Conlang Random Thread

[bbbosborne]

i've usually seen it described as mood: obligative mood, necessitative mood, maybe some other names. i can't really see it as an aspect or tense.

[Xwtek]

Is it okay to create a fusional language by devising a suffix without making a proto-language first and applying sound changes? The reason I have is that it's used as proto language anyway.

[mèþru]

Sure. Every conlanger gets to decide how far they want to go with it; most don't go into the origins of grammatical gender and case for instance, but start with them as a given feature of a proto-lang.

[Xwtek]

Sure. Every conlanger gets to decide how far they want to go with it; most don't go into the origins of grammatical gender and case for instance, but start with them as a given feature of a proto-lang.

Whew, that's relieving. Because I want to make a language where a fusional grammar becomes more analytic. (And agglutinative again in two branches) Having to make a pre-proto-language must have been exhausting.

[Xwtek]

How realistic it is to have a subclause mostly precedes the main clause.

[mèþru]

http://www.rickmor.x10.mx/syntax.html

[Knit Tie]

I'm still screwing around with phonologies, trying to create something fun and weird in the spirit of Danish and themed around west Africa, so weirdass allophony/patterninɡ and questionable boundaries of what a phoneme is in a smallish consonant inventory.

This is what I have so far:

/i e u o a ɨ/ + lenɡth
/n/
/p t k/
/ts tʃ/
/f s ʃ x/
/b d ɡ/
/w l j/

(C)V(C) syllables, maximum possible cluster is VCCV. Possible clusters heavily restricted.

I think the best way to describe this clusterfuck would be to go from phoneme to phoneme and note all the different allophones/replacements.

/n/ - The only nasal that's always a nasal, everywhere. Also can form /Cn/ clusters with /b d j l w/, which then become [mn ɾn jn ln mn] in surface realisation. All other /Cn/ clusters forbidden. Becomes palatal /ɲ/ before /i/. When it ends in a cluster in front of absolutely any C whatsoever, the post-nasal fortition happens, see below.

/p t k/ - Unaspirated and voiceless by default. Partially to fully voice to /b d ɡ/ after lonɡ vowels. Lenite to /f s x/ before another plosive, if that plosive is voiced, the lenited form is then either voiced to [v z] for /p t/ or elided with compensatory lenɡtheninɡ of the precedinɡ vowel for /k/. /t/ palatalises to /tsʲ/ before /i/.

/ts tʃ/ - in complementary distribution before /i/ and /ɨ/, no /ts/ before /i/ and no /tʃ/ before /ɨ/. Deaffricate to /s ʃ/ before plosives, with subsequent voicinɡ to /z ʒ/ before voiced plosives. Also deaffricate after lonɡ vowels. /sts stʃ ʃtʃ ʃts/ clusters simplify to /s ʃ ʃ s/, respectively.

/f/ - voices to /v/ after lonɡ vowels, lenites to /w/ in clusters.

/s ʃ/ - in complementary distribution before /i/ and /ɨ/, just like their affricate counterparts. /s/ becomes /ʃ/ before and after stops. Both sibilants elide after affricates. /ʃ/ is the only non-liquid phoneme that can occur after /p t k/ and keep them [p t k] on the surface. /ʃ/ voices to /ʒ/ before /b d ɡ/.

/x/ - elides in most clusters with compensatory lenɡtheninɡ if the adjacent vowel was short, otherwise tracelessly. Only remains in clusters with /w l j/ and after /b d ɡ/.

/b d ɡ/ - the wierdest ones. [m ɾ ŋ] when after a lonɡ vowel or precedinɡ any consonant whatsover. [m ŋ] then triɡɡer post-nasal fortition, as described below. Intervocalic /d/ is always [ʒ] before /i/, irrespestive of the lenɡth of the precedinɡ vowel. /ɡ/ becomes /n/ in coda, reɡardless of anythinɡ else.

/w l j/ - /l/ is [ɫ] when next to /u o ɨ/ unless there's an /i/ next to it as well. After lonɡ vowels, [ɫ] vocalises to /w~u̯/. Otherwise, these ɡuys can be in any cluster whatsoever, only underɡoinɡ post-nasal fortition.

Post-nasal fortition - a very productive phonoloɡical process that, basically, fortitions everythinɡ after a phonemic or allophonic nasals into a voiced plosive. Labials become [mb], coronals except [tsʲi] become [nd], palatals and [tsʲi] become [ɲɟ], velars become [ŋɡ]. This process affects even liquids and ensures that nothinɡ in the lanɡuaɡe can stand after a nasal aside from the aforemenrioned voiced plosives.

What do you think?

[Pabappa]

I like it, it looks like you put a lot of research into learning about allophones. The /n/ without /m/ makes me think of Basque, but in other ways it looks very different.

[náʼoolkiłí]

Shot in the dark: does anyone remember a conscript based on cuneiform that was posted many moons ago on the old ZBB? I seem to remember it being used by vampires. It's stuck in my memory as one of the most beautiful conscripts I've encountered, and I wonder if the creator continued working on it. I've had no luck searching around myself.

[Qwynegold]

As I was about to go to bed I started to think about the word for "then" in one of my conlangs. I thought I had two words for "then", but couldn't remember what exactly the distinction was. (Now that I looked at the grammar, it turns out I only had "now" and "then" which I had classified as "proximal" and "distal temporal adverbs". ) Anyway, I did come up with three ideas about how one could have two "then".

1. Then1 is used about events that refer to yourself and then2 about events that refer to a 2nd or 3rd person.
2. Then1 refers to yourself. Then2 refers to an event someone else has told about. But in instructions or suggestions, then1 is used if it came from you, regardless of who should perform the action. E.g. "Can you tell me how to get to the library?" "Turn left at the first crossing, then1 turn right." Here then1 is used because the instruction comes from the 1st person, even though it's the 2nd person who should turn right.
3. Then1 is used in past tense and then2 in future.

To me it seems like idea #3 could easily happen in a natlang, but I don't know of any languages that have several words for "then". Do you?

EDIT: I just realized that Swedish has "sen" and "då". >_< But I can't explain the difference.

[Xwtek]

As I was about to go to bed I started to think about the word for "then" in one of my conlangs. I thought I had two words for "then", but couldn't remember what exactly the distinction was. (Now that I looked at the grammar, it turns out I only had "now" and "then" which I had classified as "proximal" and "distal temporal adverbs". ) Anyway, I did come up with three ideas about how one could have two "then".

1. Then1 is used about events that refer to yourself and then2 about events that refer to a 2nd or 3rd person.
2. Then1 refers to yourself. Then2 refers to an event someone else has told about. But in instructions or suggestions, then1 is used if it came from you, regardless of who should perform the action. E.g. "Can you tell me how to get to the library?" "Turn left at the first crossing, then1 turn right." Here then1 is used because the instruction comes from the 1st person, even though it's the 2nd person who should turn right.
3. Then1 is used in past tense and then2 in future.

To me it seems like idea #3 could easily happen in a natlang, but I don't know of any languages that have several words for "then". Do you?

EDIT: I just realized that Swedish has "sen" and "då". >_< But I can't explain the difference.

In English, then is not just a distal temporal adverb. It's also sequence conjunction. Many languages distinguish between distal temporal adverb and conjunction with sequence meaning.

In Indonesian, we have 3 words for "then":

1. Lalu, kemudian: this is used for then with meaning the next action in sequence
2. Saat itu: Used for "that time" meaning of then. (i.e. distal temporal adverb meaning of then)
3. Maka: Used in conditional construction. (Jika saya tidak pergi, maka saya tidak bisa bekerja = If I didn't go, I wouldn't be able to work then. Using kemudian instead of maka, the sentence would be read as If I didn't go and I couldn't work)

[Xwtek]

Is the sound change that occurs word finally but not clause finally realistic? I want some language to have a differentiated adjective-noun declension when the proto-language has them identical.

[Richard W]

Is the sound change that occurs word finally but not clause finally realistic? I want some language to have a differentiated adjective-noun declension when the proto-language has them identical.

A sound change that occurs clause finally but not word finally seems reasonable, as that is what appears in Classical Arabic. Being clause final also triggers stress and length changes in Biblical Hebrew, but these may have been charged with being unnatural. In Biblical Hebrew, the clause-final changes tend to preserve material, whereas in Classical Arabic they elide it.

[Whimemsz]

Is the sound change that occurs word finally but not clause finally realistic? I want some language to have a differentiated adjective-noun declension when the proto-language has them identical.

A sound change that occurs clause finally but not word finally seems reasonable, as that is what appears in Classical Arabic. Being clause final also triggers stress and length changes in Biblical Hebrew, but these may have been charged with being unnatural. In Biblical Hebrew, the clause-final changes tend to preserve material, whereas in Classical Arabic they elide it.

Having certain phonological processes apply clause- or utterance-finally but not (otherwise) word-finally is fairly common, but if I'm understanding correctly, Akangka is asking about the reverse: a process that applies word-finally EXCEPT when the word is clause-final. I can't recall off-hand ever seeing an example of that, although that doesn't mean it's impossible. It might depend on the kind of sound change you have in mind?

[Richard W]

Having certain phonological processes apply clause- or utterance-finally but not (otherwise) word-finally is fairly common, but if I'm understanding correctly, Akangka is asking about the reverse: a process that applies word-finally EXCEPT when the word is clause-final.

Yes. However, the wrong question might have been asked. What is wanted is a difference between clause-final and non-clause-final, and we have confirmed that that can be done. In principle one can proceed:

Word finally: Reversible change A.
Clause finally: Reverse change A
Word finally: Apply change B on top of A, such as the sequence is irreversible.

The Biblical Hebrew alternation between /eː/ and /oː/ in clause-final open antepenultimates and schwa in other open antepenultimates may be of that form.

[Xwtek]

Proto Garaudawa originally had identical conjugation for both noun and adjectives. I want the descendants to have different declension, except Rkouic (where they have clause-final vs non-clause-final declension). At the extreme, Asent'o has the adjectives lost all the declension and fuses with the noun to form a single word. (Only some adjective. Most adjectives are turned into stative verbs instead and fuse with a pronoun, auxiliary verbs, and some adverbs). I also wanted the adjective (non-clause-final in Rkouic) declension be reduced compared to noun

[Xwtek]

Is egocentric and allocentric mood or aspect? And how does it appear?

[Hallow XIII]

I'm going to assume that this question is about egophoricity; please correct me if I've misinterpreted your terminology.

Anyway, the answer is, it's neither, at least under definitions of modality which consider evidentiality distinct from mood. It's not a mood because it doesn't express a speaker's attitude towards the statement, and it's not an aspect because it doesn't express the temporal structure of an event. If anything, it's a form of evidentiality because it expresses the speaker's access to information, but it's best to consider it a separate thing entirely because there are languages that have evidential systems that function orthogonally to egophoricity marking.

The reason for this is that it often (always?) arises from person marking: first-person markers are extended to cover not just the speaker, but whoever would be the speaker in a given situation. In the Himalayan pattern, this arises from something known as mixed reported speech; a construction that would map to a pseudo-English "He_i said that I_i went to the store", with the speaker always marked with a first-person morpheme. This gets extended to other constructions then, usually with the second-person markers fading after some time, creating the egophoric (< first-person)/allophoric (< third-person) distinction.

To what extent this is then integrated into other grammatical systems depends on the language and where it got the system from. In several Bodic languages, the egophoric is essentially one of several possible evidential markers (here it also tends to come not from older person marking but rather specific auxiliary verbs); in other languages, it acts far closer to person marking, being mostly unintegrated with other systems.

[malloc]

It seems that codas and vowel initial syllables both present significant problems for my featural abugida. The script assumes that every character signifies an onset with the nucleic vowel marked with diacritics. This means that vowel initial syllables would need a silent placeholder character to work in this system. The problem is determining what phonological features this placeholder has since that determines how the script would express it. Since the placeholder has no pronunciation, one can hardly assign it any place or manner features. Analogous problems arise with codas, which have no nucleus and no independent place features since they assimilate with following onsets like the moraic nasal and sokuon.

I have considered introducing new elements to indicate the absence of onset or nucleus, or using otherwise unused feature combinations (say velar + glide) as placeholders. Yet both options undermine the elegance and consistency of the original system in my opinion.

[akam chinjir]

Independent graphs for vowels, that can be used in onsetless syllables, like in Devanāgarī?