How many aspects do you have?Eddy the Great wrote: I've added a new aspect
Polysynthetic Conlang
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- Aurora Rossa
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I have the perfect, imperfect, inchoative, cessative, habitual, iterative, and the tendency, so it has a lot of aspects, but it needs them to express what natlangs do, so I can't get rid of any.How many aspects do you have?
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
Here's a sample of my new polylang, just so you can get a feel on it. I won't post much grammatical things yet, but here's a few things. The only consanant clusters allowed are 'qt' and 'tq', or a continuation of those ('qtq', which is uncommon). No more than two consecutive vowels are allowed.
The phonology is rather small; only eight consanants, but a rather large number of vowels when compared (9, including the glottal stop).
Here's a couple sample words. Q?sie:t?qtqonqitla:?ne:, 'He Who Walks on Air' (the name for the prophet of a currently-nameless religion), and q?siqe:t?m?iser?, 'He Who Always Sleeps' (a name I dubbed to myself).
The writing system is syllabic, and is written vertically.
The phonology is rather small; only eight consanants, but a rather large number of vowels when compared (9, including the glottal stop).
Here's a couple sample words. Q?sie:t?qtqonqitla:?ne:, 'He Who Walks on Air' (the name for the prophet of a currently-nameless religion), and q?siqe:t?m?iser?, 'He Who Always Sleeps' (a name I dubbed to myself).
The writing system is syllabic, and is written vertically.
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Is there any reason for only allowing /q/ + /t/ and vice versa? Such oddly restrictive rules don't generally come about, except after certain long periods of phonological change, probably portending the impending loss of even those clusters.DarkFantasy wrote:Here's a sample of my new polylang, just so you can get a feel on it. I won't post much grammatical things yet, but here's a few things. The only consanant clusters allowed are 'qt' and 'tq', or a continuation of those ('qtq', which is uncommon). No more than two consecutive vowels are allowed.
The phonology is rather small; only eight consanants, but a rather large number of vowels when compared (9, including the glottal stop).
Here's a couple sample words. Q?sie:t?qtqonqitla:?ne:, 'He Who Walks on Air' (the name for the prophet of a currently-nameless religion), and q?siqe:t?m?iser?, 'He Who Always Sleeps' (a name I dubbed to myself).
The writing system is syllabic, and is written vertically.
Also, I would caution against translating your words in the form "he who...," unless they literally contain a relative clause. If they don't, this betrays their verbal nature and renders them in a different perspective from that which is most precise and in tune with the native language.
Noyatukah has two moods, the manifest and unmanifest, and three aspects: the perfective, imperfective and continuative. Notions like habituality aren't properly aspects.Maknas wrote:N?yanla gets along with only perfective, imperfective, inchoative, and cessative, as well as subjunctive mood and a few evidentials.Eddy the Great wrote:I have the perfect, imperfect, inchoative, cessative, habitual, iterative, and the tendency, so it has a lot of aspects, but it needs them to express what natlangs do, so I can't get rid of any.How many aspects do you have?
That's why diachronic work is so important; you can choose at random which clusters are allowed and which aren't, or you can choose them historically. Noyatukah, e.g., allows about 35 of a possible 196 clusters; but at earlier stages of the language, many more were legal. These cluster-related changes gave birth to the language's complex sandhi interactions.Is there any reason for only allowing /q/ + /t/ and vice versa? Such oddly restrictive rules don't generally come about, except after certain long periods of phonological change, probably portending the impending loss of even those clusters.
I would tend to agree; but do realize that a Mohawk nominal can, with no morphological change, serve just as well as a relative. E.g., iekareni?:tha 'shovel' means 'it-carries,' but can also mean 'it-which-carries'.Also, I would caution against translating your words in the form "he who...," unless they literally contain a relative clause. If they don't, this betrays their verbal nature and renders them in a different perspective from that which is most precise and in tune with the native language.
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I'm try to figure out how I'd translate "Love is blind." I can express something similar to "Hate leads to suffering." like this:
K?tka'ik?t?mi @ik?kl?s?mi.
K?-tka-'ik?-t?-mi @i-k?-kl?s?-mi.
pain-create-3SOS-3SSA when/if-habitual-hate-3SSA
When one hates, they create pain.
K?tka'ik?t?mi @ik?kl?s?mi.
K?-tka-'ik?-t?-mi @i-k?-kl?s?-mi.
pain-create-3SOS-3SSA when/if-habitual-hate-3SSA
When one hates, they create pain.
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
You're wandering into the territory of metaphor here, which various languages handle in very different ways.Eddy(NLI) wrote:How would you handle something like "Theft is foolish."?
I think it would be a mistake to transliterate the three phrases from English, as the transliterations would carry English baggage with them - love is blind is Shakespeareian, while hate leads to suffering reminds me of Star Wars. Theft is foolish is more original, though clearly patterned on the Shakespeareian, again.
My preference would be to build the metaphor from scratch, and then cast it in a pattern matching the language patterns of any conculture behind the conlang. For instance, you could translate a blind man walks in the night without a stick and then shorten it somehow and associate it to the concept of love through whatever metaphorical association tool is operating in the language. Some thought could lead to a shortening of the phrase, and a story for how the phrase came into being. Then you will end up with a translation of the phrase which isn't just an English relex. For hate, how about a phrase along the lines of the child cries over the shards of its smashed food bowl.
Don't mind me if I'm talking bollocks - it's just an idea ...
I realize it takes a while to get out English nominal thought, but in "love is blind" you have two nouns when you could express the same thing with the verb 'love-blinds-one'. As for Yoda's "Hate leads to suffering," try 'when-one-hates, they-suffer'.Eddy the Great wrote:I'm try to figure out how I'd translate "Love is blind." I can express something similar to "Hate leads to suffering." like this:
K?tka'ik?t?mi @ik?kl?s?mi.
K?-tka-'ik?-t?-mi @i-k?-kl?s?-mi.
pain-create-3SOS-3SSA when/if-habitual-hate-3SSA
When one hates, they create pain.
Don't do metaphors yet... by default, they differ between languages. Instead, do everyday sentences like "it's raining a lot these days" and "why don't we go get some pizza?". How much these "normal" sentences change through translation is a true test of ambiguity and realism.Eddy the Great wrote:I'm try to figure out how I'd translate "Love is blind." I can express something similar to "Hate leads to suffering." like this:
K?tka'ik?t?mi @ik?kl?s?mi.
K?-tka-'ik?-t?-mi @i-k?-kl?s?-mi.
pain-create-3SOS-3SSA when/if-habitual-hate-3SSA
When one hates, they create pain.
I see. I did more or less what you suggest for "Hate leads to suffering." I see your points about this being metaphor. It just doesn't translate. I think I can get the essential meaning of "Love is blind" byt saying basically one-falls-in-love-randomly or something to that effect.I realize it takes a while to get out English nominal thought, but in "love is blind" you have two nouns when you could express the same thing with the verb 'love-blinds-one'. As for Yoda's "Hate leads to suffering," try 'when-one-hates, they-suffer'.
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Is this a good idea?
|Xatskatq?|x'?ama.
|Xa-tska-tq?-|x'?-a-ma.
road-to.right.of-motion.to-walk-past-3SSA
I walked to the right of the road.
I use an affix to turn a stationary locative into one that indicates motion to that place.
|Xatskatq?|x'?ama.
|Xa-tska-tq?-|x'?-a-ma.
road-to.right.of-motion.to-walk-past-3SSA
I walked to the right of the road.
I use an affix to turn a stationary locative into one that indicates motion to that place.
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
I think I've seen that in natlangs, so I don't see a problem.Eddy the Great wrote:Is this a good idea?
|Xatskatq?|x'?ama.
|Xa-tska-tq?-|x'?-a-ma.
road-to.right.of-motion.to-walk-past-3SSA
I walked to the right of the road.
I use an affix to turn a stationary locative into one that indicates motion to that place.
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http://www.veche.net/alashian - Grammar of Alashian
- Aurora Rossa
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I wonder what kinds. I also wonder how Mohawk and Cheyenne do it.I think I've seen that in natlangs, so I don't see a problem.
Is there some equivalent to "greater than", "smaller than", etc. in the langs you'vce studied, Jburke?
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
There are ways of expressing those notions, sure.The Cheyenne equivalent of your sentence you translate like: 'I-righted-(the)-road-by.walking', with 'righted' as the root.Eddy the Great wrote:I wonder what kinds. I also wonder how Mohawk and Cheyenne do it.I think I've seen that in natlangs, so I don't see a problem.
Is there some equivalent to "greater than", "smaller than", etc. in the langs you'vce studied, Jburke?
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- Aurora Rossa
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So it means more literally: he-is-great but he-is-great and in that language, that indicates comparision?No, the above is just two normal expressions joined by naa, 'but' (it can also mean 'and'.)
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
-haahp- 'great' and -hahpe- 'greater' are two different (but related) roots. The former is used in the first expression, the latter in the second.Eddy the Great wrote:So it means more literally: he-is-great but he-is-great and in that language, that indicates comparision?No, the above is just two normal expressions joined by naa, 'but' (it can also mean 'and'.)
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So Cheyene uses different words?-haahp- 'great' and -hahpe- 'greater' are two different (but related) roots. The former is used in the first expression, the latter in the second.
"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."
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