Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by sangi39 »

احمک ارش-ھجنو wrote:For my 3con language, how do I diachronically come up with patterns that geminate the final consonant of a root and patterns that geminate the first consonant of a root?
Reduplication and syncope could work: Say that every other vowel backwards from the end of a word is deleted, unless that would result in an initial consonant cluster:

/parata/ > [par'ta] vs. /paratata/ > [parat'ta] (reduplication of the final syllable followed by vowel syncope. /a/ in the first syllable retained due to illegal initial [pr] cluster)
/tiluka/ > [til'ka] vs. /atitiluka/ > [attil'ka] (reduplication of the first syllable, with the addition of a prefix, followed by vowel syncope)


IIRC, some believe that reduplication and haplology led to gemination of the second radical in Semitic languages, e.g. -paras- > -parparas- > -parras- (with loss of the second instances of -pa- through haplology). There's a chance syncope may have helped this as well, e.g. -parparas- > -parpras- > -parras- with simplification of the medial cluster -rpr-.
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

sangi39 wrote:
احمک ارش-ھجنو wrote:For my 3con language, how do I diachronically come up with patterns that geminate the final consonant of a root and patterns that geminate the first consonant of a root?
Reduplication and syncope could work: Say that every other vowel backwards from the end of a word is deleted, unless that would result in an initial consonant cluster:

/parata/ > [par'ta] vs. /paratata/ > [parat'ta] (reduplication of the final syllable followed by vowel syncope. /a/ in the first syllable retained due to illegal initial [pr] cluster)
/tiluka/ > [til'ka] vs. /atitiluka/ > [attil'ka] (reduplication of the first syllable, with the addition of a prefix, followed by vowel syncope)


IIRC, some believe that reduplication and haplology led to gemination of the second radical in Semitic languages, e.g. -paras- > -parparas- > -parras- (with loss of the second instances of -pa- through haplology). There's a chance syncope may have helped this as well, e.g. -parparas- > -parpras- > -parras- with simplification of the medial cluster -rpr-.
Well, how is that going to look in a language where stress is penultimate if the last syllable is open and ultimate if the last syllable is closed? Sometimes syncope does things to the plural that are not desirable or matching the singular. And I don't have vowel length to prevent that. I suppose I could attribute it to grammatical stress. Lastly, my conlang can allow for a lot of initial CC clusters to appear, so syncope is just going to disagree with me.

Well, I have examples of geminate stems;
Medial:
ḵarímu > ḵarḵarímu > ḵarḵrímu > ḵarrámu
ḵarimúd > ḵarḵarimúd > ḵarḵarmúd :?: > ḵarramúd
kejím > kejkejím > kejkjím > kujjám
kejimám > kejkejimám > kejkejmám :?: > kujjamám
Final:
nakíšu > nakišíšu > nakšíšu > nakšíšu
nakišúd > nakišišúd > nakiššúd :?: > nakšišúd

Must the reduplication be CVC?
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by Max1461 »

ls it reasonable for a language to lose extensive number marking, while leaving other nominal mophology relatively intact? How might this happen?

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by vokzhen »

Sound change could be used, and I'd guess is the most common route, but it depends heavily on how the plurals are formed. E.g. a final plural -e is lost when all final vowels are devoiced and deleted, or collapses with non-number-marking final vowels to schwa and the distinction is lost, or or if it's marked by a final -s and coda -s > -h > null. Maybe expansion of a classifier system into a noun class system? Where <noun-PL> but <num CL noun>, and as classifiers spread to non-numeral situations they bring with it non-number-marking when a classifier is present. Or possibly replacement by a non-morphological plural, synthetic <noun-PL> versus paraphrasic <many noun>. The latter two are just ideas, no idea if they're attested.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by hwhatting »

Max1461 wrote:ls it reasonable for a language to lose extensive number marking, while leaving other nominal mophology relatively intact? How might this happen?
What do you mean by "extensive"? If having more than one number, that's something which happened in several IE and non-IE languages - most IE languages and also e.g. many Arabic "dialects" lost the dual number, and some of these languages still have a rich nominal morphology (e.g. most Slavic languages). OTOH, according to WALS there are only very few languages that have "no plural" (which I take to mean "not having any number distinction marked on nouns") combined with case marking*), so it looks like having no number distinction combined with a rich nominal morphology is rare, but not impossible.
*) Of course there are other categories besides case and number that can be marked on nouns, but looking for case marking seems to be the easiest proxy for "rich nominal morphology" on WALS.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
ʾAšol ḵavad pulqam ʾifbižen lav ʾifšimeḻ lit maseḡrad lav lit n͛ubad. ʾUpulasim ṗal sa-panžun lav sa-ḥadṇ lav ṗal šarmaḵeš lit ʾaẏṭ waẏyadanun wižqanam.
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by Travis B. »

احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
Why not, through prepositions > adverbs > prefixes?
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

Travis B. wrote:
احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
Why not, through prepositions > adverbs > prefixes?
But it is the location that makes me feel it can't, and I could never figure out how to get something on one side of a word into being on the other side, not without turning it into a circummorpheme. Oh yea, and could a morpheme become circummorphemic? Like a suffix become a circumfix?
ʾAšol ḵavad pulqam ʾifbižen lav ʾifšimeḻ lit maseḡrad lav lit n͛ubad. ʾUpulasim ṗal sa-panžun lav sa-ḥadṇ lav ṗal šarmaḵeš lit ʾaẏṭ waẏyadanun wižqanam.
- Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by Max1461 »

hwhatting wrote: What do you mean by "extensive"?
Going from a singular-dual-paucal-plural system to basically just vestages of number marking. Actually, nouns aren't marked for case (there is a system of "case particals" which serve that function), but for possesion, among other things.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by hwhatting »

احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:
Travis B. wrote:
احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
Why not, through prepositions > adverbs > prefixes?
But it is the location that makes me feel it can't, and I could never figure out how to get something on one side of a word into being on the other side, not without turning it into a circummorpheme. Oh yea, and could a morpheme become circummorphemic? Like a suffix become a circumfix?
Wel, SOV Systems have a tendency to use postpositions, so the development could be preposition > postposition > verbal prefix. Although I wouldn't know of any good example for this; the strict SOV languages I know best (Turkic) don't tend to have prefixed verbs, and the development in the IE languages (which originally were default SOV) was original adverbs, which could be placed relativel freely in the sentence, turning into both prepositions and prefixes.
The examples of cirumfixes I know arose by certain conbinations of prefix and suffix coalescing into one circumfix, not by an affix being split into a prefix and suffix part. So I doubt whether circumposition or circumfix is ever an intermediate stage for moving from position before to the position after a word.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by hwhatting »

Max1461 wrote:
hwhatting wrote: What do you mean by "extensive"?
Going from a singular-dual-paucal-plural system to basically just vestages of number marking. Actually, nouns aren't marked for case (there is a system of "case particals" which serve that function), but for possesion, among other things.
I see. Well, I can't say more than systems without overt number marking are a minority, and those which then still have extensive nominal morphology are quite rare. Doesn't mean it's impossible.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

hwhatting wrote:
احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:
Travis B. wrote:
احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
Why not, through prepositions > adverbs > prefixes?
But it is the location that makes me feel it can't, and I could never figure out how to get something on one side of a word into being on the other side, not without turning it into a circummorpheme. Oh yea, and could a morpheme become circummorphemic? Like a suffix become a circumfix?
Wel, SOV Systems have a tendency to use postpositions, so the development could be preposition > postposition > verbal prefix. Although I wouldn't know of any good example for this; the strict SOV languages I know best (Turkic) don't tend to have prefixed verbs, and the development in the IE languages (which originally were default SOV) was original adverbs, which could be placed relativel freely in the sentence, turning into both prepositions and prefixes.
The examples of cirumfixes I know arose by certain conbinations of prefix and suffix coalescing into one circumfix, not by an affix being split into a prefix and suffix part. So I doubt whether circumposition or circumfix is ever an intermediate stage for moving from position before to the position after a word.
I guess I should not worry too much on it and just say "these were preposition on nouns and somehow they ended up prefixed to verbs"

It feels like a pattern that words position themselves around the verb: in VO languages, they seem to be prepositions while OV languages use post positions, as if the adposition points towards the verb.
ʾAšol ḵavad pulqam ʾifbižen lav ʾifšimeḻ lit maseḡrad lav lit n͛ubad. ʾUpulasim ṗal sa-panžun lav sa-ḥadṇ lav ṗal šarmaḵeš lit ʾaẏṭ waẏyadanun wižqanam.
- Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by Mâq Lar »

احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
One possibility is applicative voice; where the preposition is used to mark the voice:
I with the pen wrote :> I the pen with-wrote
I for her kill would :> I her for-killed would
Then you could drop the promoted noun; or keep applicatives and have the structure you want by analogy

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

Mâq Lar wrote:
احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
One possibility is applicative voice; where the preposition is used to mark the voice:
I with the pen wrote :> I the pen with-wrote
I for her kill would :> I her for-killed would
Then you could drop the promoted noun; or keep applicatives and have the structure you want by analogy
That's what I'm trying to develop, yeah.
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by Mâq Lar »

So your original question was "could postpositions become applicative prefixes"? In that case I do t think you have a problem; just directly do the change. They don't need an intermediary circumfix stage to "slide" around the noun or anything.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

No, my original question was about prepositions, not postpositions.
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by WeepingElf »

How about this: prepositions merge with demonstratives, and the resulting adverbs become applicative prefixes?
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Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

WeepingElf wrote:How about this: prepositions merge with demonstratives, and the resulting adverbs become applicative prefixes?
How does that work? And, while my language is Noun-Adjective, demonstratives come before the nouns.
ʾAšol ḵavad pulqam ʾifbižen lav ʾifšimeḻ lit maseḡrad lav lit n͛ubad. ʾUpulasim ṗal sa-panžun lav sa-ḥadṇ lav ṗal šarmaḵeš lit ʾaẏṭ waẏyadanun wižqanam.
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by Mâq Lar »

احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:No, my original question was about prepositions, not postpositions.
That was just a typo; regardless of whether it was pre- or post-, I don't see a problem or a need to justify it by stepwise creeping around the noun and onto the verb. It would be an intuitively obvious development to all native speakers, just as any English speaker would understand "I through-walked the park" with out needing an intermediate "I walked-through the park" stage.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

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احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:
Travis B. wrote:
احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:Could a preposition before a noun end up prefixed to a verb (in SOV word order)?
Why not, through prepositions > adverbs > prefixes?
But it is the location that makes me feel it can't, and I could never figure out how to get something on one side of a word into being on the other side, not without turning it into a circummorpheme.
It's very simple: move it to the other side of the word. English and German (and probably other Germanic languages) started to do this at one point. That's how we got words like therefore (= "for that") and whereby (= "by what/which").

And the Scandinavian languages did the same thing with the definite article, e.g. huset "the house".
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by WeepingElf »

احمکي ارش-ھجن wrote:
WeepingElf wrote:How about this: prepositions merge with demonstratives, and the resulting adverbs become applicative prefixes?
How does that work? And, while my language is Noun-Adjective, demonstratives come before the nouns.
My idea was that something like "to that" merges into a single wordlet that means "thereto".
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

From what adverbs (or other word) could one derive a counterfactual past and present tense?

My conlang expresses a realis-irrealis distinction in the tenses. All with different prefixes for each tense.
ʾAšol ḵavad pulqam ʾifbižen lav ʾifšimeḻ lit maseḡrad lav lit n͛ubad. ʾUpulasim ṗal sa-panžun lav sa-ḥadṇ lav ṗal šarmaḵeš lit ʾaẏṭ waẏyadanun wižqanam.
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by Travis B. »

I presume a modal like would conjujgated for the past and present tenses would do, once reduced into an affix.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by احمکي ارش-ھجن »

Travis B. wrote:I presume a modal like would conjujgated for the past and present tenses would do, once reduced into an affix.
Except the past and present affixes are different and do not share similar etymological origin.
The present irrealis has a prefix /tse/ while the past irrealis has prefix /tKu/

Then again, these could be suppletive forms of the same verb...
ʾAšol ḵavad pulqam ʾifbižen lav ʾifšimeḻ lit maseḡrad lav lit n͛ubad. ʾUpulasim ṗal sa-panžun lav sa-ḥadṇ lav ṗal šarmaḵeš lit ʾaẏṭ waẏyadanun wižqanam.
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Re: Grammaticalization Quickie Thread

Post by StrangerCoug »

When you're dealing with an agglutinative language (well... one you're trying to turn into a fusional language via sound change, anyway), what correlation is there between how often forms of a word are used and how likely they are to survive? I've managed to create a verbal system for such a language in such a way that each verb has 832 forms (that is not a typo—eight hundred and thirty-two forms)—and that STILL doesn't cover every single possibility I can think of. So if you forget that you're dealing with an agglutinative language and don't know/don't remember the template for how to form verbs... you're in trouble. I like this flexibility the system provides in principle, but I'd imagine learning the verbs would be a pain in daughter languages if I don't think of something.
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