araceli's nominal system

[Particles the Greek]

Araceli, you are knowledgeable, erudite, and witty, and the board has improved immeasurably since you joined. But you've been here for more than a year and have done little to justify yourself as a conlanger beyond asking a few stupid questions. Do you have anything to show for yourself, or are we giong to have to write you off as a mere charlatan?

Well, since you asked; here's some stuff I've been working on. NOTE TO JANKO: I HAVE NO NUMBERS.

Araceli's Nominal System

The most salient features of the nominal system are gender, case, and class.

Gender, or Animacy

Every noun has an inherent gender, which encodes its position in the Animacy Hierarchy, and also triggers nominal agreement on other categories, most notably verbs. There are six genders, in decreasing order of animacy:

• * Females / Males: equal animacy; deities as well as humans
  * Large animates: "higher animals", trees, some natural phenomena
  * Small animates: "lower animals", smaller plants
  * Inanimates: anything else which can be touched
  * Intangibles: abstract nouns, ideas, things which cannot be touched

Nominal syntax is affected by the Animacy Hierarchy such that a noun cannot act upon another noun which is higher in the animacy hierarchy. For example, "dog bites child" is expressed as "child is bitten by dog", since "dog" is lower than "child".

Case

At any time, a noun will be in one of several cases, which, of course, encode the relationship of the noun to the other elements in the clause. Cases are typically made of wood, leather, or aluminium; cases may be lined with lead for the transport of radioactive materials; they may be provided with padlocks for security; and they may have hidden compartments for espionage - wait, who's been messing with my notes?

Aaargh; none of this is terribly exciting so far. Hold your horses, the good stuff is coming soon.

[kusuri]

Nominal syntax is affected by the Animacy Hierarchy such that a noun cannot act upon another noun which is higher in the animacy hierarchy. For example, "dog bites child" is expressed as "child is bitten by dog", since "dog" is lower than "child".

I like this.

[Particles the Greek]

Right then. There are currently four types of case:

• Core cases, for agents and patients. Agents are never less animate than patients, as stated above.
• Possessive cases, alienable and inalienable; inanimates can never have inalienable possession. For example, in "the dog's bone", the use of inalienable possession implies that the bone is part of the dog's skeleton, while alienable possession implies that it came from another animal.
• Directive cases; motion to and from, and so on.
• Other cases; instrumental, and anything else which looks interesting.

Class

Probably the most interesting feature of the nominal system is class. As with case, at any time a noun will be in a particular class.

There are two principal classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. They are related to the animacy hierarchy such that the bourgeoisie may always act, but the proletariat can only be acted upon, and when I found out who's responsible for this I will hurl Russian palatalised consonants at her until she begs for mercy.

[Particles the Greek]

We interrupt araceli's thread to bring you the following message.

We are experiencing technical difficulties and will be back as soon as they are resolved. Your patience is appreciated.

[Particles the Greek]

We apologise for the delay. Those responsible have been destroyed in controlled explosions and the bits recycled to make new phonemes. We can now return to araceli's nominal system.

[Particles the Greek]

OK then. Let's do this properly.

Class and number

On the basis of morphology, nineteen distinct classes may be identified. The classes are referred to here by their conventional numbers, which appear after the noun in brackets, e.g. "thing(12)"; the examples should be regarded as typical, but not exhaustive.

Semantically, the connections between the nouns in a particular class are not always clear, due to the workings of analogy and historical development. Some scholars have identified three stages in the evolution of the system, based on criteria of shape and form, animacy, and countability. The most coherent is probably class 11, most of whose nouns refer to hollow objects, containers, and coverings including clothing; most other classes, however, are semantically diverse.

Most nouns have a specific class for singular number and another for plural, although changes of class are used to represent other categories too. For example. a single ant belongs to class 2, which is usually characterised as representing small things; thus by default it is "ant(2)". Several ants typically form a line, and so end up in class 7, which represents things with extended in one direction; thus "ant(7)" is the equivalent of the usual plural of "ant(2)".

Now, class 7 also contains many singular nouns, such as "sword(7)"; the normal plurals of these are in class 9, to which many things with length in two dimensions belong, so "swords" and "sheet" both belong to class 9, although one is singular and the other plural. Similarly, "sheet(10)" is the plural of "sheet(9)", where class 10 contains objects perceived as large, such as "house(10)". Singular class 10 nouns typically have plurals in class 13.

Classes 5 and 7 seem to have originally expressed a distinction between round objects and pointed objects, which later incorporated the distinction between female and male humans; thus "boulder(5)", "woman(5)", but "thorn(7)", "man(7)". Class 5 was extended to incorporate fruits and vegetables, including rounded fruits such as carrots, dwarf beans, and bananas.

Plurals of nouns in classes 5 and 7, when denoting humans, are in class 19. The plurals of other class 5 nouns are in class 16, as are also - no doubt due to the semantic similarity - the plurals of class 4 nouns, which typically represent plants and plant products, such as "bush(4)", "rope(4)", "stalk(4)", and so on.

[Ketumak]

Intriguing. I don't think I've ever seen a conlang before that incorporated both an animacy hierarchy and Bantu-style noun classes. Both systems sound well-worked out to me, though I'm not clear on how they interact. I can only think of natlangs that use one or the other, so I'd like to know what the division of responsibility is between your two schemas.

[Particles the Greek]

Here's the last bit; I don't know if it will enlighten you at all though.

Interesting multiple class relationships

As well as singular and plural, further categories of number, countability, size, and so on may be expressed by changing classes. For example, "eye(2)" (of small animate gender) is actually a dual, "pair of eyes"; its plural, "eye(14)", is thus "many pairs of eyes", as in "many pairs of eyes gazed wearily heavenwards as araceli ploughed on with the description of her nominal system, oblivious to the increasing frequency of the voiced alveolar fricative". A single eye is "eye(8)", whose plural "eye(13)" refers to distended eyes not in pairs, such as "eyes scattered around on the ground". A specific eye, on the other hand, is in class 12, and has its plurals in class 18: "left eye(12)", "left eyes(18)". This behaviour is typical not just of paired body parts, but of other natural pairs such as parents, ends of a stick, and araceli's brain cells.

Similar is the behaviour of "tooth(2)":

• "tooth(2)": a set of teeth
• "tooth(14)": sets of teeth
• "tooth(8)": a single tooth
• "tooth(13)": several teeth, not in a set
• "tooth(18)": a pair of teeth, such as front teeth, or walrus tusks

Nouns denoting substances behave differently depending on whether they are considered to
be made up of individual particles or not:

• "grain(2)": e.g. grain in a sack
• "grain(3)": grain as a substance in the abstract sense
• "grain(15)": types of grain
• "grain(8)": a single grain of, er, grain
• "grain(13)": some grains

but:

• "wine(9)": e.g. wine in a glass
• "wine(3): particular type of wine
• "wine(15)": types of wine
• "wine(8)" is a syntax error; "a drop of wine" is a two-noun phrase with "wine" in the partitive case.

Finally, here's a representative example of a noun which can be in as many as seven groups:

• "knife(1)": a single knife
• "knife(13)": some knives
• "knife(18)": a pair of knives (e.g. ceremonial)
• "knife(2)": a collection of knives
• "knife(14)": collections of knives
• "knife(8)": a small knife; general diminutive
• "knife(13)": some small knives, but with a different form from the plural of "knife(1)"
• "knife(10)": a large knife; general augmentative
• "knife(13)": some large knives, again a different form

[Vardelm]

Intriguing. I don't think I've ever seen a conlang before that incorporated both an animacy hierarchy and Bantu-style noun classes.

Dammit, Araceli, get outta my brain! I just started tinkering with a conlang concept that does this!

Both systems sound well-worked out to me, though I'm not clear on how they interact. I can only think of natlangs that use one or the other, so I'd like to know what the division of responsibility is between your two schemas.

In the concept I'm working on, the hierarchy & classes are mostly the same. I think I have a few more classes that hierarchy levels, but those are basically subdivisions of the hierarchy levels, so it's pretty transparent.

Since the hierarchy & classes here seem to be different, it would indeed be nice to see how they play together. Perhaps though just seeing a straight up list of the classes would help. It seems like we're getting descriptions of some of the detail, but we're not seeing the overall system yet.

[Particles the Greek]

I should maybe mention that my intention was to create something which (1) is messy enough to look like it could have developed organically in several stages and (2) is elaborate enough to simplify in interestingly different directions in descendant languages.

I suppose it could be postulated that the development of gender was partly a response to the increasingly elaborate class system. In any case, there is a relationship of sorts between gender and class: class 5 is the prototypical "feminine gender" class, and supplies the endings for verbal agreement, while feminine nouns are also found in classes 10, 12, and (rarely) 4. Similarly, abstracts are prototypically in class 6, masculines in 7, and so on.

If it helps, here's a list of all the classes which represent singulars, with their genders and (necessarily incomplete) descriptions.

1. Actions, results, artefacts; also tools. Inanimate and abstract.
2. Small things usually found in groups, collections of single items. Prototypically small animates; also inanimates.
3. Ideas, concepts, abstractions. All abstract.
4. Plants, plant materials, plant products. Animate and inanimate; a few feminines.
5. Rounded, lumpy, protruding; fruits, food; females. Prototypically female; also animate and inanimate.
6. Qualities, shapes, properties, sensations. Prototypically abstract; also inanimate.
7. Long, pointed, sharp; males. Prototypically masculine; also inanimate.
8. Parts, defective things, diminutives, young of animals; single items of collections. Small animate and inanimate; diminutives are of the same gender as the parent noun.
9. Cohesive substances, flat, spreading, amorphous. Inanimate.
10. Large, powerful, feared or revered things; natural forces, buildings, augmentatives. Prototypically large animate, also feminines and masculines.
11. Hollow objects, containers, coverings. Prototypically inanimate.
12. Miscellaneous objects; specific items. All genders.

Over time I imagine the gender and class systems would become more closely aligned in various ways.

[Ketumak]

Ah, right! Things are clearer now and in a good way. I had been worried there'd be too much redundancy in this system, but it looks like there's not. The animacy hierarchy handles case and the classes handle number, so they have a division of labour. Does the class system govern anything else, say choice of demonstrative or adjective agreement?

I like this system now I understand it better. And yes, it looks like it could have evolved organically. You could even claim that this language was the result of language contact, hence the two systems. I know this is the proto-language, but to avoid an infinite regress of languages, you could say (in story) that the present state of scholarship doesn't allow us to go any further back, we can only speculate.

[Particles the Greek]

Ah, right! Things are clearer now and in a good way. I had been worried there'd be too much redundancy in this system, but it looks like there's not. The animacy hierarchy handles case and the classes handle number, so they have a division of labour. Does the class system govern anything else, say choice of demonstrative or adjective agreement?

Not really, although I might change my mind; agreement is principally gender-based at present.

I like this system now I understand it better. And yes, it looks like it could have evolved organically. You could even claim that this language was the result of language contact, hence the two systems. I know this is the proto-language, but to avoid an infinite regress of languages, you could say (in story) that the present state of scholarship doesn't allow us to go any further back, we can only speculate.

That's very encouraging of you; thanks.