How to design a non-European grammar

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Plusquamperfekt
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How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Plusquamperfekt »

Aurora Rossa wrote:Has anyone ever made a thread or test for how much the grammar of your conlang follows European models along the lines of this thread?
That's a brilliant idea and I think we should start to work out adequate items for a new test. However, in my opinion the weak spot of the phonology test is that we have whole-number values, 1 point or 5 points for "true" and 0 points for "false".
I think the new test could be much better if we carried out a spot check with at least 10 natlangs before adding a new item to the test. Furthermore we should make sure that all items get at least 50% (= 0.5 points).

Example: Item "Dominant word order"

English: SVO
French: SVO
Spanish: SVO
Italian: SVO
Portuguese: SVO
German: no dominant order
Russian: no dominant order
Polish: no dominant order
Swedish: SVO
Welsh: VSO

After comparing the natlangs, our conlang would get 0.6 points for SVO, 0.3 points for a syntax with no dominant order and 0.1 points for any other word order. (I know that the spot check is not representative at all, but unfortunately I do not speak Albanian, Greek, Armenian or any Indo-Aryan language)

What do you think of this idea? Any suggestions for new items? (And by the way, instead of desperately trying to find 100 items, we could also simply count the points and divide the sum by the number of questions, so a value like 0.7482 would correspond to 74.82%)

Edit:
Instead of relying on our own language knowledge, we could also just take the data from WALS.. (Unfortunately it is not possible to filter the results so that WALS only displays Indo-European languages, so doing that would mean a LOT of work...)

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Plusquamperfekt »

One example how we could use WALS:

http://wals.info/feature/28A?tg_format= ... 00&v4=c00d

Item: Case syncretism

Core + Non-Core: Spanish, Greek, French, German, Irish, Latvian, Russian, Armenian (7) = 0.89
Something Else: English (1) = 0.11

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by clawgrip »

You have to be careful about differentiating what's common in Europe from what's most common in Europe. Certainly SVO is common in Europe, but it's also extremely common in Southeast Asia and Polynesia and in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The core + non-core case syncretism seems to be a good one for Europe though.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Nortaneous »

already exists

According to Martin Haspelmath (2001), the SAE languages form a Sprachbund characterized by the following features, sometimes called "euroversals" by analogy with linguistic universals:[3]

definite and indefinite articles (e.g. English the vs. a);
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English who vs. whose);
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English I have said);
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case, e.g. English I like music instead of Music pleases me);
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English I am known);
a prominence of anticausative verbs in inchoative-causative pairs (e.g. in the pair The snow melts vs. The flame melts the ice, the intransitive verb is derived from the transitive);
dative external possessors (e.g. German Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare = The mother washed the child's hair (lit. The mother washed the hair to the child, Portuguese Ela lavou-lhe o cabelo = She washed his hair);
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English Nobody listened);
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English bigger than an elephant);
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French grand comme un élephant);
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous (only in some languages, such as German, French and Spoken Finnish, e.g. mä oon, "I am" and sä oot, "you are"[4][5]); this feature is called null subject – pro-drop is sometimes mentioned in this context, but is technically a term for a more general phenomenon;
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns (e.g. German intensifier selbst vs. reflexive sich).

Besides these features, which are uncommon outside Europe and thus useful for defining the SAE area, Haspelmath (2001) lists further features characteristic of European languages (but also found elsewhere):

verb-initial order in yes/no questions;
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger);
conjunction A, B and C;
syncretism of comitative and instrumental cases (e.g. English with my friends vs. with a knife);
suppletivism in second vs. two;
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession;
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you");
no productive usage of reduplication;
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order;
word order subject–verb–object;
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses;
specific "neither-nor" construction;
phrasal adverbs (e.g. English already, still, not yet);
tendency towards replacement of past tense by the perfect.

There is also a broad agreement in the following parameters (not listed in Haspelmath 2001):

absence of phonemic opposition velar/uvular;
phonemic voicing oppositions (/p/ vs. /b/ etc.);
initial consonant clusters of the type "stop+sonorant" allowed;
only pulmonic consonants;
at least three degrees of vowel height (minimum inventory i e a o u);
lack of lateral fricatives and affricates;

predominantly suffixing morphology;
moderately synthetic fusional morphological typology;
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment.
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Nortaneous »

So for a preliminary test:

Six points:
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English who vs. whose);
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said");
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me");
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known");
a prominence of anticausative verbs in inchoative-causative pairs (e.g. in the pair "The snow melts" vs. "The flame melts the ice", the intransitive verb is derived from the transitive);
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare");
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened");
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant");
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant");
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles
verb-initial order in yes/no questions;
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger);
conjunction A, B and C;
syncretism of comitative and instrumental cases (e.g. English with my friends vs. with a knife);
suppletivism in second vs. two;
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession;
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you");
no productive usage of reduplication;
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order;
word order subject–verb–object;
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses;
specific "neither-nor" construction;
phrasal adverbs (e.g. English already, still, not yet);
predominantly suffixing morphology;
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment.

Though I'd make some changes... see next post.
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Nortaneous »

The above test is adapted cleanly from the article. I think some modifications would make it work better.

Five points:
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
no productive usage of reduplication
no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb
obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles
verb-initial order in yes/no questions
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
conjunction A, B and C
suppletivism in second vs. two
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
specific "neither-nor" construction
predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

There should be something in here about grammatical gender too but I don't know what.
Last edited by Nortaneous on Mon Nov 11, 2013 10:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Nortaneous »

English:

postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")

equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
(?)
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous (-s)
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")

no productive usage of reduplication (it's technically productive but it's not *productive* productive)
no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb
obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles
verb-initial order in yes/no questions
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
conjunction A, B and C
suppletivism in second vs. two
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
specific "neither-nor" construction

predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology [updated bc germanic/latin derivational verb prefixes)
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

85%
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Hallow XIII »

I speak (far less) Albanian (than I should), it is decidedly SVO.
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by clawgrip »

Can you explain why exactly "who" and "whose" are considered resumptive? I don't quite follow.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Matrix »

Let's see how Maja looks with this:

Five points:
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") (no relative pronouns)
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") (no perfect)
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") (no passive)
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") (no dative)
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") (verbs are always negated with the negator preposition, nil)
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") (i think? i'm not entirely sure about the meaning of this)
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous (no verbal person)
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns (no intensifiers or reflexives)
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
no productive usage of reduplication
no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb (no arguments are marked on the verb)
obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles (definite and partitive articles, but no indefinite)
verb-initial order in yes/no questions (normal word order is OSV; interrogative word order is SOV)
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
conjunction A, B and C (A and B and C)
suppletivism in second vs. two
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses (no gerund; not entirely sure what the second part of this is about)
specific "neither-nor" construction
predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology [updated bc germanic/latin derivational verb prefixes)
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

41/95 ≈
43%


Hmm... I think I'll also put Ancient and its crazy concatenative root-and-pattern-based grammar through this:

Five points:
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") (no pronouns)
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") (no perfect)
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") (no dative)
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") (verbal negator prefix)
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") (exceed)
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous (verbal person marking is the only encoding of person)
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns (no pronouns)
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") (no pronouns; number is not encoded with verbal person)
no productive usage of reduplication
no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb
obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles (no articles)
verb-initial order in yes/no questions (only because it always has verb-initial order)
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
conjunction A, B and C (conjunctions are made by putting the nouns to be conjuncted[?] in the root spaces of a pattern, starting with the rightmost such space)
suppletivism in second vs. two (no ordinal numbers)
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses (still have no idea)
specific "neither-nor" construction
predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology [updated bc germanic/latin derivational verb prefixes) (predominantly prefixing, when affixing at all)
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment (tripartite)

24/95 ≈
25%
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Nortaneous »

Kannow

postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")(?)
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous (-s)

differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
no productive usage of reduplication

no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb

obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective

grammatical sex-marking

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles
verb-initial order in yes/no questions

comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)

conjunction A, B and C
suppletivism in second vs. two

topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes

only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
specific "neither-nor" construction
predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology

nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment (sort of)\

36%
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by clawgrip »

Himmaswa:

Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") (if something like "be.big be.like elephant" counts then yes)
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
- no productive usage of reduplication
- no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb (no marking of argument on the verb)
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective
- grammatical sex marking

Two points:
- definite and indefinite articles
- verb-initial order in yes/no questions
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
- conjunction A, B and C
- suppletivism in second vs. two
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes (particle is optional)
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses (no gerund, verbs can easily become nouns)
- specific "neither-nor" construction
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology (hard to tell which is predominant)
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

29%

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Cedh »

Nortaneous wrote:The above test is adapted cleanly from the article. I think some modifications would make it work better.
[...]
I notice you edited out "SVO word order". This is understandable because some SAE languages actually have basic V2 word order, and SVO is not a uniquely European feature either, but I think something like this should still be part of the test. Note that consistent basic SOV, VSO or OVS feels fairly alien even to me as a native speaker of German, which regularly uses SOV in subclauses and permits OVS and XVSO in main clauses. (In fact, even though German is technically V2 and allows lots of freedom in ordering nominal arguments, the unmarked order for main clauses is still SVO.) To sum it up, I would add "Unmarked word order in main clauses: SVO", and I think I'd actually give 5 points for this (maybe only 3 points for V2, which is strictly speaking more typically European, but not a core feature of the SAE sprachbund because non-Germanic languages usually don't have it).

"Moderately synthetic fusional morphological typology" should probably also be left in (worth 2 points).
Nortaneous wrote:There should be something in here about grammatical gender too but I don't know what.
How about something like "Two to four grammatical genders for nouns, causing agreement in pronouns, determiners and adjectives, with a basic distinction masculine vs. feminine being made (half marks if gender is only marked on pronouns)"?

I think I'd also add the following items (2 points each):
"Tense system: past-present-future with an additional perfective-imperfective or anterior-posterior dimension"
"At least some of the tenses are expressed periphrastically (i.e. with auxiliary verbs)"
"No elaborate morphological marking of mood/modality (i.e. not more than indicative vs. imperative vs. subjunctive)"
"T-V distinction in pronouns, but no other type of grammaticalised politeness distinction"

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Yng »

Cuhbi

Five points:
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")

dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
no productive usage of reduplication
no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb
obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective


Classical Cuhbi has dative external possessors but Risha Cuhbi doesn't because of the collapse of oblique cases, I'm going to go with it still counting though because it is vaguely similar

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles
verb-initial order in yes/no questions
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
conjunction A, B and C
suppletivism in second vs. two
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
specific "neither-nor" construction

predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment


sort-of nominative-accusative and predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology (although there are enough prefixes that they can't be readily discounted).

So all in all at best 9/95 = about 9.5%
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية

tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!

short texts in Cuhbi

Risha Cuhbi grammar

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Nortaneous
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Nortaneous »

updated test again

Gehui:

Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")

- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
- no productive usage of reduplication

- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective
- grammatical sex marking

Two points:
- definite and indefinite articles
- verb-initial order in yes/no questions

- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
(fossilized)
- conjunction A, B and C
- SVO or V2 word order

- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses (no gerund, verbs can easily become nouns)
- specific "neither-nor" construction
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
(very little)
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

17%
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Matrix »

Nahaĥontl:

Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") (no pronouns)
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") (no perfect)
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") (lack of pronouns makes this untenable)
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") (no passive)
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") (there are two ways to construct possession in Nahakhontl, and neither or them are dative)
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") (verbal negator prefix)
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous (Nahakhontl does not encode person at all)
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns (no pronouns)
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") (no pronouns)
- no productive usage of reduplication
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking (no verbal argument marking)
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective
- grammatical sex marking (two sexes, three in some dialects. sex is only marked when talking about something that actually has a sex, however)

Two points:
- definite and indefinite articles
- verb-initial order in yes/no questions (order is always SVO)
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) (adjectives have no inflection)
- conjunction A, B and C (A with B with C)
- SVO or V2 word order
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses (verbs become nouns via a postposition)
- specific "neither-nor" construction
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology (predominantly prefixing, when affixing at all)
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

36%
Image

Adúljôžal ônal kol ví éža únah kex yaxlr gmlĥ hôga jô ônal kru ansu frú.
Ansu frú ônal savel zaš gmlĥ a vek Adúljôžal vé jaga čaþ kex.
Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Cedh »

BNz = Buruya Nzaysa
NA = Ndok Aisô
Tm = Tmaśareʔ
D = Doayâu

Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") BNz ~ (technically the relative marker is an auxiliary verb, but it's descended from a SAE style relative pronoun and still behaves similarly), NA +, Tm -, D +
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") BNz -, NA -, Tm -, D -
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") BNz ~, NA ~ (experiencers often appear as the subject of a verb in both languages, but due to a quirk in case marking they usually appear in the accusative), Tm +, D +
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") BNz -, NA -, Tm -, D -
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") BNz +, NA ~ (don't know yet), Tm -, D - (both languages use body part incorporation: "The mother hair-washed the child")
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") BNz -, NA -, Tm -, D -
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") BNz -, NA +, Tm -, D -
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") BNz -, NA +, Tm -, D -
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous BNz -, NA ~ (verb inflects for number but not for person), Tm -, D -
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns BNz ~ (reflexivity is only marked on auxiliary verbs, so there is a distinction but no dedicated reflexive pronouns), NA ~ (reflexivity is indicated by using the middle voice, so no reflexive pronouns here either), Tm -, D ~ (don't know yet)
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession BNz +, NA +, Tm -, D +
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") BNz +, NA +, Tm +, D +
- no productive usage of reduplication BNz +, NA +, Tm -, D +
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking BNz -, NA ~ (only number of the subject is marked), Tm -, D -
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective BNz -, NA ~ (obligatory marking, but a distinction between plural and dual/paucal), Tm +, D +
- grammatical sex marking BNz -, NA -, Tm -, D -

Two points:
- definite and indefinite articles BNz +, NA -, Tm -, D -
- verb-initial order in yes/no questions BNz ~ (all sentence types are usually auxiliary-initial, but the content verb comes near the end, and there's no special word order for yes/no questions), NA -, Tm -, D + (but most other sentence types are also verb-initial)
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) BNz -, NA +, Tm -, D -
- conjunction A, B and C BNz - (A and B and C with), NA ~ (A and B and C), Tm - (A B C-and), D ~ (A and B and C)
- SVO or V2 word order BNz -, NA +, Tm -, D -
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes BNz -, NA +, Tm +, D +
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses (no gerund, verbs can easily become nouns) BNz +, NA +, Tm -, D +
- specific "neither-nor" construction BNz + (A nor B without), NA + (two options: A nor B, neither_of A and B), Tm + (A B-nor), D ~ (don't know yet)
- predominantly suffixing fusional inflectional morphology BNz +, NA ~ (there's also some prefixing), Tm ~, D ~ (both are predominantly suffixing, but highly agglutinative)
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment BNz +, NA + (both are technically split-S, but the vast majority of verbs are NOM-ACC), Tm -, D - (both ERG-ABS)


Buruya Nzaysa: 38.5%
Ndok Aisô: 59%
Tmaśareʔ: 20%
Doayâu: 41.5%
Last edited by Cedh on Tue Nov 12, 2013 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

zyxw59
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by zyxw59 »

For my unnamed proto-lang:

Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") (I think, I'm not entirely sure how I deal with those)
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") (same as above)
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns (I'm not sure what to put, since there are no reflexive pronouns)
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
- no productive usage of reduplication
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective
- grammatical sex marking (does animate/inanimate count?)

Two points:
- definite and indefinite articles (only definite articles)
- verb-initial order in yes/no questions (no mandatory word order, default is vso for all sentences/questions)
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
- conjunction A, B and C
- SVO or V2 word order
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
- specific "neither-nor" construction
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

About 57%

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by KathTheDragon »

Mahtái

Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") T
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") F
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") H
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") F
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") F
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") H
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") F
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") ?
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous T
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns ?
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession T
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") T
- no productive usage of reduplication T
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking T
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective T
- grammatical sex marking F

Two points:
- definite and indefinite articles T
- verb-initial order in yes/no questions H
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) T
- conjunction A, B and C T
- SVO or V2 word order T
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes T
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses T
- specific "neither-nor" construction T
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology T
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment T

Total: 59~69%

I had to guess at some of those (WTF does "equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures" mean? I don't know French, so I cannot understand the example), those are marked with ?. Some of them, Mahtái can do, but can do other things instead, those are marked with H, and I gave those half marks.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Imralu »

I'm the kind of person that looks at paperwork and goes "But what do they mean?", so bear with me. I have some questions.
phrasal adverbs (e.g. English already, still, not yet);
Anyone know what the hell that actually means? How are these "phrasal"?
Nortaneous wrote:English:

differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
I thought the original example was something like German selbst versus sich or French même versus se. English doesn't do this:

I killed myself = reflexive pronoun as direct object
I killed them myself. = intensifier highlighting "I"
clawgrip wrote:Can you explain why exactly "who" and "whose" are considered resumptive? I don't quite follow.
Seconded. From what I know of most European languages, relative clauses are generally introduced by fronted, inflecting relative pronouns and resumptive pronouns (eg. "the girl that I saw her yesterday") are rare.
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses (no gerund, verbs can easily become nouns)
What does only one gerund mean? Like English where each verb has one gerund form (with -ing) compared to languages like Finnish that have different inflecting forms for different uses?
definite and indefinite articles
What if you can use personal or indefinite pronouns as articles where necessary but they're not obligatory and rarely used? (For example, where it house means "the house", they house means "the houses" and something house means "a house" but just house can mean any of the above.) In European languages that have articles, they're generally obligatory, like plural marking. Would something like the above count?
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
Can anyone clarify these? Particle comparitives: does it mean having a word like "than" as a separate, uninflecting word? (If so, surely that is likely to happen in any isolating language.) And "based on adverbial relative clause structures"??? How is "comme un élephant" like a relative clause? There's no verb. I know there can be ... but ... Does English fall under this with its "as ... as" structure? What's an example of a language that doesn't meet these conditions?

For example, does Turkish fulfil either of these requirements?

filden (daha) büyük
elephant-ABL (more) big
bigger than an elephant

fil kadar büyük
elephant as.far.as big
as big as an elephant

I'm assuming we can't say it has a "particle" comparative, as it uses the ablative case suffix -den (-dan, -ten, -tan) as the equivalent of "than" ... rather than a particle. Is that all it means? As for the second one, I don't know. Does the kadar structure qualify as being like an adverbial relative clause? It can be used with a verb too.
cedh audmanh wrote:How about something like "Two to four grammatical genders for nouns, causing agreement in pronouns, determiners and adjectives, with a basic distinction masculine vs. feminine being made (half marks if gender is only marked on pronouns)"?
Are the half-marks for languages like English that mark real-world gender on pronouns without having a grammatical gender system?

Once I understand what is being asked a little bit more, I'll still have to choose a way of looking at Ahu grammar that lets some of these questions make sense. For example, I'm scratching my head over the gerund question because I can't really comment on Ahu's "gerunds". Equivalent phrases for gerunds generally begin with the word le which means something like "situation". Le kau (gloss: situation eater) is generally translated as the gerund "eating". Le xaq (gloss: situation man) is generally translated as the gerund phrase "being a man". Depending on the use, other words can be substituted for le, such as xi "air" (which tends to approach the meaning of the suffix -ness just a little bit more). Gerunds that are possessed in other languages (such as my eating) are generally translated by a complementiser clause in Ahu (lem na i kau = C 1s PRED eater).
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
________
MY MUSIC

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KathTheDragon
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by KathTheDragon »

Summary ~ The test should not be taken straight from that academic thingimawhatever. At least rewrite it to make it clear what you mean.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by clawgrip »

Imralu wrote:I'm the kind of person that looks at paperwork and goes "But what do they mean?", so bear with me. I have some questions.
phrasal adverbs (e.g. English already, still, not yet);
Anyone know what the hell that actually means? How are these "phrasal"?
This one was dropped from the list, so it probably doesn't matter anymore.
definite and indefinite articles
What if you can use personal or indefinite pronouns as articles where necessary but they're not obligatory and rarely used? (For example, where it house means "the house", they house means "the houses" and something house means "a house" but just house can mean any of the above.) In European languages that have articles, they're generally obligatory, like plural marking. Would something like the above count?
probably means dedicated articles. "a" and "the" in English perform no function other than being articles. A pronoun doing double duty as an article probably shouldn't count.
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
Can anyone clarify these? Particle comparitives: does it mean having a word like "than" as a separate, uninflecting word? (If so, surely that is likely to happen in any isolating language.) And "based on adverbial relative clause structures"??? How is "comme un élephant" like a relative clause? There's no verb. I know there can be ... but ... Does English fall under this with its "as ... as" structure? What's an example of a language that doesn't meet these conditions?

For example, does Turkish fulfil either of these requirements?

filden (daha) büyük
elephant-ABL (more) big
bigger than an elephant

fil kadar büyük
elephant as.far.as big
as big as an elephant

I'm assuming we can't say it has a "particle" comparative, as it uses the ablative case suffix -den (-dan, -ten, -tan) as the equivalent of "than" ... rather than a particle. Is that all it means? As for the second one, I don't know. Does the kadar structure qualify as being like an adverbial relative clause? It can be used with a verb too.
This one is weird too. Japanese, for example, uses a particle for both:

象より大きい
zō yori ōkii
elephant from/than be.big
bigger than an elephant

象ほど大きい
zō hodo ōkii
elephant to.the.extent.of be.big
as big as an elephant

I guess it would score no for the adverbial relative clause one and yes for the particle one.

However, you could turn the particle "hodo" into a noun. This way it might avoid the particle thing:

象と同じほど大きい
zō to onaji hodo ōkii
elephant with be.same extent be.big
as big as an elephant
Once I understand what is being asked a little bit more, I'll still have to choose a way of looking at Ahu grammar that lets some of these questions make sense. For example, I'm scratching my head over the gerund question because I can't really comment on Ahu's "gerunds". Equivalent phrases for gerunds generally begin with the word le which means something like "situation". Le kau (gloss: situation eater) is generally translated as the gerund "eating". Le xaq (gloss: situation man) is generally translated as the gerund phrase "being a man". Depending on the use, other words can be substituted for le, such as xi "air" (which tends to approach the meaning of the suffix -ness just a little bit more). Gerunds that are possessed in other languages (such as my eating) are generally translated by a complementiser clause in Ahu (lem na i kau = C 1s PRED eater).
Even in English you could argue that there is more than one gerund if you take into account the times when the "to" infinitive has basically the same meaning, e.g. "I like eating" vs. "I like to eat". Sure, using the infinitive technically means "I like the concept of eating (but not necessarily performing this action myself)" but beyond sports e.g. "I like boxing" vs. "I like to box" this meaning is never intended and there is no practical difference between the two.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Matrix »

Old Zarcosian:

Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
- no productive usage of reduplication
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective
- grammatical sex marking

Two points:
- definite and indefinite articles
- verb-initial order in yes/no questions (should this count if the language is always verb-initial?)
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
- conjunction A, B and C
- SVO or V2 word order
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
- specific "neither-nor" construction
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment

31%
Image

Adúljôžal ônal kol ví éža únah kex yaxlr gmlĥ hôga jô ônal kru ansu frú.
Ansu frú ônal savel zaš gmlĥ a vek Adúljôžal vé jaga čaþ kex.
Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh.

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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Ser »

obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective
I'm pretty sure you meant "no dictinction between singular and collective". ...R-right? Latin wouldn't qualify presumably, because of the existence of certain pluralia tantum that are basically collective nouns that only appear in plural-like forms (e.g. arma 'weapons', castra 'military camp'). But English, Spanish and French would qualify, since AFAIK there's no such nouns in these languages.

Spanish (S), French (F), Latin (L), my conlang Inilt (which is consciously quite European) (i)
S F L i

Green = yes (more specifically, the construction exists and is highly productive at least, even though it might not even be the most common option), red = no, blue = could be argued both ways, purple = NO FUCKIN' IDEA.

Five points:
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") S F L i
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") S F L i
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") S F L i
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") S F L i
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") S F L i
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") S F L i
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") S F L i
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") S F L i
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous S F L i
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns S F L i
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession S F L i
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") S F L i
no productive usage of reduplication S F L i
no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb S F L i
obligatory plural marking and no distinction between singular and collective S F L i

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles S F L i
verb-initial order in yes/no questions S F L i
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) S F L i
conjunction A, B and C S F L i
suppletivism in second vs. two S F L i
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes S F L i
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses S F L i
specific "neither-nor" construction S F L i
predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology S F L i
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment S F L i

Spanish: 61-71%
French: 79-89%
Latin: 62-64%
My conlang Inilt: 62%
clawgrip wrote:
Imralu wrote:
definite and indefinite articles
What if you can use personal or indefinite pronouns as articles where necessary but they're not obligatory and rarely used? (For example, where it house means "the house", they house means "the houses" and something house means "a house" but just house can mean any of the above.) In European languages that have articles, they're generally obligatory, like plural marking. Would something like the above count?
probably means dedicated articles. "a" and "the" in English perform no function other than being articles. A pronoun doing double duty as an article probably shouldn't count.
I think it should. It'd be ridiculous to say that French le, la, les don't count. (They are pronouns doing double duty as articles afterall, e.g. les is as much of an accusative plural pronoun as it is a plural definite article. On the other hand, French un/du, une/de la, des, which are also numbers/a preposition followed by a pronoun, at least give some justification to consider article le and article un/du as being something Distinct...)
Imralu wrote:
clawgrip wrote:Can you explain why exactly "who" and "whose" are considered resumptive? I don't quite follow.
Seconded. From what I know of most European languages, relative clauses are generally introduced by fronted, inflecting relative pronouns and resumptive pronouns (eg. "the girl that I saw her yesterday") are rare.
I think the only logical explanation is that "resumptive" here doesn't mean what it usually means.
KathAveara wrote:(WTF does "equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures" mean? I don't know French, so I cannot understand the example)
I'm very familiar with French and I've no idea what Haspelmath means by that either. Perhaps that such "equative comparisons" are made with a preposition that can also introduce an adverbial clause, thereby making the prepositional phrase a bit like a relative clause with an elided predicate? See for example "as big as an elephant" ~ "as big as an elephant is big" (or in French, grand comme un éléphant ~ grand comme l'est un éléphant). (EDIT: I just noticed this is basically what Imralu said.)

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Chagen
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Re: How to design a non-European grammar

Post by Chagen »

Azenti:

Five points:
postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")*
dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant")**
subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")**
no productive usage of reduplication
no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb
obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective

Two points:
definite and indefinite articles
verb-initial order in yes/no questions
comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)****
conjunction A, B and C
suppletivism in second vs. two
topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
specific "neither-nor" construction
predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment


Azenti is roughly 29% SAE.

Lower than I expected...

*: The construction here isn't using a Participle, it's using a completely separate passive inflection of the verb and copula, not sure if it counts

**: Azenti uses this but it forms its actual relative clauses in a completely different way. Not sure if this counts

***: This is technically possible if there's three people and you use a dual pronoun to exclude someone

****: Does it count if a completely separate particle with is used in the comparative construction? It's a postadjectival preposition used as a clitic that actually means "above"
Nūdhrēmnāva naraśva, dṛk śraṣrāsit nūdhrēmanīṣṣ iźdatīyyīm woḥīm madhēyyaṣṣi.
satisfaction-DEF.SG-LOC live.PERFECTIVE-1P.INCL but work-DEF.SG-PRIV satisfaction-DEF.PL.NOM weakeness-DEF.PL-DAT only lead-FUT-3P

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