Page 1 of 1

"Irregular" regular paradigms

Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 1:14 am
by Travis B.
While working on Early Middle Laqar, I have been coming across paradigms that, at first glance, look bizarrely irregular, except that in fact they are derived purely through regular sound change. Two examples of partial paradigms of this sort I have come across are:

"philosopher" (from Proto-Laqar *ɬæwnæmi): sǫme (3sm. sonąmə, 3sf. sonąri, pl. sonąlə, pl. 3sm. sǫmilə, pl. 3sf. sǫmelri, def. sonąde, def. 3sm. sǫmide, def. 3sf. sonąride, def. pl. sǫmeldę, def. pl. 3sm. sonąlodę, def. pl. 3sf. sǫmelridę)
"number" (from Proto-Laqar *kʷʼiːnæ): k'inə (3sm. k'ęnə, 3sf. k'ęri, pl. k'ęlə, pl. 3sm. k'inalə, pl. 3sf. k'inəlri, def. k'ęde, def. 3sm. k'inòde, def. 3sf. k'ęride, def. pl. k'inəldę, def. pl. 3sm. k'ęlodę, def. pl. 3sf. k'inəlridę)

Furthermore, there is no overaching pattern amongst words with regard to what form they take for each of the possible forms, but rather many differing patterns depending all upon the exact shape of the original word in Proto-Laqar. For instance, all imperfective agent nouns derived from perfective verbs whose stems end in long vowels or weak consonants pattern closely with "philosopher". Likewise, all feminine nouns with the shape CV:NV of the original Proto-Laqar stem pattern closely with "number". And as you can see above, there are some parallels between the two paradigms of sǫme and k'inə, in part because they are both feminine nouns.

Has anyone encountered this in any of their conlangs, where they managed to create very significant apparent "irregularity" in what is, strictly speaking, regular sound change?

Re: "Irregular" regular paradigms

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:35 pm
by Soap
I do this a lot with Khulls.i think the grammar setup is similar,m e.g. inanimate objects have gender, although when possessed they take an affix that marks their own gender as well as that of the owner, not just person and number. Likewise with animates ,... in a transitive verb, there is an affix that marks the patient's gender as well as that of the actor.

I dont think it would be difficult f or people to learn .... e.g. children tend to hear things in full sentrences, so having accusative feminine /-ma/ but nominative and other cases based on /-sa/ wouldnt be a problem since the child wouild learn that it was the same entity over time.

ive been making charts of the different inflections and trying to find patterns that i can extend to smooth over some of the irregularities ... although in some ways, this makes them look even more irregular since one word class will be syncretic with another. for example the ,maiden ending /-na/ turns to /-ṗ/ in accusative, which was borrower from /-ġʷ/, which was then replaced by -/na/.
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
just curious:
do inanimates inherit their gender from the possessor?e.g. if "her book" is the subj, does "book" become feminine or does it retain its own natural gender?> if so, is there a class of nouns which resist this?

Re: "Irregular" regular paradigms

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:42 pm
by Travis B.
Soap wrote:do inanimates inherit their gender from the possessor?e.g. if "her book" is the subj, does "book" become feminine or does it retain its own natural gender?> if so, is there a class of nouns which resist this?
Nouns retain their gender when possessed in the Laqar languages; when I write "3sf" I mean that the possessor is feminine, not the possessee.

Re: "Irregular" regular paradigms

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 12:06 am
by Travis B.
I have tried to create charts of possible forms, but it is essentially infeasible to make an exhaustive chart of verb forms; when I tried to make a (very lengthy) chart of only a few different shapes of verb, it was only feasible because I limited myself to forms with 3sm, 3sf, 3pm, and 3pf agents and patients. This makes it hard to cross-reference across conjugation patterns. Nouns are somewhat easier to chart out, because they only mark one possessor rather than both an agent and patient, but even then when charting out forms for nouns I have limited myself to just 3sm. and 3sf. possession (luckily it is pretty easy to derive all the possessive forms from just those two in the case of nouns).

Re: "Irregular" regular paradigms

Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:08 pm
by Soap
Sorry for my bad typing. So, it seems that the gender suffix takes different forms based on the shape of the final two syllables of the stem, but does not change for the gender of the possessum. Does that mean gender on a noun is part of the stem, not overtly marked by a suffix? Is there a way to tell if a word is masculine or feminine based on the shape of the stem?

Re: "Irregular" regular paradigms

Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 1:11 am
by Travis B.
Soap wrote:Sorry for my bad typing. So, it seems that the gender suffix takes different forms based on the shape of the final two syllables of the stem, but does not change for the gender of the possessum. Does that mean gender on a noun is part of the stem, not overtly marked by a suffix? Is there a way to tell if a word is masculine or feminine based on the shape of the stem?
Gender is marked by the plural and definite endings, but is unmarked in the indefinite singular except through agreement with verbs and adjectives. However gender can be predicted because words that are similar in meaning or in theme are likely to share the same gender. I think you may be confused by "3sm" and "3sf" above - they are marked on the possessum that agree with the possessor; the forms of these affixes did not vary in Proto-Laqar, but due to sound change resulting in Early Middle Laqar becoming much more fusional than Proto-Laqar the surface forms of these affixes do vary with the gender of the posessum in EML.