zompist bboard

Mr. Zompist

in your language construction kit, i read a sample of your conlang Xurn?sh.
it seems very interesting. are you planning to add a page(s) to your website outlining this language?
you have done so with you other conlangs, and i'm sure i am not the only one who would like to see the "workings" of Xurn?sh

Guest wrote:in your language construction kit, i read a sample of your conlang Xurn?sh.
it seems very interesting. are you planning to add a page(s) to your website outlining this language?
you have done so with you other conlangs, and i'm sure i am not the only one who would like to see the "workings" of Xurn?sh

Yes-- I actually have a rather large amount of information on Xurn?sh and its parent Axunashin... though there's things about it I'm still dissatisfied with. When the Count of Years is done, I'll try to get back to it and put it in order for posting.

As far as the "workings" are concerned, I'm not sure wether they'll be very unusual. Xurnash is an Eastern language, so it's grammar is probably not that confusing.

While we're at it, how is the stuff on Xurnese religions doing? (Though this stuff is not really important now that short outlines of all major Almean religions can be found at some point or another in the Atlas)

Well, optimally I'd finish the religion part first; that tends to fill out the lexicon a bit, and suggests sample texts.

Raphael wrote:As far as the "workings" are concerned, I'm not sure wether they'll be very unusual. Xurnash is an Eastern language, so it's grammar is probably not that confusing.

Actually, if Xurn?š is anything like Axunašin, it will be very different from Verdurian, Cuezi, Cadhinor, and any other Eastern Language Mark has told us about, because Axunašin took the Proto-Eastern nominal system and turned the meanings on their ears, changing to a directly marking Topic-Comment language, which I have very little knowledge of. Anyone know what the hell it is?

Drydic_guy wrote:

Raphael wrote:As far as the "workings" are concerned, I'm not sure wether they'll be very unusual. Xurnash is an Eastern language, so it's grammar is probably not that confusing.

Topic-Comment language, which I have very little knowledge of. Anyone know what the hell it is?

I'm no expert on syntax, but . . .

Well, the principle is that every sentence has a topic (the old information) and a comment (what's different or significant about it). This often (not always) works in the same way that a sentence is divided into subject and predicate -

"the sentence is divided into subject and predicate"

[the sentence] = subject
[is divided into subject and predicate] = predicate.

The topic of a sentence can be different from the subject, however:

"In America they all drive big cars"

the topic of this sentence is "In America", not "they".

Basically, most languages have some form of topic marking features - English has passivisation, for example, and I think clefting can be used to mark a changed topic too, but I don't know how . . .

But, some languages make a bigger deal of it than others, treating it as more important that the subject/object distinction.

Chinese is a topic/comment language - (I believe) you have sentences like "that tree, leaves very big", and so on. Several languages in SE Asia
are.

The topic is the information that's already known or established, the basis upon which the other elements of the sentence rely. So, in Xurn?sh, the topic, whether it is gramatically the subject or the object of the sentence, will be marked in the pE nominative, and any other noun phrase (outside of a prepositional or somesuch construction, I imagine) will be marked in the pE accusative. I don't know whether this holds true for pronouns or not - we'll just have to wait and see.