Ulašon: lang w/ triconsonantal verb roots and case particles

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Omnol
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Ulašon: lang w/ triconsonantal verb roots and case particles

Post by Omnol »

Please note that the current reference for this lang is linked here, and the info below is for context.


I recently took courses in Akkadian and Japanese, and that, together with excess time this summer, reignited my interest in conlangs. I scribbled down some notes, and here is what I have so far. I make no claims to quality or completeness.

Phonology
I am not good at IPA, so I will include consonants and vowels by analogy to English (apologies). Pronunciation isn't incredibly important to me at this stage, though, and I'm mainly just trying to get some ideas down.

K kite
G gate
T tell
D door
F fall
V velocity
C chips
J jackal
L lie
M mat
N not
R rim
S size
Z zebra
Š shin
Ž casalty
W win
Y yes

A E I O U as in English "short" vowel
AA EE II OO UU as in English "long" vowel - not actually longer, just the sound convention

I apologize for the subpar transcription system; bear with me until I've figured out the full phonology. For the time being, it's sufficient for me to play around with some grammar.

Verbs

Verbs use a system inspired by the Semitic triconsonantal root system. A verb root consists of three consonants: for example, (prs) "to cut"
These are then conjugated to make a stem for each of three tenses:

Past: pooroos
Present: puuruus
Future: paras

Different suffixes are added to distinguish person and number of the verb agent (in transitive verbs, the subject, in intransitive, the sole subject):
1st singular: -a
1st plural: -e
2nd singular: -na
2nd plural: -ne
3rd singular: -an
3rd plural: -en

Negation of verbs is achieved by prefixing nii- to the verb.
niipuuruusa
I am not cutting

parasne
you all will cut


This is all I have decided for verbs so far - I have yet to think about modality and other concepts.

Substantives and articles

The category of substantives includes what in English would be nouns and adjectives. These are declined in the same way:

bol
ball

bolu
balls

bolnee
ball-like


Articles have forms for singular and plural forms:

de bol
the ball

duu bolu
the balls

en bol
a ball

oot bolu
some balls


The definite article also has different forms for animate and inanimate substantives:

ket gof
the dog

koot gofu
the dogs


Pronouns

Person: singular, plural

1st: ik, yaš
2nd: žem, žor
3rd animate: cee, caa
3rd inanimate: gee, geš

Attribution

Attributes can be given using either possessive or stative forms.
Possessive:
de bol žee vard
the ball of green


Stative:
de vardnee bol
the green ball


Particles

Substantive role is marked by particles similar to those in Japanese. I have not fully developed this system; at the current time, I have only two.
  • Agent: too
  • D. Object: nuu
Copula

The copula is treated like a verb, and has forms similar to verb, but is irregular - it has only two consonants: (šn)

de bol too vardnee nuu šuunan
the ball is green

ik too vardnee nuu šoona
I was green


....And that's all I have for now! I will continue working and post and edit as I go. I currently have a very small vocabulary; my verbs will be sourced partially from Akkadian and German, and nouns will be a bit more arbitrary, with occasional onomatopoeia and sourcing from familiar languages. Here are some example sentences.

Substantives:
  • bol
    ball
  • vard
    green
  • gof
    dog
  • lašnam
    language
Verbs
  • (prs) "to cut"
  • (lšn) "to speak"
ik too uulašon nuu niiluušuuna
I do not speak Ulashon


de bol žee ik too en gof nuu niišunan
The ball of mine is not a dog


de iknee bol too en gof nuu niišunan
My ball is not a dog


Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions! I would also be interested in knowing what systems people like to use to record grammars and lexicons; I'm thinking of just doing it in LaTeX so I can use diacritics more easily.
Last edited by Omnol on Mon Jul 24, 2017 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Ulašon: lang w/ triconsonantal verb roots and case parti

Post by Frislander »

OK, let's start from the top (I'll be as constructive as I can).
Omnol wrote:Phonology
I am not good at IPA,
Probably a good idea to go and learn it then and come back and edit this post. But for convenience's sake I'll convert your pronunciation guide into a table for you.

/t t͡ʃ k/ <t c k>
/d d͡ʒ g/ <d j g>
/f s ʃ/ <f s š>
/v z ʒ/ <v z ž>
/m n/ <m n>
/w l ɹ j/ <w l r y>

First thing I note is the lack of labvial stops, which, while not unattested, is unheard of in a stop system that is otherwise pretty Standard-Average-European and has a matching labial fricative series as you do here.

/i e a u o/ [with contrastive length? Or is there a quality difference between the "long" and "short" ones, giving a system like, say, /i: ɪ e: ɛ ə aː uː ʊ oː ɔ/ <ii i ee e a aa uu u oo o>? Again, better to learn your IPA first]
Verbs

Verbs use a system inspired by the Semitic triconsonantal root system. A verb root consists of three consonants: for example, (prs) "to cut"
These are then conjugated to make a stem for each of three tenses:

Past: pooroos
Present: puuruus
Future: paras
I do hope it isn't this regular. One important thing to note about so-called tri-consonantal root languages is that there are many different patterns and exceptions to the morphology: biconsonantal and quadriconsonantal roots, certain consonants interacting funnily with the vowels, multiple vowel templates for the same forms and so-on. Having all verbs have the same number of roots consonants and inflect using a single template which works the same way for all of them is highly unnatural in that regard.

I would recommend doing a good bit of reading on those languages which do have these systems. I would recommend looking at the Wikipedia articles for the Semitic Root, arabic verb inflection, Kabyle grammar (to show you a non-Semitic example). I'd also recommend checking out Alashian, an a-posteriori Semitic conlang which comes with an in depth explanation of this both specific to the language and in Semtici in general.
Different suffixes are added to distinguish person and number of the verb agent (in transitive verbs, the subject, in intransitive, the sole subject):
1st singular: -a
1st plural: -e
2nd singular: -na
2nd plural: -ne
3rd singular: -an
3rd plural: -en
The shapes of these affixes look highly artificial, probably because both of their regularity and of their reliance on only three phonemes and the ordering thereof: having the presence/absence and placing of a single phoneme (in this case /n/) determine person is not a natural development at all, especially when combined with a regular vowel alternation for number. I would suggest varying them up a bit like your pronouns.
bol
ball

bolu
balls

bolnee
ball-like
Why is a suffix meaning "like, resembling" (or, as you later use it, an attributive suffix) counted in the same category as the number morphology?

Other than that is looks OK, though could I ask for a more in-depth gloss according to the Leipzig conventions?
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Re: Ulašon: lang w/ triconsonantal verb roots and case parti

Post by mèþru »

Welcome to the ZBB! Have some pickles and tea! (It's a board tradition for welcoming new members)
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I think Omnol (assuming they is American) is thinking of something like this:
/i u ɪ ʊ eɪ oʊ ɛ æ ɑ aɪ/ <ee uu i u aa oo e a o ii> (with /u/ being [ju] in most contexts)
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
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Re: Ulašon: lang w/ triconsonantal verb roots and case parti

Post by Omnol »

Thank you for the comments! As for the IPA, I think that those interpretations are mostly correct, with a few exceptions; I've linked my working document here- I have not incorporated the vowel info yet, but I have figured out the consonant IPA myself. I wanted to get what I had out there so I could get feedback about the grammatical parts while I still do battle with the phonology.

As for the comment about triliteral roots, I was primarily basing it off of what I know about Akkadian, where the irregular verbs (quadriliteral, quasi-biliteral, etc) generally are believed to have mainly developed from triliteral roots that underwent phonetic evolution and modification. I will look a bit deeper into different forms of verbs - I will admit that I made them the way I did because I wanted them to be easier to remember. I plan on possibly using this language in games or other creative projects, so I was perhaps looking at ergonomics more than naturalism. I will be the first to admit that this (call it a sketch, maybe) of a conlang is not the most natural; I will try to find better forms for the verb endings that mix it up a little bit.

As for the grouping of number and attributive substantive endings together, I put them together because those endings are (currently) the only forms of the substantive that exist - I'm trying to see if I can get away with just one class of words for now for adjectives and nouns. I haven't figured out how to work with adverbs - I might need another ending, or possibly some sort of linking particle or word to connect an attributive form to a verb.

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Re: Ulašon: lang w/ triconsonantal verb roots and case parti

Post by Soap »

I meant to post earlier. I dont think there's a problem with having a single paradigm for all verbs, but I'd be very surprised to stumble on a natlang where the past tense and present tense are both marked by the presence of two long vowels. Past and present together account probably for about 95% of all verbs in most languages, so I'd expect those forms to be the shortest. e.g. perhaps pors/prus/paras instead of pōrōs/pūrūs/paras, if the phonotactics allow for clusters like that.
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Re: Ulašon: lang w/ triconsonantal verb roots and case parti

Post by Omnol »

Soap wrote:I meant to post earlier. I dont think there's a problem with having a single paradigm for all verbs, but I'd be very surprised to stumble on a natlang where the past tense and present tense are both marked by the presence of two long vowels. Past and present together account probably for about 95% of all verbs in most languages, so I'd expect those forms to be the shortest. e.g. perhaps pors/prus/paras instead of pōrōs/pūrūs/paras, if the phonotactics allow for clusters like that.
Soap - thanks for pointing that out! I hadn't thought about that as being the reason for the differing roots. In Akkadian, the paradigm is iprus/iparras/iptaras for "past" (actually preterite)/present/perfect. I will give the conjugation some more thought, and see what feels better. I'm not wedded to too many features of this lang except for the root system, presence of particles, and the attributive system, so I'm open to suggestions.

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