The Tshyak languages (currently: Old Zlang)

[Travis B.]

I have created a smattering of threads on my Tshyak family, and while I am creating a new thread, this thread will be devoted to all my Tshyak family languages rather than any particular language. At the moment, though, I am more specifically working on Middle Mkroh, the descendent of Old Mkroh, itself the descendent of Proto-Tshyak.

In Middle Mkroh, relative to Old Mkroh, so far I have introduced considerable vowel fronting and vowel backing conditioned by the historical codas, vowel rhoticization conditioned by historical rhotic and lateral preinitials, medials, and codas, vowel pharyngealization conditioned by historical glottal preinitials, retroflexion of historical alveolopalatals, alveolopalatalization of historical palatals, replacement of historical ergative-absolutive alignment with active-stative alignment with quirky case in transitive clauses, development of historical perfective aspect into past perfective and historical imperfective aspect into present imperfective, the use of compound verbs to express past imperfective, future perfective, and future imperfective, obsoleted antipassive marking with volitional verbs, obsoleted the old animacy distinction in the agentive (since inanimate agents are now marked with the patientive, since the agentive now indicates volitonality), introduced egophoriticity (a common development in middle Tshyak family languages), reintroduced mirativity after having turned the old mirative into a non-egophoric direct knowledge evidential (also a common development in middle Tshyak family languages), and introduced inverse marking (a common development in many Tshyak family languages, present in Old Tshyak, Middle Tshyak, Middle Laeh Tshyak, and now Middle Mkroh), and I plan on introducing a more complex register system like that of Middle Tshyak and Middle Laeh Tshyak but have not begun work on it.

Even with all these changes, though, Middle Mkroh looks a lot like Old Mkroh, compared with Middle Tshyak and Old Tshyak, where Middle Tshyak is very different from Old Tshyak. This probably is because Middle Mkroh and Old Mkroh are very similar syntactically and morphologically, despite things like changes in alignment, TAM, evidentiality, and so on. So I am wondering what I could do with Middle Mkroh, even though at the same time I want to preserve its basic structure.

[Travis B.]

One change I have been thinking of is converting the auxiliaries in compound verbs into affixes, because currently compound verbs take the following format:

<main verb> <auxiliary verb>-<various endings>

where <auxiliary verb> is obviously the finite verb.

It thus is simple to turn that into:

<main verb>-<tense/modal affix(es)>-<various endings>

where <main verb> is the finite verb.

Actually, I don't really see any difference, aside from that unstressed morphemes except for compounded independent words tend to lose their codas and their aspiration.

[Travis B.]

I have decided to make the above change. I also reduced the number of modals meaning roughly "must", because I had too many distinctions being made.

I was thinking of moving the verbal prefixes before not only the verb but also indefinite direct objects, resulting in verb incorporation. The only problem is that because I already have nouns marked for definiteness this would result in all or most independent direct objects being marked for being definite, and I wanted to avoid this because definiteness marking results in a stem change in Middle Mkroh (namely the surfacing of previous coda consonants and the loss of vowel fronting or backing in stem vowels) and I wanted there to be direct objects without this stem change.

[mèþru]

Well, not all subjects are definite, so why should all direct objects be?
There are two strategies to keep the change: make it apply only to certain types of indirect objects or repurpose the definiteness marker (perhaps make it an intensifier?)

[Travis B.]

Well, not all subjects are definite, so why should all direct objects be?
There are two strategies to keep the change: make it apply only to certain types of indirect objects or repurpose the definiteness marker (perhaps make it an intensifier?)

My point is that if I incorporate indefinite direct objects, then all remaining direct objects will be definite, but I do not want to make all direct objects definite. So if I do not do this, then I need to come up with some criterion for what direct objects are incorporated and what direct objects are not incorporated other than just definiteness alone. (One potential way to do it would be to not incorporate indefinite direct objects but rather indefinite instruments.)

[Travis B.]

I found a solution: direct objects are incorporated if they are indefinite, not individuated*, and not specifically plural**, and do not form larger NPs to form intransitive verbs. Furthermore, indefinite, not individuated*, and not specifically plural** instruments which do not form larger NPs are incorporated as well; note that only a direct object or an instrument can be incorporated, not both, and instruments are preferred over direct objects for incorporation.

* Note that being indefinite is not the same thing as being not individuated; e.g. one can contrast "I hot dog-ate" (non-individuated) with "I ate a (particular) hot dog" (individuated).
** I.e. referred to with a specific number, like "I ate two hot dogs", or referring to a specifiically plural number, like "I ate hot dogs" (i.e. I ate more than one hot dog).

[Yng]

That sounds very sensible to me.

[Travis B.]

Another thing I forgot to mention is that incorporated direct objects or instruments cannot be topicalized (even though this should had been implicit in the above).

[Travis B.]

I have decided that I liked the whole SVO serial-verb heavy syntax a lot and but wanted to create a Tshyak language that differed significantly in verbal morphology and syntax from Old Tshyak and its descendents. Thus I created Old Zlang, a direct descendent of Proto-Tshyak. It is by default SVO, but really topic-comment, along with noun-relative clause ("adjectives" and attributive alienable genitives are really just stative verbs), noun-number, noun-(inalienable) genitive, clause-complement clause, etc., uses inverse marking along with a person/animacy/definiteness/topicality hierarchy to distinguish agents from objects, is serial verb-heavy (and has practically no true adpositions), makes heavy use of auxiliary/modal verbs to distinguish a wider range of tenses, aspects, and like than can be distinguished with verbs' core distinction between past perfective and present imperfective, and so on.

For some examples:

Phuoh

mouse

yai

DEF

šiʔ

TEL.PERF

the

DIR

pšoi

INV

mah

eat.PERF

pauʔ

cat

yai.

DEF

[pʰuoh jɛ ʂiʔ tʰe pʂø mah pɑʔ jɛ]
The mouse was eaten by the cat.

Phuoh

mouse

šiʔ

TEL.PERF

the

DIR

mah

eat.PERF

pauʔ

cat

yai.

DEF

[pʰuoh ʂiʔ tʰe mah pɑʔ jɛ]
A mouse was eaten by the cat.

Pho

man

yai

DEF

gway

say.PERF

the

DIR

ra

COMP

saiʔ

brother

yo

POSS.3.SG

šiʔ

TEL.PERF

huo

REP

kyauʔ

steal.PERF

ňe

woman

yo.

POSS.3.SG

[pʰo jɛ gʷɛj tʰe ɻa sɛʔ jo ʂiʔ huo kjɑʔ ɳe jo]
The man said that his brother had stolen his wife.