What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

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TaylorS
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by TaylorS »

In Mekoshan, relative clauses are indicated by verb morphology.

"I know that you know"
Aano döcno
Aa-no döc-no
1SG-know 2SG.REL-know

"I know that I know"
Aano dèèno
Aa-no dèè-no
1SG-know 1SG.REL-know

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Chuma »

TomHChappell wrote:when you say something like "OBL-INTG" or "ACT-ACT", is one of them "case" and the other "bicase" or something like that?
Nope, the bicase idea is for my primary conlang Rammy. This is my other conlang, the Choir Conlang. Those forms in CC can be seen as agreement forms, or they can be seen as voices. If they are seen as voices, you could either see things like "ACT-ACT" as one voice, in which case there are a lot of voices to pick from (63, I think), or you can say that each verb has a "first voice" and a "second voice". So whereas Rammy has a "double" form on the noun phrases, CC has a double form on the verbs, if you like.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Nortaneous »

TaylorS wrote:In Mekoshan, relative clauses are indicated by verb morphology.
What are the diachronics behind that?

Oh, and Kannow does that, using the nonfinite form. (Glossed NF. Ignore the voice fuckery.)
řyhow iřyhnòw
0-řyh-ow i-řyh-nʷ-ow
S.M.P-know-1S.A NF.NP-know-C1.P.SG-1S.A
"I know that I know it"

řyhow iřyhnỳsʼ
0-řyh-ow i-řyh-nʷ-sʼ
S.M.P-know-1S.A NF.NP-know-C1.P.SG-2S.A
"I know that you know it"

řyhow rořyhnỳsʼ
0-řyh-ow ro-řyh-nʷ-sʼ
S.M.P-know-1S.A NF.PST-know-C1.P.SG-2S.A
"I know that you knew it"

řyhow rʼyřyhnỳsʼ
0-řyh-ow rʼy-řyh-nʷ-sʼ
S.M.P-know-1S.A NF.PST.OPT-know-C1.P.SG-2S.A
"I know that you wanted to know it"
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Chuma »

blank stare II wrote:The thing I love the most about my conlang is how it uses pronouns in a different way than I've seen any natlangs do it. Pronouns consist of a single phoneme. The subject pronoun is prefixed onto the verb, and the object pronoun is suffixed.
I've had a somewhat similar idea. I called it "zero-syllable words" - they are just one consonant, so they sort of stick to the syllables of other words.
As for no natlangs doing it, there are some that affix the pronouns (or agreements) on the verb, tho I don't know if any language has single-phoneme morphemes for all of them. But at least some kind of single-phoneme pronoun affixes are found in French, if I'm not mistaken.
blank stare II wrote:Agentive/patientive rolls between pronouns are also distinguished by voicing/unvoicing of these phonemes. If the first person singular pronoun had been the object, it would have been d instead of t.
Doesn't that just mean that the prefix is always voiceless and the suffix is always voiced? Which, by the way, might be a little odd, if you're going for naturalism - as far as I know, a lot of languages tend to devoice final consonants.
blank stare II wrote:My other favorite thing about my conlang is that transivity is marked by reduplicating the first syllable of the thing in question. An example in English would be "to infinity, and beyond!" realized as "infinfinity, and beyond!"
I don't understand. How is that transitivity? It's not even a verb. And it's not the first syllable either.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by TomHChappell »

Chuma wrote:
TomHChappell wrote:when you say something like "OBL-INTG" or "ACT-ACT", is one of them "case" and the other "bicase" or something like that?
Nope, the bicase idea is for my primary conlang Rammy. This is my other conlang, the Choir Conlang. Those forms in CC can be seen as agreement forms, or they can be seen as voices. If they are seen as voices, you could either see things like "ACT-ACT" as one voice, in which case there are a lot of voices to pick from (63, I think), or you can say that each verb has a "first voice" and a "second voice". So whereas Rammy has a "double" form on the noun phrases, CC has a double form on the verbs, if you like.
Aha. "Voice-stacking" instead of case-stacking? Is it more suffix-uptake, or prefix-uptake, or tone-uptake?

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Qwynegold »

TaylorS wrote:In Mekoshan, relative clauses are indicated by verb morphology.

"I know that you know"
Aano döcno
Aa-no döc-no
1SG-know 2SG.REL-know

"I know that I know"
Aano dèèno
Aa-no dèè-no
1SG-know 1SG.REL-know
That's interesting. Relative clauses usually cause a headache for me when I'm conlanging, but you've solved it in a very simple way.
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Miekko »

Chuma wrote:
TomHChappell wrote:when you say something like "OBL-INTG" or "ACT-ACT", is one of them "case" and the other "bicase" or something like that?
Nope, the bicase idea is for my primary conlang Rammy. This is my other conlang, the Choir Conlang. Those forms in CC can be seen as agreement forms, or they can be seen as voices. If they are seen as voices, you could either see things like "ACT-ACT" as one voice, in which case there are a lot of voices to pick from (63, I think), or you can say that each verb has a "first voice" and a "second voice". So whereas Rammy has a "double" form on the noun phrases, CC has a double form on the verbs, if you like.
bicase? is this something like what I did in Bryatesle back in 2005?
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Bristel »

Miekko wrote:
Chuma wrote:
TomHChappell wrote:when you say something like "OBL-INTG" or "ACT-ACT", is one of them "case" and the other "bicase" or something like that?
Nope, the bicase idea is for my primary conlang Rammy. This is my other conlang, the Choir Conlang. Those forms in CC can be seen as agreement forms, or they can be seen as voices. If they are seen as voices, you could either see things like "ACT-ACT" as one voice, in which case there are a lot of voices to pick from (63, I think), or you can say that each verb has a "first voice" and a "second voice". So whereas Rammy has a "double" form on the noun phrases, CC has a double form on the verbs, if you like.
bicase? is this something like what I did in Bryatesle back in 2005?
Why not explain what you did, then it can be compared and contrasted.
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by TaylorS »

Nortaneous wrote:
TaylorS wrote:In Mekoshan, relative clauses are indicated by verb morphology.
What are the diachronics behind that?
Fusion of the relative pronoun "that" onto the subject pronominal affix.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Glenn »

Jumping into this thread a little later than planned:
lctrgzmn wrote: I've recently written a post on my grammar blog about verb nominalizations, and how the nominalizations can take subjects and objects, as verbs are conjugated before they are nominalized. Ex:
  • Sgẃscogudatha telívyta mie.
    sgẃsc-o-g-u-da-tha telív-y-ta m-ie
    school-DAT.SG-GO-1.SG-OBLIG-NOMI-NOM.SG arrive-3.SG-NEG 1-DAT.SG
    The me having to go to school doesn't arrive to me.
    "I don't like having to go to school."

    Thẃlsgymughytha tfamh ólsa févnisym telívyta mie.
    thẃlsg-ym-u-gh-y-tha tfamh ólsa févn-i-s-ym telív-y-ta m-ie
    wake-INTR-1.SG-CAUS-3.SG-NOMI-NOM.SG early.ADJ-NOM.SG by.from mother-NOM.SG-POSS-1.SG arrive-3.SG-NEG 1-DAT.SG
    The her making me wake up early by my mom doesn't arrive to me.
    "I don't like my mom making me wake up early."
I also like that verbal nominalizations utterly replace the need for relative clauses in Adwan:
  • Týmdyrucatha pwórgisym telívyta févnosym.
    týmd-y-r-u-ca-tha pwórg-i-s-ym telív-y-ta févn-o-s-ym
    search.for-3.SG-1.SG-FREQ-NOMI-NOM.SG dog-NOM.SG-POSS-1.SG arrive-3.SG-NEG mother-DAT.SG-POSS-1.SG
    The it searching for my of my dog does not arrive to my mother.
    "My mom doesn't like that my dog keeps looking for me."
I took a look at your blog, and I really like your conjugated verb nominalizations; my own conlang (see below) has a verbal noun that serves some of the same purposes, but does not take verbal inflections, although it can take nominal ones. (There are also verbal adverbs and participial forms; the latter do take some verbal inflections.)

With regard to the other posts above, I already knew about WeepingElf’s volition marking for Old Albic (and find it to be a neat system), and the other contributions are interesting as well.

***

Some time ago, I came up with a feature for my would-be conlang Chusole that I rather liked. (Chusole has remained in embryonic form for years, but every once in a while I take it out and poke at it a little more.) I was contemplating causatives and other applicative constructions (a topic that I know less about than I would like), and I thought of having an applicative suffix on the verb that would have either a benefactive or a malefactive meaning, depending on the case taken by the noun or pronoun affected: if the latter took the allative, the meaning would be benefactive, but if it took the ablative, it would be malefactive; the verbal suffix remains the same either way.

3SG 1SG-ALL emperor-ACC speak-APPL-PST-3SG
He spoke to the Emperor on my behalf.

3SG 1SG-ABL emperor-ACC speak-APPL-PST-3SG
He spoke to the Emperor to harm me. / He spoke against me to the Emperor.

[Note: Chusole is an accusative-dechticaetiative (or primative-secundative) language; “Emperor” here takes the accusative/primative case.]

At the time, I never resolved the original issue of causatives, but reading about Ictrgzmn’s nominalized verbs above made me realize that the benefactive/malefactive case marking above could be combined with Chusole’s verbal noun and verbs with meanings such as “cause, force, permit” to creative a causative construction with benefactive/malefactive implications:

3SG stop-NOM-1POSS 1SG-ALL [or stop-NOM-1POSS-ALL] cause-PST-3SG
He made me stop (for my own good). [lit., he caused my stopping to me]

3SG stop-NOM-1POSS 1SG-ABL [or stop-NOM-1POSS-ABL] cause-PST-3SG
He made me stop (damn him!).

I’m not sure whether the case ending should be attached to an independent pronoun, or directly to the verbal noun; the latter already has some existing uses (e.g., attaching the allative to the verbal noun normally indicates a purpose or goal: see-NOM-ALL “in order to see”), but context may be enough to disambiguate these.

The above is rather different from my original thoughts about a causative construction, but enjoyed coming up with it. :-)

[Incidentally, greetings to all; I am delurking here after well over a year without posting. While my spare time is limited, I hope to do some more active posting in the near future (potentially indulging in a bit of thread necromancy as well). In the meantime, best wishes to everyone, old and new.]
Last edited by Glenn on Sat Oct 15, 2011 10:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Chuma »

TomHChappell wrote:Aha. "Voice-stacking" instead of case-stacking?
Yes, you could say that.
TomHChappell wrote:Is it more suffix-uptake, or prefix-uptake, or tone-uptake?
I'm not familiar with "uptake", but I assume that means whether the voices are expressed with suffixes, prefixes or tones? In that case, it's actually some kind of strange mutations. We briefly discussed the latest version here. But this conlang is not really developed beyond this and a couple of other grammar ideas.
Miekko wrote:bicase? is this something like what I did in Bryatesle back in 2005?
I really cannot say. Please tell us more.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by communistplot »

I'm really proud of the system I have going for Yagalian, which uses tripartite agreement as well as auxiliaries with intransitive verbs to form things we'd normally say with x-verb-x structure. Though, thinking about it, it couldn't really be x-verb-x more like x-x-verb (x-aux-x-verb) given the SOV structure. But yeah, examples.

An intransitive clause:

Cjamü sopo kasai zailynpo.
I-1st-INT be-PAS bread-INT eat-3rd-PAS
cjam-ü-0 so-po kasai-0 zai-lyn-po
/çɐmɨ sopo kɐsɐi zɐilynpo/
[hjɐ.mɪ so.pʰɔ kɐ.zɐɛ zɐɛ.lʏm.bɔ]
I ate bread.

And now, a transitive clause:

Josjtalhüp cozëbbëtnir caesiha.
man-ERG child-ACC-MAS hit/strike-NONP
josjta-lhüp cozë-bbët-nir caesi-ha
/joʃtɐɬɨp kozəɓətnir kɐɛsihɐ/
[ʒoʃ.tə.ɬɪf koz.ɓəd.nɛr kæ.zɛ.ə]
The man hit the boy.

I also am quite fond of the three-way contrast between voiced, voiceless and implosive consonants. Creating such minimal pairs as, bbugga, bugga and pugga ([ɓu.ɠə], [bu.ɠə] & [pu.ɠə]) which are all types of eggs.
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Amuere »

My favorite feature of my conlang, Alajean, is that it doesn't have a proper adjective class. Instead it only uses verbs for desciption of nouns, I have yet to perfect this feature and it gives me many headaches....but I love it.


Astjendhanjara tjea ralgaihî em sfreastjendhanaran tjea ralmutsahun uviranjaradje
[ astʃenθaɲara tʃea ralgaihɨ em sɸreastʃenθanaran tʃea ralumutsahun uβiraɲaradʒe]
astjendh-anj-ara cea ral-ga-ihɨ em sfre-astjendh-ana-aran cea ral-muts-ahun uvira-anj-ara-dje
beauty-3.FEM-PRES who person-AUG-FEM.ACC from NEG-beauty-3.MASC-PRES.PLUR who person-DIM-MASC.ERG.PLUR love-3.MASC-PRES-PASS

The big beautiful woman is loved by the little ugly men.

( note: the verb "astjendhîm" has a meaning closer to "sexy" or "arousing" so this implies the men spoken about are totally undesireable. :) )
Tjalehu ge frulehu, tjea ale stjindamihu? Dime sfraiaknanmi.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Imralu »

In Xuáli, I love that I have derived a slang word for "urinate" as a backformation from "kitten".
TaylorS wrote:In Mekoshan, relative clauses are indicated by verb morphology.

"I know that you know"
Aano döcno
Aa-no döc-no
1SG-know 2SG.REL-know

"I know that I know"
Aano dèèno
Aa-no dèè-no
1SG-know 1SG.REL-know
That's cool! Slight terminology niggle, though: they're not relative clauses. Relative clauses are a kind of subordinate clause which is used to join two clauses together which share one of their arguments, subordinating one clause inside the other as a descriptor of the shared argument. For example: "I saw a house" + "Jack built that house" = "I saw the house that Jack built."

What you've got there are complementiser clauses. English can use "that" to introduce both types of clause. If we take "I know that you know" and split it into its two component sentences, we have "I know" + "you know". They don't share an argument there, but the entire second sentence is taken and used as the direct object inside the first sentence. Another example could be "I know that Jack built that house."

In German, for example, the grammar marks the difference between these two types of clauses. Relative pronouns must agree with the referent in gender, and with the role inside the subordinate clause. The complementiser dass is invariant. In the following example, because Haus is neuter and fills the accusative role in the relative clause, it happens to have the same pronunciation as (but a different spelling from) the complementiser.

Ich hab das Haus gesehen, das Jack gebaut hat. - I saw the house that Jack built.
Ich weiß, dass Jack das Haus gebaut hat - I know that Jack built that house.
Ich weiß, dass du weißt - I know that you know.

Swedish is simpler, with a non-inflecting relative pronoun (although possessive "whose" is different), and a completely different complementiser.

Jag såg huset som Jack byggde.
Jag vet att Jack byggde det där huset.
Jag vet att du vet.


Esperanto, is similar to German and typical of inflecting European languages, with relative pronouns that inflect for number and case.

Mi vidis domon, kiun Ĝek konstruis.
Mi scias, ke Ĝek konstruis tiun domon.
Mi scias, ke vi scias.


Finnish also has relative pronouns that inflect for number and case, and an invariant complementiser. (Well, it changes between et and että depending on the register.

(M(in)ä) näin talon, jonka Jack rakensi.
(M(in)ä) tiedän, et(tä) Jack rakensi tuon talon.
(M(in)ä) tiedän, et(tä) (s(in)ä) tiedät.


In Xuáli, the relative clause marker is derived from the attributive marker e, plus the complementiser mi / -m. Relative clauses in Xuáli must have a resumptive pronoun (or rather a resumptive proform suffix), which means it's literally a bit more like "I saw the house that Jack built it."

Na i cev-a teli em Dxek i zacu-ai
1s PRED see-OBL house REL Jack PRED build-OBL.3s.DEF.INAN
"I saw the house that Jack built (*it).

The complementiser also suffixes to the oblique suffix -a, which, as far as you need to know now, introduces objects.

Na i dul-am Dxek i zacu-a mu teli
1s PRED know-OBL.COMP Jack PRED build-OBL DEM.3 house
"I know that Jack built that house."

Na i dul-am uá i dul.
1s PRED know-OBL.COMP 2s PRED know
"I know that you know."

How would you translate the following sentences:

I saw the house that Jack built.
I know that Jack built that house.
I saw the house where Jack was born.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Cathbad »

High Eolic honorific/participant reference marking, as well as valence (the same valence affixes have different implications depending on the transitivity of the verb they're affixed to).

Trurian adverbial constructions - they're very neat, user-friendly, and form a specialized sentence slot/word type that handles around 35% of pretty much everything (including most TAM, location, direction, etc.) in a normal Trurian sentence. They also fully replace imperfective verb forms in some dialects.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Nortaneous »

Imralu wrote:How would you translate the following sentences:

I saw the house that Jack built.
I know that Jack built that house.
I saw the house where Jack was born.
Branched this off into a new thread. I rather like how I handled that third sentence, so I'll leave that here:

Ernyssow Jakořkròņeŗysʼ idèjesʼ.
er-nys-s-ow Jak-ow-ř-krò-ņeŗy-sʼ i-dèje-sʼ
S.NRP-see-C7.P.SG-1S.A Jack-C1.DEF-LOC-NF.M.P-be_born-C7.DEF NF.NP-house-C7.DEF
I saw the house where Jack was born.

Note that noun incorporation can only occur on nonfinite forms. I'm not sure where that terminology comes from, but I've changed the role of the nonfinite forms around so much that it probably made sense at one point but no longer does. Anyway, since the nonfinite form is nominalized, it can't take argument affixes (I might change this to make it only those forms that introduce clauses or something like that), so the argument has to be incorporated.

To explain the glosses:

S.NRP = Sensory evidentiality, non-remote past. Every verb takes a prefix (the VTEM prefix) that encodes voice, tense, evidentiality, mood, and finiteness, although evidentiality is only marked on finite verbs. The uses of nonfinite verbs are hard to explain, but basically everything outside the main clause is nonfinite, as are nominalizations.
C7.P.SG = Noun class 7, singular, patient. The only suffixes a verb can take are the ones marking the patient, third role (dative, benefactive, instrumental, locative, etc.; the role changes based on the prefix attached, and each verb can only take one third role), and agent, in that order. The suffixes encode noun class (of which there are nine, though two can only appear in the plural; plural affixes do other things that aren't relevant here), role, and number, singular or plural.
1S.A = First person, singular, agent.
C1.DEF = Noun class 1, definite. Every noun takes a suffix that marks class, definiteness(?), and, on indefinite nouns, number.
LOC = Locative manner marker, used here to introduce a relative clause in "where" (what's the term for this?), not to mark a third role.
NF.M.P = Nonfinite, mediopassive, past. Here's the nonfinite form, introducing the relative(?) clause. Nonfinite forms mark for a reduced number of tenses: only nonpast and past, as opposed to remote past, non-remote past, present, non-remote future, and remote future on finite forms. Verbs with only one argument usually take the mediopassive.
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Miekko »

Chuma wrote:
Miekko wrote:bicase? is this something like what I did in Bryatesle back in 2005?
I really cannot say. Please tell us more.
Every noun is marked for at least one out of these cases:
nominative | accusative | dative | ablative | vocative | exclamative
Nom & acc merge for neuters, but an analytical ergative exists for neuter subjects of transitive verbs. Exclamative was a kind of temporary name for a case encoding, basically "oh, look a _______!" or "look out, a _____!"

So basically, these attach to the root (or root+number), after which you may get an optional secondary case:
- possessed (the most fusional of them)
- reciprocal object (I slam cymbals.acc.rcpobj = I slam cymbals together, lots of strange idiomatic usages exist)
- secondary subject (sometimes a demoted subject, sometimes a noun that also is the subject of an embedded verb, sometimes a subject possessed by a topicalized argument that has been promoted to subject . This too has a lot of idiomatic stuff going on. another odd construction is marking the instrument as subject, and the agent as secondary subject.)
- partitive (has some idiomatic stuff going, doesn't combine with the dative. relatively fusional.)
- negativity congruence
- definite article (for some declinations, identical to the possessed case)
- suggestion marking (would you like a coffee.acc.SG? can't you go by bike.abl.SG? you ever had veal.acc.SG?

Only one of these can be put on any given noun in a sentence, and at times several may be called for, in some sense; there's a hierarchy sort of along the lines of (rcp ~ secsub) > (part ~ neg ~ sgg) > poss > def
< Cev> My people we use cars. I come from a very proud car culture-- every part of the car is used, nothing goes to waste. When my people first saw the car, generations ago, we called it šuŋka wakaŋ-- meaning "automated mobile".

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by TaylorS »

Imralu wrote:In Xuáli, I love that I have derived a slang word for "urinate" as a backformation from "kitten".
TaylorS wrote:In Mekoshan, relative clauses are indicated by verb morphology.

"I know that you know"
Aano döcno
Aa-no döc-no
1SG-know 2SG.REL-know

"I know that I know"
Aano dèèno
Aa-no dèè-no
1SG-know 1SG.REL-know
That's cool! Slight terminology niggle, though: they're not relative clauses. Relative clauses are a kind of subordinate clause which is used to join two clauses together which share one of their arguments, subordinating one clause inside the other as a descriptor of the shared argument. For example: "I saw a house" + "Jack built that house" = "I saw the house that Jack built."

What you've got there are complementiser clauses. English can use "that" to introduce both types of clause. If we take "I know that you know" and split it into its two component sentences, we have "I know" + "you know". They don't share an argument there, but the entire second sentence is taken and used as the direct object inside the first sentence. Another example could be "I know that Jack built that house."

In German, for example, the grammar marks the difference between these two types of clauses. Relative pronouns must agree with the referent in gender, and with the role inside the subordinate clause. The complementiser dass is invariant. In the following example, because Haus is neuter and fills the accusative role in the relative clause, it happens to have the same pronunciation as (but a different spelling from) the complementiser.

Ich hab das Haus gesehen, das Jack gebaut hat. - I saw the house that Jack built.
Ich weiß, dass Jack das Haus gebaut hat - I know that Jack built that house.
Ich weiß, dass du weißt - I know that you know.

Swedish is simpler, with a non-inflecting relative pronoun (although possessive "whose" is different), and a completely different complementiser.

Jag såg huset som Jack byggde.
Jag vet att Jack byggde det där huset.
Jag vet att du vet.


Esperanto, is similar to German and typical of inflecting European languages, with relative pronouns that inflect for number and case.

Mi vidis domon, kiun Ĝek konstruis.
Mi scias, ke Ĝek konstruis tiun domon.
Mi scias, ke vi scias.


Finnish also has relative pronouns that inflect for number and case, and an invariant complementiser. (Well, it changes between et and että depending on the register.

(M(in)ä) näin talon, jonka Jack rakensi.
(M(in)ä) tiedän, et(tä) Jack rakensi tuon talon.
(M(in)ä) tiedän, et(tä) (s(in)ä) tiedät.


In Xuáli, the relative clause marker is derived from the attributive marker e, plus the complementiser mi / -m. Relative clauses in Xuáli must have a resumptive pronoun (or rather a resumptive proform suffix), which means it's literally a bit more like "I saw the house that Jack built it."

Na i cev-a teli em Dxek i zacu-ai
1s PRED see-OBL house REL Jack PRED build-OBL.3s.DEF.INAN
"I saw the house that Jack built (*it).

The complementiser also suffixes to the oblique suffix -a, which, as far as you need to know now, introduces objects.

Na i dul-am Dxek i zacu-a mu teli
1s PRED know-OBL.COMP Jack PRED build-OBL DEM.3 house
"I know that Jack built that house."

Na i dul-am uá i dul.
1s PRED know-OBL.COMP 2s PRED know
"I know that you know."

How would you translate the following sentences:

I saw the house that Jack built.
I know that Jack built that house.
I saw the house where Jack was born.
Thanks for the terminological correction! I have the "Jack" translations in the TC thread.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by vampireshark »

My favorite thing about Ilian has to be the agglutination and the ability to create incredibly long and fearsome compound words from a few roots (my goal is a maximum of about 800 roots, including verbs but not including case suffixes).
Telèmor is, in a way, my pet and personal language designed with aesthetics in mind, so probably the sound in general.
For the Glaagh language (I need to find where my pages went!), well... probably the logographs and how they work.
I'm not too fond of Epemale right now, as it just feels like that language that I can't get right, but it's an experiment with a conlang that uses Cyrillic, so I do like it for that.
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Chuma »

vampireshark wrote:(my goal is a maximum of about 800 roots, including verbs but not including case suffixes).
Do you have so many case suffixes that it makes a big difference out of the 800?
Miekko wrote:an optional secondary case
Interesting. I'm not sure I understand all your forms. Maybe you could give some more examples?

It doesn't seem to be very similar to what I've done.

Both my systems can be thought of from a predicate logic perspective.
Example: "The deer hunter eats cheese".
We can think of "deer hunter" as an implicit relative clause, "he who hunts deer". Actually we can think of any noun like that - "that which is cheese" etc. With a sort of functional predicate logic notation, we get:
eat(X, Y)
cheese(Y)
hunt(X, Z)
deer(Z)

It's not enough to know that something is eating and that X and Y are involved, we also need to know who's eating what. One way is to mark that on the verbs. You can think of that as agreement, or voice - "eat" has one inflection saying "my agent is X" and one saying "my patient is Y". That of course means that we need to identify X and Y somehow. A lot of languages do it with gender, but that obviously fails whenever X and Y have the same gender. The Choir Conlang uses case, so you do have to inflect the nouns too, but it's a simple case inflection and the real work is done by the verb.

Rammy does it by inflecting the nouns instead (or technically the determiners). X and Y (that is, "the deer hunter" and "cheese") are inflected for case, which gives their relation to the main predicate, "eat". So far it's all perfectly normal. But the very same X and Y are also arguments to those other predicates - "hunt", and less importantly "cheese". That's when you need bicase. So in this example, X has ergative case (eater, not eaten) and also ergative bicase (hunter, not hunted). Absolutive bicase is unmarked, otherwise it would be everywhere.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Miekko »

Chuma wrote:
Miekko wrote:an optional secondary case
Interesting. I'm not sure I understand all your forms. Maybe you could give some more examples?

It doesn't seem to be very similar to what I've done.
It doesn't, no.

Ok, I'll provide some kind of explanations of these secondary cases then:

1) possessed
my dog -> me.dat dog.(whatevercase).poss
Some nouns may prefer ablative possessors.
Possession is also marked in a number of other ways, and at times a possessed noun may stand without a dative/ablative possessor - in that case, it may well be the subject of the sentence (in which case reflexive possession is assumed:
I like my life -> I.nom life.acc.poss like

2) secondary subject

subject of embedded verb:
I see her running -> I see.imperf her.acc.secsubjc run.imperf
I hope they arrive soon -> I.nom hope.imperf them.abl.secsubj arrive.perf soon

non-subject agent for instruments or possessed nouns that have been promoted to subject status:
I.nom.secsubjc computer.nom.def types -> I type with the computer
I.nom.secsubjc house.nom big stands -> my house is big
(but also the opposite occurs -
my clan supports this -> clan.abl.secsubj I.nom this.acc support.imperfect
What case goes between the noun and the secondary subject case depends on a few factors - the "clan" example above is probably the least obvious one. Nouns that don't fill an obvious role in the sentence may be assigned case rather freely, but the case one picks may imply things about the relationship of the proper subject and the secondary subject in that case.
For embedded verbs, the case is more obvious.

3) reciprocal object
A bit like a reciprocal pronoun (each other) - and related, historically to the reciprocal pronoun as well.

However, this is also used to mark objects that are made to affect each other:
I merged the packages -> I packages-acc-rcpobj merge-perfect
I told them to help each other -> I them.dat.rcpobj help.perf order.perf
we disrespect each other -> we.nom.rcpobj disrespect.imperf

4) definite
a lot like definite articles in most languages, it's just the complementary distribution compared to the other cases that makes it a bit unusual

5) partitive
a lot like partitive in Finnish, but not entirely.

6) negativity congruence
Whenever there's a negation in the sentence, this is optional (but very often used if no other secondary case fits on the noun - however, it can be used under some circumstances in non-negative sentences, esp. if the verb conveys some kind of negative opinion, negative action, negative state, etc)

7) suggestion marking
Let's try this : this.acc.suggestion try.imperf.imperative !
Wanna have pizza? : pizza.acc.sugg take.imperf [question particle]?

This morpheme can also be put on verbs and other non-case carrying words; however, it's listed with the secondary cases as it on nouns is in complementary distribution with the other secondary cases.
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Imralu »

Chuma wrote:We can think of "deer hunter" as an implicit relative clause, "he who hunts deer". Actually we can think of any noun like that - "that which is cheese" etc.
This sounds very familiar. Does this mean that, like my conlang Xuáli, yours doesn't have a lexical distinction between noun and verb?

Vun-a neru i kau-a kaito.
hunt-OBL deer PRED eat-OBL cheese
"The deer hunter eats cheese."
"The deer hunter is a cheese eater."

Kau-a kaito i vun-a neru.
eat-OBL cheese PRED hunt-OBL deer
"The cheese eater hunts deer."
"The cheese eater is a deer hunter."

Vun-a neru i vun-a neru.
hunt-OBL deer PRED hunt-OBL deer
"The deer hunter hunts deer."
"The deer hunter is a deer hunter."

Can you translate these, or at least gloss them into your lang?
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by TomHChappell »

Miekko wrote:....
secondary cases
....
1) possessed
....
2) secondary subject
....
3) reciprocal object
....
4) definite
....
5) partitive
....
6) negativity congruence
....
7) suggestion marking
....

This is very interesting! 8) (Obviously the parts I didn't quote are the most interesting parts. :roll: )


__________________________________________________________________________________________

Miekko wrote:Exclamative was a kind of temporary name for a case encoding, basically "oh, look a _______!" or "look out, a _____!"
To me, that looks more mirative than exclamative. (Of course I'm used to both as being moods or mood-like categories rather than cases or case-like categories; but if you can have an exclamative case why not a mirative case?)


__________________________________________________________________________________________

Chuma wrote:I'm not familiar with "uptake", but I assume that means whether the voices are expressed with suffixes, prefixes or tones?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffixaufnahme often comes up when talking about case-stacking because it's often the way case-stacking is implemented. If you search this board for "suffixaufnahme" you'll see it in about six posts in about three threads, including Books on Agreement, Conlang "Miwonša", and Secondary Features of Ergative Languages.
"Suffixaufnahme" happens when a dependent word agrees with its head word by taking up some suffix that has been applied to that headword. For instance, suppose adjectives agree with their head noun in case; and suppose case is shown by a suffix. A genitive noun might then also take up the case-suffix of its head noun, as well as having its own genitive case suffix. If a further genitive then modified the first genitive, it might have three case-suffixes; the head noun's, the first genitive's genitive suffix, and then its own genitive suffix.
"Präfixaufnahme" happens when a dependent word agrees with its head word by taking up some prefix that has been applied to that headword.

"Tonaufnahme", if it ever happens, would be when a dependent word agrees with its head word by taking up some toneme that has been applied to that headword. But see this post to CONLANG-L.


See this post to the CBB.
Also see whichever articles turned up by this search are in languages you read.

And, see the CONLANG-L threads inhabited by this post and this post.

Chuma wrote:In that case, it's actually some kind of strange mutations. We briefly discussed the latest version here.
Yes, looking at that again, I see that it has more to do with mutations than with affix-uptake.
Thank you.

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Chuma »

Imralu wrote:Does this mean that, like my conlang Xuáli, yours doesn't have a lexical distinction between noun and verb?
Indeed it does. I remember we've talked about these similarities before. Quite interesting.

ra tari ka saû ɕiɕtu e gu su jovam
ART.NOM.SING.DEF.ERG hunt BCM.ERG ART.META.PLU.DEF.ABS snake COP.PRES consume ART.NOM.PLU.DEF.ABS banana
"The snake hunter eats banana(s)."
(BCM = bicase marker, similar to "-er"; META = argument of the secondary predicate, similar to "of the")

Technically it's possible to distinguish the nominalised version:
tu tari ka saû ɕiɕtu e ɕe gu ka saû jovam
ART.NOM.SING.DEF.ABS hunt BCM.ERG ART.META.PLU.DEF.ABS snake COP.PRES ART.NOM.SING.IND.ABS consume BCM.ERG ART.META.PLU.DEF.ABS banana
"The snake hunter is a banana eater."

But that would be weird - if you want to specify that he is a hunter and not just some guy who happens to be hunting right now, you would use a habitual form.

So how would you distinguish between "bicase", i.e. "hunter" and "hunted"? Or something like "the eaten cheese"? Or "the by-the-cheese-eater hunted deer"? Is that possible?

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Re: What's your favorite thing about your conlang?

Post by Imralu »

Chuma wrote:Indeed it does. I remember we've talked about these similarities before. Quite interesting.
I have some vague memory of this. You do better at explaining it than I do. I don't know much about predicate logic, but I've noticed that your language and Lojban both have this absence of noun-verb difference ("verbs" also taking the place of their own "agent nouns" and nouns also taking the place of "be + verb") and they both compare themselves with predicate logic. Maybe I should compare Xuáli to it too. All of my langs have been like this for the last ... several years. In the beginning, I was hopeless at explaining it and people kept telling me my system was impossible or I didn't understand what I was talking about, that I actually must have a noun-verb distinction for the language to work. Then I found out Lojban works the same way ... it takes the whole logic thing to a level that I find completely impenetrable, and it predicates things a different way, but I saw a lot of my languages in it when I first looked at it.
Chuma wrote:So how would you distinguish between "bicase", i.e. "hunter" and "hunted"? Or something like "the eaten cheese"? Or "the by-the-cheese-eater hunted deer"? Is that possible?
I've got a content word ne which imparts a passive meaning. (Semantically, you'd assume it's a particle, rather than a content word, but it patterns with content words ... I have very few true particles.) Ne reverses the polarity of the following content word, meaning its oblique modifier (= direct object/possessor) now represents the agent. Se combines both passive and perfect (because it's so commonly used that li ne PRF PASS seems to long to me).

vun(a neru) - (deer) hunter (no explicitly marked tense or aspect)
he vun(a neru) - (deer) hunter (habitual)
tsu vun(a neru) - (deer) hunter (professional)

ne vun(a neru) - hunted (by deer!??)
he ne vun - one who is habitually hunted
tsu ne vun - one whose occupation is to be hunted (I have no idea who would pay them)

"The eaten cheese" requires the attributive marker e.
Kaito e ne kau - "the cheese which is eaten" (no tense/aspect marked)
cheese ATTR PASS eat
Kaito e se kau - "the cheese which has been eaten" (PRF)

(Without "ne" or "se" it's the nonsensical "the cheese which eats")

neru e ne vun-a kau-a kaito "the by-the-cheese-eater-hunted deer"
deer ATTR PASS hunt-OBL eat-OBL cheese
Chuma wrote:Technically it's possible to distinguish the nominalised version:
But that would be weird - if you want to specify that he is a hunter and not just some guy who happens to be hunting right now, you would use a habitual form.
Xuáli doesn't distinguish between hunting and being a hunter. After all, what's the difference between "X does Y" and "X is someone/something that does X"? In English you generally have to distinguish animate from inanimate in the second type of sentence, and it also indicates a certain permanence that just a verbal phrase usually doesn't (for example, if you just hunt once, are you really a hunter ... but if you are a hunter, you must, at some point, hunt), but Xuáli allows all of those things to be expressed in other ways. It doesn't need a different part of speech just to change aspect.
Last edited by Imralu on Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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