YŠKK YT-VṚḴẔKM (Yaškik Yat-Vṛḵaẕīkam) scratchpad

[KathTheDragon]

Ok, here's the most common bi-consonantal root pattern. Something to bear in mind, though - each pattern of consonants has a specific root vowel associated with it, as many words came to be identical in most forms. Most of these were replaced, so there are comparatively few bi-consonantal roots. Also, /h/ is very unstable, and has a tendency to become another approximant, or to become vowel length. I've also not fully finished this, as I've yet to determine the full extent of analogy.

Code: Select all

      trans.  agent.  patient.
sing. CeC     noCaC   lhaCeC
pauc. CaC     noCCa   lhaCCe
plur. CaCar   nyCCer  lhaCaCar

Virtually all of those vowels are prone to change, however; some more than others, and it's usually predictable (though I won't discuss how). As an example, here's an archaic word for 'dragon' (as in, the Zalar from the CCC who will probably be renamed)

Code: Select all

      trans.  agent.  patient.
sing. zal     nuzel   lhazal
pauc. zel     nozla   lhazle
plur. zalar   nyzler  lhazalar

As a bonus, here's the more recent word for dragon (deriving from the augmentative).

Code: Select all

      trans.  agent.    patient.
sing. řezel   nořzal    lhařezel
pauc. řazal   nořzal    lhařzal
plur. řizler  nořzeler  lhařizler

Edit: All of this was derived from a regular agglutinative lang, via stress-influenced reductions, colouring, syncope, and umlaut.

[Cúlro]

How will you express "(When I was young) I couldn't swim but now I can and I will be able to do it better when I'm older"? - past, present, future distinctions of ability
Also "after you marry you must look after your wife?" - future obligation

I would use the ability verb "to be able to"

Could is conditional possibilty.
This is the basic template of expressing modality:
According to [a set of rules, wishes, beliefs,...] it is [necessary, possible] that [the main proposition] is the case.

You didn't say you had a verb "to be able to" - and when would you use that instead of the possibilitative mood of the verb?
Similarly with "must" - is there a separate verb for that as well as the obligative mood?

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

How will you express "(When I was young) I couldn't swim but now I can and I will be able to do it better when I'm older"? - past, present, future distinctions of ability
Also "after you marry you must look after your wife?" - future obligation

I would use the ability verb "to be able to"

Could is conditional possibilty.
This is the basic template of expressing modality:
According to [a set of rules, wishes, beliefs,...] it is [necessary, possible] that [the main proposition] is the case.

You didn't say you had a verb "to be able to" - and when would you use that instead of the possibilitative mood of the verb?
Similarly with "must" - is there a separate verb for that as well as the obligative mood?

When would you use "must" other than the obligatory mood??

I don't know if I should conflate possibility with ability...

[Cúlro]

Your obligative mood doesnt distinguish tense - how would you deal with the distinguish between "you will need to do X" "you used to have to do X" etc

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Your obligative mood doesnt distinguish tense - how would you deal with the distinguish between "you will need to do X" "you used to have to do X" etc

It doesn't need to, it can be conflated or represented some other way.

I'd say "Tommorow, you must do your chores."
Or "It is neccessary that you will do your chores."

The last one might be "In the past, you would do your chores"
But why would I need to have the construct of thought "you used to have to do X"?

[Dewrad]

Your obligative mood doesnt distinguish tense - how would you deal with the distinguish between "you will need to do X" "you used to have to do X" etc

It doesn't need to, it can be conflated or represented some other way.

I'd say "Tommorow, you must do your chores."
Or "It is neccessary that you will do your chores."

The last one might be "In the past, you would do your chores"
But why would I need to have the construct of thought "you used to have to do X"?

"When I was a kid, I used to have to be home by nightfall. Now I'm a teenager, I have to home by midnight. When I'm an adult, I won't have to be home at all."

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Your obligative mood doesnt distinguish tense - how would you deal with the distinguish between "you will need to do X" "you used to have to do X" etc

It doesn't need to, it can be conflated or represented some other way.

I'd say "Tommorow, you must do your chores."
Or "It is neccessary that you will do your chores."

The last one might be "In the past, you would do your chores"
But why would I need to have the construct of thought "you used to have to do X"?

"When I was a kid, I used to have to be home by nightfall. Now I'm a teenager, I have to home by midnight. When I'm an adult, I won't have to be home at all."

This makes my life harder...
"When I was a kid, I would be home by nightfall. Now, I'm a teenager, I must be home by midnight. When I'm an adult, I can be at home whenever I desire."

In the past tense, using the verb form for conditional mood.
In present tense, I use normal obligation verb form.
In future tense, I use potential/ability to express a lack of limit.

problem solved.
Now also, mind you the word order is SOV, with a word order of SVO in interrogative clauses.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I made a pronoun system...


I had first person pronouns distinguish by sex, but that seemed impractical, and one should it be apparent to know what sex you are.

And so I have some phrases:
I said that interrogative phrases were SVO, however simple ones like "Hna ʾatī ya?", meaning "Who are you" are still SOV, so literally it's "Who you be?"

I also made a basic sentence using these:
ʾHN HNH YH SḴVNL ʾPČVM ʾHRW.
Ēhīn hna ya sīḵvīnal ūpočvam īharū.
Those who were dead have risen again.

I notice an issue in pronouncing "Ēhīn hna" together, so it might be best that the nasal at the end of " Ēhīn" would likely be muted in this sense.
Then again, this phrase is in SVO order...

[KathTheDragon]

I had first person pronouns distinguish by sex

IIRC, Japanese does this.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Also would changing stress to move to the the middle syllable cause this: 'kitev + al ki'teval k'teval?

[vtardif]

This makes my life harder...
"When I was a kid, I would be home by nightfall. Now, I'm a teenager, I must be home by midnight. When I'm an adult, I can be at home whenever I desire."

In the past tense, using the verb form for conditional mood.
In present tense, I use normal obligation verb form.
In future tense, I use potential/ability to express a lack of limit.

problem solved.

You use the form for the conditional mood to express a past habitual (which isn't really an obligative either) in analogy to the use of the word "would" in English. The various meanings of that word are very peculiar to English in particular. A conditional mood in another language is not very likely to share an alternate (not at all intrinsically related) sense as in English and is extremely unlikely to share all and only the senses of "would". I'd suggest that if you want to avoid the unintended influence of English on a language that afaik you intend to be naturalistic and unrelated to English, you would do well to consider other constructions that could convey the same idea, even if you don't want a separate past-obligative verb form. You could, and this is not at all exhaustive, use the past tense as well as an adverb for the obligative, or you could just use the obligative otherwise unmarked and let it be ambiguous without specifying a time, or you could repurpose and add a new usage or sense to another existing verb form entirely. There's a lot of possibilities that don't work the same way as English.
When we ask you how weird situations and edge cases work, we're offering you an opportunity to come up with creative solutions and to expand your language. You also don't have to come up with a solution immediately, you're allowed to not have something worked out yet. I'd even suggest taking some time when someone asks for this kind of clarification rather than jumping to an easy or obvious (i.e. English-like) solution. Personally, I'm working on a language right now and I'm at the point where I'm (slowly) translating the Babel text. I've spent two days working around the phrase "to make a name for ourselves" because I want to put more thought into coming up with a different idiomatic way to convey that idea.

EDIT: Changed "could" to "would". I don't know how I made that mistake.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I did the sentence into my language:

ʾūmīd zē haḵavī nostom, zē av tū-ḫamik ča ʾalūmīb nīksī yīstom.

when 1P-SG DIM-human-MASC-SG be-PST-SG 1P-SG at NOM-home by fall night-GEN be-OBLGV

ʾakū ʾanī zē ʾalkan tēyan ya, zē av tū-ḫamik ča hamja nīksī yīstom.

now that 1P-SG age teen COP 1P-SG at NOM-home by middle night-GEN be-OBLGV

ʾūmīd zē ḵavī ʾastem, zē av tū-ḫamik ha-īl zē kēzol mēstom.

when 1P-SG human-MASC be-FUT-SG 1P-SG at NOM-home as 1P-SG desire-PRES-SG be-POT

When I a kid was, I at home by fall of night’s must-be. Now that I teenager be, I at home by middle of night’s must-be. When I an adult will-be, I at home as I desire can-be.

I used the past form and future of STM 'to be', nostom and astem in place of the copula, because the copula does not distinguish tense...
Also, I don't know how to gloss obligation mood

does anyone ever get the feeling that when they make a sentence and have to create words 'out of the blue' that they feel those made up words aren't right?

[Hallow XIII]

Yes, and this is with good reason.

Namely, all the effects that you would get from a long history (phoneme frequencies, multiple derivational strata, whatelseisthereiknowihadsomethingohwelliforget) isn't there.

And also this makes you end up with relexing English, vocabulary-wise.

[KathTheDragon]

Easiest way is to use diachronics.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I do find a problem with some clusters...
My language distinguished between normal stop, pre-aspirated stop and uvularized stops...

problem it, it's hard to produce a pre-aspirated stop *after* another consonant;
It is very difficult to do this: /ak.ʰtal/
and with uvularized stops it's hard to do them *before* another consonant: /apʶ.kal/

Now I have to figure out what to do with this... well I geuss I could add an ephetic vowel... much to my chagrin about overly long words...

unrelated:
I've been having trouble finding the sound change threads...

[Hallow XIII]

way too late addendum to my last post: it doesn't actually make you relex english because you end up making a primitive for every word you use. English, too, is plenty of derived words.

[Quantum]

I do find a problem with some clusters...
My language distinguished between normal stop, pre-aspirated stop and uvularized stops...

problem it, it's hard to produce a pre-aspirated stop *after* another consonant;
It is very difficult to do this: /ak.ʰtal/
and with uvularized stops it's hard to do them *before* another consonant: /apʶ.kal/

Now I have to figure out what to do with this... well I geuss I could add an ephetic vowel... much to my chagrin about overly long words...

unrelated:
I've been having trouble finding the sound change threads...

Hm.. Try to pronounce /ak/, now /ʰtal/, now run them together real fast. I suspect some languages might neutralize the preaspiration when following a consonant, or perhaps have it spirantize (in this case, maybe [θ]), or you could just state the preaspirated plosives don't occur word-medially and/or intermorphemically. Of course, I think, an epenthetic vowel would be fine too and wouldn't necessarily make the words much more lengthy. Same with the uvularized consonants.. /apʶ/, now /kal/, etc. Perhaps the uvularization could reduce to velarization around velar consonants?

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Hm.. Try to pronounce /ak/, now /ʰtal/, now run them together real fast. I suspect some languages might neutralize the preaspiration when following a consonant, or perhaps have it spirantize (in this case, maybe [θ]), or you could just state the preaspirated plosives don't occur word-medially and/or intermorphemically. Of course, I think, an epenthetic vowel would be fine too and wouldn't necessarily make the words much more lengthy. Same with the uvularized consonants.. /apʶ/, now /kal/, etc. Perhaps the uvularization could reduce to velarization around velar consonants?

If neutralize, will it need to change it's orthographic representation?

Seems my only problem was with pre-aspirants is near stops... but after again pronouncing /ak.ʰtal/ I don't really find difficulty.
Though, I like your notion of spirantization: /ak.ʰtal/ /ak.θal/

The uvularized stop tend to velarize anyways, and it often turns /k/ into /x/, so /apʶ.kal/ /ap.xal/
I would decide that uvularize stops would occur word initially or intervocalic.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I decided to add anoher grammatic number, which I will call "surfeit", used for entities that are too much or exceed countability, it's comparable to a "greater plural" however I want to distinguish it from that. Suffice to say it represents "more than neccessary"

Now my language will distinguish Singular, Plural and Surfeit, if only for pronouns...
The pronouns Qar and Šūn are for the 2nd and 3rd person respectively, they are also neuter. There's no 1st person, I don't even know what that would be. I am absolutely certain there is a point in one's life where you need to express that there is exceeding amount of persons or things.


"The excessive amount of villagers came this way to my house, wielding pitchforks and an angry look"
"Way too many of y'all carry firearms you-SURF don't know how to use."

QR VTRM ZBL-LMR ʾNY QR KYDM NYD ḴTJ ʾVTYR.
Qar votram* zabal-lamīr ʾanī qar koydam nēyīd ḵataj ʾavtīyar.
2p-SURF wield-PL* branch-PL hand-GEN-PL that 2p-SURF know-PL not how use-INF-PL.

*) the verbs still use plural...
also firearm/gun (zabal-lamīr) in my language translates roughly to "branches of the hand's"

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Anyways, now that I have the verb system kinda done for now, I now much work on the second most important part; nouns.

I only have ten vowels, I don't think I can just random spit out nouns.

Someone had told me that all stems must be productive, I feel that I have to have "safet" and "nahet" be of related meaning due to the fact that they share CaCeC, so one cannot be car and the other an abstract mathmatical concept... and that stresses me out because then I have to think of the most productive stems, and they all have be coherant. I wanted to have a word damet mean "dog", but if I accidently made a word safet that meant "ship", then the pattern CaCeC would have mean something that turn the consonant roots into something.
I could use the method of using affixes and changing stress placements to delete unstressed vowels, but that still leads to this problem...

Is it true, or is it plausible for stem overlaps and that am I worrying about nothing?

My problem would identifying and creating productive noun stems for roots to go into...

[Cúlro]

Someone had told me that all stems must be productive, I feel that I have to have "safet" and "nahet" be of related meaning due to the fact that they share CaCeC, so one cannot be car and the other an abstract mathmatical concept... and that stresses me out because then I have to think of the most productive stems, and they all have be coherant. I wanted to have a word damet mean "dog", but if I accidently made a word safet that meant "ship", then the pattern CaCeC would have mean something that turn the consonant roots into something.
I could use the method of using affixes and changing stress placements to delete unstressed vowels, but that still leads to this problem...

Using affixes and stress placement is not a method; it's how triconsonantal systems arise, in the same way that regular sound changes are how related languages like French, Italian and Spanish arise from a single language.
If you didn't use this "method," how did you get the pattern CaCeC? Triconsonantal languages do to just have random patterns; they are all essentially contractions of previous words in the languages history.

Follow the advice you have been given before in this thread: first, forget about consonant roots, and make a language with simple syllable structure - no clusters - and lots of affixes: derivational ones (like verb to noun meaning do-er of verb, verb to noun meaning result of verb etc) and grammatical ones (case, tense, etc etc). They can be prefixes or suffixes, or circumfixes, and they can cause vowels/consonants in the stem word to change (ablaut, palatalisation...). Make a relatively full sketch of the language - a range of vocabulary and grammatical forms: make a list of nouns and verbs. Make some verbs and nouns basic words, make some verbs and nouns derived from other ones - either by affixes or by direct unmarked verbalisation; preferably a mixture of both (more realistic). Don't worry about all the nouns or all the verbs having common patterns, just make a bunch up. Then, make a set of stress rules
- where do the primary and secondary stresses fall? Make it sensitive to word length (so affixes can change it) but also maybe vowel quality (long vowels, diphthongs, tense/close vowels attract primary and/or secondary stress when they would otherwise be unstressed) because this give rise to a variety of patterns in the daughter. Then, decide what you will do if deletion of unstressed vowels causes illegal consonant clusters (so first, decide on the phonotactics of the daughter. I would recommend lax but realistic cluster rules - ie a large amount of clusters are allowed, but not unrealistic ones): don't just insert epenthetic vowels - you'll end up with lots of CVCVC words which are no different to the pre-deletion language. Have some rules where the cluster remains but one of the consonants assimilates to make it legal, and some rules where the prospective illegal cluster blocks deletion, and instead the deletion is shifted to a neighbouring vowel. Then, apply these rules to the vocabulary you created: this will give you many different consonant patterns which you will have to identify yourself - some verbs whose infinitive pattern is the same will have different patterns for the present tense etc etc. "Safet" and "nafet" may or may not turn out to have a related meaning if you do it this way, but this way you will have a realistic system - not random patterns that have no motivation, and not oversimplified "all nouns are CaCoC" style. Triconsonantal languages are not a kind of language, they are what has resulted (in one language family) because of the process I described above. If you don't mimic the process, you'll never make a realistic/plausible/serious triconsonantal language. Like many conlangers I've gone down the "I'll make up a bunch of consonant patterns for different things" route, and like them all, I got rubbish as a result.

[Cúlro]

...
The pronouns Qar and Šūn are for the 2nd and 3rd person respectively, they are also neuter. There's no 1st person, I don't even know what that would be.

1st person = I, we
2nd person = you
3rd person = he, she, it, they

[Cúlro]

Perhaps I should have said it explicitly, but the answer to your question about worrying about consistent meanings for noun patterns, is that you don't need to think about it: make words in the parent language, apply the deletion rules, and coherent patterns to the consonant-vowel templates will appear or not. So long as your parent language is consistent and not-unrealistic and your deletion rules are phonologically plausible, realistic patterns or lack thereof will appear naturally.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

...
The pronouns Qar and Šūn are for the 2nd and 3rd person respectively, they are also neuter. There's no 1st person, I don't even know what that would be.

1st person = I, we
2nd person = you
3rd person = he, she, it, they

I meant how 1st person surfeit would even be possible... suppose something like "the overwhelming amount of us agree that..."
I know what 1st person is thank you...

Using affixes and stress placement is not a method; it's how triconsonantal systems arise, in the same way that regular sound changes are how related languages like French, Italian and Spanish arise from a single language.
If you didn't use this "method," how did you get the pattern CaCeC? Triconsonantal languages do to just have random patterns; they are all essentially contractions of previous words in the languages history.

Follow the advice you have been given before in this thread: first, forget about consonant roots, and make a language with simple syllable structure - no clusters - and lots of affixes: derivational ones (like verb to noun meaning do-er of verb, verb to noun meaning result of verb etc) and grammatical ones (case, tense, etc etc). They can be prefixes or suffixes, or circumfixes, and they can cause vowels/consonants in the stem word to change (ablaut, palatalisation...). Make a relatively full sketch of the language - a range of vocabulary and grammatical forms: make a list of nouns and verbs. Make some verbs and nouns basic words, make some verbs and nouns derived from other ones - either by affixes or by direct unmarked verbalisation; preferably a mixture of both (more realistic). Don't worry about all the nouns or all the verbs having common patterns, just make a bunch up. Then, make a set of stress rules
- where do the primary and secondary stresses fall? Make it sensitive to word length (so affixes can change it) but also maybe vowel quality (long vowels, diphthongs, tense/close vowels attract primary and/or secondary stress when they would otherwise be unstressed) because this give rise to a variety of patterns in the daughter. Then, decide what you will do if deletion of unstressed vowels causes illegal consonant clusters (so first, decide on the phonotactics of the daughter. I would recommend lax but realistic cluster rules - ie a large amount of clusters are allowed, but not unrealistic ones): don't just insert epenthetic vowels - you'll end up with lots of CVCVC words which are no different to the pre-deletion language. Have some rules where the cluster remains but one of the consonants assimilates to make it legal, and some rules where the prospective illegal cluster blocks deletion, and instead the deletion is shifted to a neighbouring vowel. Then, apply these rules to the vocabulary you created: this will give you many different consonant patterns which you will have to identify yourself - some verbs whose infinitive pattern is the same will have different patterns for the present tense etc etc. "Safet" and "nafet" may or may not turn out to have a related meaning if you do it this way, but this way you will have a realistic system - not random patterns that have no motivation, and not oversimplified "all nouns are CaCoC" style. Triconsonantal languages are not a kind of language, they are what has resulted (in one language family) because of the process I described above. If you don't mimic the process, you'll never make a realistic/plausible/serious triconsonantal language. Like many conlangers I've gone down the "I'll make up a bunch of consonant patterns for different things" route, and like them all, I got rubbish as a result.

That will require I make entirely new language... complete with grammar rules, a phonology, stuff like that...

I should think about my biliteral roots too and how they develop, for more realism... I have some biliteral rules already such as the one for human, khav.

Alternatively, maybe I should consult to the collaborative construction of the parent language, and then proceed to do all the neccessary sound changes...

So, it should be CVC right? I should look maybe at Proto-semitic... it looks to be like the parent language you describe...

[Cúlro]

I meant how 1st person surfeit would even be possible... suppose something like "the overwhelming amount of us agree that..."
I know what 1st person is thank you...

I didn't read the second line as being connected to the previous one; I was a little surprised!
Although, yes, I guess that's what a first person surfeit would be - "too many of us." Seems no less likely/useful than the others.

That will require I make entirely new language... complete with grammar rules, a phonology, stuff like that...

Alternatively, maybe I should consult to the collaborative construction of the parent language, and then proceed to do all the neccessary sound changes...

So, it should be CVC right? I should look maybe at Proto-semitic... it looks to be like the parent language you describe...

Well, yes. Everything we know about triconsonantal languages comes basically from Semitic languages. The process I described to you is what happened in Semitic languages. Unless you can think of another diachronic process that could give rise to a triconsonantal languages, you'll have to either mimic that process, or just make up stuff randomly.

CV syllables with optional word final consonants would be best - most scope for deleting things and creating new clusters. CVC syllables mean you'll already have clusters and deleting will be harder.

Biconsonantal roots will appear naturally from words in the parent language with only two consonants.