Zompist Bboard Again

Let this thread function as a scratchpad!

Table of Contents

Lower Fleming River
1: Preamble, Phonology and Phonological Processes
2: Proper Nouns, Personal Names and Phonotactics
3: Preliminaries towards Pseudo-Philippinic alignment (and Crocodile)

Vātika Prakrit
1: Introduction
2: Basic phonology
3: Xeniades' Indica
4: Less basic phonology


Preamble

It is high time that the Lower Fleming River language, "LFR" for short, gets lifted up from stained notebooks, and transferred from an all too asemic type of handwriting into the digital age. Most of it this language been first described a year or two ago, and in various states of intoxication, so in a way we are all discovering what is there. Also, mind you that this is a work in progress. As long as I will work on LFR, it will change. Even its name is provisional.

One of the holes I usually dig for myself when conlanging, is that I want to put my language somewhere on the map of earth, and in the process I get too focused on that particular real world locality, with those pre-existing people and languages, that it stifles my creativity. It turns it into an academic exercise. That is all very well and I admire it when it is done properly, but I personally prefer my conlanging hobby as an art, rather than a science. So the "Fleming River" is no river you'll find on any map. Certainly no map of the world's second largest island. This language is NOT in any way, shape or form descended from, or affiliated with the Western Oceanic linkage. Its word roots are entirely unrelated to Proto-Western Oceanic, and any resemblance or connection is coincidental.

So no map. But some anthropological background might be of value The Fleming River language family is a minor language family. It satisfies the conditions for "language family" as Upper and Lower FR are distinct languages. Its speakers live in the alluvial wetlands that straddle the Fleming River; a region not far from the equator that consists of freshwater swamp forests, interspersed with hillocks futher inland. It is not a very cosmopolitan place, so I imagine. Betel nut is a prominent commodity, and the object of much of the little trade there is with the "outside".

Language goals
It is crucial for me to clearly define the goal for the language—the "deliverables for the project," in business terms. Without well-defined objectives, I tend to quickly lose track and motivation.

1. Untangle the vowel system: The current vowel system appears unconventional and, admittedly, it is. It is a Gleb^TM after all. The challenge is to make it plausible through thorough exposition, with a significant part of the explanation rooted in historical development. Spoiler: for Proto-Fleming River I have posited two postvelars *Q and *R (alternatively *q₁, *q₂) that engage in hanky-panky with vowels¹.
2. Limit concatinative morphology: Make a conscious effort in limiting the amount of agglutinative derivational morphology. 'Tis a tendency of mine and it will be fun to break it. I imagine the main verb to suffer from more fusional inflection and apophonic changes, while the rest of the verb complex, as well as noun phrases have little to no inflectional morphology.
3. Consider syntax: Force myself to think more deeply about syntax. Defining the methods of focus alignment will be in important way, and pied-piping with inversion indeed is one interesting way one can implement it. As @bradrn has pointed out, the Wiki page on pied-piping with inversion is indeed remarkably lucid.

Phonology

Now that we've got that cleared up, we can talk sounds. The basic phonology of LFR was stated earlier in the Conlang Random Thread, but this reiterates and, hopefully, clarifies some other bits.

Consonants
The phonemic consonant inventory of Lower Fleming River is as follows:

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	ᵐb	ⁿd	ᶮɟ	ᵑɡ	(ʔ)
Fricative		s z			h
Approximant	w	l	j
Trill		r

A case could be made that the prenasalized stops should be analyzed as underlyingly their corresponding voiced stops /b, d, ɟ, g/. It would probably be the preferred analysis for many Occam-minded phoneticians, as it would make the consonant inventory much more typologically unremarkable. I know of no natutral languages that are similarly analyzed as having prenasalized stops as its only phonemic consonants, but please school me if you have a counterexample. The choice for /ᵐb ⁿd ᶮɟ ᵑɡ/ was mostly made on aesthetic grounds, but it is supported by the fact that LFR speakers articulate the stops in isolation as prenasalized, and not as plain voiced stops.

Like stated earlier, the glottal stop only occurs twice in the lexicon, making it a marginal phoneme. Also, it is only encountered in one specific word class, being the interjections, that is in and of itself often a big wildcard; iʔo ‘interjection indicating surprise’ and aʔa ‘interjection indicating empathy or recognition’.

Vowels
There are the following vowels:

	Modal	Strong
Closed	i ɯ u	ɪ̈ˤ ʊ̜ˤ ʊˤ
Open	a ã ɒ ɒ̃	aˤ ãˤ ɒˤ ɒ̃ˤ
Nasal	ŋʲ̩ ŋ̩ ŋ̩ʷ	ŋ̩ˤ̟ ŋ̩ˤ ŋ̩ʷˤ

In my earlier post on LFR, I wrote that there are twenty vowels. Whether all of them are phonemic, is still up for debate. LFR distinguishes at least five vowel qualities, discounting phonation: /a, ɒ, i, ɯ~ʊ̜, u/. Phonations are modal and "strong" voice², i.e. pharyngealized; all phonations may also occur with the two nasalized vowels: /ã, ɒ̃/. To confuse matters, there is also the velar nasal. It may stand alone as a syllable or it may function as syllable nucleus, but never as a syllable onset that is preceded by a nucleus. I can't imagine this to be very stable, but there are plenty of examples, e.g. ŋo /ŋ̩.ɒ/ 'have, possess, contain, hold inside, have as an element’ [v] is disyllabic. The nasal vowel comes with plain, palatalized and labialized articulations, all of them with the phonation distinction modal vs. strong.

So, depending on how one interprets the data, LFR either sports a classic 5 vowel system, or it clocks in at a whopping twenty vowels. Given that there are 11 non-marginal consonants, LFR has a moderately low consonant-vowel ratio of 2,2, or alternatively that ratio is 0,55. That would make it the language with by far the smallest ratio, according to WALS. Analyzing the strong vowels as occurrences of closed (C)Vʕ-syllables could be valid, but for the time being I will use the original analysis that LFR permits only open syllables and thus does not allow any codas.

Phonological processes

Thusfar, the following phonological processes have come to the fore:

Palatalization and pharyngealization
Palatalization affects the fricatives and the lateral. When an alveolar fricative precedes an unstressed modal front high vowel /i/, it palatalizes slightly /s z/ to [ʃ ʒ]. Some speakers soften these sibilants even more, yielding [ɕ ʑ], but this is generally regarded as effeminate and frowned upon. Likewise, the lateral /l/ will also palatalize before /i/, and preceding strong vowels it assumes a velar or pharyngeal quality: [ɫ]. However, when the following front high vowel is phraryngealized /iˤ/ no palatalization takes place³.

Progressive voicing assimilation
At present, there is only one case of voicing assimilation. That is that the voiceless fricative /s/ voices when it directly follows a (prenesalized) voiced stop. For example, ndzö //nd-sö// '3FUT.NOM-eat.IMPF' ("He will be eating").

Schwa insertion
Phonetically, a reduced mid central vowel [ə̯] appears when CV- word stem is prefixed with a consonant.These consonant clusters are exclusively found at the beginning of words. These type of sequisyllables are predominantly found on the main verb after a preverb has been added, with the added exception ndzga [ⁿdzə̆ga] 'expletive derived from the taboo word for cunnilingus’ [int]. It seems that there is little need to indicate this [ə̆] in the orthography, as there is no room for ambiguity.

Dissimilation of /l/
Again, the lateral segment shows considerable allophonic variation. It has an allophonic relationship to [r] and [w] that is clearly seen in some cases of reduplicated stems containing /l/; lalu-walu '????' and lara 'third' [adv]⁴.

Syllables and stress

We have already seen that sequisyllabic initial syllables may be formed by tacking a preverbal person/tense/case marker onto the main verb. Apart from these, all syllables must be a consonant + vowel, or just a vowel. This holds true if we accept my makeshift analysis of the vowels, doing so will avoid complications (see the section titled "Vowels" above). Vowel clusters are tolerated, and consecutive vowels in a series of two or more are not typically elided. That being said, the phonotactical template (Cə̯=)(C)V goes completely out of the window with words that make emphatic use of sound symbolism or onomatopeia. The linked post in the Conlang Random thread lists some, and another in the lexicon is mbleˤ ‘yuck!’ [int]. This interjection is primarily uttered to signal olfactory disgust. Additionally, toponyms and in specific hydronyms, which abound among the tribe that makes its home in the tropical marshes. For example, Boul /ᵐbɒ.ul/ 'Fleming River'.

In Lower Fleming River, stress placement in a word is determined by a weight-based system. Luckily, it is fairly straightforward: a syllable with a "strong" vowel is considered heavy. If the second syllable of a word is heavy, it receives the stress; otherwise, the initial syllable is stressed. The onset of the syllable does not affect its weight. However, there are numerous lexical items that violate these rules. In almost all such cases, we see that the second syllable of a disyllabic word is stressed, even though it is not heavy. With a fair amount of confidence, we can categorize these words as loans from the neighboring Upper Fleming River language. UFR does not consider syllable weight and has fixed stress on the second syllable.

_______
¹) The sound changes from Proto-Fleming River to its modern descendants currently live as commented pseudo-code in Brassica, and they will need a lot of work before we come close to diachronic plausiblity.
²) Labelling vowels with a pharyngeal articulation as "strong" is perhaps an idiosyncracy. "Dark" or "hard" I have heard in the context of /ɫ ~ lˤ/, but to me that nomenclature is even less descriptive of what is going on in the vocal tract than "strong".
³) Copied lazily from Conlang Random.
⁴) Together with yö 'one' and gö ‘two’, 'three' is the only number that functions like an adjective, rather than an ordinal number. The adverb lara is formed from the adjective la by reduplication, although in this case it's obfuscated by the dissimilation of the lateral.

Raholeun wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 11:35 am ¹) The sound changes from Proto-Fleming River to its modern descendants currently live as commented pseudo-code in Brassica, and they will need a lot of work before we come close to diachronic plausiblity.

What a pleasant surprise, to see that other people are getting some use out of Brassica! Let me use this opportunity to encourage you to post to the thread, if you have any improvements to suggest.

²) Labelling vowels with a pharyngeal articulation as "strong" is perhaps an idiosyncracy. "Dark" or "hard" I have heard in the context of /ɫ ~ lˤ/, but to me that nomenclature is even less descriptive of what is going on in the vocal tract than "strong".

Why not simply ‘pharyngealised’? To me ‘strong’ suggests that there’s more going on than simple pharyngealisation.

I like that phonology. It's very distinctive.

Raholeun wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 11:35 am I know of no natutral languages that are similarly analyzed as having prenasalized stops as its only phonemic consonants, but please school me if you have a counterexample.

Kobon comes very close with /ᵐb ⁿd tɕ ⁿdʑ ᵑɡ/. Although it has a few processed by which plain and/or voiceless alternants crop up, which doesn't seem to be the case with LFR.

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 12:06 pm

Raholeun wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 11:35 am ²) Labelling vowels with a pharyngeal articulation as "strong" is perhaps an idiosyncracy. "Dark" or "hard" I have heard in the context of /ɫ ~ lˤ/, but to me that nomenclature is even less descriptive of what is going on in the vocal tract than "strong".

Why not simply ‘pharyngealised’? To me ‘strong’ suggests that there’s more going on than simple pharyngealisation.

To be honest; I got tired typing the same nomenclature over and over again. But "strong" seems like the most obvious equivalent term. I have exert myself quite some to constrict the pharynx enough to produce the pharyngealized vowels. In other words, articulating pharyngealized vowels demands more conscious and muscular effort compared to producing modal vowels. This added tension makes the process feel more forceful or "strong" to me.

Another argument for terming it "strong" is iconicity. I have not fleshed this out enough to produce anything coherent so bear with me, but I imagine that among the speakers of Fleming River languages, pharyngealization as an articulation is associated with notions of strength, intensity and power. For example, some lexical items may show segmental substitutions or V → Vˤ. These alternations, although difficult if not impossible to schematize, behave like INT pseudo-morphemes:

• mboˤroˤ 'wild pig' < mboˤro 'domesticated pig'
• ngabuˤ 'imprenetrable fog' < ngabu 'mist'

I'm hesitant to declare any such morphemes (productive or fossilized) just yet, so the examples above can be attributed to sound symbolism for now (i.e. "wand waving").

Darren wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2024 6:57 am Kobon comes very close with /ᵐb ⁿd tɕ ⁿdʑ ᵑɡ/. Although it has a few processed by which plain and/or voiceless alternants crop up, which doesn't seem to be the case with LFR.

Thanks for the tip Darren, I will absolutely look into Kobon.

Raholeun wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 11:35 am I know of no natutral languages that are similarly analyzed as having prenasalized stops as its only phonemic consonants, but please school me if you have a counterexample.

Akɨ

After epenthetic and paragogic insertion of ɨ, the Akɨ dialect of Apalɨ lenited all intervocalic stops—that is to say, all non-word-initial stops. In combination with the word-initial lenition that took place in Apalɨ and Manat (§2.3.1.5), this change had the effect of voicing every voiceless stop in Akɨ. And indeed, Wade states that in Akɨ, voiceless stops “are so infrequent that they could have been imported into the phonology from another language” (1993: 79).

Voiced stops in both dialects of Apalɨ are prenasalized.

Raholeun wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2024 8:05 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 12:06 pm

Raholeun wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 11:35 am ²) Labelling vowels with a pharyngeal articulation as "strong" is perhaps an idiosyncracy. "Dark" or "hard" I have heard in the context of /ɫ ~ lˤ/, but to me that nomenclature is even less descriptive of what is going on in the vocal tract than "strong".

Why not simply ‘pharyngealised’? To me ‘strong’ suggests that there’s more going on than simple pharyngealisation.

To be honest; I got tired typing the same nomenclature over and over again. But "strong" seems like the most obvious equivalent term. I have exert myself quite some to constrict the pharynx enough to produce the pharyngealized vowels. In other words, articulating pharyngealized vowels demands more conscious and muscular effort compared to producing modal vowels. This added tension makes the process feel more forceful or "strong" to me.

Perhaps… but is this the case for native speakers? Do speakers of Arabic, say, really feel that their pharyngealised consonants require any more effort than the others?

(Then again, the usual name for these Arabic consonants is ‘emphatic’, so perhaps they do!)

Darren wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2024 6:57 am

Raholeun wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 11:35 am I know of no natutral languages that are similarly analyzed as having prenasalized stops as its only phonemic consonants, but please school me if you have a counterexample.

Kobon comes very close with /ᵐb ⁿd tɕ ⁿdʑ ᵑɡ/. Although it has a few processed by which plain and/or voiceless alternants crop up, which doesn't seem to be the case with LFR.

Given that Kobon also has /ħ/ (as previously mentioned by Nort), I think this may give it the prize for ‘strangest phonology in New Guinea’, which is quite a feat…

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2024 10:27 am

Raholeun wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2024 8:05 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 12:06 pm
Why not simply ‘pharyngealised’? To me ‘strong’ suggests that there’s more going on than simple pharyngealisation.

To be honest; I got tired typing the same nomenclature over and over again. But "strong" seems like the most obvious equivalent term. I have exert myself quite some to constrict the pharynx enough to produce the pharyngealized vowels. In other words, articulating pharyngealized vowels demands more conscious and muscular effort compared to producing modal vowels. This added tension makes the process feel more forceful or "strong" to me.

Perhaps… but is this the case for native speakers? Do speakers of Arabic, say, really feel that their pharyngealised consonants require any more effort than the others?

(Then again, the usual name for these Arabic consonants is ‘emphatic’, so perhaps they do!)

The term for emphatic consonants in Arabic (or at least one of them, though sadly I can’t remember the specific one) is related to the root for “grand”.

I like the concept of a nasal vowel series that is variations of secondary articulations of [ŋ]

Zju wrote: ↑Wed Jul 17, 2024 3:17 pm I like the concept of a nasal vowel series that is variations of secondary articulations of [ŋ]

Thanks for articulating that so explicitly. It's a good point, and I think it could have been made clearer in the original post.

More importantly, I see your remark as a (perhaps unintentional) invitation to think more deeply about features. They are more of an advanced topic, and Lower Fleming River is still in its infancy, but eventually, it would definitely be interesting to use distinctive features directly in the analysis of a given morpheme, instead of treating it as having multiple surface forms. Doing so would require a deeper level of systematization instead of just dreaming up a set of allomorphs that are thinly veneered with historical sound changes, but not much more. I admit to say that has been my modus operandi thusfar. Even with LFR having limited agglutination I see options for exciting stuff (mostly on the main verb), this method could certainly obfuscate the limited agglutination by making verbs seem more fusional.

Proper Nouns, Personal Names and Phonotactics

With respect to the phonotactical constraints of Lower Fleming River; it seems I have been quick to make statements about only allowing open syllables in standard word classes. The template (Cə̯=)(C)V is not as hallowed as it has been made out to be in the previous post. In that post it was remarked that toponyms and specifically hydronyms frequently deviate from the set syllable template. For example, Lower Fleming River employs a ∅-derivation that turns prominent geographic features into verbs with the meaning "move along the PN, transport using PN". The following lemmata show word final consonants:

• mboul 'to navigate the Fleming River' [v] < Mboul 'Fleming River' [pn]
• isulur 'to travel using the path called Isulur < Isulur 'a sp. path' [pn]

But besides these geographical NPs, personal names are also a rich source for new verbs. These can then quickly bloat the lexicon, so that there are so many caveats to the phonotactical constraints stated that one might as well say that LFR allows (Cə̯=)(C)V(C)¹. Like the toponyms, I imagine some forms of (probably unmarked) derivation or periphrastic expressions for "behave like PN, share the appearance of PN, use an object associated with PN, suffer from the same affliction as PN".

In small, band based societies like those found near the Fleming River, I imagine there to be lots of room for eponyms to be invented and maintained. Heck, most of us on this forum understand what 'to Eddyfy' means. Looking at the Pitkern word list (Källgård:1998), it is a bit bewildering how many lexical items have their origins in proper names, and the list below even excludes all of the many instances where a person has become associated with some k.o. flora, like someone introducing a new type of fruit tree to the island. Some examples:

• BOSE ['bɔ:se] In expr. YOU SAME AS BOSE, said to someone who does something differently from others. [...] "Bose" was the nickname of Melville Christian (1897-1973), who lived more or less like a hermit. Sometimes he was called "Melville Bose Sose Consumption Christian"! Originally, bose is short for boatswain (Colcord 1945:81)
• CHRISTY-DRINK ['krɪstɪˈdrɪŋʔ] Any hot drink which has been preserved hot in a thermos flask for a long time. [...] it was a habit of Christy Warren's (1898-1984) to make hot chocolate in the evening, put it in a thermos flask, and drink it the following morning.
• DICKY ['dɪke] Haemmorrhoids. [...] Dick ("Dicky") Fairclough lived on Pitcairn in the late 1920s and suffered from haemorrhoids.
• DORCAS [ˈdɔ:kʌs] In expr. YOU SAME AS DORCAS, said to someone who stumbles and falls [...] Dorcas (b. Christian in 1873; Allen Christian's wife) once stumbled, stepped on a plate and smashed it. This happened on the deck of a ship.
• FANNY [ˈfænɪ] In expr. like the somewhat odd YOU SHE'S FANNY, said to someone who will not join, or to somebody who is not very smart, or tends to be a coward.
• FREDFEET ['fredfit, 'fredz'fi:əʔ] Very big feet. Many visitors have noticed the big size of the islanders' feet, see e.g. Fullerton 1923: 15 [...] after Fred (Frederick) Christian (1883- 1971), who is said to have had extra large feet, even for a Pitcairner.
• JAMU ['jAmul] In expr. TASTE JAMU = "taste bad". I RM 236: "app. some process connected with cooking in the earth-oven". [...] "TASTE JAMU is the same as TASTE DOG, because Oliver Clark used to have Jamu as the family name of his dogs".

I really had to stop myself from transcribing all of them, they're just so much fun.

I am still developing LFR words for basic vocabulary, so there aren't yet many entries available to choose from in the dictionary. However, a top priority is is to have some word formation that means "act in accordance with the philosophy of PN" so that 'acting morally arrogant, appropriating oneself the right to commit crimes' has a LFR equivalent of 'to raskolnikov [v]'.

_______
¹) Still, the expressives and interjections with their propensity for initial and final consonant clusters are a stranger beast yet.

Preliminaries towards Pseudo-Philippinic alignment (and Crocodile)

The larger part of last week for me was filled by sketching out the basics of the alignment system of Lower Fleming River. The specifics have not been set in stone yet, so this scratchpad entry might feel more eh.. scratchy than I would have liked it to. Also, I hope it is obvious that the convoluted name of this post is for the most part in jest. It is contrived, but it satisfied my youthful fixation on alliteration. So don't let the title mislead you: the tentative LFR alignment system bears only superficial relationship with those known from Austrosian languages and the Fleming River languages are not derived from Proto-Austrosian.

Alignment in Proto-Fleming River
For the ease and clarity of sharing, the examples that are used to illustrate the situation in the proto-language have been stripped down a bit. Tense and person marking have been omitted, mostly because I am not sure whether they will end up being there. Additionally, since the proto-language is in its early stages of development, sharing definitive word forms is premature; only glosses and translations are provided for now. Despite these limitations, the examples suffice to demonstrate the alignment system in abstracto.

As shown in the sentences below, Proto-FR exhibits an ergative pattern with transitive verbs in the perfective aspect. In contrast, non-ergative patterning appears in intransitive clauses and transitive clauses with verbs in the imperfective aspect.

snore.IPFV NOM 2
'You are snoring'

eat.IPFV (NOM) crocodile OBL chicken
'The crocodile is eating the chicken'

eat.PFV GEN crocodile (NOM) chicken
'The crocodile ate/will eat the chicken'

In this alignment, the agent (the doer of the action) receives the ergative/genitive marking, differentiating it from the patient (the one undergoing the action). The undergoer is given focus in the sentence structure and is left unmarked for case. This null-marking helps to highlight the undergoer as the primary focus of the clause. This alignment strategy effectively shifts the emphasis away from the agent and toward the undergoer, aligning with the ergative-absolutive pattern observed in many languages.

Maintaining the nominative-accusative alignment of arguments when the verb is in the perfective aspect would be highly marked, placing extra emphasis on the agent's identity. This emphasis can be seen as unusual or exceptional within the typical structure of Proto-Fleming River. Instead, Proto-Fleming River employs an ergative case to indicate the agent in both transitive and ditransitive verbs¹ when in the perfective aspect. For now, this ergative case is being labeled as genitive for simplicity. This alignment behavior triggered by verb aspect is not unique, but it is very much ANADEW as parallels can be found in Indo-Aryan languages. Consider the following examples from Hindi:

Lataa-ji-ne

Lataa-F.HON-ERG

kai

many

ganee

song.M.PL

gaa-ye

sing.PFV.M.PL

‘Lataa-ji sang several songs.’

Lataa-ji

Lataa-F.HON

ganee

song.M.PL

gaa-tii

sing.HAB-F

hain

be.PRS.PL

‘Lataa-ji sings songs.’

In the first example, the verb gaaye 'to sing' is marked for perfective aspect. That coincides with marking of the subject Laata-ji with the ergative marker. In the second example sentence, the habitual form of the word 'sing' is used, and subsequently the subject is not marked with the ergative case. An example from Apabhraṃśa, a literary Pakrit that is associated with the Jain, gives a hint on how some Indo-Aryan languages came to show split-ergative alignment that is triggered by the perfective aspect. Note, PPP stands for past passive participle:

mayā

1-INSTR

naro

man-NOM

māritaḥ

kill-PPP

Proto-FR operates similarly to the examples mentioned above, but it distributes part of the morphosyntactic load to a set of preverbs. These preverbs originally functioned as the initial components of serial verb constructions or periphrastic constructions. Over time, they underwent grammaticalization, losing their original lexical meanings and evolving into auxiliary verbs. In later stages of the language, they won't be recognizable as independent auxiliary verbs anymore, that is why I have been calling them "preverbs".

With the introduction of these preverbs, Proto-FR transcends the traditional delimitation of just two syntactic roles (subject and object). Instead, these innovated auxiliaries allow the language to emphasize additional arguments. Proto-FR has codified three distinct series of preverbs to mark different arguments, specifically the actor, patient, and instrument (although there is no reason why daughter languages could not have more of these).

hit=eat.PFV (NOM) crocodile OBL chicken
'The crocodile (he was it, who) ate the chicken' ( = Actor Focus)

get=eat.PFV GEN crocodile (NOM) chicken
'The chicken got eaten by the crocodile' ( = Patient Focus)

use=eat.PFV GEN master (NOM) spoon
'The master eats with a spoon' ( = Instrument Focus)

Verbs other than 'to eat' may pair with different auxiliaries in Proto-FR. The pairing between a specific series of preverbs and a main verb is lexically determined, meaning each verb has a predetermined set of auxiliaries it works with. This system will result in array of preverbal paradigms across the FR languages.Additionally, it is possible that these auxiliaries will evolve to bear some relation to the nominal arguments, potentially marking for gender or noun class. This semantic marking could provide further nuance and specificity in the language. The series of auxiliaries in Proto-FR originally meant:

• Actor Focus (AF): This series of preverbs is associated with actions and states of posture such as 'hit,' 'be,' 'give,' 'stand,' 'sit,' and 'lie.' These preverbs highlight the actor or agent performing the action.
• Undergoer Focus (UF): As of yet there's only preverb in this series, which originally meant 'get.' It emphasizes the patient or recipient of the action.
• Instrument Focus (IF): This series of preverbs includes meanings like 'use' and 'grab,' marking the instrument or means by which an action is carried out.

Alignment in Lower Fleming River
LFR expands on the alignment system of its earlier form, by drastically expanding the scope of the instrument. Not just prototypical instruments are thus marked, but also arguments that in English often require adpositions. These can be causes (e.g. 'I smoke out of boredom'), temporals (e.g. 'The man was out hunting for two days'), some locations or when surrounded while moving (e.g. 'The hunter came home through the forest'). There are likely more.

What makes this system more interesting, is that the instrumental preverb was extended in scope and an attributive notion came to be associated with them².

IF-drink (NOM) two day GEN master OBL wine
'The master has been drinking wine for two days'

UF.put RED-hand NOM slave.girl GEN IF-drink master
'The drunk master is fondling the slave girl'

Q? (NOM) IF-drink master.
'Who? The drunk master'.

At this point, you might have noticed that this post hasn't made any further reference to the Philippine alignment mentioned in the title. This is because I am not yet certain how the alignment system should be classified. There is some internal discussion whether these preverbs mark voice on the verb or if they function more like aspect markers. To avoid committing to one interpretation, I have been using the term 'focus', at least in this post. There are two possible classifications:

Split ergative, with an aspectual split: the switch between ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative alignment is conditioned by a characteristic of the verb, such as aspect or attribution. Main verbs would be marked as either imperfective, perfective, or attributive, with only the imperfective aspect implying a nominative-accusative alignment. In this scenario, the syntactic switch is triggered by qualities of the verb but strongly intersects with the participants identified by its argument. This would mean that the alignment system shifts based on verb properties, affecting how arguments are syntactically treated. This would be my preferred option, for reasons that I have not managed to articulate to myself.

Rudimentary symmetrical voice: Similar to Austronesian languages, the main verb of a transitive phrase in FR languages is marked for any of multiple voices, specifically three in the case of Proto-FR: actor voice, undergoer voice, and instrument voice. There are three reasonable arguments for labeling LFR alignment as a type of symmetrical voice system. Firstly, each verb argument can be promoted to the subject position, so no single argument inherently dominates the syntactic structure. This flexibility allows any core argument (actor, patient, instrument) to be the focus. Moreover, voice marking does not directly determine the case of its argument, allowing the subject of the sentence to vary without rigid case restrictions. Finally, in many languages with Austronesian type voice systems it too is the case that voice marking strongly intersects with the aspect of the main verb.

Crocodile

As an aside, while fumbling through the agreement system I stumbled upon a lexical item with some interesting details: ziga: ‘crocodile’ [n]. It is unsure whether this term refers to the saltwater crocodile, or any species endemic to the Fleming River region. From PFR *zəgiNga ‘id’, possibly *giNga with a fossilized *z- prefix marking dangerous or aggressive animals, compare zibi 'k.o. snake' and zŋʲ 'mosquito'. Some consider use of the word taboo.

The crocodile is feared, as well as revered among the Fleming River people. During the dry season, the villagers do their best to avoid their nests on the banks along the river. During the rainy season however, monsoon rains cause the river and its surroundings to flood and large tracts of forest to submerge. It is not uncommon for crocodiles to come dangerously close to the settlements that are typically built on higher ground. Moreover, the Fleming River peoples regard the crocodile as a powerful shaman who functions as an intermediary between the spirit of the forest and the animals that are hunted by the people. In fact, many hunters consider the crocodile to be a physical manifestation of the spirit of the swamp, avoiding the term ziga, but referring to it with the honorific kinship term ubo meaning "Grandfather".

Its elevated status among the Fleming River people likely has less to do with its lethal prowess and more with certain anthropomorphic qualities. The crocodile is known to live up to 70 years, an age that would make any person in the area of the Fleming River highly respectable. Also, it is regarded as an intelligent animal that competes for the same prey as the humans (deer, feral pigs, waterfowl, marine animals, and domesticated livestock such as pigs, chickens, and turkeys). All this supports the notion that the crocodile is a kind of "Other", a parallel human. Under normal circumstances, hunters refrain from attacking the crocodile out of fear of its spirit, which is believed to seek revenge on the murderer. A hunter who has killed a crocodile is called eaziga, meaning something like "crocodile-hated"³. An eaziga is a person who is permanently in danger and must forever sleep with one eye open. It is said that crocodiles will tirelessly be on the lookout for him and work to avenge the life of their fallen "relative".
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¹) Perhaps also intransitive verbs when they are volitional
²) More details are needed on how exactly the two seperate verb forms for INST. and ATTR. came to be conflated, but its safe to say phonological erosion and analogical change played a large part
³) A nod to to the medvediatnik as described by Willerslev in On the run in Siberia.

Vātika Prakrit

Introduction
As mentioned in another thread, I have recently started working on a new project. Vātika Prakrit is a language set in northwestern India during the first millennium AD. It is the vernacular of a territory, a city state of sorts that has not ye been named. The name "Vātika" is a Sanskrit term, its roots in the word vāta (वात), meaning "wind" or "air," and the suffix -ika, which indicates something related to or derived from that root. Interestingly, an additional meaning of vātika is "windbag, flatterer, or panegyrist," which through time likely evolved to mean "a person who tells grand stories," to "someone who prophesizes or foretells"¹.

Specifically, I'd like to use this language as a vehicle to learn more about classical Indian literature and theatre. So it made sense to place Vātika Prakrit among the so-called "Scenic" or "Dramatic Prakrits". In ancient India, Classical Sanskrit was the language of philosophy, religious and cultural authority. But also literature and theater. Within the context of a single play in Sanskrit, various Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were employed to reflect the characteristics of individual characters, such as their social standing, regional backgrounds or even their emotional states. Within this theatrical tradition, I assigned Vātika Prakrit a particularly niche function to set it apart from other Dramatic Prakrits: its use reserved for the portrayal of altered states of consciousness, such as dreams, trances, fugue states, and prophetic visions. For example, the play's heroine is visited by her slain brother in a dream to warn her of Such-or-such, doing so in Vātika.

So the language is derived from a very close relative of Classical Sanskrit. The inventory of sounds of the proto-lang, Old Vātika Prakrit, quite closely resembles that of Sanskrit. Since the conlang is not set in modern times, the divergence is limited and it should be in general clearly recognizable for a student of Sanskrit, Pali, etc. VP remains a highly fusional language that uses free word order, although I do forsee a shift towards periphrastic verb constructions and an eroded system of nominal morphology. Doing more syntaxy stuff like implementing pied-piper-with-inversion is also on the bucket list for this language. And if I manage to maintain enthousiasm and also unexpectedly find lots of free time, I might eventually try my hand at writing some faux-classical play.
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¹) Etymological associations between Vātika Prakrit and the Baul, the wandering minstrels of Bengal, have been long debated, though largely speculative. Some linguists have sought a connection based on their shared storytelling and prophetic traditions. Additionally, the philologist Dr. A. Dew has, though controversially, posited a link between Vātika and a secondary meaning of vāta, "flatulence." She suggests this may be tied to the bean and cabbage cultivation prevalent in northwestern India, though this theory remains largely unsupported..

Raholeun wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 9:49 am Vātika Prakrit

I'll be following this with great interest -- among other things, as a way to learn more about Prakrits, which I know next to nothing about.

Doing more syntaxy stuff like implementing pied-piper-with-inversion is also on the bucket list

Is it a common development in Indo-Aryan languages?

This sounds like a cool project! This is the first even suggestion of a con-prakrit I've seen so far.

Raholeun wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 9:49 am Dr. A. Dew

A presume her first name is Ana?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 1:19 pm

Raholeun wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 9:49 am Dr. A. Dew

A presume her first name is Ana?

That’d be hilarious! I’m working on a piece for Fiat Lingua at the moment and the “author” is one Anna Dew (as I mentioned in the Random Thread the other day).

Man in Space wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 2:24 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 1:19 pm

Raholeun wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 9:49 am Dr. A. Dew

A presume her first name is Ana?

That’d be hilarious! I’m working on a piece for Fiat Lingua at the moment and the “author” is one Anna Dew (as I mentioned in the Random Thread the other day).

If there only were a linguist named Dr. A(n(n)a) Dew... lol...

Speaking of "dew", I found this.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 5:00 pm Speaking of "dew", I found this.

That's awesome. We're witnessing a nascent meme Xenomorphing its way into existence.

Raholeun: First off, I like the kind of synthesistic narrator effect you've got going on. It's a mixture of ideas by fiat and real-time discussion of your thought process as you go through things.

More to the point—I love how [ meaty informative substantial ] your post about alignment and its development in FR is. In addition to the interest it holds for your project proper, it's given me some new perspective on a few things that have vexed me since my undergrad days (I never was a good syntactician in the first place). I hope you'll post more of your thoughts-in-process for Vātika Prakrit like you did for FR.