Ser's timeboxed scratchpad

[Kuchigakatai]

I must admit that I am kind of ashamed that even though I conlang literally all the time, I have nothing to show for it in spite of frequently doing it for about 10 years. The problem is that all this time I've worked basically on the same conlang. 10 years ago I felt like doing a conlang, and then I felt dissatisfied with the results after 1-3 months of working on it to the point I decided to restart from scratch again, and so I've been trapped in a cycle of restarts and eventual dissatisfaction.

Don't get me wrong, I've been having a lot of fun all these years implementing the abstract idea I have of My Perfect Aesthetic Conlang again and again, but I'd like to have something to show to people. And so I've decided to work on conlangs with a different aesthetic, making use of timeboxing. I don't think I'll even like these conlangs, I just want to get them functional (i.e. with a "decent" amount of morphosyntactical detail and lexical entries) as fast as I can.

If a natlang is what served me as inspiration for something, I will sometimes indicate it within braces. {French} means that I thought of the characteristic in question inspired by something similar in French.

[Kuchigakatai]

Nakka

Language: Nakka [ˈnah.ka] (English: [ˈnækə], Spanish: [ˈnaka])
Family: Zeddian
Date I started working on it: 2018-10-06


Features

Some characteristics of interest.

• There are pausal forms, which means there are words that take a distinct shape before a pause, mostly involving stress shifts {Biblical Hebrew}.
• The tenses distinguished in negated verbs are not the same as those of positive (non-negated) verbs {Mandarin: bu4 and mei2 work differently from zai4, zhe, le}.
• Verbs distinguish number of the subject but not person {Spoken Arabic, Hebrew: participle VP heads}.
• "Be" and "have" are generally expressed through relational uninflected particles instead of verbs.
• There are nine demonstrative distinctions: proximal, polite proximal, (visible) distal, remote, pejorative distal, polite distal, abstract-hypothetical, memorial/admonitive {Latin American Spanish: aquel,ella}, and finally, mortual (used for the dead) {Halkomelem}.
• There are two series of indefinite pronouns or adverbs, depending on register. One series uses an unanalyzable root with affixes attached, and the other series uses recognizable roots, similar to English "every-time", "some-thing", "no-body". Indefinite adverbs (e.g. "in all cases") serve to express what English handles with indefinite determiners such as "every" {Classical Chinese: one possible analysis of 皆, 或, 莫}.
• There are particles that mark vocatives (different nuances of vocatives), and prepositions that allow moving subjects to the end of the sentence (in what is a largely SVO language).
• The writing system is logographic, combining features of Chinese, Sumerian/Akkadian and Ancient Egyptian.

Typological Overview

Presence of uncommon consonants: /t/ [t]~[θ], /q/ [q]~[χ].

Word packing: phonologically concatenative, there is exponence of case and number in nominals and pronouns, and also tense and polarity in verbs {Japanese}. In other words, in older typology this is a fusional language. There is mildly high flexivity, with several classes among both nominals and verbs.

Morphological nominal categories: case (direct, oblique), number (singular, plural), declension ("labial", "sibilant", "vocalic", named after the nature of the plural suffixes).

Morphological verbal categories: tense (present, future, past), aspect (perfective, imperfective), mood (realis, irrealis), case of subject (direct, oblique), number of subject (singular, plural, impersonal), conjugation (various). Valency derivations (causative, recipient applicative, reciprocal) are common but not productive, and have analytic equivalents. Some verbs can take direction affixes (towards, away) {Mandarin: 去, 來}.

Basic word order: SVO, determiner-noun, quantifier-noun, noun-adjective, possessed-possessor, noun-relative clause, preposition-noun-postposition.

Standard negation is expressed with a particle placed either before the verb or at the beginning of the sentence {Latin: neque}. Polar questions are expressed through a sentence-initial particle {Standard Arabic: hal, a-; Latin: num, numquid, nonne}, and content questions are achieved with a question word placed before the verb (even when it's the object of the verb). Subordinate clauses use a subordinator or juxtaposition.


Phonology

Consonants:
/p~f t~θ tʃ~ʃ k~h q~χ/
/b d dʒ g/
/m n/
/s/
/z/
/r/
/l/
/w j ɥ/

Romanization notes: /tʃ/ <c>, /dʒ/ <j>, /j/ <y>, /ɥ/ <ÿ>.

/p t k q/ are spirantized into fricatives when found in syllable-final position. E.g. attu [ˈaθ.tu] 'hand', nukta [ˈnuh.ta] 'berry'.

Vowels:
/i y e a o u/
/ei ai oi ui/
/wa/
/i.e y.o e.a u.a/

Romanization notes: /y/ <ü>.

/wa/ is the only "rising diphthong" available {Cantonese: kwa, gwa and for some speakers kwo, gwo, are the only rising diphthongs}.

Syllabic structure: (C)(r,l,w)V(C).

Stress tends to fall on the second-to-last syllable, unless the last suffix pulls stress towards it. While it is not strictly predictable from the consonantal and vocalic segments alone, it is not indicated in romanization as it is not necessary to do so if one knows which few suffixes pull stress towards the end.


Writing

The writing system is logographic, using consonant signs as well {Ancient Egyptian: consonant signs}. The logogram inventory has roughly 700 items, and the use of consonant signs tends to reflect an older stage of the language.

In the romanization of the writing system, most logograms are represented with a three-letter abbreviation in uppercase, whereas consonant signs appear in lowercase corresponding to the system used for the phonology. /j/ and /ɥ/ are not distinguished in the consonant signs, so they both appear as <y>. (The romanization of the pronunciation does distinguish them as <y> vs. <ÿ>, as noted above.)

The system has an extra sign to mark vowel-initial words and hiatuses, which is represented with @ in romanization.

There exists an alphabetic system used to record the pronunciation of certain texts, particularly old poetry, but it is of minor use. The use of this system has allowed the retention of (an imperfect) knowledge of the older pronunciation of some words, and is therefore the source of literary pronunciations. It is also used in dictionaries to record current pronunciations. The pronunciations recorded in the alphabetic system vary from text to text (contemporary dictionaries do not agree with the signs used for old poetry a lot of the time, and different poems use different readings anyway), so I will not bother to provide these with some exceptions.

In romanization, if a word has more than two logograms, these are separated with a dot. E.g. SRS.YLT reqmu 'leader' (the logogram is composed of SRS sarsu 'person' and YLT yalta 'head' {Sumerian, Akkadian: logograms can be compounded for their meaning}). Some logograms have a shortened form, and these have a one-letter or two-letter code, functioning as "radicals" for disambiguation of meaning {Chinese: radicals}. E.g. MRK, the full logogram for mirki 'wing', has the shortened form M, used in e.g. NNS.M wadda 'to run' (cf. NNS nansa 'to walk').


Nominal declension

Nouns and adjectives share the same inflectional declensions. The left column has the singular forms, and the right column has the plural forms.

There are three main declensions, identified by the kind of plural affix used: the labial declension, the sibilant declension, and the vocalic declension.

The labial declension

Most nouns belong to the labial declension, where the oblique singular is -y -i (which then forms diphthongs often), and the plural suffixes are -b -om (direct) and -b -ob (oblique), spelled with the same consonant sign, -b. The reason for the identical spelling is that -om was [õb] when the language started using consonant signs.

dwaba 'cooking pot'
DIR DWB DWBb
DIR dwaba dwabom
OBL DWBy DWBb
OBL dwabai dwabob

(Note: the old declension was [ˈdwa.ba dwa.baˈõb ˈdwa.bai dwa.baˈob].)

rapnu 'black'
DIR KPN.Z KPNbZ
DIR rapnu rapnom
OBL KPNyZ KPNbZ
OBL rapnui rapnob

(Note: the old declension was [ˈrap.nu rap.nuˈõb ˈrap.nui rap.nuˈob].)

These plural suffixes pull the stress towards them, but not in pausal position. This means that DWBb Z.KPNb dwabom rapnom would be pronounced [dwaˈbom rafˈnom] when found at the beginning or the middle of a phonological group, but at the end of it, it would be [dwaˈbom ˈraf.nom].

The sibilant declension

A smaller number of nouns belongs to the the sibilant declension, particularly if they're the singulative forms of a certain collective noun. The oblique singular ends in an unstressed -ys -is, and the plural suffixes are -s -an (direct) and -s -as (oblique). The direct plural is spelled thus because it represents an older [ãs] pronunciation (which then became [ans], and then [an]). The plural suffixes pull the stress towards them, unless they are in pausal position.

geka 'leaf'
DIR GEK GEKs
DIR geka gekan
OBL GEKys GEKs
OBL gekis gekas

(Note: the old declension was [ˈgeka geˈkãs ˈgekis geˈkas].)

malbu 'seed'
DIR MRP.GK MRPsGK
DIR malbu malban
OBL MRPysGK MRPsGK
OBL malbis malbas

(Note: the old declension was [ˈmal.bu mal.buˈãs ˈmal.bis mal.buˈas].)

The vocalic declension

Most words ending in -i or -y belong to this declension, with some members ending in -a. The singular oblique ending is an unstressed -y -ui, the plural direct ending is -y -Vya, and the plural oblique ending, -@, varies in sound depending on the last vowel. The direct plural and oblique singular forms are not distinguished in writing. The plural suffixes pull the stress towards them, but as they are two syllables long, the second-to-last stress general rule is retained: [baˈdi.ja], [baˈdi.e], [dʒasˈty.o], [gadˈde.a].

badi 'wrinkle'
DIR WDR.K WDRyK
DIR badi badiya
OBL WDRyK WDR@K
OBL badui badie

(Note: the old declension was [ˈbau.di bauˈdĩya ˈbau.dwij bauˈdi.ə].)

jastü 'agreement'
DIR NLD.C NLDyC
DIR jastü jastüya
OBL NLDyC NLD@C
OBL jastui jastüo

(Note: the old declension was [ˈdʒas.ty dʒasˈtỹ.ja ˈdʒas.twij dʒasˈty.ə].)

gadda 'river'
DIR GAD GADy
DIR gadda gaddaya
OBL GADy GAD@
OBL gaddui gaddea

(Note: the old declension was [ˈgan.da ganˈdãya ˈgan.dwij ganˈde.ə].)

[akam chinjir]

Tangential and insignificant question: what are you thinking of as the humble proximal demonstrative in classical Chinese? (寡人?)

The writing system looks really interesting to me. The only real-world logographic (or whatever) system I know is the Chinese one, which no doubt limits my perspective. The cases where one word is written with multiple graphs really stand out for me: the individual graphs correspond not to phonological parts of the word but to (roughly) components of the meaning. (E.g., SRS.YLT reqmu "leader" = SRS sarsu "person" + YLT yalta "head"; as opposed I guess to 領導 lǐngdǎo "leader" = 領 lǐng "lead" + 導 dǎo "guide"). It actually looks like an ideographic strategy, in the sense of "ideographic" that usually shows up in arguments that we should be saying "logographic" instead.

[Kuchigakatai]

Tangential and insignificant question: what are you thinking of as the humble proximal demonstrative in classical Chinese? (寡人?)

敝 bi4 'my (humble)', as in 敝舍 bi4 she4 'my humble house', 敝校 bi4 xiao4 'my humble school', 敝姓 bi4 xing4 'my humble family name'. It's not a proximal in Classical Chinese, but it's the inspiration for the humble proximal in Nakka.

The writing system looks really interesting to me. The only real-world logographic (or whatever) system I know is the Chinese one, which no doubt limits my perspective. The cases where one word is written with multiple graphs really stand out for me: the individual graphs correspond not to phonological parts of the word but to (roughly) components of the meaning. (E.g., SRS.YLT reqmu "leader" = SRS sarsu "person" + YLT yalta "head"; as opposed I guess to 領導 lǐngdǎo "leader" = 領 lǐng "lead" + 導 dǎo "guide"). It actually looks like an ideographic strategy, in the sense of "ideographic" that usually shows up in arguments that we should be saying "logographic" instead.

This strategy, using multiple logograms for their meaning, is common in Sumerian and Akkadian.

Yeah, Nakka's writing system is a weird mix of Chinese (in the use of radicals as well as vaguely sounding similarities, as in MRP.GK for malbu), Sumero-Akkadian (in the use of multiple logograms for the meaning of a single word) and Ancient Egyptian (see the consonant signs). I would add influences from Classic Maya, if only I knew it.

[akam chinjir]

Interesting, thanks!

[Xwtek]

Word packing: phonologically concatenative, there is exponence of case and number in nominals and pronouns, and also tense and polarity in verbs {Japanese}. In other words, in older typology this is a fusional language. There is mildly high flexivity, with several classes among both nominals and verbs.

I don't think tense-polarity is fused in Japanese.

ika-na-katta (S don't/doesn't go)

-katta is simply a past tense form of adjective in Japanese. (In japanese V-nai is an adjective)

敝 bi4 'my (humble)', as in 敝舍 bi4 she4 'my humble house', 敝校 bi4 xiao4 'my humble school', 敝姓 bi4 xing4 'my humble family name'. It's not a proximal in Classical Chinese, but it's the inspiration for the humble proximal in Nakka.

Note, that it is personal pronoun. It is very common for personal pronoun to have either possessive form or politeness. It is reasonable to combine both, Like in Filipino:

Pato mo (Your duck)/ Pato ikaw (You are duck)
Pato nyo (Your (formal) duck)/ Pato kayo (You (formal) are duck)

On other one, different politeness level is rarely used in demonstrative pronoun. The only language I know is Javanese, where the formal version of iki (this) and iku (that) is menika and niku. Not even Japanese, another language with extensive politeness marking, has that. The reason Javanese has formal version of iki and iku is because in formal version, Javanese replace almost every words. Even affixes is sometimes changed (di- becomes dipun-). Probably Sundanese, Madurese, Balinese, and Sasak has them too, because of local sprachbud. That is also why Javanese politeness is also a nightmare to learn. (I am Javanese.)

[Kuchigakatai]

Word packing: phonologically concatenative, there is exponence of case and number in nominals and pronouns, and also tense and polarity in verbs {Japanese}. In other words, in older typology this is a fusional language. There is mildly high flexivity, with several classes among both nominals and verbs.

I don't think tense-polarity is fused in Japanese.

ika-na-katta (S don't/doesn't go)

-katta is simply a past tense form of adjective in Japanese. (In japanese V-nai is an adjective)

My inspiration came from the possibility of analyzing the endings after -mas- this way, with positive non-past -u vs positive past -ita (the suffix -en is unmarked for tense though). This means that e.g. -u would encode for high politeness, non-past tense and positive polarity in a fusional way. Then you can analyze these polite forms with -mas- thus:

(Abbreviations: CONT 'continuative', POL 'polite', NPST 'non-past', POS 'positive', NEG 'negative', SEC 'secondary', CAUS 'causative'.)

• nom-i-mas-u
  drink-CONT-POL-POL.NPST.POS
• nom-i-mas[h]-ita
  drink-CONT-POL-POL.PAST.POS
• nom-i-mas-en
  drink-CONT-POL-POL.NEG

Or, as another example, let's look at the causative:

• nom-a-se-mas-u
  drink-SEC-CAUS-POL-POL.NPST.POS
• nom-a-se-mas[h]-ita
  drink-SEC-CAUS-POL-POL.PAST.POS
• nom-a-se-mas-en
  drink-SEC-CAUS-POL-POL.NEG

敝 bi4 'my (humble)', as in 敝舍 bi4 she4 'my humble house', 敝校 bi4 xiao4 'my humble school', 敝姓 bi4 xing4 'my humble family name'. It's not a proximal in Classical Chinese, but it's the inspiration for the humble proximal in Nakka.

Note, that it is personal pronoun. It is very common for personal pronoun to have either possessive form or politeness. It is reasonable to combine both, Like in Filipino:

Pato mo (Your duck)/ Pato ikaw (You are duck)
Pato nyo (Your (formal) duck)/ Pato kayo (You (formal) are duck)

On other one, different politeness level is rarely used in demonstrative pronoun. The only language I know is Javanese, where the formal version of iki (this) and iku (that) is menika and niku. Not even Japanese, another language with extensive politeness marking, has that. The reason Javanese has formal version of iki and iku is because in formal version, Javanese replace almost every words. Even affixes is sometimes changed (di- becomes dipun-). Probably Sundanese, Madurese, Balinese, and Sasak has them too, because of local sprachbud. That is also why Javanese politeness is also a nightmare to learn. (I am Javanese.)

Yes, when I thought of having a humble proximal, I was thinking of making it mostly a thing of politeness. Now that I think about it, it'd actually be more correct to refer to the humble proximal and the honorific distal as the polite proximal and the polite distal. I said Japanese was a source of inspiration for the polite distal because of its o- prefix, but in a vague way of course, as o- is not a distal. I didn't put this in the post originally, but Latin is actually the source for the pejorative distal, as iste,a,ud was often used as a mildly pejorative medial demonstrative, and in a way I thought the opposite (a polite distal) should be possible as well. I was not aware that Javanese, Sundanese, etc. have formal demonstratives.



Thank you very much for your argumentative post! It made me think. Sometimes on conlanging forums you just receive simple praise and further questions, but I find argumentative posts very useful to make the implementation of my ideas much clearer.

[Xwtek]

敝 bi4 'my (humble)', as in 敝舍 bi4 she4 'my humble house', 敝校 bi4 xiao4 'my humble school', 敝姓 bi4 xing4 'my humble family name'. It's not a proximal in Classical Chinese, but it's the inspiration for the humble proximal in Nakka.

Note, that it is personal pronoun. It is very common for personal pronoun to have either possessive form or politeness. It is reasonable to combine both, Like in Filipino:

Pato mo (Your duck)/ Pato ikaw (You are duck)
Pato nyo (Your (formal) duck)/ Pato kayo (You (formal) are duck)

On other one, different politeness level is rarely used in demonstrative pronoun. The only language I know is Javanese, where the formal version of iki (this) and iku (that) is menika and niku. Not even Japanese, another language with extensive politeness marking, has that. The reason Javanese has formal version of iki and iku is because in formal version, Javanese replace almost every words. Even affixes is sometimes changed (di- becomes dipun-). Probably Sundanese, Madurese, Balinese, and Sasak has them too, because of local sprachbud. That is also why Javanese politeness is also a nightmare to learn. (I am Javanese.)

Yes, when I thought of having a humble proximal, I was thinking of making it mostly a thing of politeness. Now that I think about it, it'd actually be more correct to refer to the humble proximal and the honorific distal as the polite proximal and the polite distal. I said Japanese was a source of inspiration for the polite distal because of its o- prefix, but in a vague way of course, as o- is not a distal. I didn't put this in the post originally, but Latin is actually the source for the pejorative distal, as iste,a,ud was often used as a mildly pejorative medial demonstrative, and in a way I thought the opposite (a polite distal) should be possible as well. I was not aware that Javanese, Sundanese, etc. have formal demonstratives.



Thank you very much for your argumentative p ost! It made me think. Sometimes on conlanging forums you just receive simple praise and further questions, but I find argumentative posts very useful to make the implementation of my ideas much clearer.

oops, sorry, I used the wrong source. In Javanese, there is ngoko (causal), krama madya (roughly formal humble), and krama inggil (roughly honorific).

Code: Select all

     ngoko krama  krama inggil
this iki   niki   menika
that kui   punika punika

There is 4/5 kinds of level. Ngoko lugu is basically uses ngoko form on everything. Ngoko alus uses ngoko except to honourable person (which uses krama inggil instead). Krama lugu uses krama to every word. Krama alus uses krama inggil to every word except that pertains to speaker. But there is exception to that rule.

[Kuchigakatai]

I just made modifications to the first Nakka post, clarifying the things in {braces}.