Kobashti?

[qiihoskeh]

I've been working on something that might or might not be called Kobashti (project named Jun04). The syntax is mostly developed although not well documented. It needs a conculture, before I can add good examples. The phonology and morphology are far enough along to ask for comments; I'm concerned about naturalism.

http://qiihoskeh.conlang.org/cl/chain/Jun04/IfIntro.htm

[qiihoskeh]

Now I have some specific questions. First:

The 4 oblique cases -te, -va, -mi, and -se are derived from verbs. They also appear with some non-personal pronoun roots prefixed (all CV). In these, there's an /h/ of unknown origin between the pronoun and the verb. /h/ assimilates to some following consonants producing geminates but shows up as vowel length before others. For example, so-h-te is sotte but so-h-va is souva. What I don't know is how to analyze these for purposes of entering them in the lexicon. Should I break these down as prefixes (so-) and verb roots (-tte, -hva?) or should I list each of maybe 32 combinations?

I suspect I'll have to clarify when my brain is working better.

[spanick]

I would do both. In my lexicon, I list basically all types of morphemes (inflectional, derivational, roots, etc.) but then I also list whole words as separate entries even if they're composed of several morphemes. The only exception being made for inflected forms. I normally don't list every inflected form, listing instead a bare stem.

I hope I'm understanding the question correctly.

[qiihoskeh]

That does answer my main question. There is also the question about how to list the parts. For souva, e.g., are the parts so- and hva? or soh- and va? or what?

[spanick]

Well since you described it as an unknown -h- between the pronoun and verb, it seems best to list it as a separate morpheme (at least that is how I understood your description). You could call it "unanalyzable" or something to that effect. However, since it looks like it's an obligatory part of the verbal conjugation, you could mention that as part of its description. (Unanalyzable, obligatory verbal infix)

[qiihoskeh]

The /h/ seems to appear only in these particular locational verbs. My issue with listing it is that it never actually appears as an -h-; it always assimilates.

Anyways, I've been working on the lexicon, especially scalar verbs (a subset of static verbs used instead of adjectives). They each have the form of either a root plus classifier or just the root. Most of them come in pairs. The classifier serves to disambiguate, although it's not always needed (so far). I don't know how natural this is. Here's most of what I have so far:

Code: Select all

chakhr·u	hot		borr·u		cold
sif·u		fast		mokh·u		slow
gan		loose		jis·u		tight
khosi?		rough		nishi?		smooth
kato?		hard		hufi?		soft
fini		high pitch	khunu?		low pitch
shim·u		white		mar?		black

???		red
shude?		yellow, brown
vido?		green
???		blue

tarafe		high		dumafe		low
sarfe		wet		bakufe		dry
shudefe		ancient		vidofe		recent

taraga		tall		shibaga		short vertical
dumaga		deep		hesaga		shallow
rofaga		long distance	kudaga		short horizontal
gomaga?		thick		sahaga?		thin
hanga		straight	puiga		bent
farga		heavy		tiuga		light
shudega		old		vidoga		young
kichuga		sharp (edge)	sotega		dull (edge)
shimuga		shiny		marga?		dull (visual)
finiga	harmonically rich	khunuga	harmonically poor

dumur·u		steep		hesur·u		level
khisar·u	dangerous	meir·u		safe
shimur·u	bright		marr·u?		dim
bakar·u		loud		toir·u		quiet

khambe		angry
keribe		happy
juhube		sad
noube		afraid

bakabe		excited		toibe		calm

bencho		hungry
rokucho		thirsty

The mid-dot indicates that the following -u- is deleted before a vowel-initial suffix.

[spanick]

The /h/ seems to appear only in these particular locational verbs. My issue with listing it is that it never actually appears as an -h-; it always assimilates.

You should list morphemes by their underlying forms (in this case -h-) rather than surface forms. You (or anyone with a working understanding of your language's phonotactics) should be able to derive the surface form yourself (themselves) from the underlying forms by applying whatever rules make these changes.