Corusis; constructing a noun-based language?

[corsairouge]

Hello there! Wow it's been a while since I've been on this site and it's been a while since I touched my original conlang and have since done major revisions to it.

So anyway, here's some real-world background information into creating this conlang: it started when I started learning French almost 6 years ago and took an interest in languages, specifically creating one. I began to create one based off French and sort of changing the phonology around, essentially creating a Romlang. I guess back then at my age it was quite revolutionary and cool. But the more I played around with this Romlang, the more I realized I was basically creating a variant of French with phonological similarities to Italian and Catalan/Occitan with a few grammatical gimmicks here and there. So I sort of tossed it aside for a while and thought about learning and exploring SOV order to make it a little different and "similar to Latin," though I really didn't know much about that language. What's piqued my interest in starting up this conlang project again (and what's also frustrating me in trying to create verb grammar and structure) is creating noun-based language. It still retains the European/Latinate phonology since it's easy to work with for now until I explore more about phonology, but I'm hoping to work on this conlang to have a French/Latin-derived vocabulary and sounds with a priori grammar structure. Basically kind of like how English has evolved to have a strong Latinate vocabulary, but still retains Germanic grammar.

That being said, is it possible to create a noun-based language in which all the roots or most of the roots are nouns, and adjectives and verbs are derived from the nouns (examples later in this post)? Are there any natlangs or conlangs that exhibit this? I know there are verb-based languages but I have yet to find noun-based ones that I can sort of learn from. At this point, I am stuck in creating my conlang because I can't seem to come up with a draft of rules on how to create verbs.

Conlang/conculture background
Basically, li lenha corusis or Corusian, is spoken in the city-state of Corusi, a country about 2/3 the size of Singapore and situated between France and Italy. It was an area with its "indigenous" language and culture, if you will, and became a Roman colony, and soon eventually rullied by France until the 1600's or so, and the language has been quite influenced by French sounds, but has managed to retain much of its original grammar.

Phonology
I haven't explored much of the sounds, but it's the same basic sounds as I would presume the Occitan branch.

Alphabet: a b c ç d e é è f g h i j l m n o p r s t u v z
Sounds: /a b k ʃ d e e ɛ f g h i ʒ l m n o p r s t u v ʒ/ <-more or less

J is used if the word begins with that sound, whereas z is used in the middle or end of word.
eg, Julhe /'ʒul:e/ (July)
vs. piraz /pⁱ'raʒ/ (beach); /'plaʒ/ > /pi'l:aʒ/ > /pⁱ'raʒ/

Pronouns, nouns, and cases
Corusis utilizes 7 cases: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, ablative, comitative, and locative. Thinking about adding lative.
Language is SOV and declension is used to mark word functions. Declension is very basic in simply adding the respective ending. There is also no word gender as seen in Romance languages.
Plural is not normally inflected in nouns, but in creating 1st, 2nd, 3rd person plural, it is generally created by adding -ei. Noste and voste became more common with French influences, and çonei/sunei tend to be used in more archaic or conservative writing and speech.

Basic pronouns and their declensions (in the order listed above and below):
ço /ʃɔ/: I. ço, çen, mon, meis, çare, çam, meus.
su /su/: you. su, sen, ton, teis, sare, sam, teus.
hiel /hjel/: he. hiel, ilen, ilon, ilis, ilare, ilam, ilus
elha /ɛl:a/: she. elha, elhen, elhon, elhis, elhare, elham, ehlus
ion /jon/: it or 3rd person neutral gender ion, ionen, ionon, ionis, ionare, ionam, ionus.
noste/çonei /nostɛ/ or /ʃone/: we. noste, nosten, noston, nostis, nostare, nostam, nostus
voste/sunei /vostɛ/ or /sune/: voste voste, vosten, voston, vostis, vostare, vostam, vostus
ilei /ile/: they (masculine) ilei, iloren, iloron, iloris, ilorare, iloram, ilorus
elhei /ɛl:e/: they (feminine) elhei, elharen, elharon, elharis, elharare, elharam, elharus.
inei /ine/: they (neutral or mixed gender) inei, ineren, ineron, ineris, inerare, ineram, inerus

Declension for pronouns aren't exactly regular like declining nouns, but follow the general suffix attached to the root:
Nom: no change
Acc: -en
Dat: -on
Gen: -is
Abl: -are
Com: -am
Loc: us

Nouns follow the same declension based on the "root," If it ends in a consonant, the root is the word itself, if it ends in a vowel, the vowel is dropped and that becomes the root. There are some exceptions for this rule when it comes to vowels, but it is rare. (Roots are important in forming adjectives and vowels.)
Egies /'egjɛs/ (church). egies. egiesen. egieson. egiesis. egiesare. egiesam. egiesus.
Canhe /'kan:ɛ/ (dog). canhe. canhen. canhon. canhis. canhare. canham. canhus. ("canh" becomes the "root" for dog)

Adjectives and descriptive verbs/
I think the easiest way for me to explain is to explain descriptive verbs, the first of the noun-becoming-verb instances. These are the "to be" linking verbs and are created by adding a conjugated copula-suffix thing onto the end of nouns.

There are two types of descriptive verbs, let's call them transitory and innate, and they differ by time reference and relativity.
Transitory descriptive verbs are verbs that describe the subject, and connotes a temporary state of being, or "to be in a state of." Basically transitory verbs describe a short-term state of being, or a state of being that is subjective or relative (eg, Eiffel Tower height in comparison to other buildings in Paris). Other uses are to describe
Innate descriptive verbs describe an innate quality or "to inherently be." It can also be used to describe and objective state of being (eg, largest animal in the world), and in general any fact that in indisputable.

Transitory verbs are created by adding the suffix -air, while innate verbs are created by adding -eur
Verbs (for all) are futher conjugated by 1st, 2nd, 3rd person only--number and plurality is not inflected--as follows:
1st person: -airèm, -eurèm
2nd person: -airès, -eurès
3rd person: -airèt, -eurèt

So example: "oreça" would mean happiness and "oreç-" would be the noun root. "Oreçair" would mean "to be happy" in the sense of a happy mood, while "oreçeur" would mean to be happy as in innately happy or to have a happy disposition.
Thus, "li canhe oreçairèt" translates to "the dog is in a happy mood" or "the dog feels happy"
"Elha oreçeurèt" would translate along the lines of "she is a happy person" or "she is normally a happy person."

Another use of innate verbs is to describe a literal state, while transitory verbs can be used for figurative states and idiomatic expression. An example in English might be "he is (literally, stone cold) dead," versus "he is dead," in the sense that that he embarrassed someone and that person wants revenge.
Ex 1: "Li çalho ruzeurèt" means "the cat is red" in the sense of having red fur.
"Li çalho ruzairèt" means "the cat is red" in the sense of being angry.

Ex 2: "Ço am elhen ameçairèm" would translate into "I am in love with her."

Going back to adjectives, it would be created by adding "-ain" for transitory description, and "-eun" for innate description.
Li oresain amo: the happy man, or "man in a happy mood"
Li oreseun amo: the happy man, or "man with a happy disposition"

The verbs, and my troubles
So this is where I have a block in the road for conlanging. Originally I was going to have verbs divided into:
1) descriptive verbs (as in above)
2) action verbs that are transitive in which the subject performs the noun to a subject, or intransitive in which the subject performs the action by itself. Transitive would have one suffix ending (-aci) that is conjugated like descriptive verbs, while intransitive would have another suffix, but still conjugated the same way. Eg, "in dono" would be "a giving" with don- as the stem, and donaci would literally be "to perform a giving" or simply, to give.
"Hiel elhon fireusen donacèm" would then mean "he gives her a flower."

I didn't come up intransitive action verbs yet, and there are still more that I need to think about to cover all the other verbs, as well as maybe account for verbs that can't be converted from nouns. I was thinking about having a possessive verb with a copular suffix to show possession as well. But I feel like I'm missing a whole lot of other categories of verb types and can't seem to make further progress on this little project.

Oh god, sorry if this is a little lengthy and filled with rambling.

[Hallow XIII]

I was going to say something else but then I saw that this is a posteriori.

No.

[Ars Lande]

The diachronic side of this looks a little unclear to me.
I don't really know if you're a) creating a language with no genetic relationship with Romance but strongly influenced by it or b) a Romance language with morphology and syntax borrowed from a substrate language.

B is not a very realistic option, I think. I'd suggest you go with option A; Basque is an interesting example.

[Basilius]

B is not a very realistic option, I think. I'd suggest you go with option A; Basque is an interesting example.

In fact, neither option looks realistic, with the material at hand.

The simplest thing to do would be just not to claim that there is any naturalistic diachrony behind the language (if it's created, like, to adorn a fiction novel, no-one will care.)

Else, I'd suggest throwing away the Romance-ish pronouns at least, and adding a decent amount of "native" (non-Romance, a priori) basic vocabulary.

[corsairouge]

B is not a very realistic option, I think. I'd suggest you go with option A; Basque is an interesting example.

I thought Basque was a purely isolate language since text samples I had looked up before definitely seemed very different. Maybe I'll take a look into that for reference. But yes my conlang was supposed to be Option A and not being genetically related to the Romance stratum save for vocabulary. My vocabulary was a mix of structured around changes based off French mixed in with some arbitrary changes to make it seem less Romance-like.

I thought that at least the pronouns should at least be a priori, but I had already established them from my previous period of Romlanging and it felt hard to let it go. Not to mention the fact that it was hard for me to come up with completely new words since it felt too arbitrary for me; basing vocabulary off French felt easier since it provided structure and didn't feel as arbitrary to come up with words.

So I should create new words for say at least ones on the Swadesh list and maybe more to make it at least more realistic? And then everything else after in terms of deciding which words to be French influenced seems just as arbitrary as coming up with a priori words if I don't have a more established con history about how the French influenced the country. Also would this mean I should modify the phonology as well to not seem Romance influenced for the sake for realism?

[Basilius]

I thought that at least the pronouns should at least be a priori, but I had already established them from my previous period of Romlanging and it felt hard to let it go.

In fact, your /ʃɔ/, /su/, /hjel/, /jon/, /ine/ look OK; if you get rid of the suppletive forms of these and especially of /nostɛ/, /vostɛ/, you may even retain some /ɛl:a/ and call it chance resemblance. But something has to be done to the personal endings in verbs, too.

So I should create new words for say at least ones on the Swadesh list and maybe more to make it at least more realistic?

I'd suggest at least 50% of Swadesh-100, with higher percentage in its more stable half (I can post a recently proposed version of top-50, when I get to my other computer).

And then everything else after in terms of deciding which words to be French influenced seems just as arbitrary as coming up with a priori words if I don't have a more established con history about how the French influenced the country.

The preservation of native vocab outside core lexicon can look more-less random IMO, it's OK.

Also would this mean I should modify the phonology as well to not seem Romance influenced for the sake for realism?

No, I don't think it's necessary. Phonologies can indeed be affected by loaning, and yours differs from French anyway.

I'd be concerned with another subject. Realistically, a language surviving in that area should have several layers of Romance loans, and most of them not from today's literary languages but from medieval dialects ancestral to Piedmontese or Franco-Provençal.

[Ser]

So I should create new words for say at least ones on the Swadesh list and maybe more to make it at least more realistic? And then everything else after in terms of deciding which words to be French influenced seems just as arbitrary as coming up with a priori words if I don't have a more established con history about how the French influenced the country. Also would this mean I should modify the phonology as well to not seem Romance influenced for the sake for realism

Yes, for the sake of realism. This conlanging forum in particular is very much a fan of realism. So your postmodernist scrapping of realism by surgically putting breast-implants on a piano cases on French from no origin with random sound changes has annoyed some users here, and hence they've gone out their way with suggestions to make your conlang realistic (by making it basically a creole heavily influenced by French or something). Uh, I do appreciate realistic conlangs better too, but if you find what you're doing fun and don't care about conlang realism, you don't have to listen to them/us.

[corsairouge]

Okay thanks I'll rework the pronoun and suppletive forms and start with the Swadesh list and go from there. I think that will help the progress of this now that I have more freedom in word choices. Though that freedom and arbitrariness does seem a bit daunting too.

My knowledge of phonology is a bit lacking so its hard for me to add changes to the sound inventory, but I definitely would like to move slightly away from the indo European stratum but without being too drastically different.

I'd be concerned with another subject. Realistically, a language surviving in that area should have several layers of Romance loans, and most of them not from today's literary languages but from medieval dialects ancestral to Piedmontese or Franco-Provençal

Right, considering that changes happened centuries ago. The country is along the areas of Occitan influences so that was the language group I thought of drawing influences. Of the structured sound changes I made a good amount were coincidentally similar to Occitan and Catalan, given those twohad a similar ancestors. I'm guessing google is the best way to look up resources for this medieval language? It'll probably be quite difficult given that Occitan is sadly becoming an endangered language within France and its own resources are already limited.

[corsairouge]

I decided to scrap much of my vocabulary and start anew. I think the biggest problem I had before was that my sound system and changes were too unstructured and arbitrary, making it difficult to actually progress, so as I began to create words that kept the ones I liked, I noticed a bit of a pattern and decided to flesh out the phonology and rules to give more structure and symmetry to sound (I hope). As such, the language looks much different, and hopefully more realistic, and I need to come up with a new language name since it no longer completely fits the phonology.

Consonants:
Nasal: /m n/ <m n>
Stop: /p t k b d g/ <p t c b d g>
Fricatives: /f v s z ʃ ʒ ç ʝ/ <f v s s ş z ch gh>
Others: /ɾ l j h w/ <r l i o,h>

Vowels: I noticed I started mostly using the sounds /i ɛ ɔ ä/ but I wasn't sure if it was realistic so I researched a bit and modified towards this system:
Close: /i u/ <i o>
Mid: /ə/ <e>
Open: /ä/ <a>

Diphthongs
ai /äj/
ao/äw/
ei /əj/
eo/əw/
ia /jä/
ie /jə/
io /ju/

Phonotactics
Syllable structure (C)V(V)(C) or (C)V(V)-HV(V)(C), with H as the grapheme H.
First consonant must be voiceless or /m n l r h/. If it is the first letter of the word and voiceless, it is slightly aspirated. In the case of monosyllabic words, the grapheme will be the voiceless counterpart, but pronounced as voiced; if suffix is added, then it will retain voiceless sound. Eg, et /əd/ but eteg /'ətəg/
Final consonant must be voiced or /m n l r/
Middle consonants may be voiced, voiceless, and/or /m n l r w/
For <s>, initial consonant is /s/, but final consonant is /z/. As a middle consonant, it can be pronounced as /s/ or /z/
In C-C cluster between two syllables, there can be no consonant clusters between /m n/, /l r/, or duplicates.
For (C)V(V)-HV(V)(C): V-V cluster between two syllables cannot exist, so an <h> is added as a liaison between the vowels. Is sometimes used as a consonant as well. Eg, ciohe /'k^hjuwə/

Samples from earlier post
Pronouns (with declension same as above,order nom, acc, dat, gen, abl, com, loc, lat):
1st person singular: şo, şen, şon, şis, şare, şam, şos, şire
2nd person singular: so, sen, son, sis, sare, sam, sos, sire
3rd person singular (m): aş, aşen, aşon, aşis, aşare, aşam, aşos, aşire
3rd person singular (f): et, eten, eton, etis, etare, etam, etos, etire
3rd person singular (neutral): in, inen, inon, inis, inare, inam, inos, inire
1st person plural: şoneg, şogen, şogon, şogis, şogare, şogam, şogos, şogire
2nd person plural: soneg,sogen, sogon, sogis, sogare, sogam, sogos, sogire
3rd person (m): aşeg, aşgen, aşgon, aşgis, aşgare, aşgam, aşgos, aşgire
3rd person (f): eteg, etgen, etgon, etgis, etgare, etgam, etgos, etgire
3rd person (n): ineg, ingen, ingon, ingis, ingare, ingam, ingos, ingire

Cighe /'k^hiʝə/ (dog): cighe, cighen, cighon, cighis, cighare, cigham, cighos, cighire

Chi cighe orezairen /çi k^hiʝə uɾəʒ'äjɾən/
The dog is happy, lit. the dog in in a happy mood.<- I think a better translation of -air suffix is short-term state

Et orezeoren /əd uɾəʒ'əwɾən/
She is happy, lit. she is a happy person.<- thus -eor would be long-term state.

So tim ergamam amezaires /su t^him 'ərgämäm äməʒäjrəz/
You are in love with that woman.

Şo sonon feloren elgaraves /ʃu 'sunun fə'lurən əl'gärävəz/
I give you flowers.

Chi hesiol oteg erbegire efarosagen /çi həsjul utəg ərbəgirə ə'farusägən/
DEF. Bird. INDEF-PL. Tree-LAT. Flight.verb(perform) <- I'm not sure of corrent shorthand for explaining grammar, but this was my attempt.
The bird flew toward trees

[Imralu]

I like it with the new non-Romance vocabulary!!

Pronouns (with declension same as above,order nom, acc, dat, gen, abl, com, loc, lat):
1st person singular: şo, şen, şon, şis, şare, şam, şos, şire
2nd person singular: so, sen, son, sis, sare, sam, sos, sire
3rd person singular (m): aş, aşen, aşon, aşis, aşare, aşam, aşos, aşire
3rd person singular (f): et, eten, eton, etis, etare, etam, etos, etire
3rd person singular (neutral): in, inen, inon, inis, inare, inam, inos, inire
1st person plural: şoneg, şogen, şogon, şogis, şogare, şogam, şogos, şogire
2nd person plural: soneg,sogen, sogon, sogis, sogare, sogam, sogos, sogire
3rd person (m): aşeg, aşgen, aşgon, aşgis, aşgare, aşgam, aşgos, aşgire
3rd person (f): eteg, etgen, etgon, etgis, etgare, etgam, etgos, etgire
3rd person (n): ineg, ingen, ingon, ingis, ingare, ingam, ingos, ingire

That all looks very regular. That's not a bad thing per se, but it doesn't need to be so regular. Even Turkish, which is amazingly irregular overall, has a few irregularities in it's pronoun system (1st and 2nd person singular dative pronouns bana and sana instead of regular *bene and *sene, -n added to demonstrative stems before other suffixes).

Scratch that. I just saw the little quirks in the plural. Nice.

Chi cighe orezairen /çi k^hiʝə uɾəʒ'äjɾən/
The dog is happy, lit. the dog in in a happy mood.<- I think a better translation of -air suffix is short-term state

Et orezeoren /əd uɾəʒ'əwɾən/
She is happy, lit. she is a happy person.<- thus -eor would be long-term state.

So tim ergamam amezaires /su t^him 'ərgämäm äməʒäjrəz/
You are in love with that woman.

Şo sonon feloren elgaraves /ʃu 'sunun fə'lurən əl'gärävəz/
I give you flowers.

Chi hesiol oteg erbegire efarosagen /çi həsjul utəg ərbəgirə ə'farusägən/
DEF. Bird. INDEF-PL. Tree-LAT. Flight.verb(perform) <- I'm not sure of corrent shorthand for explaining grammar, but this was my attempt.
The bird flew toward trees

Nice. A gloss for all sentences might be good.I like the more subtle latinate influences, like amezaires and feloren. What is sonon? It's not in your pronoun list above. I would have expected son.

[corsairouge]

Thanks! I'm finding that I'm starting to enjoy the non-Romance sound and look of the words now.

On average do agglutinating language tend to be quite regular or do they still have some irregular quirks here and there? I think the conlang is becoming more agglutinating, and I'm thinking about dropping verb conjugation.

What is sonon? It's not in your pronoun list above. I would have expected son.

Thanks for catching that; yes it is supposed to be son.

Chi cighe orezairen /çi khiʝə uɾəʒ'äjɾən/
DEF-SG. dog. happiness-COPULA(short-term).
The dog is happy, or more accurately, the dog is in a happy mood.

Et orezeoren /əd uɾəʒ'əwɾən/
3P(f). happiness-COPULA(long-term).
She is happy, or more accurately, she is a happy person..

So tim ergamam amezaires /su thim 'ərgämäm äməʒäjrəz/
2P. that. woman-COM. love-COPULA(short-term)
You are in love with that woman.

Şo son feloren elgaraves /ʃu 'sunun fə'lurən əl'gärävəz/
1P. 2P-DAT. flower-ACC. transference-VERB(to make). <- Basically, -avez is a transitive verb suffix meaning "to make/do/perform," and is conjugated for 1st person.
I give you flowers.

Chi hesiol oteg erbegire efarosagen /çi həsjul utəg ərbəgirə ə'farusägən/
DEF. bird. INDEF-PL. tree-LAT. flight-VERB(to make) <- Conversely, -agen is an intransitive verb suffix still meaning "to make/do/perform," and is conjugated for 3rd person.
The bird flew toward trees

Here's a quick gloss of the words
Oreza: happiness
Ameza: love
Felor: flower
Elgar: a giving or transfer (of something)
Hesiol: bird
Erbego: tree
Efaros: flight
They feel still quite Romance-like compared to new words I've come up with along with the help of a word generator. I almost kind of want to scrap the Romance influence until my conlang becomes more stable.

So the above was my attempt to explain the grammar behind the sentences. I happened to come across Turkish grammar, and going through, read that the verb system I'm trying to create is coincidentally vaguely similar to the "verbal nouns" for Turkish. I feel like this sort of system can't encompass every situation of turning noun into verb-phrases, so I might have to come up with verb-specific words.