Polysynthetic Conlang

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Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

Maknas wrote:Sorry if I confused you, Eddy. When I was talking about the precative mood, I meant it in reply to Glenn Kempf, who called it "weak imperative".
I was doing a take-off of Eddy's definitions of "stromg command" and "weak command"; I do agree that the exact terminology is not terribly important, as long as the description of the language itself is clear and relatively easy to understand (indeed, as Jeff indicates, it's good for the terminology to "match" the language).
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jburke wrote:Polysynthesis is new conlanging ground; it's only right that it be discussed to death. :)
True. You've even inspired me to try my hand at a poly lang. :P
Indeed; I've found the discussions of polysynthesis on the board fascinating. I'd like to try my hand at a poly lang myself (and have a few meager notes already), but I also have non-poly langs I'd like to work on as well... :wink:

p@,
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Post by Aurora Rossa »

T?l@uilğo/ has 5 aspects(default, imperfect, habitual, starting, and stopping). I'm guessing that isn't too many.
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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:T?l@uilğo/ has 5 aspects(default, imperfect, habitual, starting, and stopping). I'm guessing that isn't too many.
BTW, do your preverbs work like Algonquian preverbs?

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

BTW, do your preverbs work like Algonquian preverbs?
If they proceed the verb directly, they do:

Xes?emi.
Xe-s?e-mi.
Want-eat-3rd.person.singular.animate.subject
He wants to eat.
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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:
BTW, do your preverbs work like Algonquian preverbs?
If they proceed the verb directly, they do:

Xes?emi.
Xe-s?e-mi.
Want-eat-3rd.person.singular.animate.subject
He wants to eat.
How do you say 'he-wants-to-eat-meat'?

(I use postverbs instead of preverbs, but the only difference is that they come in a slot after the stem intead of before.)

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

How do you say 'he-wants-to-eat-meat'?
Lik@axes?ek?mi.
Lik@a-xe-s?e-k?-mi
meat-want-eat-4SOA-3SSA.
He wants to eat meat.

Note that 4SOA means 4th person singular animate object.
Image
"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:
How do you say 'he-wants-to-eat-meat'?
Lik@axes?ek?mi.
Lik@a-xe-s?e-k?-mi
meat-want-eat-4SOA-3SSA.
He wants to eat meat.

Note that 4SOA means 4th person singular animate object.
I asked because in languages that incorporate direct objects, the root and object usually touch, and in fact form a unitary stem (to which other affixes are added). It looks like your preverbs can come between the root and object.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Is it a bad thing that the preverb is in between the noun and verb?
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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:Is it a bad thing that the preverb is in between the noun and verb?
I've never seen it, but you can do what you like. There really aren't many hard rules in this thing.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

I'm changing it to be on the safe side.
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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 »

Xelik@es?ek?mi.-He wants to eat meat.

I think tht looks good. You can also say this: Xeqstemu?xilik@es?ek?mi.-He wants to eat meat instead of an apple.(Or ...but not an apple.)
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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 »

Tl!aalama k?st?u?f?l?ni.-I saw a stardestroyer.
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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:Tl!aalama k?st?u?f?l?ni.-I saw a stardestroyer.
Can you incorporated the object "star destroyer"?

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Can you incorporated the object "star destroyer"?
No, the word for star destroyer means it-destroys-stars.
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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:
Can you incorporated the object "star destroyer"?
No, the word for star destroyer means it-destroys-stars.
You could devise some "abbreviations" for verbal nouns that are incorporable. Cheyenne has medial forms; Noyatukah has initial forms.

In modern Mohawk, only noun roots are incorporable; but of old, it's been thought that it worked somewhat like Cheyenne: you could incorporate any nominal because it had a set of abbreviated forms.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

You could devise some "abbreviations" for verbal nouns that are incorporable. Cheyenne has medial forms; Noyatukah has initial forms.

In modern Mohawk, only noun roots are incorporable; but of old, it's been thought that it worked somewhat like Cheyenne: you could incorporate any nominal because it had a set of abbreviated forms.
I don't think I need to. The system I have works fine for me.
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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 Mecislau »

Hope you don't mind, Jburke, but since I will be trying my hand at a polysynthetic language, I will probably be asking some questions (although most of them were answered in the first part of this thread).
jburke wrote:modal(s) + pronominal_prefix + incorporated_noun_root + verb_root + suffix(es)
You said this was the basic structure of an expression in Mohawk, right?

This is just a basic question, but what is a "prenominal prefix"?


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Post by jburke »

This is just a basic question, but what is a "prenominal prefix"?
A pronominal prefix is required on every Mohawk verb; it gives subject and object information, and provides for agreement. Mohawk has three classes: subjective, objective and transitive prefixes.

Now, pretty much everyone agrees that the current Mohawk agreement system is fucked up from a non-native POV; and that this is due to semantic drift. The roots randomly trigger subject or object agreement; but this system evolved from an earlier one that was active and semantic-based (and which I reconstructed and used as the agreement system for Noyatukah). It went like this:

Subject agreement is triggered when an instransitive root has just a subject participant. Object agreement is triggered when an intransitive root has both a subject and object participant, but the subject is not acting directly on the object (e.g., 'He-tells-stories'). Transitive agreement is triggered when there is an agent and patient, i.e., when there is a subject acting directly on an object; in these cases, there is an active relationnship between subject and object.

In Mohawk, subjective prefixes are often analyzable into parts corresponding to person and number; and objective prefixes are
subject prefixes + an object marker. Transitive prefixes, however, are fused morphemes that deny analysis; they give both agent and patient information.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Hope you don't mind, Jburke, but since I will be trying my hand at a polysynthetic language, I will probably be asking some questions (although most of them were answered in the first part of this thread).
You don't have to make the morphology like that of Mohawk. T?l@uil&#287o/ does it like this:

misc-aspect-preverb-inc.noun-verb-tense-object.marker-subject.marker-mood
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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 »

Jedi ksak?mi akmi@okis?m?.-A Jedi is someone who can use the Force.
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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:Jedi ksak?mi akmi@okis?m?.-A Jedi is someone who can use the Force.
With "Jedi" rendered into Noyatukah phonology:
Yeti lashenan.
Or, if I created a nominal for Jedi, it would probably mean 'he-uses-the-Force,' or simply 'he-forces', lashenan. So, saying "A Jedi uses the Force" in Noyatukah would be a tautology.

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Post by Aurora Rossa »

Since there is no j or d in T?l@uil&#287o/, Jedi would probably be Tse?i or Tse?ai. That example makes use of the 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."

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Post by jburke »

Eddy the Great wrote:Since there is no j or d in T?l@uilğo/, Jedi would probably be Tse?i or Tse?ai. That example makes use of the 4th person.
Why would you be using the obviative there? There's just a subject.

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Post by Guest »

jburke wrote:
Eddy the Great wrote:Jedi ksak?mi akmi@okis?m?.-A Jedi is someone who can use the Force.
With "Jedi" rendered into Noyatukah phonology:
Yeti lashenan.
Or, if I created a nominal for Jedi, it would probably mean 'he-uses-the-Force,' or simply 'he-forces', lashenan. So, saying "A Jedi uses the Force" in Noyatukah would be a tautology.
I'm consistently impressed by how compactly your language can express things. I'm guessing that there would be many implications packed into a word like "lashenan". If a Jedi DOES use the Force, then he CAN use it by implication.

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Post by jburke »

I'm guessing that there would be many implications packed into a word like "lashenan". If a Jedi DOES use the Force, then he CAN use it by implication.
Exactly. Speakers would consider trying to express the notion of 'can' redundant and inelegant. It's a cultural difference from English.

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