Axunashin

[Ran]

Some suggested that there were gaps in the planes-- in effect the universe was something like a Photoshop document, made of layers cut away in spots so you can see those below. The usual idea was that the sun and stars, which seemed not to follow earthly laws and were never corrupted or replaced, were several mure?i above our own; the stars, which do not even move, were even higher.

Planets.

[/nitpick]

I don't know what to say, frankly coz everyone has said it. Incredible work on both Axunashin and Meshaism... you continue to set the standard for all of us.

The Meshaism article is a true joy to read, btw, I just love how those real-world tidbits keep on dropping in like candy from the sky.

[butsuri]

There's something I'm unclear about in the last part of the section on the conditional:

The particles keno and tikeno assume that the condition is counterfactual. In English we use if-then constructions to express logical consequences; these are not keno (conditional) expressions in Axunašin, but tijamu (consequential) ones. Compare:

Turalo koma?eimu keno, komu eidemu šuomu.
Curau-LOC reside-1p-NEG <if house-LOC now be-1p-SUBJ
If we lived in Curau, we'd be home by now.

Turalo komumu tijamu komu eidemu izomu.
Curau-LOC reside-1p therefore> house-LOC now be-1p
If we live in Curau, then we're home.

Fine, but "If we live in Curau, then we're home" is an unlikely English utterance. Presumably the speaker knows whether they live in Curau or not, but normally, in English, a non-counterfactual conditional is only used when the truth of the protasis is unknown or hypothetical.

A: If you lived in Curau, then you would be home. (condition false)
B: If you live in Curau, then you are home. (condition unknown)
C: You live in Curau, so you are home. (condition true)

Now, OK, Axunašin (unlike English) uses forms like tijamu for both B and C. I'd still expect it to be possible (if, perhaps, not mandatory) to distinguish between them, perhaps through use of the subjunctive. If it's not possible, then a different example would make this clearer.

(I'm not saying this three-way split represents a complete analysis of this area of grammar, in English or otherwise, but I can't find a good exposition of it. It's interesting to consider how these distinctions are actually expressed in English.)

Also, towards the end of the section on relativization, both "To geivez kalu naya tu?irtim peš goro komi" and "Tu?irtim geivez kalu naya to peš goro komi" bear the gloss from the unrelatvized example (with "she" prepended).

[zompist]

Is subordination with tinaya more marked than with naya? Is there a difference in emphasis?

Tinaya is more marked (and thus emphasizes the clause), except for reported speech.

[zompist]

Fine, but "If we live in Curau, then we're home" is an unlikely English utterance.

Not really... you may have heard of the movie If this is Tuesday this must be Belgium. Or the bumper sticker "If you can read this, you're too damn close."

A: If you lived in Curau, then you would be home. (condition false)
B: If you live in Curau, then you are home. (condition unknown)
C: You live in Curau, so you are home. (condition true)

Now, OK, Axunašin (unlike English) uses forms like tijamu for both B and C. I'd still expect it to be possible (if, perhaps, not mandatory) to distinguish between them, perhaps through use of the subjunctive. If it's not possible, then a different example would make this clearer.

There's no need to distinguish B and C in Axunashin. However, one could also use the infinitive to express B (or to put it another way, the infinitive has a distancing effect, so it's often used for generalized conditions).

[Gaspard]

More than half the grammar is devoted to syntax; this is partly to serve as a good example. [...] I still see very cursory descriptions of syntax-- a couple of paragraphs on word order and relativization and that's it. Hopefully the Axunashin grammar will show that syntax is as rich a subject as morphology.

That's exactly my problem at the moment!
I haven't seen your new site yet, but I'm looking forward to learn(ing?!) a lot from it.

[butsuri]

Fine, but "If we live in Curau, then we're home" is an unlikely English utterance.

Not really... you may have heard of the movie If this is Tuesday this must be Belgium. Or the bumper sticker "If you can read this, you're too damn close."

I don't agree that these are analogous. People are genuinely uncertain about the day of the week much more often than about where they live. And in the case of the bumper sticker, it's a hypothetical situation from the perspective of the "speaker". (That the message is not delivered unless this situation is made manifest is a bit of wordplay.)

There's no need to distinguish B and C in Axunashin. However, one could also use the infinitive to express B (or to put it another way, the infinitive has a distancing effect, so it's often used for generalized conditions).

Could you give an example of the infinitive use? Perhaps it's only my English-speaking 21st-century viewpoint, but it seems to me that there are situations where one would wish to detail the implications of a hypothesis without making a statement as to whether that hypothesis was true or not. For example, in the investigation of a crime, one might want to discuss what would follow from a certain person's guilt without actually accusing them. It surprises me that a language with a morphological subjunctive would not employ it here.

***

A couple more incorrect glosses:

Under adverbialization, "Reis to rame kejei naya duso bideš ruwu" has the gloss proper to "Reis duso toiš ramu kejim bideš ruwu". Under conjoint reduction, "Tazipivu Tannaza makei li Tima toiš mez en Naiyormen" has the gloss from the unreduced sentence. (And you haven't fixed "Zalai empoji tinaya ?enkirtuim koribimutu", which has the gloss from "?enkirtuim koribimutu naya zalai empoji", under clause reversal.)

[Nuntar]

I don't agree that these are analogous. People are genuinely uncertain about the day of the week much more often than about where they live. And in the case of the bumper sticker, it's a hypothetical situation from the perspective of the "speaker". (That the message is not delivered unless this situation is made manifest is a bit of wordplay.)

What about something like "If that was really John I saw, I'll eat my hat"? The very meaning of the sentence is that the speaker is very certain he did not see John.

[zompist]

Not really... you may have heard of the movie If this is Tuesday this must be Belgium. Or the bumper sticker "If you can read this, you're too damn close."

I don't agree that these are analogous. People are genuinely uncertain about the day of the week much more often than about where they live. And in the case of the bumper sticker, it's a hypothetical situation from the perspective of the "speaker". (That the message is not delivered unless this situation is made manifest is a bit of wordplay.)

I agree that the tone is jocular; but then I was looking for examples that might be familiar to you. All I can suggest is that you keep your ears and eyes open: often enough when you hear about a linguistic phenomenon you'll notice it yourself in the next week. People really do use this construction.

Could you give an example of the infinitive use? Perhaps it's only my English-speaking 21st-century viewpoint, but it seems to me that there are situations where one would wish to detail the implications of a hypothesis without making a statement as to whether that hypothesis was true or not. For example, in the investigation of a crime, one might want to discuss what would follow from a certain person's guilt without actually accusing them.

OK, crimes are good.

Toish jexirto izem toish nano orjibei di.
his murderer-LOC be-INF / his god-LOC abandon / gives
His being a murderer means he has abandoned the gods.

This sentence can be used hypothetically, whether or not the speaker is committed to the idea that the guy is a murderer.

It surprises me that a language with a morphological subjunctive would not employ it here.

Don't get married to the labels. The labels are chosen based on usage, not the other way around. This is why you have to be careful to talk about (say) the "past tense" and "present" and "future" in English... the past can be used to talk about the future ("And what if I grabbed your cookies, huh?"); the present can be used to talk about the past ("So the fighter's on the mat, and the ref is counting down"). In French, the "conditional" can be used as an irrealis ("le pr?sident aura parti ce matin"), while the "past imperfect" can be used to make proposals about the future ("Si nous allions?").

Thanks for the corrections!

[So Haleza Grise]

One query regarding derivational morphology:

The grammar states that the -ax morpheme was borrowed from Wede:i. But as I understand it, it's proposed by some historical linguists (and disputed by others) that morphemes themselves are never borrowed, rather words containing morphemes are borrowed, and the morphemes extended to other words by analogy, an English example being -at(ion).

So was this morpheme borrowed independently or not (ie. do you subsribe to this theory?)?

Secondly, on augmentative -i and Xurnash: as I understand it, final Axunashin -i is lost in Xurnash (ravoi>>>rao, Welezi>>>Elis, etc.). Does this mean that Axunai and Axuna would both become Asuna or something of the sort in Xurnash? I also note that Weinex sometimes (specifically, in the historical atlas) also appears as Weinexi - is this another example of Timai's augmentative enthusiasm?

[vec]

The -tion morpheme was borrowed from Latin. It's still used to create new words. Also -al and -an for adjectives etc. The list is huge.

[Mecislau]

The -tion morpheme was borrowed from Latin. It's still used to create new words. Also -al and -an for adjectives etc. The list is huge.

IIRC, the morpheme itself wasn't borrowed. It arrived in many Latin words into English, and eventually spread by analogy, and is now a productive suffix.



I'm reading through Trask right now, so all of that stuff is still in my mind

[zompist]

One query regarding derivational morphology:

The grammar states that the -ax morpheme was borrowed from Wede:i. But as I understand it, it's proposed by some historical linguists (and disputed by others) that morphemes themselves are never borrowed, rather words containing morphemes are borrowed, and the morphemes extended to other words by analogy, an English example being -at(ion).

So was this morpheme borrowed independently or not (ie. do you subsribe to this theory?)?

I think the theory is undecidable. After all, if languages are in close enough contact to borrow affixes, then they'll already have borrowed words extensively. So it is in this case: Axunashin had borrowed a great number of Wede:i words before it started borrowing affixes as well.

My inclination, however, is to doubt the theory. (Though I think the analogy part is right: I think analogy is never given enough credit. Linguists, like most scientists, love rules; but very often analogy is a better method to postulate than rule application.) This is mostly because I distrust linguistic universals; they're so often wrong.

Some very weak counter-evidence: I know that Indian English forms occupation suffixes with -wallah (from Hindi -va:la:), though I couldn't name a single word that includes it without looking it up. However, when my friend Agto created the jocular coinage "hazmatwallah", I understood it. So it seems that I've borrowed a bound morpheme without any actual lexical examples.

Secondly, on augmentative -i and Xurnash: as I understand it, final Axunashin -i is lost in Xurnash (ravoi>>>rao, Welezi>>>Elis, etc.). Does this mean that Axunai and Axuna would both become Asuna or something of the sort in Xurnash?

Xurn?sh is subject to change. But at present it looks like Xurn?sh has simply reborrowed the augmentative -i from Axunashin. So the Xurn?sh words are Asuna, Asunai.

I also note that Weinex sometimes (specifically, in the historical atlas) also appears as Weinexi - is this another example of Timai's augmentative enthusiasm?

It could be; more likely it's me misreading my hand map of Axunai. The lettering is right next to a strip of coast, and it makes it look like "Weinexi" instead of "Weinex".

(I'm also inclined to think that the augmentative should be Weineki, since I think it uses the oblique root. However, the two words that should decide this go in opposite directions...)