Adûnaic, features (part A)

[legolasean]

What is Adûnaic? -well, that's the language of the númeror.

What are these features my boy, if ye're following me? -I'll just about explaining them.

Adûnaic is a Semitic based conlang. It words based on triconsonantal (sometimes biconsonantal) roots.
For example: gimli and gimlé are derived from GML (star). But that's not all. Each root has a special (characteristic) vowel who will exist in every derived word. Exempli Gratia: gimli, gimlé, igmil and so on derived from GML with the vowel i.

Do you have this feature in your conlangs? If not, get on your papers I guess.

Thanks!

[Imralu]

Do you have this feature in your conlangs? If not, get on your papers I guess.

What the fuck are you talking about?

[Monk]

Do you have this feature in your conlangs? If not, get on your papers I guess.

What the fuck are you talking about?

I believe he has ordered us to use the triconsonantal root system in our conlangs.

[Vardelm]

Do you have this feature in your conlangs? If not, get on your papers I guess.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Indeed.

I think he's just asking if anyone has made a conlang that uses a "characteristic vowel" as part of word roots like Adunaic does. Its word roots consist of three consonsants just like proto-typical Semitic languages, but adds to that a "characteristic vowel", which will appear in every word derived from that root. So the root for "star" in Adunaic is G-M-L + i. No other Semitic-style language, natural or constructed, uses this feature for roots to my knowledge.


@legolasean: You should rethink your style of communication on this form, or perhaps just start thinking before you post what you have written. Your posting history here does not make you look particularly intelligent or even socially conscious.

[WeepingElf]

I think he's just asking if anyone has made a conlang that uses a "characteristic vowel" as part of word roots like Adunaic does. Its word roots consist of three consonsants just like proto-typical Semitic languages, but adds to that a "characteristic vowel", which will appear in every word derived from that root. So the root for "star" in Adunaic is G-M-L + i. No other Semitic-style language, natural or constructed, uses this feature for roots to my knowledge.

Old Albic has roots consisting of one to four (usually two or three) consonants plus a characteristic vowel, but the system still does not work the same way as in Adûnaic. Rather, the vowel acts as an autosegment which is inserted at a position determined by rules based on sonority constraints (if necessary, it is inserted twice). Also, diphthongs resulting from this are monophthongized, laryngeals are lost with compensatory lengthening, and umlaut and other things happen to blur the picture.

[Drydic]

Oh great, another noob completely missing the point about Semitic. Tolkien might have been able to pull it off right given further development of Adûnaic (what there is is extremely promising, but there's very little material on verbs, which is where this system shines), but 95% of "triconsonantal" conlangs are utter garbage. Skimming a Hebrew or Arabic grammar doesn't mean you understand how triconsonantal languages develop or even work, people.

[dhok]

Drydic, do you think you could make a post or even a thread going into more detail about the development and mechanics of triconsonental root languages?

[masako]

Drydic, do you think you could make a post or even a thread going into more detail about the development and mechanics of triconsonental root languages?

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9392

[Vardelm]

Oh great, another noob completely missing the point about Semitic.

I'm assuming you're referring to the O.P. here?

Tolkien might have been able to pull it off right given further development of Adûnaic (what there is is extremely promising, but there's very little material on verbs, which is where this system shines)...

I agree it would be interesting to see even more of Adunaic. However, Adunaic to me seems more like a transition from a Semitic-style language to more Indo-European type languages. To really see what Tolkien could do with a Semitic language there would have to be much, much more of Khuzdul developed.

Drydic, do you think you could make a post or even a thread going into more detail about the development and mechanics of triconsonental root languages?

You mean like this one?


EDIT:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9392

GAH! Beat me to it.

[Yng]

Edit: actually even using the term 'root' like I was just plays into the stupid misunderstanding of how Semitic works jesus

I agree it would be interesting to see even more of Adunaic. However, Adunaic to me seems more like a transition from a Semitic-style language to more Indo-European type languages. To really see what Tolkien could do with a Semitic language there would have to be much, much more of Khuzdul developed.

I'm not sure about this, I think it's just that people have such a terrible lack of understanding about how Semitic languages work that they assume it's basically all TRICONSONANTS LOL - Adunaic seems to me to be pretty Semitic-y.

[Vardelm]

Adunaic seems to me to be pretty Semitic-y.

I would agree, although to me the verb tenses seem different from the perfective/imperfective split + forms/binyanim for various conjugations that I'm familiar with. My exposure to Semitic language is mostly Arabic and Hebrew, so perhaps there are others that display a verbal system more like what is seen in Adunaic?

[Ambrisio]

Old Skourene?

[Ser]

So the root for "star" in Adunaic is G-M-L + i. No other Semitic-style language, natural or constructed, uses this feature for roots to my knowledge.

Old Skourene roots are like that.

[Drydic]

Oh great, another noob completely missing the point about Semitic.

I'm assuming you're referring to the O.P. here?

Yes, but also your attempt at "expanding" Khuzdul is wrong-headed and and a terrible idea.

[Yng]

Adunaic seems to me to be pretty Semitic-y.

I would agree, although to me the verb tenses seem different from the perfective/imperfective split + forms/binyanim for various conjugations that I'm familiar with. My exposure to Semitic language is mostly Arabic and Hebrew, so perhaps there are others that display a verbal system more like what is seen in Adunaic?

Errr

Arabic and Hebrew both have verbal systems which resemble tense to a significant degree, even if they once had a more aspect-based system; even Qur'anic Arabic has a system which is definitely not pure aspect (I can't speak for Biblical Hebrew). There is very little about Adunaic verbs detailed; but they seem to be quite similar, with a past formed with suffixes and a present formed with prefixes (two present tense verbs in the story seem to share a third person ya- prefix). It has a dual, too, treats numbers above one as nouns rather than adjectives (similar to Semitic languages), and so on. As for binyanim - what do you think binyanim do?

[Vardelm]

There is very little about Adunaic verbs detailed; but they seem to be quite similar, with a past formed with suffixes and a present formed with prefixes (two present tense verbs in the story seem to share a third person ya- prefix). It has a dual, too, treats numbers above one as nouns rather than adjectives (similar to Semitic languages), and so on.

I can see your point. I may have overlooked some of the similarities just because the presentation of Adunaic grammar seems different from what I've read on Arabic & Hebrew. At some point, I'll take another look at it.

As for binyanim - what do you think binyanim do?

AFAIK it's basically inflections for voice (including reflexives & causatives). It seemed vaguely similar to Arabic's forms in that there were set vowel pattern changes to go with the affixation.

Yes, but also your attempt at "expanding" Khuzdul is wrong-headed and and a terrible idea.

Oh, and why's that?

[Ser]

I think examples would help: the Qur'anic Arabic indicative imperfect (I won't call it "imperfective") isn't used as a past tense. Nor is the perfect used as a future tense, well, except in conditions...

قَالَ إِنِّي أُرِيدُ أَنْ أُنكِحَكَ إِحْدَى ابْنَتَيَّ هَاتَيْنِ عَلَىٰ أَن تَأْجُرَنِي ثَمَانِيَ حِجَجٍ ۖ فَإِنْ أَتْمَمْتَ عَشْرًا فَمِنْ عِندِكَ ۖ
(Yusuf Ali's translation:) He said: "I intend to wed one of these my daughters to thee, on condition that thou serve me for eight years; but if thou complete ten years, it will be (grace) from thee. (Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ 'The Story, Stories', 28:27)

"Complete" in "if thou complete ten years" is in the perfect (أَتْمَمْتَ ʔatmamta), even though it refers to an (irrealis) action in the future.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Vardelm.

AFAIK it's basically inflections for voice (including reflexives & causatives). It seemed vaguely similar to Arabic's forms in that there were set vowel pattern changes to go with the affixation.

Wrong, they're derivations, and it's quite unpredictable whether a root will have any particular verb forms. The meanings are often quite different too, even if as metaphorical extensions of some general interpretation of the meanings a given form has. The manipulations aren't only about voice either...

[kodé]

So the root for "star" in Adunaic is G-M-L + i. No other Semitic-style language, natural or constructed, uses this feature for roots to my knowledge.

Old Skourene roots are like that.

Yokutsan languages (Penutian, Central California) have a similar structure (two or three root consonants+one vowel quality).

[Imralu]

Yes, but also your attempt at "expanding" Khuzdul is wrong-headed and and a terrible idea.

Conlanging in general is wrong-headed and a terrible idea. What's your point?

[Xephyr]

Yes, but also your attempt at "expanding" Khuzdul is wrong-headed and and a terrible idea.

Conlanging in general is wrong-headed and a terrible idea. What's your point?

If it weren't for the little thing in the corner saying "Imralu", I would have sworn that Bristel wrote this.

[Vuvuzela]

Yes, but also your attempt at "expanding" Khuzdul is wrong-headed and and a terrible idea.

Conlanging in general is wrong-headed and a terrible idea. What's your point?

If it weren't for the little thing in the corner saying "Imralu", I would have sworn that Bristel wrote this.

Bristel is Imralu, and so are you, but that's beside the point. *ducks for cover behind pile of unfunny, overused gags*

Yokutsan languages (Penutian, Central California) have a similar structure (two or three root consonants+one vowel quality).

Valley Yokuts, IIRC, allows two different vowel qualities in a root if one of them is high. And the vowels have a definite position in the word, so it would be kind of pointless to separate the consonants and vowels. in the manner of Afrasian.

[kodé]

Yokutsan languages (Penutian, Central California) have a similar structure (two or three root consonants+one vowel quality).

Valley Yokuts, IIRC, allows two different vowel qualities in a root if one of them is high. And the vowels have a definite position in the word, so it would be kind of pointless to separate the consonants and vowels. in the manner of Afrasian.

This is not true underlyingly, however! In regular verb roots (and the nouns derived from them), there is only one underlying vowel quality with no definite position. The quality and position of surface vowels in a word are determined by complex morphophonological processes that involve the following suffixes; while there is a "default" shape to every root, underlyingly the shape (which you could call vowel position) must be separated from the vowel quality. In other words, it is pretty much (root consonants)+(root vowel quality)+(morphophonological derivations).

If you want some examples (and they're interesting!), I've got plenty.

[Vuvuzela]

If you want some examples (and they're interesting!), I've got plenty.

I've only read one paper on the subject, and that mostly dealt withthe shortening of long vowels and dropping of high vowels, so I'd be really interested to see what examples most point to this being a triconsonental lang.