Conlang Diachronics Relay II (now with schedule!)

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 10:16 am

I like the grammatical developments shown in 4pq1injbok's and nebula wind phone's entries.

As for applicatives and voice: One of the possible development ideas was to have it turn into a kind of multi-trigger system (which I had a brief discussion with TomHChappel about in a thread earlier this year) - the applicative prefixes alter the semantic role of the direct object, whereas the voice infixes mainly alter the semantic role of the topic/subject. I hadn't actually thought about what happens when an applicative prefix is used with the accusative voice.

Also, as for topic-comment: I believe the usual interpretation of "a tendency to put topics in subject position at all costs" would say that the subject is in fact a topic, and that the language has topic-comment structure. On the other hand, how does the language deal with so-called "double subject" sentences, e.g. fukak ma tarun-tarun kāraski. "As for (the) tree, all (its) leaves are big."?

nebula wind phone · Post by **nebula wind phone** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 11:03 am

4pq1injbok wrote:[Well, one concrete thing. nebula wind phone, could you tell me the developments you envisage leading to your trigger system? I was also intending to do something in that general area (also much increasing the role of applicatives), and I haven't sat down and drawn out the details of mine yet. Edit: and whence the innovated location-type statives?]

Both of those are extrapolating from little hints dropped in the proto-peninsular grammar. Zhen Lin mentions that there are peninsular languages that can only relativize out of subject position, and require applicatives to make instruments etc. relativizable. (See under "Applicative constructions and verbalization.") Here I'm using the same bag of tricks to put topical in subject position as well. The "agent trigger" voice is Zhen Lin's "ergative" voice, the "patient trigger" is his "accusative" voice, and his "active" voice is reserved for intransitive verbs. (The other proto-peninsular voices will likely become derivational operations rather than real nvoices in Mernesha.) My "direct case" marker, incidentally, is Zhen Lin's topic marker *mā — if topics are always subjects, then a topic marker is a subject case marker, right?

The applicative prefixes are from his locative *ni and instrumental *mta — and those two are the only ones I'm using. A larger set of applicatives in another language would be a very cool development, and totally logical given the state of things in proto-peninsular. It would be especially easy to get a shitload of directional distinctions onto the verb, by fusing in the locative case particles the same way I've fused in *ni and *mta. However you do it, I'll be really excited to see the outcome.

The statives in general come from the gerund forms of proto-peninsular verbs or "adjectives" (which are really just a special class of verbs, even in proto-peninsular, and that's where the idea of a stative class came from). But at a certain point, analogy took over, and other nominal modifiers that didn't come from verbs or adjectives started to be reanalyzed as statives and "corrected" to have stative-looking endings. By the time we arrive at Mernesha proper, every noun modifier that isn't a possessor has some sort of gerund-lookin' morphology on it — it's either a stative or an honest-to-god verb that's been turned into a relative clause. The inspiration here is Japanese, FWIW, but I'm taking it a step farther than Japanese does, turning numbers and locatives and whatnot into gerund-lookin' things as well. (There are Austronesian languages with verb-like numbers; Araki is one.)

So you've got *mfimhai hn-niç piktm [house INESSIVE person] reanalyzed as *mfimhai-hn niç piktm [house-GEN occupy person]. This starts to look like *niç is a stative, and *mfimhai-hn its object — the genitive has merged with the accusative in Mernesha, and is the normal case for the objects of verbs and statives. So we throw the stative gerund-plus-phase-suffix on *niç, giving *mfimhai-hn niç-r-u piktm, and several sound changes later we get wəviməy-ən nišu pitwə. Similarly, once we've got nišu as a stative, it's a short step to back-forming an intensive form, ni-nišu. The clipping that takes those down to šu and nišu is arbitrary, and I might ditch it — to my eye, it gives pretty results but it's an ugly process, if that makes any sense.

FWIW, this is a little up in the air, because I'm still sorting out what I want the semantic division of labor between verbs and statives to be. My gut feeling is that it should have to do with lexical aspect: verbs for achievements, accomplishments and semelfactives, statives for activities and states. That suggests that manner-of-motion words should be statives ("walk" is an activity) and path-shape words should be verbs ("arrive," "climb," "go in," etc. are achievements and accomplishments). But if "be in" is a stative, and statives have an inceptive form, then we expect a word nišwəžu "entering," and then we've got a stative for the path — and presumably, a verb for manner-of-motion. It's a fiddly little point, but describing space and motion is what I'm doing my research on these days, so I've gotten hung up on it, and I'm not sure I'm happy with the current solution. If I can't work out one I am happy with in the next week or so, the locative statives might get disappeared so I can call the language done and pass it on to the next group.

nebula wind phone · Post by **nebula wind phone** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 11:41 am

Zhen Lin wrote:As for applicatives and voice: One of the possible development ideas was to have it turn into a kind of multi-trigger system (which I had a brief discussion with TomHChappel about in a thread earlier this year) - the applicative prefixes alter the semantic role of the direct object, whereas the voice infixes mainly alter the semantic role of the topic/subject. I hadn't actually thought about what happens when an applicative prefix is used with the accusative voice.

Ah, and I hadn't thought about the double-trigger setup. Way cool!

Also, as for topic-comment: I believe the usual interpretation of "a tendency to put topics in subject position at all costs" would say that the subject is in fact a topic, and that the language has topic-comment structure. On the other hand, how does the language deal with so-called "double subject" sentences, e.g. fukak ma tarun-tarun kāraski. "As for (the) tree, all (its) leaves are big."?

Well, the idea is that there aren't double subject sentences here. "All the tree's leaves are big," with the leaves as topic, would be Kagarəšku tərunma fugək yən niwəvyeru "Completely big foliage is to/for the tree." With the tree as topic, it would be Fugəkma kagarəšku tərunən niwəvipsu, where the literal English would I suppose be "The tree is been-for by completely big foliage."

Nortaneous · Post by **Nortaneous** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:44 pm

If anyone wants some shared developments between langs, my vowel shift is up. I have no idea where my lang will fit in geographically, so that can be fucked with if you want to share developments.

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 4:01 pm

Nortaneous wrote:I have no idea where my lang will fit in geographically

Looking at the expansion map (which I'm sure will have to be reworked after this relay) Iŋomœ́ is somewhere in the dark purple area, representing a large steppe region. Of course since you're starting from a nomadic culture you can move your speakers where you want.

4pq1injbok · Post by **4pq1injbok** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 3:44 am

Zhen Lin wrote:As for applicatives and voice: One of the possible development ideas was to have it turn into a kind of multi-trigger system (which I had a brief discussion with TomHChappel about in a thread earlier this year) - the applicative prefixes alter the semantic role of the direct object, whereas the voice infixes mainly alter the semantic role of the topic/subject

Yeah, that's more or less what I wanted to do, actually. Sketching something out now.

nebula: yeah, I guess those developments are the "obvious" ones starting from the extant voice system, so that's good, my system ought to end up with some similarity to yours that way.

Re the statives, I was asking particularly about these ones ulyəku tušwətu pšeku ... that don't have PPen case particle sources. But I guess they have obvious nominal sources. Though, hm, that gives me an interesting idea regarding incorporation...

nebula wind phone · Post by **nebula wind phone** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:41 am

Yeah, those are nominal predicates — from "coating" (<"moss"), "face" and "back" respectively.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:40 pm

Tmaśareʔ now has a sample text and a reasonably complete syntax section. I'll keep on writing up some more detailed stuff - culture, sound changes, and lexicon -, and I'll probably change some of the example sentences to get them more in tune with the cultural setting I have in mind. They'll all remain grammatical though. If any of you next-round guys is interested in deriving a descendant from it, there should be enough to start from.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:56 pm

Round III in the Western group can now officially start:

Abi
Arzena (from Çetázó)
brandrinn
kohorik
Nortaneous (from Iŋomœ́)
Tarasoriku

Those of you who haven't chosen a language to start from so far, please select one of Proto-Coastal-Western (PDF), Iŋomœ́, Tmaśareʔ, Çetázó, Šetâmol (PDF), or Óhylvídós, and tell us which language you're working from. Goal date is Friday Nov 20th.

Kohorik · Post by **Kohorik** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:50 am

I would like to work from Iŋomœ́.

brandrinn · Post by **brandrinn** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:02 am

I also love Ingomoe. I'm writing a language sketch right now, and I should have something workable in a couple of weeks.

eodrakken · Post by **eodrakken** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:16 am

Thanks so much brandrinn and Kohorik! I'm flattered. Let me know if I can help at all.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:12 pm

In case anyone's interested, I've put up a comparative translation of the first section of "The horse and the sheep" in all Western languages that have been completed so far.

dhok · Post by **dhok** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:40 pm

I can, finally, join; what's over's over, since nobody came to the competing bit. I'd like to work on a language. What needs done?

TomHChappell · Post by **TomHChappell** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:43 pm

Zhen Lin wrote:...
One of the possible development ideas was to have it turn into a kind of multi-trigger system (which I had a brief discussion with TomHChappell about in a thread earlier this year) - the applicative prefixes alter the semantic role of the direct object, whereas the voice infixes mainly alter the semantic role of the topic/subject.
...

http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.p ... ltitrigger

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:00 pm

dhokarena56 wrote:I can, finally, join; what's over's over, since nobody came to the competing bit. I'd like to work on a language. What needs done?

If your time budget permits, I think it would be cool if you could go in round IV of the Western team. You'd probably start your turn 2-3 weeks from now, aiming to finish around Dec 6th.

If you'd prefer another time or language family, please say so.

Abi · Post by **Abi** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:55 am

I'm gunna be working on a descendant of Óhylvídós.

Do we upload it to AkanaWiki, or do we put it anywhere on the web?

Zhen Lin · Post by **Zhen Lin** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 8:16 am

Either works. In the latter case a stub article will be created on AkanaWiki linking to the full article.

Tarasoriku · Post by **Tarasoriku** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 2:28 pm

I'd like to be moved to the 4th group (6 Dec), if possible, I have midterms to grade and squibs to write due now. I'd like to work from Tmaśareʔ, but the site says changes may be added - what stage of completion is it in?

If I can't be moved I will have to drop I'm afraid, but everyone's work so far is too cool to pass up, so I will be sad.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 3:00 pm

Tarasoriku wrote:I'd like to be moved to the 4th group (6 Dec), if possible, I have midterms to grade and squibs to write due now. I'd like to work from Tmaśareʔ, but the site says changes may be added - what stage of completion is it in?

Moving you to the 4th group is no problem, and it's cool to know you're interested in Tmaśareʔ - this will definitely help me finalize it. Give me a day or two to find any inconsistencies in what's online now; after that you can be sure that everything that's published will stay valid. What's still missing currently is the lexicon, the transformations section of the syntax, and a short introduction about the setting.

brandrinn · Post by **brandrinn** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:50 am

Where can we find more information about the surrounding cultures/languages? And where is Lukpanic spoken?

brandrinn · Post by **brandrinn** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:58 am

Wow, I sure know how to kill a discussion.

Anyway, Western Language X will be ready this weekend.

Cedh · Post by **Cedh** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 4:06 am

brandrinn wrote:Where can we find more information about the surrounding cultures/languages? And where is Lukpanic spoken?

There is no information about the surrounding peoples apart from what's written on the Lukpanic page. It would be great if you could add something in that area!

Lukpanic is spoken on the northern coast of the large bay (see here), in the area that the light blue group takes over later on. Specifically, Lukpanic holds out for some time longer on the small peninsula reaching southwards in the middle of that coastal area.

Kohorik · Post by **Kohorik** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:53 am

I have started to put my lang Satnímʔa on the Akana web-site,
here. So far it's the phonology. I will continue to put out some allophony and the grammar when I find time.

Nortaneous · Post by **Nortaneous** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 12:32 pm

Hǽňhelubľ phonology is up.