Polysynthetic Conlang

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Aurora Rossa
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Post by Aurora Rossa »

So I just add a suffix for obliviate? I can do that.
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Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:So I just add a suffix for obliviate? I can do that.
An affix that displaces whatever affix you use to indicate third person, yes.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

So now I have to add a suffix for 3rd. person? That will require me to retranslate everything...
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"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."

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Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:So now I have to add a suffix for 3rd. person? That will require me to retranslate everything...
How do you distinguish 1st, 2nd and 3rd person now? I would assume you have some way of morphologically distinguishing 3rd person already.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

3rd person is default. I'll make suffixs for 1st, 2nd, and 4th person.
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"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."

jburke

Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:3rd person is default. I'll make suffixs for 1st, 2nd, and 4th person.
Diachronically speaking, first person would be more likely to be default; but no language I know of has any person as default.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Diachronically speaking, first person would be more likely to be default; but no language I know of has any person as default
I have the affixes for the verb already. I was talking about the noun itself. How many times do you hear "I, Eddy, am great."?
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"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."

jburke

Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:
Diachronically speaking, first person would be more likely to be default; but no language I know of has any person as default
I have the affixes for the verb already. I was talking about the noun itself. How many times do you hear "I, Eddy, am great."?
Well, given your use of verbal nouns, the verbal and nominal morphologies would be the same.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

How would I indicate the person of a building, k'?la?
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"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."

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Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:How would I indicate the person of a building, k'?la?
Oh, ok; you have unanalyzable noun roots, too. That's fine. For those nouns, make them third person by default and just add an affix for fourth person--like you wanted to do.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Here is part of the song "Baby got back" in T?l@uilgo//.

<kn?>
K!auma.
Beki!'i, mimum@?tl!ak?mek.
F?t//oksami.
Tma!ok?mi rapperisxaflna.
!d?rapper? qtadstenakumiq?
Mlu!i kn?m? qetma!olami st?@q?!e!its'ami, OK?
Kn?ma mimum@?!i.
F?t//oksami.
Ek@?noma f?m@oksami.
!demlutq?ksami.
Lkaf?lama.
Tl!amek, f?qmiksami.
</kn?>

<fn?>
T//omum@??lkakuma el@ema,
ie//m?'uf?mu x'imeft??!'i
mluts@i @isxat?l@uf//?mi f?t//oo!n?ql'?mi
metk?dks? m@omluql'?mi,
tniquqstekame.
mlutksutq? xeksame
qemump?n!?k?me @q?ktm?guumi
mikmets@i.
Mla'uma etl'imam.
O, m@o!'i, xe!kumeman
ments?!ikts?t?ma.
mafnla? x?'lnaakem?,
memum@?
ixlaxets'?mi mlitq?.
O, qtsemum@?ksami.
Kn?meq xeksame mabents@i?
Kikemek, kikemek,
qeksaf?k?me m@sak?q'olami.
K?tl!aak?ma.
X?lkaema.
mludks? k'uksani.
Fstavett?ksami.
Mlatq? k?tfik?xlaksan? magazinu
@akn?n? t//oomum@?? @taksam?.
M@saqmit?l@u !'esakemek.
T//omum@?ql'?k?mi'.
T?l@u?!(Qna!)T?l@u?!(Qna!)
Mesxaflna!'? mum@?ql'?k?miq?
Qts?k?mek xlal@?domi mum@?tq?.
Xlal@?domek sqi'umum@atq?.
M@o mum@?ql'?lami.
(L.A.itki Oaklangimum@?)
M@o mum@?ql'?lami.
(L.A.itki Oaklandimum@?)
(L.A.itki Oaklandimum@?)
</fn?>
Last edited by Aurora Rossa on Sun Aug 31, 2003 8:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Mecislau »

Eddy the Great wrote:Here is part of the song "Baby got back" in T?l@uilgo//.

[additional text cut out because it was too long to put in a quote]
Can you give a gloss?

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Can you give a gloss?
It's very big, but I can give you a gloss of part of it.

T//omum@??lkakuma el@ema,
T//o-mum@?-?-lka-ku-ma e-l@e-ma,
big-butt-animate.plural-like-3SOA.
ie//m?'uf?mu x'imeft??!'i
i-e-//m?'u-f?-mu x'ime-ft?-?-!'i
though-can't-confess-not-2PSA other-brother-animate.plural-2nd.person
mluts@i @isxat?l@uf//?mi f?t//oo!n?ql'?mi
mlu-ts@i @i-sxat?l@u-f//?-mi f?-t//o-o-!n?-ql'?-mi
thing-inside when-woman-walk-3SSA very-big-un-waist-have-3SSA
metk?dks? m@omluql'?mi,
me-tk?-dks? m@o-mlu-ql'?-mi,
your-face-near round-thing-have-3SSA
tniquqstekame.
tniqu-qsteka-me.
"sprung"-become-2SSA.

Notes: "thing" is a 3rd person pronoun. It is often used as a place holder. There is no translation for direct "sprung", although xets'ame would also be close.
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Post by Mecislau »

Eddy the Great wrote:
Can you give a gloss?
It's very big, but I can give you a gloss of part of it.

T//omum@??lkakuma el@ema,
T//o-mum@?-?-lka-ku-ma e-l@e-ma,
big-butt-animate.plural-like-3SOA.
ie//m?'uf?mu x'imeft??!'i
i-e-//m?'u-f?-mu x'ime-ft?-?-!'i
though-can't-confess-not-2PSA other-brother-animate.plural-2nd.person
mluts@i @isxat?l@uf//?mi f?t//oo!n?ql'?mi
mlu-ts@i @i-sxat?l@u-f//?-mi f?-t//o-o-!n?-ql'?-mi
thing-inside when-woman-walk-3SSA very-big-un-waist-have-3SSA
metk?dks? m@omluql'?mi,
me-tk?-dks? m@o-mlu-ql'?-mi,
your-face-near round-thing-have-3SSA
tniquqstekame.
tniqu-qsteka-me.
"sprung"-become-2SSA.

Notes: "thing" is a 3rd person pronoun. It is often used as a place holder. There is no translation for direct "sprung", although xets'ame would also be close.
Okay, thanks.

This was probably discussed earlier, but what are all of the letters/numbers at the end of each line?

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

The letters and numbers are the gloss for the verb inflection. 3SSA means 3rd person singular subject animate. 2 means it's second person, and O in the middle menas it's the object.
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"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Here are some interesting things. The root for room and componant are the same: !sam?. There is a suffix for indicating that something should be, like this: S@a!?max(I should be sleeping.)
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"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."

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Post by jburke »

Maknas--

I found a version of Hail Mary in Petter's Cheyenne orthography:

Ave Maria,
zenanosheamaesz
Maheo zevissevata
zeshivatamaet zeoxextohevoxzheeo,
na ninanoshivatama nihevetoxeszexaet Jesus.
Sana Maria Maheo heeshk,
nixaona-otshemen havsivevo-e-tastovez,
hezeze namaxoost nanastonan.
Enahaan.


Petter's blunders:

No glottals, when this is one of the commonest sounds in the language;

<z> for the [ts] affricate;

Word-final consonants, when Cheyenne words always end with a vowel; this happened because he didn't catch the voiceless vowels at the ends of many words;

Doubled consonants, when these never occur in the language;

No markings for pitch or vowel devoicing whatsoever.

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Post by Salmoneus »

This hardly seems surprising, given what the man was likely used to.

No glottals - don't occur phonemically in IE (so far as I know) so easily overlooked.
"z" for "ts" - hardly seems much of a flaw - that's what "z" stands for in German as well (and other languages, I think). Using a German spelling convention rather than an English one doesn't seem too great a sin.
Missing final vowels - whoops, should have listened harder. Can't really defend that one.
Double consonants - again, don't know of any good reason. Maybe something to do with following/preceeding vowel quality, as in English?
Not adding pitch or devoicing - neither occur phonemically in IE, so they'd have been difficult to spot, and even if he did, maybe he didn't realise that they were important. On the other hand, English does not mark stressed vowels (which are often phonemic), or pitch (which is phonemic in conversation, even if not in strict grammar).

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

These are the same people who supposedly created a writing system unlike anything they knew about for the Cree.
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Post by jburje »

Eddy the Great wrote:These are the same people who supposedly created a writing system unlike anything they knew about for the Cree.
Exactly. Rev. Petter's errors are excusable for the most part; but he did have the benefit of living in a far more linguistically saavy world than James Evans did. And yet Evans supposedly created a sophisticated syllabary without any errors of the kind that marr all other missionary systems.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

When did they develop their script, Jburke?
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Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:When did they develop their script, Jburke?
The Cree? No one knows; but it's likely very old. Most modern dialects of Cree have 5-6 phonemic vowels (not counting the length distinction); but the syllabary is based on the quadra vowel system that Cree historically had (and which some dialects retain). So, the syllabary is probably at least a thousand years old; and the Blackfoot claim the Cree took it from them, and that they had it for much longer. That's a harder claim to demonstrate, but not out of the question. (Blackfoot also had--and has--four phonemic vowels.)

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Interesting. While it fits the phonology better than missionary orthography, it shows the same lag between sound change and writing that other systems show, like how English still writes things a certain way.
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Post by Aurora Rossa »

If a language had 2 numbers, 3 genders, and 3 numbers, then it'd have 18 posible comboniations for the subject and object. That would total to 324 affixes if the gender, number, and person were expressed in one affix. Didn't you day Mohawk does that?
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"There was a particular car I soon came to think of as distinctly St. Louis-ish: a gigantic white S.U.V. with a W. bumper sticker on it for George W. Bush."

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Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:If a language had 2 numbers, 3 genders, and 3 numbers, then it'd have 18 posible comboniations for the subject and object. That would total to 324 affixes if the gender, number, and person were expressed in one affix. Didn't you day Mohawk does that?
Mohawk has three persons (first, second, third), three numbers (singular, dual, plural) and four genders (masculine, feminine, neuter, indefinite). It has three classes of affixes for agreement: subjective, objective and transitive. It has 15 subjective prefixes, 15 objective prefixes, and some 50-60 transitive prefixes, which are fuisional markers of both agent and patient.

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