Numbers on more than 20,000 ways

[vec]

I think you're missing my language Kiassan turasta (base-eight):

1 – neun, 2 – saun, 3 – lei, 4 – dii, 5 – ka, 6 – kok, 7 – mer, 8 – tono, 9 – tono-sta-neun, 10 – tono-sta-saun.

[Torco]

I wonder how many people have trolled Janko and just did something like

hey, numbers in my conlang Psy are
1 - hey
2 - seksi
3 - leidi
4 - op
5 - opopop
6 - woppan
7 - gang
8 - nams
9 - tayl

[kanejam]

I wonder how many people have trolled Janko and just did something like

hey, numbers in my conlang Psy are
1 - hey
2 - seksi
3 - leidi
4 - op
5 - opopop
6 - woppan
7 - gang
8 - nams
9 - tayl

I suppose this is just a really underdeveloped and uncreative a posteriori conlang.

[Torco]

Quite so, it's spoken by english speakers who think counting in the style of the Gangnam borough of Seoul is excellent.

[Ars Lande]

Ah, great, I finally had that song out of my head.
Well played, sir.

[finlay]

10/10 would learn

[Torco]

Ah, great, I finally had that song out of my head.
Well played, sir.

10/10 would learn

please give pronunciation of numbers in conlang psy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... lkCZo#t=35

[Plusquamperfekt]

Hey people, I would like to use this thread to get a quick opinion on a strange phenomenon in Miwonša, which makes it difficult for me to describe the affected structures. It's about noun phrases with attributive adjectives and also numbers... Please take a look at the following data and try to explain what you see...

Vocabulary
wanca - girl /'wãtɕa/
cuski - pretty /'tɕuski/
ano - one /'ano/
anina - first /a'nina/
pjaro - two /'pjarɔ/


(all adjectives are stressed on the last syllable when they come after nouns)

Code: Select all

 
       - girl   - pretty girl(s)  - one/two girl(s) - the first girl(s)
      
NOM.SG - wanca     - wanca cuska  - wanca ana       - wanca anina
ACC.SG - wancai    - wanca cuskai - wanca anai      - wanca aninai
GEN.SG - wancak    - wanca cuskak - wanca anak      - wanca aninak
DAT.SG - wancaš    - wanca cuskaš - wanca anaš      - wanca aninaš

NOM.PL - wance     - wance cuski  - wance pjaži     - wance anini
ACC.PL - wance     - wance cuski  - wance pjaži     - wance anini
GEN.PL - wancoi    - wance cuskoi - wance pjaroi    - wance aninoi
DAT.PL - wanceš    - wance cuskiš - wance pjažiš    - wance aniniš

OK, now my questions:

(1) In my very first syntax class at university I was tought that the head of a VP is always a V and the head of an NP is always an N. In Miwonša, nouns cannot take any other case markers than for the nominative case when they are combined with attributive adjectives. Therefore I wonder whether I should re-classify my syntax rules. What do you think, according to the data, which description is more correct?. To me it seems that the adjective is the head of the whole phrase, but I'm not sure...

NP -> N (AdjP) or AdjP -> NP Adj

(2) Since the suffixes for the nominative case do not always reliably mark the nominative case, I am not even sure if those suffixes carry any other information than number and declension class. Could it be plausible to assume that nominatives in Miwonša are completely unmarked and that the correct glossing of wanca would be indeed [girl-SG_{class: -a}] and not [girl-NOM.SG_{class: -a}]?

(3) Do you know similar things from other conlangs or natlangs?

[Grunnen]

Hey people, I would like to use this thread to get a quick opinion on a strange phenomenon in Miwonša, which makes it difficult for me to describe the affected structures. It's about noun phrases with attributive adjectives and also numbers... Please take a look at the following data and try to explain what you see...

Vocabulary
wanca - girl /'wãtɕa/
cuski - pretty /'tɕuski/
ano - one /'ano/
anina - first /a'nina/
pjaro - two /'pjarɔ/


(all adjectives are stressed on the last syllable when they come after nouns)

Code: Select all

 
       - girl   - pretty girl(s)  - one/two girl(s) - the first girl(s)
      
NOM.SG - wanca     - wanca cuska  - wanca ana       - wanca anina
ACC.SG - wancai    - wanca cuskai - wanca anai      - wanca aninai
GEN.SG - wancak    - wanca cuskak - wanca anak      - wanca aninak
DAT.SG - wancaš    - wanca cuskaš - wanca anaš      - wanca aninaš

NOM.PL - wance     - wance cuski  - wance pjaži     - wance anini
ACC.PL - wance     - wance cuski  - wance pjaži     - wance anini
GEN.PL - wancoi    - wance cuskoi - wance pjaroi    - wance aninoi
DAT.PL - wanceš    - wance cuskiš - wance pjažiš    - wance aniniš

OK, now my questions:

(1) In my very first syntax class at university I was tought that the head of a VP is always a V and the head of an NP is always an N. In Miwonša, nouns cannot take any other case markers than for the nominative case when they are combined with attributive adjectives. Therefore I wonder whether I should re-classify my syntax rules. What do you think, according to the data, which description is more correct?. To me it seems that the adjective is the head of the whole phrase, but I'm not sure...

NP -> N (AdjP) or AdjP -> NP Adj

(2) Since the suffixes for the nominative case do not always reliably mark the nominative case, I am not even sure if those suffixes carry any other information than number and declension class. Could it be plausible to assume that nominatives in Miwonša are completely unmarked and that the correct glossing of wanca would be indeed [girl-SG_{class: -a}] and not [girl-NOM.SG_{class: -a}]?

(3) Do you know similar things from other conlangs or natlangs?

I think your language is dependent marking, and therefore marks case not on the noun, but on other stuff in the noun phrase. Like in German for example (well, largely). And it would indeed seem the nominative isn't overtly marked. But that's fairly common anyway.

Btw, how do you tell apart the nominative and accusative in the plural? Word order?

And why this thread, if I may ask?

[Plusquamperfekt]

Because I didn't want to create a whole new thread for this tiny question... Furthermore I thought that the topic might fit in here quite well as I could show some concrete examples of how numbers are used in my conlang... The thing is, I don't know how people would react if I flooded the forum with new threads every day, so I'm a little careful

Concerning the plural: There are different factors with which misunderstandings are avoided. First of all, Miwonša tends to have SVO, even though the word order can be changed to emphasize different parts of the sentence (just like in many Indo-European languages, too). Secondly, the verbal morphology has both subject and object agreement. Last but not least, the context and extra-linguistic knowledge often help.

Examples:

Wance kjunši žanjan. [girls-NOM.PL boys-ACC.PL see-IPFV] - The girls are looking at the boys.
Kjunši žaniman. [boys-ACC.PL see-1SG-IPFV) - I am looking at the boys.
Žanimawan. [see-1SG-3PL-IPFV] - I am looking at them.
Prayanšat pri mai pjaži čwoni anži. [buy<PAST>-3PL.PFV for 1SG-ACC two-ACC.PL book-PL new-ACC.PL] - They bought two new books for me.

[Cedh]

(1) In my very first syntax class at university I was tought that the head of a VP is always a V and the head of an NP is always an N. In Miwonša, nouns cannot take any other case markers than for the nominative case when they are combined with attributive adjectives. Therefore I wonder whether I should re-classify my syntax rules. What do you think, according to the data, which description is more correct?. To me it seems that the adjective is the head of the whole phrase, but I'm not sure...

NP -> N (AdjP) or AdjP -> NP Adj

I think the best analysis is probably NP -> N (AdjP) =Case. In other words, your "case suffixes" are not true suffixes, but clitics which attach to the last word in the noun phrase, no matter if that word is the head noun or not. (Unless other elements of the NP may go after the case markers, of course, but even then the case markers can probably be analysed as clitics.) This is similar to the possessive -'s in English, compare "the queen's crown" vs. "the queen of England's crown".

[Plusquamperfekt]

Interesting idea... OK, then let's check some more sentences

Žaniman wanca tuškai ya cuskai . = I see a nice and beautiful girl.
Žaniman cuskai wanca ya tuškai. ≈ I see a nice beautiful girl. (implicature: There was another girl which was beautiful, but not nice)
Žaniman hanzai wancak. = I see the girl's dog.
Žaniman hanza tošnai. = I see the big dog.
Žaniman hanza tošnai wanca cuskak. = I see the pretty girl's big dog.
Žaniman hanza aš kaikaš mičanšai. = I see the dog which is eating the cat.
Hanza kaikai mičà. = The dog is eating the cat.
Žaniman tošnai hanza wanca cuskak aš kaikaš mičanšai = I see the pretty girl's big dog which is eating the cat. (unusual, but possible)
Žaniman tošnai hanza wanca cuskak, šula kaikai mičà. = I see the pretty girl's big dog which is eating the cat.

I will analyze this later... I think we can explain these structures which the clitics, too, but right now I have no time.

[Janko Gorenc]

I apologize to everyone on this board, because I promised that I will soon create a thread in which I introduce the name all constructed languages from my collection numbers.
In the meantime, I thought that would be presented when will I collect from 10,000
Today I have numbers from more than 9, 400 conlangs. In early October I had 9,000. Today I have 400 more.
Otherwise, my collection is considered: data for the numerals from 21.460 ways.

Thank you all for your help!

I wish you a lot of success in your work!

Janko Gorenc