Zompist Bboard Again

Nearly all the conlangs I'm aware of have complex affixational morphology. This includes standard average European ones like Esperanto, Quenya, and Verdurian, but I think it's also generally true of ones meant to not be Europeanish, like Klington or a lot of the typologies I've seen here from time to time.

My question is, where are the analytic conlangs? Where are the isolating ones, using word order, particles, and free morphemes? (Hebrew is of course not analytic, but because it has very little concatenative morphology, derivation that uses common European affixes that Semitic languages don't have weights for uses free morphemes: lucky is "son_{con.} luck," reelection is "election from-new," insensitive is "lacking sensitivity," etc.)

Same question goes for nonconcatenative morphology. I don't really see anything nonconcatenative in conlangs beyond umlaut.

Are there good examples of analytic and nonconcatenative conlangs? If I'm right and there are very few of them, why do you think that is?

As so many of us are English-speaking, I think analytic conlangs probably don't seem interesting enough.

I have Uyseʔ and Lé. In media properties, the video game Jade Empire features an analytic conlang, Tho Fan.

You can do a lot of interesting things with analytic syntax, though, like having coverbs and relational nouns rather than adpositions, or playing with word order, or not really using pronouns. What is probably my second most advanced conlang, with maybe 300 lexical items, has a lot of syntax elements cribbed from Chinese, and is very much not a word-for-word substitution of English.

And then there's the fun of nonconcatenative morphology.

I think Zompist has it down. To an English speaker, morphological analysis doesn't seem terribly interesting. What makes Chinese interesting to me is its writing system, which pairs especially well with an analytic language. Without that it might not appeal to me much. Many English-speaking conlangers probably first became enamored with language creation after seeing those complex inflectional morphologies of the classical European languages. I know I was hooked on conlanging the moment I saw Latin declension tables. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and I wanted to emulate it.

I do think there's potential for interesting conlangs of an analytic nature; I'm interested in creating one using a syllabary.

I do a lot of analytic conlangs over the last few years. I've done a few webpages of my conlangs and made some posts to my facebook group Hieroglyphic Conlangs. Otherwise, I haven't published them anywhere.

I think they're mostly based on Classical Chinese but I've also studied some others from around China and I try to remember all that.

Back about 2009, I spent a lot of time with inscriptional Old Khmer, which is analytic. But that was a long time ago and I'm sure how much of that gets into my conlangs these days.

Thanks for the Jade Empire, reference, Zompist. I wish someone would decipher that one, it sounds huge. I think about it from time to time but my energy for that sort of thing is all worn out.

I've been working on an analytic conlang over on my Akiatu thread. It's been loads of fun.

My impression is that conlangers tend to be a lot more interested in phonology and morphology than in syntax, probably for lots of reasons, and the fun in an analytic conlang is going to be largely about the syntax. Maybe zompist's new book will help shift this. (But of course even if you're really into working on syntax, you can still do that in a synthetic language.)

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:04 pm As so many of us are English-speaking, I think analytic conlangs probably don't seem interesting enough.

I suspect that analytic conlangs can only seem too similar to English to be interesting for people who don't pay much attention to syntax.

As for nonconcatenative morphology---if you're at all serious about (naturalistic) conlanging, you'll learn pretty quickly that it's extremely difficult, and that might put you off. (But my impression is that lots of people who're starting out do play with triconsonantal roots, more than start out with a real focus on syntax, anyway.)

Back in 1994 i did a language that was entirely nonconcatenative for derivation ... see http://www.frathwiki.com/Minor_language ... ne_grammar . The inflections were agglutinative, but their internal etymology was nonconcatenative as well.

Oh, nonc. is like Semitic stuff? I've done a tiny bit of that but it's not really my thing. Inventing words from word roots is not my thing. The conlang in The Day the Earth Stood Still is probably based on Biblical Hebrew and gives evidence of doing that root and pattern morphology stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonconcat ... _languages

I do a tremendous amount of work with Biblical Hebrew etymology, though, so I have to work with that sort of thing all the time, though.

And one day, I would like to develop Tolkein's Dwarvish to give it enough words and grammar to say anything. Dwarvish works like a Semitic language. But we only have like 20 words, lame, and really simple sentences, so lame. Most of his invented languages are just atmospheric, it's pretty disappointing if you're used to Zompist Bboard posts.

Otherwise, the whole Semitic consonantal word roots thing is not something I explore much with my conlangs. I met some guy who wrote a Wizard of Oz book recently based on Proto-Semitic, though.

If by nonconcatenative you mean to include stuff like consonantal root systems, I've seen quite a few of those while lurking both here and elsewhere. I particularly remember a few from r/conlangs like fenekere.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:04 pm As so many of us are English-speaking, I think analytic conlangs probably don't seem interesting enough.

I have Uyseʔ and Lé. In media properties, the video game Jade Empire features an analytic conlang, Tho Fan.

HourouMusuko wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 9:27 pm I think Zompist has it down. To an English speaker, morphological analysis doesn't seem terribly interesting. What makes Chinese interesting to me is its writing system, which pairs especially well with an analytic language. Without that it might not appeal to me much. Many English-speaking conlangers probably first became enamored with language creation after seeing those complex inflectional morphologies of the classical European languages. I know I was hooked on conlanging the moment I saw Latin declension tables. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and I wanted to emulate it.

I do think there's potential for interesting conlangs of an analytic nature; I'm interested in creating one using a syllabary.

On one hand, yes, I can see this interpretation. On the other, even coming from supposedly-isolating English, I have great difficulty wrapping my head around the finer distinctions of pretty much any language with heavily analytical grammar. I'm used to suffixes, ablaut, and etymologically-differentiated synonyms taking care of that for me, and almost all the foreign languages I have immediate access to are less analytical (Russian,French,Hungarian,Japanese,Hebrew,Navajo,etc). I'm not proud of it, but that's probably why I'm extremely hesitant to even try to make a conlang with analytical grammar.

Since he's currently trapped as a translator in the distant, exotic land of His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, with apparently little internet access, I'll note that yng has a very good relatively analytic language in Tsi.

Das Public Viewing wrote:If by nonconcatenative you mean to include stuff like consonantal root systems, I've seen quite a few of those while lurking both here and elsewhere. I particularly remember a few from r/conlangs like fenekere.

While I think the relative lack of analytic conlangs is very real, I disagree with the OP on nonconcatenative conlangs; I've seen quite a number of them, but I think they've all been triconsonantal root systems a la Semitic (and most of them were done early in that person's conlanging career). What I want to see is a good nonconcatenative conlang that doesn't look Semiticky.

Alon wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:18 pm relational nouns rather than adpositions

It should be the other way around. All my (unfinished) conlangs use relational nouns because I spend my time polishing verb conjugation than deciding what adposition to use.

Alon wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 8:18 pm not really using pronouns

This is not possible, unless:

1. You mean that your language is pro-drop. (Which in my opinion is blander than non-pro-drop language)
2. You use extensive personal affix (and your language is no longer analytical)
3. You mean that your language's pronoun is basically noun. (Which shift the interest from grammar to vocabulary)

The last two still raises the question how you explain question word and demonstrative pronoun.

Eh I personally don't much care for analytic conlangs either, but I wouldn't say they're underrepresented. The Akana project has quite a few, for instance the Rompian excluding Rrób Tè Jĕhnò. If anything, I'd say analytic languages are overrepresented in real life . In all seriousness though I do kind of think that; analytic languages appear to be the result of the imposition of one language on another group and the acquisition errors are passed on leading to reduced morphology, and this can be seen that morphologically analytic languages are basically restricted to two regions: West Africa and East Asia.

My most recent conlang was heading in an analytic direction, but nobody noticed.

Frislander wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 4:06 amEh I personally don't much care for analytic conlangs either, but I wouldn't say they're underrepresented. The Akana project has quite a few, for instance the Rompian excluding Rrób Tè Jĕhnò.

The two most analytic languages in that family are my own Ronc Tyu (which is also the most extensively documented Ronquian language, with about 380 example sentences in the grammar plus eight longer sample texts) and CatDoom's Mhakh Thandim.

Alon wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:36 pmMy question is, where are the analytic conlangs? Where are the isolating ones, using word order, particles, and free morphemes?

Incoming! I'm still working out the phonology (consonant gradation & mutation), but I plan on my Dwarvish "primordial proto-lang" (as I call it) being mostly analytic. The only inflection will be number.

Alon wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:36 pmSame question goes for nonconcatenative morphology. I don't really see anything nonconcatenative in conlangs beyond umlaut.

I'm setting up Dwarvish for a descendant language to make use of only consonant mutation for some inflections. I think there will be vowel ablaut as well, so there may be multiple types of nonconcatenative morphology.

Another proto-lang in this project is Jin, which will have tone registers for grammatical tone. The registers will be used for tense. I have that system mostly worked out, but haven't posted anything about it yet. Granted, it's not "nonconcatenative morphology", but it does possibilities besides inflections to indicate grammatical information.

alice wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 4:31 amMy most recent conlang was heading in an analytic direction, but nobody noticed.

Unfortunately, welcome to conlanging. All of us have to accept that others will mostly be interested in our conlangs only so long as there is a current thread with a topic that touches on their conlangs.

Bob wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:29 pmOh, nonc. is like Semitic stuff?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonconcat ... _languages

Not just Semitic. Note that there are other types of nonconcatenative morphology listed on that page.

Bob wrote: ↑Mon Jan 07, 2019 10:29 pmAnd one day, I would like to develop Tolkein's Dwarvish to give it enough words and grammar to say anything. Dwarvish works like a Semitic language. But we only have like 20 words...

Actually, it's ~30 names, place names, or short sentences, and ~50-55 words or word forms, depending on how you count. But still, not much.

Vardelm wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:20 amAnother proto-lang in this project is Jin, which will have tone registers for grammatical tone. The registers will be used for tense. I have that system mostly worked out, but haven't posted anything about it yet. Granted, it's not "nonconcatenative morphology", but it does possibilities besides inflections to indicate grammatical information.

Why is tonal morphology (and by extension, stress-based morphology, I suppose) not considered non-concatenative? It's not really that different from ablaut for one.

Ser wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:26 amWhy is tonal morphology (and by extension, stress-based morphology, I suppose) not considered non-concatenative? It's not really that different from ablaut for one.

I don't know. Are tone & stress considered "morphology"? I assumed they weren't, and therefor wouldn't be "non-concatenative morphology".

My main conlang Viksen is basically analytic.

While most of my other languages have some inflection, I do tend towards less complex morpholog, in part because with more complicated systems I have a tendency to end up confusing myself.

Analytic conlangs are perhaps harder to do if you don't know much about languages. With morphology you can create quite a lot of interesting, non-Englishy stuff with relatively little effort.

Vardelm wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:40 am I don't know. Are tone & stress considered "morphology"? I assumed they weren't, and therefor wouldn't be "non-concatenative morphology".

Tone and stress are absolutely considered morphology. They're distinct phonological segments which can bear meaning - there are morphemes and morphological processes in many languages that consist of nothing but tone or stress.

For a semi-productive example of morphological stress in English, consider the difference between the verb recórd and noun récord.