Page 2 of 3

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Phonology)

Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 3:28 pm
by Vardelm
I just edited the above post to add consonant romanization. A few notes:

1) I decided to go with < !t !k !l > for the clicks rather than a similar system I've seen, which is < t! k! l! > etc. I felt that the ! before the consonant looks better for some reason. To me, having the ! first says "HEY, THIS IS DIFFERENT!", which indicates the click, and then the following consonant says what the place of articulation is. Also, the syllable structure allows stops in coda, so this clears any ambiguity as to what is a coda or onset.

2) The glottalized clicks are indicated with the same notation as ejectives, even though they are not ejective. Since ejectives & implosives are related to glottalization, this seemed to be a fair representation.

3) I'm debating on whether to use <c> or <ch>.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Phonology)

Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 5:22 pm
by mèþru
<c>. It reduces word length.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Consonant Romanization)

Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 10:34 am
by Travis B.
I would go with <c> simply because I prefer <c> over <ch> except when aspiration is indicated, where then I would prefer <ch>.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Consonant Romanization)

Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 5:46 pm
by Vardelm
I concur. The motion is passed.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Consonant Romanization)

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 1:37 pm
by Vardelm
Jinn: Sentence Basics

It took a while, but I now have person & number agreement suffixes so that I can form some simple sentences for Jinn. Even so, the suffixes are temporary. I mentioned at the start of the thread that my primordial languages would be isolating, and that's still true here. However, Jinn will eventually become more agglutinative, and perhaps a bit fusional, so these temp suffixes serve to give me some approximation of where I want the agreement inflections to end up. Also, I don't even have orthography settled yet for the vowel registers, let alone have it figured how the registers will interact as the agreement particles/pronouns attach to the verb and become suffixes. Finally, using suffixes for now will help me show the language structure a little easier.

As with Devani, the vocabulary is also ad hoc and temporary.

Outdated: Word order & agreement
More: show
Transitive Word Order = VSO
  • VERB

    !ñkadawi

    bite

    SUBJECT

    q'alab

    dog

    OBJECT

    ndalu

    man

    The dog bit the man.

Intransitive Word Order = VS
  • VERB

    sacuhu

    walk

    SUBJECT

    sambi

    boy

    The boy is walking.

Agreement
The following 3 tables show the agreement system of Jinn.
  • C- = root ends in a Consonant
    V- = root ends in a Vowel

    Impersonal

    Code: Select all

    Active     |  -mah
               |
    Stative    |  C-ala
               |  V-la
    Intransitive

    Code: Select all

               |  1S     1P      2S     2P      3S     3P
    -----------+----------------------------------------------
    Active     |  C-iq   C-qin   C-at   C-tun   C-hu   C-hum
               |  V-qi   V-qin   V-ta   V-tun   V-hu   V-hum
               |
    Stative    |  C-aj   C-jan   C-uz   C-zun   C-ya   C-im
               |  V-ja   V-jan   V-zu   V-zun   V-ya   V-m

    Transitive

    Code: Select all

        |  +2S      +2P         +3S       +3P
    ----+------------------------------------------
    1S  |  C-iza    C-zina      C-ish     C-ishim
        |  V-za     V-zina      V-sha     V-shim
        |
    1P  |  C-anza   C-inzan     C-insha   C-sham
        |  V-nza    V-nzan      V-nsha    V-sham
        |
    2S  |                       C-abu     C-abim
        |                       V-bu      V-bim
        |
    2P  |                       C-imbu    C-ib
        |                       V-mbu     V-ba
        |
    3S  |                       C-wi      C-iwa
        |                       V-wi      V-wa
        |
    3P  |                                 C-wam
        |                                 V-wam

Active-Stative Alignment and Intransitive Agreements
As can be inferred from the agreement charts, Jinn is an active-stative language. This is manifested in intransitive sentences and genitive relationships through the agreement suffixes used. Verbs are considered to be, by default, either active or stative. For intransitive sentences, verbs use the associated set of suffixes.

For glossing the agreement suffixes, I will use "A" for active and "S" for stative, along with the person & number. So -A2S would be "Active 2nd Person Singular" and -S3P would be "Stative 3rd Person Plural".
  • sacuhu sambi

    sacu-hu
    walk-A3S
    sambi
    boy

    The boy is walking.
  • mbulahya sambi

    mbulah-ya
    happy-S3S
    sambi
    boy

    The boy is happy.

Transitive Agreement
The transitive suffixes are completely different from the intransitives (an idea taken from Mohawk). The suffixes are polypersonal, but only to an extent. They do not indicate which participant is the agent or patient. That determination is made primarily via word order. This is why the columns of the transitive suffix chart are each labeled with a "+", which means "and a 2nd person or 3rd person participant".

Transitive glosses will use a T, plus person & number for both participants. -T1S3P would be the suffix -(i)shim, which is "Transitive 1st Person plus a 3rd Person".
  • !ñkadawi q'alab ndalu

    !ñkada-wi
    bite-T3S3S
    q'alab
    dog
    ndalu
    man

    The dog bit the man.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Sentence Basics)

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:01 pm
by Vardelm
Jinn: Nounlessness

Just like the Salishan languages, it can be argued that Jinn has no nouns. Actually, I realize that may be (or probably is?) a misstatement, and have read some of the arguments against the claim. Suffice to say that I want Jinn to mirror this aspect of the Salishan languages. Words that would usually be considered nouns can be used as a predicate, and are inflected in the same manner same manner as typical verbs and adjectives (stative verbs) would be, even when not in the predicate position. As a predicate, they simply mean "to be an X". So, verbs, adjectives, and nouns simply form one massive, open class of "content words". It probably makes sense to just refer to them all as "substantives".


A quick aside: I'd like to give a quick shout-out to Imralu, whose Ngolu conlang got me interested in Salishan. The seed for Jinn was the idea that it should focus on actions (verbs) as much as possible, primarily by placing them first in word order (VSO) and heavily inflecting them. I had heard of "nounless" languages back in 2009 or so when I was new to the ZBB. I thought that might be something that would be a good option for what would eventually be Primordial Jinn, but had no idea how it worked. Ngolu was a conlang I could make sense of, and from there started looking into Salishan grammars. So, thanks Imralu!


Unlike the Salishan and Wakashan languages (as I understand them), and Ngolu, a verb's "noun" arguments (the agent and patient) do not require a determiner or pronoun to head the "noun" phrase. A pronoun head can be used to head a phrase, but in Jinn they are used for disambiguation rather than as a syntactic requirement. More on this when I actually create Jinn's pronoun system...

Here's an example, very similar to one given when discussing the claim of nounlessness in Salishan languages:
  • kandahu q'alab

    kanda-hu
    is.going-A3S
    q'alab
    is.a.dog

    The dog is going.

Outdated stuff:
More: show
Jinn sentences can consist of a single substantive (content word) inflected with an agreement suffix (so really, an incorporated pronoun).
  • q'alabya

    q'alab-ya
    is.a.dog-S3S

    It/he/she is a dog.

When "is.a.dog" (or another substantive) is used as an argument for another verb, one could argue that the incorporated pronoun is best translated as "that which", so:
  • kandahu q'alab

    kanda
    is.going
    -hu
    that.which
    q'alab
    is.a.dog

    That which is a dog is going.
    The dog is going.

And here's the inverse example from the same page on Salishan language:
  • q'alabya kanda

    q'alab
    is.a.dog
    -ya
    that.which
    kanda
    is.going

    That which is going is a dog.
    The one going is a dog.

    (Note the change of agreement from -hu to -ya since "be a dog" is stative.)

Here's another couple examples showing equational sentences. Generally, I won't bother with glossing everything as a verb and agreements as "that which", unless tense is included.
  • shuhabiya amaki

    shuhabi-ya
    is.a.warrior-S3S
    amaki
    woman

    The woman is a warrior.
  • amakiya shuhabi

    amaki-ya
    is.a.woman-S3S
    shuhabi
    warrior

    The warrior is a woman.
The point here isn't to argue that Jinn or the Salishan & Wakashan languages absolutely do not have nouns never-ever-whatsoever. Rather, it's just to show that Jinn works in a somewhat similar manner. Feel free to argue about nounlessness over on the L&L forum. :)

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Sentence Basics)

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 8:59 pm
by Vardelm
Jinn: Head Marking, Adjectives, Participles, & Genitives

Outdated stuff:
More: show
As shown above, the word order in Jinn is VS(O), with the verb being marked for agreement with the subject and object, and word order being the primary determinant of what argument is the subject and object. This constitutes head marking in the clause.
  • sacuhu sambi

    sacu-hu
    walk-A3S
    sambi
    boy

    The boy is walking.

Head marking in Jinn is found in many places besides just the predicate. It is used in adjectival, participial, and genitive structures as well. Just as Persian and other Iranian & Turkic languages mark a noun with the ezafe to link it to a following adjective or noun, Jinn uses a similar structure. However, unlike the ezafe which has only a few forms that are similar to each other, Jinn uses the exact same set of agreement suffixes listed above for the predicate.


Adjectives
"Adjectives" in Jinn are simply stative verbs. As such, when they are used to modify a phrase denoting the agent, patient, or other event participant, the head word uses the stative agreement suffixes.
  • kandahu q'alabya !t'azud

    kanda-hu
    is.going-A3S
    q'alab-ya
    is.a.dog-S3S
    !t'azud
    is.black

    The black dog is going.
Note that !t'azud has no agreement suffix since it isn't being modified. The agreement suffixes can be thought of as licensing a dependant word to modify the head, which is what the agent & patient are doing for the predicate. You can usually tell where the end of a phrase is by the lack of an agreement suffix.

"Nouns" can modify other nouns in the same way as other stative verbs.
  • sacuhu amakiya shuhabi

    sacu-hu
    is.walking-A3S
    amaki-ya
    is.a.woman-3S3
    shuhabi
    is.a.warrior

    The woman that is a warrior is walking.
    The warrior woman is walking.

Participles
Just as any stative verb can modify a head, so can an active verb. I put these under the heading of "participles" since active verbs are what most would think of as verbs describing voluntary actions that can have an adjectival form. Really, though, active verbs are the same as stative verbs when modifying a head word, except that they use the active agreement suffixes.
  • shuhabiya amakihu sacu

    shuhabi-ya
    is.a.warrior-S3S
    amaki-hu
    is.a.woman-A3S
    sacu
    is.walking

    The woman that is walking is a warrior.
    The walking woman is a warrior.

Genitives
Possession uses the same structure, with a slight twist. Since most "nouns" are stative, using an agentive agreement suffix signals that the link is possession/ownership by another entity, rather than being a descriptor.
  • kandahu q'alabhu ndalu

    kanda-hu
    is.going-A3S
    q'alab-hu
    is.a.dog-A3S
    ndalu
    man

    The dog of the man is going.
    The man's dog is going.
Agreements besides 3rd person can be used, of course. They aren't required to be followed by a pronoun (but can), and so the end of the phrase isn't always a word with no agreement suffix.
  • kandahu q'alabiq

    kanda-hu
    is.going-A3S
    q'alab-iq
    is.a.dog-A1S

    My dog is going.
Heads that are modified by a stative verb (adjective) will add the agreement suffix for showing possession onto the final modifier, rather than the head word as shown above.
  • !ñkadawi q'alabya !t'azudhu ndalu sambi

    !ñkada-wi
    bite-T3S3S
    q'alab-ya
    is.a.dog-S3S
    !t'azud-hu
    is.black-A3S
    ndalu
    is.a.man
    sambi
    is.a.boy

    The man's black dog bit the boy.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Head Marking Adjectives

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 8:59 pm
by Vardelm
Dwarvish: Phonology

I added romanization to the tables of consonants & vowels here.


Syllables

The syllable cannon is the following:
  • (C)(C)CV(C)(C)(C)
In consonant clusters (both onset and coda), consonants closer to the vowel nucleus must be equal or higher on hierarchy than those outside. The hierarchy roughly follows sonority level, and is as follows:
  • approximants
  • nasals
  • fricatives, affricates, and most stops
  • glottal stop

Stress
Stress generally falls on the first syllable of a word, but is sensitive to syllable weight. Closed syllables are more likely to be stressed, as are syllables that have more consonants in them. Stress is never on the final syllable of a word.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Head Marking Adjectives

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:29 am
by KathTheDragon
Vardelm wrote:syllable cannon
Image

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Dwarvish Syllable Cannon)

Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 8:11 am
by Vardelm
BOOM!!! Nice. :-D

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Sentence Basics)

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 1:16 pm
by Imralu
Vardelm wrote:A quick aside: I'd like to give a quick shout-out to Imralu,
Hiya! :-D
Vardelm wrote:whose Ngolu conlang got me interested in Salishan.
A newer link is to the Iliaqu page. I was revising stuff and wanted to keep both around so I could refer to the old version and I don't think I ever got right through the revision and never got around to taking down the Ngolu site. I decided to scrap the gender system I had and go with something I call accessibility, although, yeah, that has no effect on the over-all structure of the language as it's relevant to your purposes.

Onto Jinn! Looks interesting!

I think, if I were learning this, having the ezafe-style suffixes be the same as for the predicate would lead to some confusion. Turkish has copula suffixes and possessor suffixes which can, at times be identical and this gave me headaches for a while. For example, the "I am suffix" -(y)4m and the "my" suffix -(4)m are identical after a consonant. (4 represents the four way vowel harmony of high vowels, harmonising for frontness and rounding). For example "evim" in writing could theoretically mean "I am a house" or "my house", although in speech, word stress would keep these apart.

I'm guessing word order needs to be fairly strict in Jinn so that things are not accidentally interpreted as filling another role.

In any case, since the unmarked form of a word can be used as the head of an argument and needs to be marked to be used in the predicate, to me, this looks more like a verbless language, where q'alab means "dog", kanda means "goer" and the endings that appear on the predicate are akin to a copula. Of course, these are just two different interpretations of the same system, but since the unmarked form of the words is more argumenty and needs something to be used in the predicate, then I'd find it more logical to think of them as more-or-less nouns.

I've glossed these sentences as if the content words were nouns.

kanda-hu q'alab
goer-COP.A.3s dog
"The dog goes."

q'alab-ya kanda
dog-COP.S.3s goer
"The going one is a dog."

I don't know how well this holds up when one gets into the deeper grammar though.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Dwarvish Syllable Cannon)

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 1:36 pm
by Vardelm
Thanks for the reply! I'll get back to this in a few days when I'm back from vacation and have a full PC.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jinn Sentence Basics)

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 8:18 pm
by Vardelm
Imralu wrote:A newer link is to the Iliaqu page. I was revising stuff and wanted to keep both around so I could refer to the old version and I don't think I ever got right through the revision and never got around to taking down the Ngolu site. I decided to scrap the gender system I had and go with something I call accessibility, although, yeah, that has no effect on the over-all structure of the language as it's relevant to your purposes.
Nice! The accessibility feature is a really interesting twist on honorifics.

Imralu wrote:Onto Jinn! Looks interesting!
Thanks! I'm liking it so far, but it still needs some development.

Imralu wrote:I think, if I were learning this, having the ezafe-style suffixes be the same as for the predicate would lead to some confusion. Turkish has copula suffixes and possessor suffixes which can, at times be identical and this gave me headaches for a while. For example, the "I am suffix" -(y)4m and the "my" suffix -(4)m are identical after a consonant. (4 represents the four way vowel harmony of high vowels, harmonising for frontness and rounding). For example "evim" in writing could theoretically mean "I am a house" or "my house", although in speech, word stress would keep these apart.
I can understand that point. Hopefully it's not so much confusion that it ends up killing the idea.

I've been trying to work on pronouns & demonstratives for Jinn, but my creativity on that front has been pretty anemic. I think a write-up on pronouns might help clarify this a bit. Essentially, I envision the possessor usage as an abbreviation of a transitive verb "to own/possess". We'll see how well it actually works out, though. :)

Imralu wrote:I'm guessing word order needs to be fairly strict in Jinn so that things are not accidentally interpreted as filling another role.
Yes. Jinn and Devani are strict about word order, while Dwarvish & Elvish will be much less so.

Imralu wrote:In any case, since the unmarked form of a word can be used as the head of an argument and needs to be marked to be used in the predicate, to me, this looks more like a verbless language, where q'alab means "dog", kanda means "goer" and the endings that appear on the predicate are akin to a copula. Of course, these are just two different interpretations of the same system, but since the unmarked form of the words is more argumenty and needs something to be used in the predicate, then I'd find it more logical to think of them as more-or-less nouns.
I think (and hope!) that the pronoun post, plus any posts on tense, aspect, & voice will make the "verbiness" of content words more apparent. Pronouns will be able to be used as the head of an argument and modified by a verb/content word in the same manner as Ngolu/Iliaqu, with the difference being that in Jinn constructions with pronouns are not required or standard, and are used primarily for disambiguation. When a verb/content word modifies a pronoun, it won't have the ezafe-style suffixes. Impersonal verbs ("it's raining") will also lack the suffixes. Finally, all content words will be able to inflect for tense, aspect, voice, etc., even when used as arguments, so there will be 1 word arguments that translate as "he/she/it/that which was a warrior". As above, when I get all this written down, we'll see how coherent the system is. Feedback will be very welcome!

As an aside to this, Ngolu/Iliaqu seems to lean towards dependent marking due to the use of cases on the nominals (pronouns) and lack of agreement affixes on the predicate verb. If you were to make Ngolu/Iliaqu to be head-marking, what would that look like? Would it still make sense to describe content words as "verbs"?

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Dwarvish Syllable Cannon)

Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2016 10:34 am
by Vardelm
Having a conlanging writer's block lately, mostly due to a lack of creative ideas for pronouns in Jinn. Bleh.

Mostly bumping to make sure I don't lose the info in the thread.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Dwarvish Syllable Cannon)

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 1:27 pm
by mèþru
This should be moved into the permanent C&C forum.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Dwarvish Syllable Cannon)

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:01 am
by Vardelm
Been quite a while since I posted in this thread! I've done a major rework on Jin, and I just need to work out some details on how tone is used before posting a bunch on that.

I'm also looking at revamping Devani, and I'm considering an Indic/Dravidian phonology like this:

Code: Select all

/ p b t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ       k g   /
/                   tɕ dʒ       /
/     θ     s       ɕ         h /
/ ʋ      ð    l   ɭ    j        /
/           ɾ                   /
/ m      n̪       ɳ             /

Code: Select all

< p b tt dd t d ŧ đ       k g   >
<                   ch j        >
<     th    s       sh        ɦ >
< ʋ      dh   l   ɭ    y        >
<           ɾ                   >
< m      n        ň             >
I don't love the orthography, in particular <tt dd> for the dental stops. I don't want to use <t' d'> since those indicate ejectives (and Jin will neighbor this language). Using <tr dr> for the retroflex series is out since those will be allowable onset clusters. Any suggestions without resorting to something clumsy like SAMBA with <t_d d_d>?

I'm considering removing the dental/alveolar distinction, other than keeping /θ ð/. Another possibility is adding /z ʑ/, so I'm still playing around with this a bit. What I'm aiming for is something of a pan-Indian phonology with a few little features to make it slightly different.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Devani orthography question)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 8:29 am
by Vardelm
Plenty of over time at work, studying & taking the GRE test, and applying to grad school has contributed to my typical glacial pace of conlanging. I'm going to just post some of the updates I made to Jin with the idea that writing some of the posts might help me develop things a bit further.



Jin: Consonant Inventory Updates

Consonants are mostly the same as before, but the alveolar affricate series is gone and orthography on palatal clicks uses <c>.

Consonants

Code: Select all

/             ǀ         ǀˀ     ǁ   ǁˀ     ǂ         ǂˀ                                /
/            nǀ        nǀˀ    nǁ  nǁˀ    nǂ        nǂˀ                                /

/   p   b     t    d    t’                                  k   g   k’     q   q’     /
/  mp  mb    nt   nd   nt’                                 ŋk  ŋg  ŋk’    ɴq  ɴq’     /
/                                         tʃ   dʒ   tʃ’                               /
/                                        ɲtʃ  ɲdʒ  ɲtʃ’                               /
/             s    z                      ʃ    ʒ                                   h  /
/            ns   nz                     ɲʃ   ɲʒ                                      /
/       m          n                           ɲ                                      /
/                              l               j                w                     /
[/size]

Code: Select all

<             !t       !t’    !l   !l’   !c        !c’                                 >
<            !nt      !nt’   !nl  !nl’  !nc       !nc’                                 >

<   p   b     t    d    t’                                  k   g   k’     q   q’      >
<  mp  mb    nt   nd   nt’                                 ñk  ñg  ñk’    ñq  ñq’      >
<                                         c    j    c’                                 >
<                                        ñc   ñj   ñc’                                 >
<             s    z                      sh   zh                                   h  >
<            ns   nz                     ñsh  ñzh                                      >
<       m          n                           ñ                                       >
<                              l               y                w                      >
[/size]

Notes:
  • Glottalized oral clicks pattern as ejectives, while nasal clicks are parallel to pre-nasalized consonants.
  • /h/ in coda is often realized as /ħ/ or /ʕ/.
  • /w/ in coda is realized as /β/.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Devani orthography question)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:02 am
by Vardelm
Jin: Vowels & Tone Registers

Vowels

Code: Select all

           Front:     Mid:     Back:
Close:     / i /               / u /
Open:                / a /
[/size]


Tone Registers
Jin's vowels are subject to registers consisting of pitch/tone and phonation. The tones and phonations are:
  • Tones: low, high
  • Phonations: modal, murmured/breathy, creaky
These combine to form 4 tone registers:

Code: Select all

Tone Register    Abbreviation   Orthography   Tone + Phonation
High                  H         < î  â  û >   high tone, murmured phonation
Raised                R         < í  á  ú >   high tone, modal
Middle (default)      M         < i  a  u >   low tone, modal
Low                   L         < ï  ä  ü >   low tone, creaky phonation
[/size]
Notes:
  • Raised & high tones rise at the start of a sentence.
  • Low tone falls at the start of a sentence.



For my own sanity, I made a chart for typing the vowels w/ alt codes so I didn't have to constantly look it up on the Windows character map.

Code: Select all

           i         a         u
--------------------------------------
High       î         â         û
       alt+0238  alt+0226  alt+0251

Raised     í         á         ú
       alt+0237  alt+0225  alt+0250

Middle     i         a         u

Low        ï         ä         ü
       alt+0239  alt+0228  alt+0252
[/size]

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jin updates)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:28 am
by Vardelm
Jin: Syllable Structure

Technically, Jin's syllable structure can be seen as (C)V(V)(C). In practice, it's mostly CV, and there are no consonant clusters in onsets or codas.

Initial syllables can omit the onset consonant.

Final syllables of a word can have a coda consonant, and the "linker" prepositional clitic al- also has a coda consonant.

Onsets: All consonants are allowed as onsets.

Codas: Clicks are not allowed in coda.

All syllables will have only 1 vowel quality (i, a, or u), and most will have 1 register. Words of 1 syllable may have a contour of 2 registers, depending on tense. The orthography for this is just 2 of the same vowel with different diacritics, such as <âa>, <üú>, etc.

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jin updates)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:23 am
by Vardelm
Jin: Glossing Abbreviations

Personal Pronouns
1SA = 1st person singular active
1SS = 1st person singular stative
1PA = 1st person plural active
1PS = 1st person plural stative
2PA = 2nd person active
2PS = 2nd person stative
3PA = 3rd person active
3PS = 3rd person stative

NDA = near demonstrative active
NDS = near demonstrative stative
DDA = distant demonstrative active
DDS = distant demonstrative stative


Relative Pronouns
1RA = 1st person relative active
1RS = 1st person relative stative
2RA = 2nd person relative active
2RS = 2nd person relative stative
3RA = 3rd person relative active
3RS = 3rd person relative stative

NRA = near (demonstrative) relative active
NRS = near (demonstrative) relative stative
DRA = distant (demonstrative) relative active
DRS = distant (demonstrative) relative stative


Number / Definiteness / Specificity
SNG = singulative


Tenses
TDP = tense: (episodic) distant past
TNP = tense: (episodic) near past
TEN = tense: episodic now (present)
TNF = tense: (episodic) near future
TDF = tense: (episodic) distant future

TGP = tense: gnomic past
TGN = tense: gnomic now (present)
TGF = tense: gnomic future


Voices
VIA = voice: intransitive active
VIS = voice: intransitive stative
VTA = voice: transitive active
VTS = voice: transitive stative
VPA = voice: passive active
VPS = voice: passive stative
VAA = voice: antipassive active
VAS = voice: antipassive stative
VRA = voice: reflexive active
VRS = voice: reflexive stative
VCA = voice: reciprocal active
VCS = voice: reciprocal stative
VMA = voice: impersonal active
VMS = voice: impersonal stative


Miscellaneous
LNK = linker / genitive

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jin updates)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 12:50 pm
by Vardelm
Jin: Basic Syntax

Word Classes
Jin has the following word classes:

Content words ( “verbs” )
  • Content words identify events, qualities, and objects.
  • The line between verbs and nouns in Jin is very fine, if not non-existent.
  • This grammar refers to content words as “verbs” since they all can be used for predication, describe pronoun arguments as subordinate phrases, and are inflected like verbs of other languages
  • Verbs (content words) are either active (describing what a subject is doing) or stative (describing a condition or quality of a subject).
Pronouns
  • Jin pronouns are like pronouns of any language.
  • They act as arguments for verbs.
  • Pronouns are active or stative.
  • Pronouns controls whether an argument phrase is active or stative, as required by the head verb of that clause.
Prepositions
  • There is only one preposition, al-, which is cliticised to another word.
  • It introduces oblique phrases and genitive relationships.
Particles
  • The term “particles” here refers to a range of function words.
  • This includes conjunctions, interjections, expletives, etc.
  • Particles never inflect and are not attached to other words (like the preposition al-).
  • They convey grammatical information and help direct the course of speech.


Word Order
From the viewpoint of a typical grammar, word order in Jin would be mostly described as VS intransitive and VSO transitive.

However, Jin does not link topicality and agency for the notion of “subject”. Active verbs consider the active argument to be the subject, while stative verbs see the stative argument as the subject. Word order thus depends on whether the head verb is active or stative. The arguments are then ordered as depending on whether they are seen as an active or stative participant.

The "active" and "stative" arguments for the head verb are technically always pronouns, but they can be omitted given the right circumstances. This will be discussed later.

Code: Select all

Head Verb                Word Order
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
active intransitive   =  Verb - Active
active transitive     =  Verb - Active - Stative
stative intransitive  =  Verb - Stative
stative transitive    =  Verb - Stative - Active

Example sentences:

Intransitive Active Verb:
  • [g=move]

    VERB
    kánda

    [/g] [g=1SA]

    ACTIVE
    t'inaya

    [/g]
    I moved.



Transitive Active Verb:
  • [g=rode]

    VERB
    úgishän

    [/g] [g=2PA]

    ACTIVE
    saqûmbu

    [/g] [g=3PS]

    STATIVE
    jida

    [/g]
    You rode it.



Intransitive Stative Verb:
  • [g=happy]

    VERB
    mbuláh

    [/g] [g=1SS]

    STATIVE
    t'anji

    [/g]
    I am happy.



Transitive Stative Verb:
  • [g=behind]

    VERB
    dambik

    [/g] [g=3PS]

    STATIVE
    jida

    [/g] [g=2PA]

    ACTIVE
    saqûmbu

    [/g]
    It is behind you.


Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jin updates)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:10 pm
by Vardelm
Jin: Pronouns

Jin has the personal & demonstrative pronouns listed below. I haven't done other types yet (indefinite, interrogative, etc.). I also need to do another pass at some point and add vowel registers to the vowels of the pronouns. That is just an arbitrary, aesthetic choice though.

Pronouns:

Code: Select all

                       active                stative
              independant  relative  independant  relative
--------------------------------------------------------------
1st Singular  t’inaya      t’aya     t’anji       t’i
1st Plural    t’ana        t’a       t’anjin      t’an
2nd           saqûmbu      sambu     sundiwa      siwa
3rd           qasim        qam       jida         ja
Proximal      mbundi       mbi       mbiwa        mba
Distal        !ntandi      !nti      !ntiwa       !nta
Notes:
  • Only 1st person makes a distinction in singular vs. plural
  • Independent pronouns are the heads of verb arguments
  • Relative pronouns allow arguments to have additional subordinate phrases (more about subordination below)

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jin updates)

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:13 pm
by Vardelm
Jin: Subordination (or Apposition?)

Subordination
Clause subordination plays an important role in conveying information in Jin because there is only one class of content words: “verbs”. There are 2 types, which are independant and dependant subordination, although they behave pretty much the same way.

Personal and demonstrative pronouns (both independent and relative) allow a verb to follow them, which adds more description to the argument. The verb can be viewed as a subordinate clause or as just apposition.
  • mbibuch’ad
    running.away
    qasim
    3PA

    He is running away!
VS.
  • mbibuch’ad
    running.away
    qasim
    3PA
    mizhuliq
    stole-thieved

    He that stole/thieved is running away!

    He, the thief, is running away!
    The thief is running away!
In that example, mizhuliq "to steal/thieve" is subordinate or in apposition to qasim "he/she/it", and so further specifies who qasim refers to in this context.


Subordination with Relative Pronouns
If further description beyond the one verb licensed by an independent pronoun is needed for the argument, a relative pronoun can be added to the sentence. An additional verb follows the relative pronoun as well, since relative pronouns can have subordinate verbs just like independent pronouns. Relative pronouns actually require a verb to follow them. The relative pronoun must be of the same person, number, and state as its antecedent, independent pronoun.
  • mbibuch’ad
    running.away
    qasim
    3PA
    mizhuliq
    stole-thieved
    qam
    3RS
    sambi
    boy

    He that thieves that is a boy is running away!

    He, the thief, a boy, is running away!
    The boy thief is running away!

Note that subordinate verbs do not need to match their head pronoun as to whether they are active or stative. A pronoun is required to be active or stative by its head verb, not by subordinate verbs. Thus qam is active to match qasim, but sambi is a stative verb (the state of being a boy).

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jin updates)

Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:07 pm
by Vardelm
Jin: Dropping Pronouns

Using independent pronouns to head every verb argument, and then adding dependant pronouns for every relative clause is technically correct, but becomes tedious & isn’t always needed for understanding. Both independent and dependent pronouns can be dropped as long as there is a content to act as an argument and the meaning can be deduced via context. From the previous example:
  • mbibuch’ad
    running.away
    qasim
    3PA
    mizhuliq
    stole-thieved
    qam
    3RS
    sambi
    boy

    He that thieves that is a boy is running away!
    The boy thief is running away!
The pronouns can be dropped since this is a simple intransitive sentence and the meaning is clear.
  • mbibuch’ad
    running.away
    mizhuliq
    stole-thieved
    sambi
    boy

    The boy thief is running away!

Independant pronouns can be kept to help disambiguate which arguments are active or stative. Take the below example:
  • uhimbanza
    trip
    naganda
    merchant
    dambik
    behind
    saqûmbu
    2PA
    ndalu
    man
    mizhuliq
    stole-thieved
Does this mean:
  • The merchant behind you that is a man tripped the thief.
-OR-
  • The merchant behind you tripped the man that is a thief.
This may not be the greatest example since context would probably be sufficient to disambiguate whether the merchant or the thief is "the man". (It's also a fairly arbitrary sentence.) The stative 3rd person pronoun can be used to make it crystal clear.
  • uhimbanza
    trip
    naganda
    merchant
    dambik
    behind
    saqûmbu
    2PA
    ndalu
    man
    jida
    3PS
    mizhuliq
    stole-thieved

    The merchant behind you that is a man tripped the thief.
  • uhimbanza
    trip
    naganda
    merchant
    dambik
    behind
    saqûmbu
    2PA
    jida
    3PS
    ndalu
    man
    mizhuliq
    stole-thieved

    The merchant behind you tripped the man that is a thief.
Notes from the above example:
  • Qasim (active 3rd person) is not used for the active argument (nagana "merchant") since the verb requires the 1st argument to be active, and nagana "merchant" is that 1st argument.
  • No dependant pronoun is used with for dambik "behind" since it is still describing the 1st argument
  • The stative 3rd person pronoun jida “bumps” the sentence back up to the stative argument for the main predicate verb, uhimbanza "trip".

Re: Primordial Scratchpad (NP: Jin updates)

Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:20 pm
by Vardelm
Jin: Voice pt 1

I realized after I posted about using Persian ezafe style suffixes that I wanted Jin to not be head-marked, and to not have person-marking on the verbs. That's just because my eventual "elvish" conlang needs to be head-marking and have person/number/gender marking, and I'm making these as opposites. That is, there are certain features of each language that are core, and so the "opposite" language will not have those. Elvish will have person agreement; Jin won't. Jin will have morphological tense & aspect; Elvish won't. Elvish will be suffixing, while Jin is primarily prefixing. So, goodbye ezafe suffixes!

In its place, I wanted suffixes that would control what argument were required by the verb, and so Jin's voice system came out of that.


Voice
Voice controls the transitivity, valency, and diathesis of verbs. This plays a major role in the structure of sentences.

The voices in Jin are:
  • intransitive
  • transitive
  • passive
  • antipassive
  • reflexive
  • reciprocal
  • impersonal
All of the above have both active & stative versions.


Verbs all have a default voice.
  • A verb’s default voice is one of the voices listed above.
  • Most (all?) default voices are intransitive or transitive.
  • No voice suffix is added for a verb in default voice.
Verbs can add a voice suffix to create “derived” or “inflected” voices.
  • This converts the verb from it’s default voice to the voice marked by the suffix.
  • A voice suffix can often add an dynamic, volitional, causative, etc. dimension.
  • The voice suffix that is the same voice as the verb’s default voice can be added specifically to change to a dynamic, volitional, causative, etc. meaning, while keeping the same transitivity & valency.
  • The dynamic, volitional, causative, etc. meanings added by the voice suffixes are not consistent for each suffix. It all depends on the verb.
  • Not all voice suffixes are used with every verb.

Summary of the Voices

Active Intransitive
  • The active intransitive voice requires 1 active argument.
  • Active intransitive verbs are (usually?) unergative.
  • They are often verbs of motion or other activity that are not directed towards an object.
  • Active intransitive verbs do not mention if there is a stative patient, and do not imply such.
  • They can be seen as an “anti-middle” voice, where an agent is performing an action on an object, but the object is not specified or even implied.
Stative Intransitive
  • The stative intransitive voice requires 1 stative argument.
  • Active intransitive verbs are (usually?) unaccusative.
  • Nouns, adjectives, and adverbs of other languages are often stative intransitive verbs in Jin.
  • These verbs do not mention or consider if there is an active agent, and do not imply it.
  • Depending on the root verb, stative intransitive verbs can used as a middle voice or a resulative.
Active Transitive
  • Require 2 arguments: 1 active and 1 stative
  • The active transitive has word order Verb - Active - Stative.
  • The active transitive describes what the active argument is doing to the stative argument.
  • Active transitives are proto-typical transitive verbs.
Stative Transitive
  • Require 2 arguments: 1 active and 1 stative
  • The stative transitive has word order Verb - Stative - Active.
  • Stative transitive verbs define some relationship between the arguments.
  • They are often emotions, perceptions, or locatives.
Active Passive
  • The active passive requires 1 stative argument.
  • This voice indicates there is an active constituent (agent) involved, although it’s left unstated.
Stative Passive
  • The stative passive requires 1 stative argument.
  • This voice indicates there is an active constituent (stimulus, location, etc.) involved, although it’s left unstated.
  • This voice can seem odd since it’s arguments are often treated as subjects by other languages.
Active Antipassive
  • The active antipassive requires 1 active argument.
  • it indicates there is a stative constituent (patient) involved, although it’s left unstated.
Stative Antipassive
  • The stative antipassive requires 1 active argument.
  • This voice indicates there is a stative constituent (experiencer, theme, etc.) involved, although it’s left unstated.
  • Like the stative passive, this voice can behave in unexpected manners for non-native speakers who are used to different notions of “subject”.
Reflexive and Reciprocal
  • The active version of these voices requires 1 active argument.
  • The stative version of these voices requires 1 stative argument.
  • Both voices are essentially transitive.
  • The reflexive indicates the active and stative arguments of the underlying transitive verb are the same.
  • The reciprocal indicates there are 2 or more constituents involved, each of which are active (carrying out the action on the others) and stative (undergoing the actions performed by the other constituents).
  • Jin does not have reflexive or reciprocal pronouns; these voices are used in lieu of those.
Impersonal
  • The impersonal requires 0 arguments. It stands on its own.
  • It states that an action is happening or that something exists, without comment on who or what is in the state or performing the action.