The Miniature Conlangs Thread
- Hallow XIII
- Avisaru
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The Miniature Conlangs Thread
After recent discussions on the state of conlanging and especially the deluge of phonologies, plus a good deal of inspiration from miekko, I have decided this thread is needed. Not only is everyone advised to start with the phonology, but there are also several places you can show it off in. The thing is, though, phonologies are only worth so much, and if you are going to get a cool idea from one it is usually a natlang one because conphonologies are more or less the same over and over.
Grammar, on the other hand, whether it be syntax or morphology, is far more interesting and the conlangs that I have had opportunity to study generally all include at least one interesting idea that I wouldn't have thought of. Sadly, those are rarely shown off because there is a certain pressure to have complete languages. So with that in mind, this thread is for showing off interesting grammar tidbits you have come up with, whether it be syntax or morpho(phono)logy or anything in between those two. All I ask is that you keep the phoneme lists elsewhere.
Clarifying Edit: your posts here need not belong to a complete conlang; it is rather intended as a place to show off interesting grammatical ideas you would otherwise not have presented to the public. No matter how small.
Grammar, on the other hand, whether it be syntax or morphology, is far more interesting and the conlangs that I have had opportunity to study generally all include at least one interesting idea that I wouldn't have thought of. Sadly, those are rarely shown off because there is a certain pressure to have complete languages. So with that in mind, this thread is for showing off interesting grammar tidbits you have come up with, whether it be syntax or morpho(phono)logy or anything in between those two. All I ask is that you keep the phoneme lists elsewhere.
Clarifying Edit: your posts here need not belong to a complete conlang; it is rather intended as a place to show off interesting grammatical ideas you would otherwise not have presented to the public. No matter how small.
Last edited by Hallow XIII on Fri Dec 20, 2013 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
陳第 wrote:蓋時有古今,地有南北;字有更革,音有轉移,亦勢所必至。
Read all about my excellent conlangsR.Rusanov wrote:seks istiyorum
sex want-PRS-1sg
Basic Conlanging Advice
- Hallow XIII
- Avisaru
- Posts: 846
- Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2012 3:40 pm
- Location: Under Heaven
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
So, to kick this thread off, here is something I have been toying with recently for my con-Old Chinese (a mostly monosyllabic clicklang). Basic grammatical relations are expressed by a series of polyexponential formatives that code the following, respectively:
Bonus Feature: The language also features a pluractionality marker rather than overt marking of either nominal plurality or iterative aspect. Which one is meant must be inferred from context or can be clarified with adverbials or, in some cases, by using voice operations.
Example:
3NF>3NF.PASS hit PLURACT IND.PFV.PST.SENSORY AFFIRMATIVE.POLITE
"He was hit multiple times (I see)."
- Participants/Diathesis
Tense/Aspect/Mood/Evidential
Polarity/Politeness
Bonus Feature: The language also features a pluractionality marker rather than overt marking of either nominal plurality or iterative aspect. Which one is meant must be inferred from context or can be clarified with adverbials or, in some cases, by using voice operations.
Example:
3NF>3NF.PASS hit PLURACT IND.PFV.PST.SENSORY AFFIRMATIVE.POLITE
"He was hit multiple times (I see)."
陳第 wrote:蓋時有古今,地有南北;字有更革,音有轉移,亦勢所必至。
Read all about my excellent conlangsR.Rusanov wrote:seks istiyorum
sex want-PRS-1sg
Basic Conlanging Advice
- Yaali Annar
- Lebom
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Fusing verbs and adjectives together is a common Thing in my language. Usually, what I do is making adjectives as stative verbs. In its bare form, an adjective behaves as a predicate instead of an attribute.
So for example:
puppy roll > puppy rolls
puppy fluffy > puppy is fluffy
To make the adjective into an attribute, the participle marker is added:
puppy roll-PARTICIPLE > puppy who rolls > rolling puppy
puppy fluffy-PARTICIPLE > puppy who is fluffy > fluffy puppy
You can also employ syntax based marking instead. For example verb/adjective before noun becomes attributive/participle:
roll puppy > rolling puppy
fluffy puppy > fluffy puppy
eat puppy > puppy who eats
---
The other approach in combining verb with adjective is making the verb behave adjectiv-ey instead. In this paradigm, the bare form of the verb becomes participle:
puppy fluffy > fluffy puppy
puppy eat > puppy who eats
Thus, to make the verb and adjective into predicates a marker is required.
puppy fluffy-FINITE > puppy is fluffy
puppy eat-FINITE > puppy eats
So for example:
puppy roll > puppy rolls
puppy fluffy > puppy is fluffy
To make the adjective into an attribute, the participle marker is added:
puppy roll-PARTICIPLE > puppy who rolls > rolling puppy
puppy fluffy-PARTICIPLE > puppy who is fluffy > fluffy puppy
You can also employ syntax based marking instead. For example verb/adjective before noun becomes attributive/participle:
roll puppy > rolling puppy
fluffy puppy > fluffy puppy
eat puppy > puppy who eats
---
The other approach in combining verb with adjective is making the verb behave adjectiv-ey instead. In this paradigm, the bare form of the verb becomes participle:
puppy fluffy > fluffy puppy
puppy eat > puppy who eats
Thus, to make the verb and adjective into predicates a marker is required.
puppy fluffy-FINITE > puppy is fluffy
puppy eat-FINITE > puppy eats
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
In Ishdes, adjectives are prefixed onto nouns and verbs. Those can also take the suffix -so to themselves become adjectives. For example, you could have ishiru, which could mean "beautiful woman" (or, indeed, an Ishirai woman, the Ishirai being the speakers of Ishdes) or "the woman is beautiful". Ish- means "beautiful", ir means person, and -u is the feminine singular. Thus, adjectives and the adjectivizing suffix can act copulaic.
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
This is a great idea for a thread. I like making phonologies as much as the next conlanger but all my long-term projects are sustained by grammar that interests me.
With Classical Prakyũ, I am exploring Suffixaufnahme, except I'm trying to extend it into a productive system of affix absorption and deletion, only a few usages of which would fit the traditional definition of Suffixaufnahme. And then I had to complicate it by giving CP a Possessed case instead of a normal Genitive. The most basic use of suffixaufnahme in CP is to mark definiteness; an indefinite noun phrase generally does not have suffixaufnahme:
This happens with nouns modified by adjectives too, not just nouns modified by other nouns:
This is just scratching the surface of Weird Noun Phrase Shit in CP. Overall I am trying to make it like an "inverse Navajo" with no verbal morphology but a ton of nominal morphology. To this end I've been reading up on case-stacking in natlangs, such as the batshit way that Kayardild uses cases. It is a long, slow work in progress because it is probably by far the weirdest grammar I've ever tried to construct, maybe even unrealistically weird.
With Classical Prakyũ, I am exploring Suffixaufnahme, except I'm trying to extend it into a productive system of affix absorption and deletion, only a few usages of which would fit the traditional definition of Suffixaufnahme. And then I had to complicate it by giving CP a Possessed case instead of a normal Genitive. The most basic use of suffixaufnahme in CP is to mark definiteness; an indefinite noun phrase generally does not have suffixaufnahme:
- son.POSS.ABL earth
"from a son of the earth"
son.POSS.ABL earth.ABL
"from the son of the earth"
son.POSS earth.ABL
"from the son of the earth"
This happens with nouns modified by adjectives too, not just nouns modified by other nouns:
- cat.ACC ugly.ACC
an ugly cat
cat ugly.ACC
the ugly cat
This is just scratching the surface of Weird Noun Phrase Shit in CP. Overall I am trying to make it like an "inverse Navajo" with no verbal morphology but a ton of nominal morphology. To this end I've been reading up on case-stacking in natlangs, such as the batshit way that Kayardild uses cases. It is a long, slow work in progress because it is probably by far the weirdest grammar I've ever tried to construct, maybe even unrealistically weird.
Exits, pursued by a bear.
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
This is a nice start of a thread. I'm constantly facing the problem of getting ideas for grammar but lacking actual forms to give the needed segments because I can't make the final decisions on the sound history or the morphophonemics.
Kišta will have a category of distancing in its finite verbs. It contrasts unmarked plain forms with the so called distanced forms marked with one single verb final morpheme. It's hard to pinpoint its core meaning too accurately since it appears in a variety of different uses:
- If the speaker wants to background the information conveyed by the sentence or just feels detached from it, the distancing marker can be used to indicate pragmatic distance.
- Temporal distancing is often achieved through the use the distancing marker either on its own for distant past,
he once young-COP.SG3-DIST
"He was young once."
or with irrealis for distant future,
still come.back-IRR-SG1-DIST
"I'll still come back"
- Inferential statements always receive marking for distancing,
here-INSTR disease pass-SG3-DIST
"A disease has passed here (judging from what's evident)."
- On questions marking for distancing signals polite requests or cautious enquiries,
yet part-ACC-SG2.POSS pay-Q.SG2-DIST
"Did you already pay your part?"
I guess dialectically distancing can also be used on imperatives for the effect of polite requests but I wouldn't call this standard for the majority of the speakers.
Morphologically the only change that the use of distancing imposes on the verb is that the perfective and imperfective aspects merge, or in other words the perfective suffix can never appear together with the distancing suffix.
Kišta will have a category of distancing in its finite verbs. It contrasts unmarked plain forms with the so called distanced forms marked with one single verb final morpheme. It's hard to pinpoint its core meaning too accurately since it appears in a variety of different uses:
- If the speaker wants to background the information conveyed by the sentence or just feels detached from it, the distancing marker can be used to indicate pragmatic distance.
- Temporal distancing is often achieved through the use the distancing marker either on its own for distant past,
he once young-COP.SG3-DIST
"He was young once."
or with irrealis for distant future,
still come.back-IRR-SG1-DIST
"I'll still come back"
- Inferential statements always receive marking for distancing,
here-INSTR disease pass-SG3-DIST
"A disease has passed here (judging from what's evident)."
- On questions marking for distancing signals polite requests or cautious enquiries,
yet part-ACC-SG2.POSS pay-Q.SG2-DIST
"Did you already pay your part?"
I guess dialectically distancing can also be used on imperatives for the effect of polite requests but I wouldn't call this standard for the majority of the speakers.
Morphologically the only change that the use of distancing imposes on the verb is that the perfective and imperfective aspects merge, or in other words the perfective suffix can never appear together with the distancing suffix.
- Yaali Annar
- Lebom
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
This feature is totally unnatural. But anyway... syntax based aspect (or tense) encoding.
So, this language has fixed word order except that the verbs can be positioned anywhere in the sentence depending on the aspect. So for example you can have:
drink puppy.NOM milk.ACC > puppy haven't drunk milk
puppy.NOM drink milk.ACC > puppy is drinking milk
puppy.NOM milk.ACC drink > puppy have drunk milk
So, this language has fixed word order except that the verbs can be positioned anywhere in the sentence depending on the aspect. So for example you can have:
drink puppy.NOM milk.ACC > puppy haven't drunk milk
puppy.NOM drink milk.ACC > puppy is drinking milk
puppy.NOM milk.ACC drink > puppy have drunk milk
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
I was thinking about making one of my conlangs get rid of prepositional phrases completely. What I was thinking of having take over the function of preposition is a series of locational verbs and relative clauses. Some examples to illustrate my idea.
man.nom house-obl be.at-3
The man is in/at a house
house-obl be.at-rel man.nom dog-obl see-pst-3sub(-3obj)
the man in/at the house saw the dog
man.nom house-obl be.at-rel dog-obl see-past-3sub(-3obj)
the man say the dog in the house (the dog is in the house)
man.nom house-obl be.at-3-comp dog.obl see-past-3sub(-3obj) (comp means some sort compartmentalizer that gives the CP a temporal adverbal meaning)
the man saw the dog in the house (he saw the dog while he was in the house)
Thoughts? Questions?
man.nom house-obl be.at-3
The man is in/at a house
house-obl be.at-rel man.nom dog-obl see-pst-3sub(-3obj)
the man in/at the house saw the dog
man.nom house-obl be.at-rel dog-obl see-past-3sub(-3obj)
the man say the dog in the house (the dog is in the house)
man.nom house-obl be.at-3-comp dog.obl see-past-3sub(-3obj) (comp means some sort compartmentalizer that gives the CP a temporal adverbal meaning)
the man saw the dog in the house (he saw the dog while he was in the house)
Thoughts? Questions?
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Rather than having grammatical role slots on the verb that inflect for person, this language has person slots that inflect for grammatical role.
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
I've used variations of that idea for several conlangs. What I always have to think about is how to handle things like "into" and "away from" and "down from on top of".Vortex wrote:I was thinking about making one of my conlangs get rid of prepositional phrases completely. What I was thinking of having take over the function of preposition is a series of locational verbs and relative clauses.
Thoughts? Questions?
"The sable is empty, and his Norse is gone!" -- kathrynhr
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
I was thinking about having direction and location marking on the verb. So in my third example instead of having a separate clause have it be kind of another argument.qiihoskeh wrote:I've used variations of that idea for several conlangs. What I always have to think about is how to handle things like "into" and "away from" and "down from on top of".Vortex wrote:I was thinking about making one of my conlangs get rid of prepositional phrases completely. What I was thinking of having take over the function of preposition is a series of locational verbs and relative clauses.
Thoughts? Questions?
Man.nom house-obl dog-obl see-past-loc-3sub(-3obj)
the man saw the dog in the house (he saw the dog while he was in the house)
Then have different suffixes that express the specifics of the location or direction.
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Directional verbs work and more complex local notions can always be expressed using local nouns as in "from the top of ..."
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Coincidentally enough, this is the other thing I was thinking about posting, although Classical Prakyũ only distinguishes perfective (OV) vs. imperfective (VO) this way.Yaali Annar wrote:This feature is totally unnatural. But anyway... syntax based aspect (or tense) encoding.
So, this language has fixed word order except that the verbs can be positioned anywhere in the sentence depending on the aspect. So for example you can have:
drink puppy.NOM milk.ACC > puppy haven't drunk milk
puppy.NOM drink milk.ACC > puppy is drinking milk
puppy.NOM milk.ACC drink > puppy have drunk milk
Some other word-order changes come into play for CP's equivalent of passive voice:
guard.NOM kick prisoner.ACC - "The guard was kicking the prisoner"
prisoner.ACC kick guard.NOM - "The prisoner was getting kicked by the guard"
prisoner.ACC kick - "The prisoner was kicked/being kicked" (the syntactic aspect distinction only occurs in transitive sentences)
Probably not a "true" passive voice since the patient's accusative marking never changes, but it serves the same function of topicalizing the patient and optionally not specifying the agent. I don't think it counts as ergativity either because prisoner.NOM kick "The prisoner was kicking" is also a perfectly normal sentence.
Exits, pursued by a bear.
- KathTheDragon
- Smeric
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
One of my earlier conlangs also did that 'passive'-word-order trick.
- Nortaneous
- Sumerul
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Easy: derivational affixes attached to nouns. "I am in the house" would be 1S house-in. Then locative clauses are formed like relative clauses -- "the man in the house is drinking coffee" would be man REL house-in coffee drink -- and, if you don't use locative cases for these, verbs of motion as statements of intent -- "I am walking into the house" would be 1S in.order.to house-in walk, and "walk" would always be monotransitive.qiihoskeh wrote:I've used variations of that idea for several conlangs. What I always have to think about is how to handle things like "into" and "away from" and "down from on top of".Vortex wrote:I was thinking about making one of my conlangs get rid of prepositional phrases completely. What I was thinking of having take over the function of preposition is a series of locational verbs and relative clauses.
Thoughts? Questions?
I have a conlang that does this -- it doesn't have any locative adpositions or cases -- but it does have postpositions for things like the benefactive.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
While I was on my way home from Pathfinder earlier today, I came up with this: [tθ’~ǀ]. The two sounds sound rather similar to me, so I think they'd make a good couple of sounds to be in free variation.
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
I actually posted about this once before (long ago when C&C was still pruned, so it isn't around anymore), but I'm trying to revive an old conlang where I marked tense on the topic noun instead of the verb, and othe nouns can take tense if they differ from the topic:
2S-PRES-TOP 1s.NOM NEG-like
"I don't like you."
2S-PAST-TOP 1S.NOM NEG-like
"I didn't use to like you."
2S-PAST-TOP 1S.NOM-PRES NEG-like
"I don't like the way you used to be."
2S-PRES-TOP 1S.NOM-PAST NEG-like
"I wouldn't have liked the way you are now, in the past."
2S-PRES-TOP 1S.NOM-FUT DUB-like
"I probably won't like the way you are now in the future."
I'll need to get back to working on it after I fix my conlang dictionary program up to do what I want it to.
2S-PRES-TOP 1s.NOM NEG-like
"I don't like you."
2S-PAST-TOP 1S.NOM NEG-like
"I didn't use to like you."
2S-PAST-TOP 1S.NOM-PRES NEG-like
"I don't like the way you used to be."
2S-PRES-TOP 1S.NOM-PAST NEG-like
"I wouldn't have liked the way you are now, in the past."
2S-PRES-TOP 1S.NOM-FUT DUB-like
"I probably won't like the way you are now in the future."
I'll need to get back to working on it after I fix my conlang dictionary program up to do what I want it to.
It's (broadly) [faɪ.ˈjuw.lɛ]
#define FEMALE
ConlangDictionary 0.3 3/15/14 (ZBB thread)
Quis vult in terra stare,
Cum possit volitare?
#define FEMALE
ConlangDictionary 0.3 3/15/14 (ZBB thread)
Quis vult in terra stare,
Cum possit volitare?
- Yaali Annar
- Lebom
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
I recall, Chinese has locative verbs. Like for example:qiihoskeh wrote:I've used variations of that idea for several conlangs. What I always have to think about is how to handle things like "into" and "away from" and "down from on top of".Vortex wrote:I was thinking about making one of my conlangs get rid of prepositional phrases completely. What I was thinking of having take over the function of preposition is a series of locational verbs and relative clauses.
Thoughts? Questions?
你在哪里
you be.at where
But then again it might be interpreted as zero copula.
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
My conlang Lomanin does this, exactly that way:Yaali Annar wrote:This feature is totally unnatural. But anyway... syntax based aspect (or tense) encoding.
So, this language has fixed word order except that the verbs can be positioned anywhere in the sentence depending on the aspect. So for example you can have:
drink puppy.NOM milk.ACC > puppy haven't drunk milk
puppy.NOM drink milk.ACC > puppy is drinking milk
puppy.NOM milk.ACC drink > puppy have drunk milk
loma y ve Lomanin "I speak Lomanin"
y loma ve Lomanin "I spoke Lomanin"
y ve Lomanin loma "I will speak Lomanin"
vec
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Parts of Speech
Ngolu essentially has four parts of speech:
Verbals take the role of nouns, verbs, adjectives and even adverbs and to some extent prepositions of other languages, with meanings such as "to be a house" etc.
Syntax
Ngolu clauses generally take the form:
Arguments consist of a nominal, optionally followed by a verbal phrase. For example, the xu (NOM.3s.DEF.INAN(.REL)) essentially means "it" or "the thing" when used alone and "the thing (that)" when followed by a verbal phrase. When followed by a verb such as "fall" or "be a house", the resulting phrase means "the thing that", "the (thing that is a) house".
Any or all arguments may be omitted. A predicate-only sentence indicates the existence of the action or entity described by the verbal phrase without defining any of the participants.
Ngolu essentially has four parts of speech:
- interjections - closed-ish
particles - closed
nominals - closed
verbals - open
- case (nominative, accusative, dative, locative, ablative, genitive, possessive, vocative, causative, benefactive, instrumental, comitative, topical)
person (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
number (singular, plural)
gender (mostly semantic: inanimate, animate, masculine - the latter restricted only to initiated men)
definiteness/specificity (definite, specific, non-specific)
Verbals take the role of nouns, verbs, adjectives and even adverbs and to some extent prepositions of other languages, with meanings such as "to be a house" etc.
Syntax
Ngolu clauses generally take the form:
- PREDICATE (ARGUMENT) (ARGUMENT) (ARGUMENT) (ARGUMENT) (ARGUMENT) (...)
Arguments consist of a nominal, optionally followed by a verbal phrase. For example, the xu (NOM.3s.DEF.INAN(.REL)) essentially means "it" or "the thing" when used alone and "the thing (that)" when followed by a verbal phrase. When followed by a verb such as "fall" or "be a house", the resulting phrase means "the thing that", "the (thing that is a) house".
Any or all arguments may be omitted. A predicate-only sentence indicates the existence of the action or entity described by the verbal phrase without defining any of the participants.
- deliberately.kill NOM.3s.DEF.MASC ACC.3s.DEF.INAN
He kills it.
deliberately.kill ACC.3s.DEF.INAN
It is killed (by someone).
deliberately.kill
Something or someone is killed.
be.house NOM.3s.DEF.INAN.REL be.this1 POS.1s.MASC
This is my house.
be.house POS.1s.MASC
I have a house.
be.house
There's a house. / It's a house.
- NOM.1s.MASC LOC.3s.DEF.INAN.REL forest
I'm in the forest.
- be.entity NOM.1s.MASC LOC.3s.DEF.REL be.forest
I am in the forest.
be.current NOM.1s.MASC LOC.3s.DEF.REL be.forest
I am in the forest.
- VRB-LOC.3s.DEF.REL be.forest NOM.1s.MASC
I am in the forest.
- light.fire NOM.3s.DEF.MASC ACC.3s.DEF.INAN.REL be.house VRB-POS.1s.MASC
He set my house on fire.
be.house (VRB-NOM.3s.SPEC.REL) be.large NOM-3s.DEF.INAN be.that3
That's a big house.
move.IPFV be.that2 NOM.3s.DEF.MASC.REL deliberately.kill (VRB-ACC.3p.NSPC.INAN) be.fish
The fisherman is coming here.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
________
MY MUSIC
________
MY MUSIC
- prettydragoon
- Sanci
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
This language no verbs.
Well, almost. I've been thinking about a conlang with no lexical verbs. It would use light verbs with an appropriate noun or adjective instead.
Such as
do word ::= speak
do food ::= eat
make food ::= cook
do foot ::= walk
Well, almost. I've been thinking about a conlang with no lexical verbs. It would use light verbs with an appropriate noun or adjective instead.
Such as
do word ::= speak
do food ::= eat
make food ::= cook
do foot ::= walk
- KathTheDragon
- Smeric
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
In other words, there is a very small closed class of verbs?
Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
One thing that popped into my mind considering my present lang Tailevu - I began thinking about describing dedicated positions in sentences for information structural purposes. For instance, having a totally different place for pronouns (PRO) which are already given information, from repeated or new NPs. Like to the left.
TOP PRO verb_phrase NP NP...
Edit: The rest of this is a different thing but just shows how it could work.
There would be three further privileged positions - immediately adjacent (to the right) of the verb, where any constituents are said to be more closely "affiliated" with the verb, and also at the extreme right edge of the sentence, which would be the "focus" (FOC). These two features can fall on one argument (VO VS), different arguments (VOS VSO), or none (OSV SOV) - because the verb itself cannot be focused in the focal position. There would be an optional "stressed" topic position in front of PRO for maximal disjuncture from the verb and to avoid focusing.
The use of the cases would allow the word order to be relatively free (mostly VO, except with topics - and intransitives), above-mentioned "postions" notwithstanding. VSO VOS SVO* are the canonical orders with full NPs. *SVO being a topical disjuncture.
One quirk is that NPs are followed by a 3rd person PRO with case marking, and the PRO constituents would only jump to the front when given. Which means that often PROs would be located inside the right edge noun phrases, and a few would be on the left in the PRO domain.
Another interesting feature would be that since the verb is in initial and the arguments are in final position - it would make some sense to restructure the alignment to ergative-absolutive, to emphasize the similarity of the intransitive subject and transitive object appearing in the same final "focused" position.
TOP PRO verb_phrase NP NP...
Edit: The rest of this is a different thing but just shows how it could work.
There would be three further privileged positions - immediately adjacent (to the right) of the verb, where any constituents are said to be more closely "affiliated" with the verb, and also at the extreme right edge of the sentence, which would be the "focus" (FOC). These two features can fall on one argument (VO VS), different arguments (VOS VSO), or none (OSV SOV) - because the verb itself cannot be focused in the focal position. There would be an optional "stressed" topic position in front of PRO for maximal disjuncture from the verb and to avoid focusing.
The use of the cases would allow the word order to be relatively free (mostly VO, except with topics - and intransitives), above-mentioned "postions" notwithstanding. VSO VOS SVO* are the canonical orders with full NPs. *SVO being a topical disjuncture.
One quirk is that NPs are followed by a 3rd person PRO with case marking, and the PRO constituents would only jump to the front when given. Which means that often PROs would be located inside the right edge noun phrases, and a few would be on the left in the PRO domain.
Another interesting feature would be that since the verb is in initial and the arguments are in final position - it would make some sense to restructure the alignment to ergative-absolutive, to emphasize the similarity of the intransitive subject and transitive object appearing in the same final "focused" position.
- prettydragoon
- Sanci
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Yes, exactly!KathAveara wrote:In other words, there is a very small closed class of verbs?
- roninbodhisattva
- Avisaru
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Re: The Miniature Conlangs Thread
Playing around with a little idea from something similar in Dinka. Basically, we have something like V2 but instead of the verb being in second position there's a separate auxiliary/particle that occupies that position. Something like:
X Aux S V O
And then the Aux actually agrees with the thing to its left, no matter the function. I'd be analyzing this position as a C head, and then the position the thing goes to as its specifier. With that in mind, complementizers would supres V2, say like they do in German, but you'd get and order like this:
C+Aux S V O
There might be another layer of agreement, as well, where you get subject verb agreement, but then also subject - C agreement, so in a clause where the subject moves to Spec-CP, you get something that looks like this:
S Aux-Agr.S V-Agr.S O
But when the object moves to Spec-CP you get the following:
O Aux-Agr.O S V-Agr.S
X Aux S V O
And then the Aux actually agrees with the thing to its left, no matter the function. I'd be analyzing this position as a C head, and then the position the thing goes to as its specifier. With that in mind, complementizers would supres V2, say like they do in German, but you'd get and order like this:
C+Aux S V O
There might be another layer of agreement, as well, where you get subject verb agreement, but then also subject - C agreement, so in a clause where the subject moves to Spec-CP, you get something that looks like this:
S Aux-Agr.S V-Agr.S O
But when the object moves to Spec-CP you get the following:
O Aux-Agr.O S V-Agr.S