or a marked object. 'Nominative-absolutive' works too but is a mouthful.

Calling it direct would imply that the animate and inaminate have unique forms separate from ergative and accusative rather than something like this:
[snip]

I don't think 'direct' implies a three-way distinction existing for some nouns (i.e. tripartite alignment). Rather, it just implies a most unmarked case for expressing core arguments which may be used for expressing intransitive subject, agent, and patient.

What I'm saying is, instead of:

ERG: -0
NOM-ABS: -0
ACC: -m

vs.

ERG: -s
NOM-ABS: -0
ACC: -0

It's more like

ERG: -s
DIR: -0
ACC -m

It is practically and functionally identical, but I think there is subtle analytical nuance.

[jal]

I find myself having difficulties finding use for many cases that can't be satisfied with a preposition phrase. (...) But again I always think "these could be convey with a preposition phrase", so I often remove them.

I don't understand this reasoning. Of course you can use prepositional phrases for everything. Heck, you could make a language where every argument takes the form of a prepositional phrase. What you need to decide is what you like better - having specific noun cases for various locative and directional meanings (cf. e.g. Finnish), or use prepositions (cf. e.g. English). There is no "use" for noun cases. They exist in some languages, and don't exist in others. It's your conlang, just make up your mind!

To begin with, from the Vrkhazhian's perspective, cases are divided into two categories: syntactic cases and adnominal cases.

You mean from the perspective of your con-people? Because "syntactic cases" doesn't make sense linguistically. And "adnominal case" just means "noun case".

Cases like the Nominative (and Vocative, which I consider a subcase of Nominative), Accusative, Ergative, and Instrumental cases would be syntactic cases as they can exist independently

Again, this reads like word salad. What does "exist independently" mean?

and contribute to the structure of the sentence.

In what way? Syntactic structure had nothing to do with semantic structure, which seems what you're after here.

Adnominal cases would include the Genitive, Equative, Ablative, Locative, Comitative, Ornative (possessing X), and Privative (lacking X) cases, because they do not exist independently and instead serve as modifiers of other nouns and verbs.

Cases that "serve as modifiers of (...) nouns and verbs" - again, word salad.

Could say they're adjectivized/adverbialized nouns.

How can a case be an "adjectivized" noun? Or, reading between the lines, do you mean that a noun with a genitive a kind of adjective, like "John's book" is the same type of sentence as "the blue book" (where noth "John's" and "blue" modify "book")? If that's the case (no pun intended), how do these other cases you mention operate? How is "The book is table-LOC", the same type of construction? Or do you have something like "the on-the-table book is blue" in mind? If so, I still think you have a class of adjectivizers instead of noun cases.

to include the Instrumental (main purpose is to indicate the theme/secondary object of a ditransitive verb),

That would simply not be called an "instrumentive", unless you want to be purposely contrarian. The instrumental specifies the instrument (what's in a name), and in no semantic analysis is the typical indirect object an instrument.

Anyways, I also have an applicative voice, which promotes oblique arguments to core arguments. So it always feels weird to mark the promoted oblique with accusative while the original core object is seemingly "demoted" from accusative marked to instrumental marked.

In my understanding, when an applicative voice is used to promote oblique arguments to core arguments, the are marked as would be fit for the position they're promoted too. The "original" argument is then moved out of the core, or just omitted, and typically marked with a preposition or the like. It shouldn't (as in, what is common) marked with another core argument noun case.

I feel like the indirective alignment would have no such problem, since the original object does not change case marking while the oblique is simply marked with the dative case. But again, indirective/dative alignment is boring.

Indirective is the alignment English uses (so yes, perhaps that's "boring"), but you seem confused here: the indirect object (marked or not with a dative) is a core argument, not an oblique. So an oblique isn't marked with the dative, but rather with an oblique case or a preposition.

My possible work around is that only "inherent" ditransitives (not causative or applicative voice-marked) such as "give" have secundative alignment while causative and applicatives are employ double object construction.

Verbs are ditransitive when they have two core arguments. Applicatives decrease valency, I don't see what an "applicative voice-marked ditransitive" would be. (And causatives are a whole other ballpark.)


JAL

[Travis B.]

I find myself having difficulties finding use for many cases that can't be satisfied with a preposition phrase. (...) But again I always think "these could be convey with a preposition phrase", so I often remove them.

I don't understand this reasoning. Of course you can use prepositional phrases for everything. Heck, you could make a language where every argument takes the form of a prepositional phrase. What you need to decide is what you like better - having specific noun cases for various locative and directional meanings (cf. e.g. Finnish), or use prepositions (cf. e.g. English). There is no "use" for noun cases. They exist in some languages, and don't exist in others. It's your conlang, just make up your mind!

Just because it is one's conlang does not mean that creating it is as simple as choosing features out of a hat.

To begin with, from the Vrkhazhian's perspective, cases are divided into two categories: syntactic cases and adnominal cases.

You mean from the perspective of your con-people? Because "syntactic cases" doesn't make sense linguistically. And "adnominal case" just means "noun case".

I think by "syntactic cases" Ahzoh means core cases and by "adnominal cases". Ahzoh means cases that can be used attributively to qualify other nouns.

Cases like the Nominative (and Vocative, which I consider a subcase of Nominative), Accusative, Ergative, and Instrumental cases would be syntactic cases as they can exist independently

Again, this reads like word salad. What does "exist independently" mean?

Probably as in that they don't qualify something else.

and contribute to the structure of the sentence.

In what way? Syntactic structure had nothing to do with semantic structure, which seems what you're after here.

Syntactic as in defining syntactic roles. Sematic roles (such as 'experiencer') are a different matter.

Adnominal cases would include the Genitive, Equative, Ablative, Locative, Comitative, Ornative (possessing X), and Privative (lacking X) cases, because they do not exist independently and instead serve as modifiers of other nouns and verbs.

Cases that "serve as modifiers of (...) nouns and verbs" - again, word salad.

Umm not really. These are all the kinds of noun cases which typically qualify another noun or verb.

Could say they're adjectivized/adverbialized nouns.

How can a case be an "adjectivized" noun? Or, reading between the lines, do you mean that a noun with a genitive a kind of adjective, like "John's book" is the same type of sentence as "the blue book" (where noth "John's" and "blue" modify "book")? If that's the case (no pun intended), how do these other cases you mention operate? How is "The book is table-LOC", the same type of construction? Or do you have something like "the on-the-table book is blue" in mind? If so, I still think you have a class of adjectivizers instead of noun cases.

That is like arguing that genitive and locative cases as found in countless languages are really "adjectivizers" or "adverbializers". As Ahzoh says, they are in a way, in that they qualify other nouns and verbs, but they generally do not syntactically and morphologically behave like adjectives and adverbs per se.

to include the Instrumental (main purpose is to indicate the theme/secondary object of a ditransitive verb),

That would simply not be called an "instrumentive", unless you want to be purposely contrarian. The instrumental specifies the instrument (what's in a name), and in no semantic analysis is the typical indirect object an instrument.

I agree that 'instrumental' here is probably not the best of name per se.

Anyways, I also have an applicative voice, which promotes oblique arguments to core arguments. So it always feels weird to mark the promoted oblique with accusative while the original core object is seemingly "demoted" from accusative marked to instrumental marked.

In my understanding, when an applicative voice is used to promote oblique arguments to core arguments, the are marked as would be fit for the position they're promoted too. The "original" argument is then moved out of the core, or just omitted, and typically marked with a preposition or the like. It shouldn't (as in, what is common) marked with another core argument noun case.

I have heard different things about how applicatives operate in different languages, e.g. IIRC in some languages they promote an adpositional argument to a core argument while not actually reducing the verb's valency. Don't call me on this though.

I feel like the indirective alignment would have no such problem, since the original object does not change case marking while the oblique is simply marked with the dative case. But again, indirective/dative alignment is boring.

Indirective is the alignment English uses (so yes, perhaps that's "boring"), but you seem confused here: the indirect object (marked or not with a dative) is a core argument, not an oblique. So an oblique isn't marked with the dative, but rather with an oblique case or a preposition.

A dative argument is more peripheral than an accusative argument in an indirective language, and secundative alignment inverts this with ditransitive verbs, where indirect objects are case-marked identically with objects of transitive verbs, and direct objects of ditransitive verbs are more peripheral than their intransitive arguments.

My possible work around is that only "inherent" ditransitives (not causative or applicative voice-marked) such as "give" have secundative alignment while causative and applicatives are employ double object construction.

Verbs are ditransitive when they have two core arguments. Applicatives decrease valency, I don't see what an "applicative voice-marked ditransitive" would be. (And causatives are a whole other ballpark.)

What I would see it as being is promoting an adpositional or oblique case argument into another core argument, e.g. converting an intransitive verb to a transitive verb or a transitive verb to a ditransitive verb.

[Travis B.]

It's more like

ERG: -s
DIR: -0
ACC -m

It is practically and functionally identical, but I think there is subtle analytical nuance.

You mean by that tripartite alignment, which is very rare and is not indicated by the term 'direct' case. For instance, 'direct' case can be used to mean a merged unmarked nominative-absolutive case such that there is no distinct ergative or accusative case (e.g. nouns in most continental Scandinavian dialects, where there may be a separate dative case and which one may or may not consider the genitive a case per se, but where there is no distinction made between intransitive subject, agent, or patient).