There are 17 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect speech e
From: Jim Henry
1b. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
From: Charlie Brickner
1c. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
From: Charles W Brickner
1d. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
From: Patrick Dunn
1e. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
From: Logan Kearsley
1f. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1g. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
2.1. Re: Reverse genative?
From: Logan Kearsley
2.2. Re: Reverse genative?
From: Garth Wallace
2.3. Re: Reverse genative?
From: Adam Walker
2.4. Re: Reverse genative?
From: Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
3a. Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
From: Logan Kearsley
3b. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
From: Alex Fink
3c. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
From: Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones
3d. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
From: Peter Cyrus
4. Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
From: Logan Kearsley
5. NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
From: Paul Bennett
Messages
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1a. Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect speech e
Posted by: "Jim Henry" jimhenry1...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 8:36 am ((PST))
How do information-question words (like "who", "where" etc. in
English) work cross-linguistically in indirect speech and subordinate
or relative clauses? Especially in languages where relativizers don't
have the same form as question-words, as in English?
For instance, in the equivalents of:
1. Where is the restroom?
2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
3. He asked where the restroom was.
4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
--- would your conlang, or the natlangs you're familiar with, use the
same word for "where" in each case? Would #3 and/or #4 use a
relativizer instead of an interrogative, or would a relative "where"
be restricted to situations like
5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
gjâ-zym-byn has distinct relativizers and interrogative particles. So
far it uses the interrogative in sentences like #1 and #2, and the
relativizer in ones like #5, but I'm not sure what's the best/most
natural way to handle #3 and #4; I'm leaning toward using the
interrogative for #3 and maybe for #4 as well, but I can see reasons
for using the relativizer instead, especially for #4 and maybe for #3.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (7)
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1b. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" caeruleancent...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:32 am ((PST))
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:36:07 -0500, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>For instance, in the equivalents of
>
>1. Where is the restroom?
cèkücéln-os kwu és-a:
restroom-NOM.s where be-IND
>2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
n-us e-pérc-a mha cèkücéln-os kwu és-a mha:
he-NOM.s PAST-ask-IND QUOT restroom-NOM.s where be-IND QUOT
>3. He asked where the restroom was.
If the original statement was Where is the restroom?:
n-us. cèkücéln-om kwu és-u. e-pérc-a:
he-NOM.s restroom-ACC.s where be-SUP PAST-ask-IND
If the original statement was Where was the restroom? (i.e., its been
moved; where was it before?)
n-us. cèkücéln-om kwu e-és-u. e-pérc-a:
he-NOM.s restroom-ACC.s where PAST-be-SUP PAST-ask-IND
>4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
m-us. cèkücéln-om kwu és-u. meíd-a ne: (where is it now?)
I-NOM.s restroom-ACC.s where be-SUP know-IND not
m-us. cèkücéln-om kwu e-és-u. meíd-a ne: (where did it used to be?)
I-NOM.s restroom-ACC.s PAST-be-SUP know-IND not
>5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
d-osnu Shakespeare ìðu e-dzén-imhés-os és-a:
this-NOM.s REL Shakespeare here PAST-born-RELhouse NOM.s be-IND
Charlie
Messages in this topic (7)
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1c. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
Posted by: "Charles W Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:37 am ((PST))
Darn! I knew I'd get something wrong. In sentence #4, the verb should be
'e-meida'.
-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:conl...@listserv.brown.edu] On
Behalf Of Charlie Brickner
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 2:32 PM
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect
speech etc.
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:36:07 -0500, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>For instance, in the equivalents of
>
>1. Where is the restroom?
cèkücéln-os kwu és-a:
restroom-NOM.s where be-IND
>2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
n-us e-pérc-a mha cèkücéln-os kwu és-a mha:
he-NOM.s PAST-ask-IND QUOT restroom-NOM.s where be-IND QUOT
>3. He asked where the restroom was.
If the original statement was Where is the restroom?:
n-us. cèkücéln-om kwu és-u. e-pérc-a:
he-NOM.s restroom-ACC.s where be-SUP PAST-ask-IND
If the original statement was Where was the restroom? (i.e., its been
moved; where was it before?) n-us. cèkücéln-om kwu e-és-u. e-pérc-a:
he-NOM.s restroom-ACC.s where PAST-be-SUP PAST-ask-IND
>4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
m-us. cèkücéln-om kwu és-u. meíd-a ne: (where is it now?) I-NOM.s
restroom-ACC.s where be-SUP know-IND not
m-us. cèkücéln-om kwu e-és-u. meíd-a ne: (where did it used to be?) I-NOM.s
restroom-ACC.s PAST-be-SUP know-IND not
>5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
d-osnu Shakespeare ìðu e-dzén-imhés-os és-a:
this-NOM.s REL Shakespeare here PAST-born-RELhouse NOM.s be-IND
Charlie
Messages in this topic (7)
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1d. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
Posted by: "Patrick Dunn" pwd...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:00 pm ((PST))
I just hit this in my ancient Greek lessons. Evidently, question words
have an o- prefix when used in indirect speech.
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How do information-question words (like "who", "where" etc. in
> English) work cross-linguistically in indirect speech and subordinate
> or relative clauses? Especially in languages where relativizers don't
> have the same form as question-words, as in English?
>
> For instance, in the equivalents of:
>
> 1. Where is the restroom?
>
> 2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
>
> 3. He asked where the restroom was.
>
> 4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
>
> --- would your conlang, or the natlangs you're familiar with, use the
> same word for "where" in each case? Would #3 and/or #4 use a
> relativizer instead of an interrogative, or would a relative "where"
> be restricted to situations like
>
> 5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
>
> gjâ-zym-byn has distinct relativizers and interrogative particles. So
> far it uses the interrogative in sentences like #1 and #2, and the
> relativizer in ones like #5, but I'm not sure what's the best/most
> natural way to handle #3 and #4; I'm leaning toward using the
> interrogative for #3 and maybe for #4 as well, but I can see reasons
> for using the relativizer instead, especially for #4 and maybe for #3.
>
> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
>
--
Second Person, a chapbook of poetry by Patrick Dunn, is now available for
order from Finishing Line
Press<http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm>
and
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Patrick-Dunn/dp/1599249065/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1324342341&sr=8-2>.
Messages in this topic (7)
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1e. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:35 pm ((PST))
On 27 February 2012 09:36, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How do information-question words (like "who", "where" etc. in
> English) work cross-linguistically in indirect speech and subordinate
> or relative clauses? Especially in languages where relativizers don't
> have the same form as question-words, as in English?
>
> For instance, in the equivalents of:
>
> 1. Where is the restroom?
>
> 2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
>
> 3. He asked where the restroom was.
>
> 4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
>
> --- would your conlang, or the natlangs you're familiar with, use the
> same word for "where" in each case? Would #3 and/or #4 use a
> relativizer instead of an interrogative, or would a relative "where"
> be restricted to situations like
>
> 5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
Halkomelem has empty relativizers (just a hole in the clause, rather
than a pronounced relative pronoun) distinct from question words,
which in itself is not particularly unique, but relative clauses
interact with matrices in interesting ways.
Direct WH-questions make use of relative clauses in a construction
that translates to something like "WH is that which REL".
E.g., "Who did you talk to?" ends up as something like "Who is the one
you talked to?"
Possessives of absolutives can be relativized in situations where
Halkomelem uses the construct-state pattern (i.e., you can relativize
a common-noun possessor of a transitive object or intransitive
subject), since a hanging possessed-state noun nicely marks the
location of the gap in the clause. As far as I know, there's no
explicit morphology for "whose" in either sense (although it's
entirely possible that there is such a word in Halkomelem and I just
haven't been exposed to it in the grammar book I've got); just "who",
"what", or a gap as the possessor in a possessive construction. Same
for "where"- it's just a "what" used in a locative context.
Obliques can only be extracted from clauses by nominalizing the
clause; that covers all other kinds of possessives, and other oblique
verb arguments like locatives, and is relevant to both relative
clauses and questions since questions use relative clauses. This
results in really odd glosses like "I went to the house" -> "The house
was my-going-to" or "I dug a hole with your shovel" -> "You're
the-one-I-dug-a-hole-with's-shovel"
To use your examples,
1. Where is the restroom?
What is the-restroom-is-at?
5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
This house is Shakespeare-was-born-at.
I haven't yet figured out how Halkomelem handles indirect speech in
all contexts; it could go either way, using a gap like a relative
clause or an embedded question-clause with it's own doubly-embedded
relative clause.
In Mev Pailom, interrogatives are identical to relative clauses and
embedded clauses are identical in form to matrix clauses (this can
cause syntactic ambiguity where a wh-clause could be interpreted as a
relative clause modifying an object with an elided subject, or as a
nominalized-clause object, but it's unusual that the correct
interpretation would not be pragmatically obvious).
This results in all 5 of your examples using the same word:
1. Where is the restroom?
Restroom near what?
2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
Restroom near what-OBJ did ask he.
3. He asked where the restroom was.
Did ask he, restroom near what. (Alternately, "Someone asked about the
thing by the restroom.")
4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
Did know not I restroom near what.
-l.
Messages in this topic (7)
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1f. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:34 am ((PST))
On 27 February 2012 17:36, Jim Henry <jimhenry1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How do information-question words (like "who", "where" etc. in
> English) work cross-linguistically in indirect speech and subordinate
> or relative clauses? Especially in languages where relativizers don't
> have the same form as question-words, as in English?
>
>
In Moten (using "room" rather than "restroom" as I don't have a word for
that yet, and "live" rather than "be born" for the same reason):
> 1. Where is the restroom?
>
>
Tinea momut izunlaj ito?
Tin<e>a mo-mut i-zunla-i i-to?
Room<ART> SPAT-what INF-be.at-INF PRS-be?
Literally: "The room, at what is it situated?"
> 2. "Where is the restroom?" he asked.
>
>
"Tinea momut izunlaj ito?". Ifi|zo|n etok.
"Tin<e>a mo-mut i-zunla-i i-to?".
I-fi|zon-i e-to-k.
"Room<ART> SPAT-what INF-be.at-INF PRS-be?". INF-ask-INF REAL-be-NON.PRS.
Literally: "'The room, at what is it situated?'. He asked it."
> 3. He asked where the restroom was.
>
>
Tinea momut izunlaj itos ifi|zo|n etok.
Tin<e>a mo-mut i-zunla-i i-to-s
i-fi|zon-i e-to-k.
Room<ART> SPAT-what INF-be.at-INF PRS-be-DEP INF-ask-INF REAL-be-NON.PRS.
The only difference between direct and indirect speech is putting the
auxiliary in the dependent form.
> 4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
>
Tinevaj zunledan vajaguz etok.
Tin<e><v>a-i zunl<e><d>a-n
vajag-z e-to-k.
Room<ART><GEN.SG>-GEN location<ART><ACC.SG>-ACC learn-PTCP REAL-be-NON.PRS.
Literally: "I hadn't learned the location of the room". Moten does have
completive subclauses, but this construction is what would normally be
used. One doesn't use a completive clause with a question word unless it's
for reported speech.
>
> 5. This is the house where Shakespeare was born.
>
>
Len Sekspil izunlaj eto umpej ito.
Len Sekspil i-zunla-i e-to ump<e>i i-to.
This Shakespeare INF-be.at-INF REAL-be house<ART> PRS-be.
Literally: "This is the house that Shakespeare lived".
Relative clauses are formed like completive clauses, by putting the
auxiliary in the dependent form (here, the dependent form of _etok_ is
_eto_, removing the non-present suffix), and the function of the head in
the relative clause is indicated entirely by gap and context, even for
oblique relativisations like the one above (as in Japanese).
> gjâ-zym-byn has distinct relativizers and interrogative particles. So
> far it uses the interrogative in sentences like #1 and #2, and the
> relativizer in ones like #5, but I'm not sure what's the best/most
> natural way to handle #3 and #4; I'm leaning toward using the
> interrogative for #3 and maybe for #4 as well, but I can see reasons
> for using the relativizer instead, especially for #4 and maybe for #3.
>
>
Moten uses the interrogative in #1, #2 and #3, although in #3 the
interrogative doesn't mark the subordination, the form the auxiliary does.
For #4, Moten prefers to use a different construction without a subclause,
and in #5 the equivalent of the English relative adverb is a gap in a
subclause marked by the form of the auxiliary.
I believe Japanese behaves similarly. I'm not familiar enough with indirect
speech in Basque to comment on how it works in that language, although I do
know that #5 is simply impossible in Basque, as only core arguments can be
relativised.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (7)
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1g. Re: Information-question words in subordinate clauses, indirect spee
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:37 am ((PST))
On 28 February 2012 14:34, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <tsela...@gmail.com
> wrote:
>
>
>> 4. I didn't know where the restroom was.
>>
>
> Tinevaj zunledan vajaguz etok.
> Tin<e><v>a-i
> zunl<e><d>a-n vajag-z e-to-k.
> Room<ART><GEN.SG>-GEN location<ART><ACC.SG>-ACC learn-PTCP
> REAL-be-NON.PRS.
>
>
Oops! That should naturally be:
Tinevaj zunledan vajaguz us etok.
Forgot the negative _us_, that stands for "it is not true that...".
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (7)
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2.1. Re: Reverse genative?
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:02 pm ((PST))
On 24 February 2012 09:03, Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:53:21 -0600, Adam Walker <carra...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>So if a particle like of, showing possession, can work in either direction,
>>why couldn't a case like Genative have a sort of anti-genative or
>>reverse-genative counterpart in some language?
>>
>>the man car's
>>
>>where the reverse-genative marks the possessed instead of the possessor?
>>
>>Surely this has alread been done. Examples?
>
> Yup, all the time! This is the head-marked pattern for possessives in
> nominal clauses; it splits not too far from fifty-fifty cross-linguistically
> with the genitive strategy. Here it is in WALS, with lots of examples:
> http://wals.info/feature/24A
>
> In Semitic, this is more or less what the so-called construct state is.
>
> Very often the marker on "car" in your "the man car's" is actually a third
> person possessive marker: it's literally "the man car-his".
I've been reading about Salishan languages recently, and just
discovered that Halkomelem does something similar to this (Except
Worse, of course). Possession is indicated on the possessee with
affixes that encode person+number of the possessor, with singular
possessors indicated by prefixes and plurals possessors indicated by
suffixes (except, to complicate a little more, there's no 3s possessor
affix distinct from the 3p). In the 3rd person, if an explicit
possessor is indicated, and it's a common noun, the possessor is
placed immediately after the possessee in direct case; e.g., "the
car-his" -> "his car"; "the car-his man" -> "the man's car".
BUT, if the possessor is a proper noun, the possessive suffixes cannot
be used and the possessor is instead marked for oblique case via a
preposed particle; "the car of Bob".
So, you get both head-marking (like a construct state) and possessor
marking (like a genitive) split by the class of the possessor.
-l.
Messages in this topic (36)
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2.2. Re: Reverse genative?
Posted by: "Garth Wallace" gwa...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:34 pm ((PST))
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've been reading about Salishan languages recently, and just
> discovered that Halkomelem does something similar to this (Except
> Worse, of course). Possession is indicated on the possessee with
> affixes that encode person+number of the possessor, with singular
> possessors indicated by prefixes and plurals possessors indicated by
> suffixes (except, to complicate a little more, there's no 3s possessor
> affix distinct from the 3p). In the 3rd person, if an explicit
> possessor is indicated, and it's a common noun, the possessor is
> placed immediately after the possessee in direct case; e.g., "the
> car-his" -> "his car"; "the car-his man" -> "the man's car".
> BUT, if the possessor is a proper noun, the possessive suffixes cannot
> be used and the possessor is instead marked for oblique case via a
> preposed particle; "the car of Bob".
>
> So, you get both head-marking (like a construct state) and possessor
> marking (like a genitive) split by the class of the possessor.
Interesting!
Do you know if there are any languages that mark both the possessor
and the possessee at the same time?
Messages in this topic (36)
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2.3. Re: Reverse genative?
Posted by: "Adam Walker" carra...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:54 pm ((PST))
One of the messages early in this thread seemed to show Arabic capable
of just that.
On 2/27/12, Garth Wallace <gwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I've been reading about Salishan languages recently, and just
>> discovered that Halkomelem does something similar to this (Except
>> Worse, of course). Possession is indicated on the possessee with
>> affixes that encode person+number of the possessor, with singular
>> possessors indicated by prefixes and plurals possessors indicated by
>> suffixes (except, to complicate a little more, there's no 3s possessor
>> affix distinct from the 3p). In the 3rd person, if an explicit
>> possessor is indicated, and it's a common noun, the possessor is
>> placed immediately after the possessee in direct case; e.g., "the
>> car-his" -> "his car"; "the car-his man" -> "the man's car".
>> BUT, if the possessor is a proper noun, the possessive suffixes cannot
>> be used and the possessor is instead marked for oblique case via a
>> preposed particle; "the car of Bob".
>>
>> So, you get both head-marking (like a construct state) and possessor
>> marking (like a genitive) split by the class of the possessor.
>
> Interesting!
>
> Do you know if there are any languages that mark both the possessor
> and the possessee at the same time?
>
Messages in this topic (36)
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2.4. Re: Reverse genative?
Posted by: "Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones" jeff.rol...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:10 pm ((PST))
Hi
> So, you get both head-marking (like a construct state) and possessor
> marking (like a genitive) split by the class of the possessor.
>
> -l.
ANADEW - the N in this case being English. Consider:
Jeff's computer (Dependent marking)
The roof of the house (head marking with PP)
Pet food (juxtaposition, neither head nor dependent marking)
In the third case, the meaning is food for pets in general, whereas "(the)
pet's food" would mean food belonging to a *specific* pet. With non-human
animals, there is a split, cf.
Jet's collar
vs. the incessant barking of the dog
Note also "The Hound of the Baskervilles" vs. "The Smiths(') discography)"
Messages in this topic (36)
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3a. Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:26 pm ((PST))
Mev Pailom* is very verb-oriented; there are small classes of
prepositions, grammatical particles, and pronouns, and everything else
so far is regularly derived from basically verbal roots. This has
resulted in an explosion of vocabulary for abstract concepts and for
concrete things that are easily associated with activities (like bed =
"locative-sleep", hand = "instrument-do"), but it's leaving me without
an easy way to form specific concrete nouns; e.g., what activity goes
with "rock"? How does one distinguish "pen", "pencil", or "ink" from
"instrument-symbol-draw"?
I'm averse to just making up a whole lot of basic nominal roots
because I don't want a) to shift the character of the language too
much or b) to impinge on the phonological space that's available for
the regular derivational system to grow into; e.g., if there's a
verbal root R-K and an unanalyzable noun "rok", the pattern -CoC- is
excluded from possible use in the derivational system, or else we risk
homophony, which eliminates potentially hundreds of possible derived
words for the sake of one basic root.
So, I am looking for various morphological strategies that can are
used for nominals in other verb-oriented languages.
For the pen/pencil/ink sort of problem, I was thinking of using
classifiers to distinguish different possible meanings of general
nouns; regarding which, does anyone know of a good large list of noun
classifiers / counters used in various languages?
Aside from that, I don't really have many good ideas, so I'm way open
to suggestions, links to grammars of weird natlangs, etc.
-l.
*The current working name for my Romantic lang, for those who remember
prior updates on that project.
Messages in this topic (4)
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3b. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:51 pm ((PST))
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:26:44 -0700, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>Mev Pailom* is very verb-oriented; there are small classes of
>prepositions, grammatical particles, and pronouns, and everything else
>so far is regularly derived from basically verbal roots. This has
>resulted in an explosion of vocabulary for abstract concepts and for
>concrete things that are easily associated with activities (like bed =
>"locative-sleep", hand = "instrument-do"), but it's leaving me without
>an easy way to form specific concrete nouns; e.g., what activity goes
>with "rock"? How does one distinguish "pen", "pencil", or "ink" from
>"instrument-symbol-draw"?
My first suggestion would be *not* to distinguish them, at the basic level,
mindful of the fact that languages differ in what semantic divisions are
reflected in basic-level categories (and wanting to avoid an English
lexical-structure bias). If you need to speak of pens and pencils in
còntrast to one another, then stick on whatever disambiguatory modifier you
need: "liquid drawing-tool" vs. "sticklike drawing-tool"? "erasable d.-t."
vs. "unerasable d.-t."? But in most contexts this modifier would be
dispensable.
>I'm averse to just making up a whole lot of basic nominal roots
>because I don't want a) to shift the character of the language too
>much or b) to impinge on the phonological space that's available for
>the regular derivational system to grow into; e.g., if there's a
>verbal root R-K and an unanalyzable noun "rok", the pattern -CoC- is
>excluded from possible use in the derivational system, or else we risk
>homophony, which eliminates potentially hundreds of possible derived
>words for the sake of one basic root.
Why isn't a little homophony tolerable?
>So, I am looking for various morphological strategies that can are
>used for nominals in other verb-oriented languages.
>For the pen/pencil/ink sort of problem, I was thinking of using
>classifiers to distinguish different possible meanings of general
>nouns; regarding which, does anyone know of a good large list of noun
>classifiers / counters used in various languages?
Hm. I get the feeling that would sometimes help but often not. My
impression is that natlang classifiers tend mostly to be based on
shape+size+consistency, or broad functional groups (rarely does it get finer
than "tools"), or broad associational groups (e.g. men's objects vs. women's
ones). Ink is liquid whereas both pens and pencils are sticklike; the
latter two are less likely to be distinguished in a class system, but maybe
(oldschool) pencils could be made to fall in a "trees & their products" class/
My impression is that, in the verb-prominent native languages of North
America, one of the common strategies for naming particular objects is just
nominalizing a whole verb phrase, with whatever necessary modifiers in it.
Along the lines of "ink" = 'writing-tools are filled with it'.
Alex
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
3c. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
Posted by: "Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones" jeff.rol...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:47 pm ((PST))
Hi,
Sent from my iPhone
On 27 Feb 2012, at 20:26, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mev Pailom* is very verb-oriented; there are small classes of
> prepositions, grammatical particles, and pronouns, and everything else
> so far is regularly derived from basically verbal roots. This has
> resulted in an explosion of vocabulary for abstract concepts and for
> concrete things that are easily associated with activities (like bed =
> "locative-sleep", hand = "instrument-do"), but it's leaving me without
> an easy way to form specific concrete nouns; e.g., what activity goes
> with "rock"? How does one distinguish "pen", "pencil", or "ink" from
> "instrument-symbol-draw"?
You could just have a verb that means "to rock" or "to be a rock", and then
syntax or morphology which makes it clear when the lexeme is being used in the
nominal sense, e.g., with verb-final word order, agreement, and non-pro-drop
(and bearing in mind I don't know the phonology of your language):
Di donaxi
Di di-onax-i
3.SG.INAN 3.INAN-be.rock-PRES.REALIS.
"It is a rock"
With nominalisers:
Onaxna pha
Onax-na pha
Be.rock.NOM. there
"The rock is there"
With cases:
OnaxÅ tlalac
Onax-Å tlalac
Be.rock-ABS be.white.NONPAST
"The rock is white"
With particles:
DiÄuhna uq onax tã
Di-Äuh-na uq onax tã
3.INAN-hit-3.ANIM with rock the
"He hit it with the rock"
You could also do the same with tones, e.g.
Onáx (mid tone, high tone) + low tone for the definite
article/nominalisation/absolutive case => ònàx
For the difference between "pen/pencil/ink" and draw/write, you could allow the
verb "to be a pencil, etc.) to be transitive, meaning something like "it
pencils [e.g. a cartoon], use compounds ("be.lead-be.writing.instrument" for
"pencil" vs. "be.oil-be.writing.instrument" for "pen"), or use idiomatic
derivational suffixes (e.g. be.pencil.NOM.AUG => pen, or be.pen.PEJ.ERG =>
pencil.
>
> I'm averse to just making up a -whole lot of basic nominal roots
> because I don't want a) to shift the character of the language too
> much or b) to impinge on the phonological space that's available for
> the regular derivational system to grow into; e.g., if there's a
> verbal root R-K and an unanalyzable noun "rok", the pattern -CoC- is
> excluded from possible use in the derivational system, or else we risk
> homophony, which eliminates potentially hundreds of possible derived
> words for the sake of one basic root.
Depending on what you're looking for, homophony could make your conlang more
naturalistic. Also, you could disambiguate (some/all) homophones by derivation,
compounding, and/or tone, so that
pox - sickness/book
vs.
póx (high tone) - teepee
vs.
pôx (falling tone) - white.man
or pox-wut (sickness/book-bad) - sickness
vs.
pox-poÅÅi (sickness/book-pen) - book
>
> So, I am looking for various morphological strategies that can are
> used for nominals in other verb-oriented languages.
> For the pen/pencil/ink sort of problem, I was thinking of using
> classifiers to distinguish different possible meanings of general
> nouns; regarding which, does anyone know of a good large list of noun
> classifiers / counters used in various languages?
>
> Aside from that, I don't really have many good ideas, so I'm way open
> to suggestions, links to grammars of weird natlangs, etc.
>
> -l.
>
> *The current working name for my Romantic lang, for those who remember
> prior updates on that project.
HTH
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
3d. Re: Nominals in Verb-heavy Languages
Posted by: "Peter Cyrus" pcy...@alivox.net
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:30 pm ((PST))
You could also consider that nouns are binominal conjunctions of structure
and function. Your verb system is providing the function, so you need a
few roots for structures, maybe just a few more than a classifier system
would have,
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:47 PM, Jeffrey Daniel Rollin-Jones <
jeff.rol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 27 Feb 2012, at 20:26, Logan Kearsley <chronosur...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Mev Pailom* is very verb-oriented; there are small classes of
> > prepositions, grammatical particles, and pronouns, and everything else
> > so far is regularly derived from basically verbal roots. This has
> > resulted in an explosion of vocabulary for abstract concepts and for
> > concrete things that are easily associated with activities (like bed =
> > "locative-sleep", hand = "instrument-do"), but it's leaving me without
> > an easy way to form specific concrete nouns; e.g., what activity goes
> > with "rock"? How does one distinguish "pen", "pencil", or "ink" from
> > "instrument-symbol-draw"?
>
> You could just have a verb that means "to rock" or "to be a rock", and
> then syntax or morphology which makes it clear when the lexeme is being
> used in the nominal sense, e.g., with verb-final word order, agreement, and
> non-pro-drop (and bearing in mind I don't know the phonology of your
> language):
>
> Di donaxi
> Di di-onax-i
>
> 3.SG.INAN 3.INAN-be.rock-PRES.REALIS.
>
> "It is a rock"
>
> With nominalisers:
>
> Onaxna pha
>
> Onax-na pha
>
> Be.rock.NOM. there
>
> "The rock is there"
>
> With cases:
>
> OnaxÅ tlalac
>
> Onax-Å tlalac
>
> Be.rock-ABS be.white.NONPAST
>
> "The rock is white"
>
> With particles:
>
> DiÄuhna uq onax tã
>
> Di-Äuh-na uq onax tã
>
> 3.INAN-hit-3.ANIM with rock the
>
> "He hit it with the rock"
>
> You could also do the same with tones, e.g.
>
> Onáx (mid tone, high tone) + low tone for the definite
> article/nominalisation/absolutive case => ònàx
>
> For the difference between "pen/pencil/ink" and draw/write, you could
> allow the verb "to be a pencil, etc.) to be transitive, meaning something
> like "it pencils [e.g. a cartoon], use compounds
> ("be.lead-be.writing.instrument" for "pencil" vs.
> "be.oil-be.writing.instrument" for "pen"), or use idiomatic derivational
> suffixes (e.g. be.pencil.NOM.AUG => pen, or be.pen.PEJ.ERG => pencil.
> >
> > I'm averse to just making up a -whole lot of basic nominal roots
> > because I don't want a) to shift the character of the language too
> > much or b) to impinge on the phonological space that's available for
> > the regular derivational system to grow into; e.g., if there's a
> > verbal root R-K and an unanalyzable noun "rok", the pattern -CoC- is
> > excluded from possible use in the derivational system, or else we risk
> > homophony, which eliminates potentially hundreds of possible derived
> > words for the sake of one basic root.
>
> Depending on what you're looking for, homophony could make your conlang
> more naturalistic. Also, you could disambiguate (some/all) homophones by
> derivation, compounding, and/or tone, so that
>
> pox - sickness/book
>
> vs.
>
> póx (high tone) - teepee
>
> vs.
>
> pôx (falling tone) - white.man
>
> or pox-wut (sickness/book-bad) - sickness
>
> vs.
>
> pox-poÅÅi (sickness/book-pen) - book
> >
> > So, I am looking for various morphological strategies that can are
> > used for nominals in other verb-oriented languages.
> > For the pen/pencil/ink sort of problem, I was thinking of using
> > classifiers to distinguish different possible meanings of general
> > nouns; regarding which, does anyone know of a good large list of noun
> > classifiers / counters used in various languages?
> >
> > Aside from that, I don't really have many good ideas, so I'm way open
> > to suggestions, links to grammars of weird natlangs, etc.
> >
> > -l.
> >
> > *The current working name for my Romantic lang, for those who remember
> > prior updates on that project.
>
> HTH
>
Messages in this topic (4)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. Unexpected ANADEW: Conjugation for Location
Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" chronosur...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:51 pm ((PST))
A bit of background- Celimine has always had demonstratives that
conflate space+time (so you can say "here and now" or "then or there",
but not "now but there"). I got the idea a few months ago from
"Anchoring Events to Utterances without Tense" (Ritter & Wiltschko,
2005), specifically the section on Blackfoot, that demonstratives can
be influenced by the anchoring conditions of verbs, and as part of my
re-working of Celimine altered verb conjugations to also have
semantics of conflated space and time (so there's not so much a
present vs. past as there is a proximal vs. distal tense), which makes
it all nice and tied together. I had a heckuva time trying to figure
out what this would mean for the interpretation of aspect.
Now, I've recently started reading a grammar of Halkomelem Salish.
That same article begins with an analysis of Halkomelem, which I
totally skimmed over on the way to the much more interesting (at the
time) bits on Blackfoot. And I feel really silly that I did not notice
earlier that Halkomelem verb phrases work *eerily* similar to the way
I came up with for Celimine, though sufficiently different that I can
be reasonably sure I didn't just accidentally subconsciously copy it.
Celimine has obligatory spatial tense inflection, which distinguishes
"here and now", "then or there" and "nowhere/irrealis" (used for some
negatives, subjunctives, and future) for all finite verbs.
Halkomelem lacks infinitive verbs and has 4 optional spatial
auxilliaries, in sets of two statives (here & now vs. then & there)
and two motive (coming vs. going), with any clause allowed to have
zero or one auxilliary from each set. A sentence without a spatial
auxilliary is ambiguous and can be interpreted as any tense or
location, but as far as I can tell from how far I've gotten in the
grammar, all of the examples with the "here & now" auxilliary are
translated as present tense, while all past tense translations use the
"then or there" auxilliary.
-l.
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5. NATLANG: Con-scripting a Hamer writing system
Posted by: "Paul Bennett" paul.w.benn...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:28 am ((PST))
More ramblings on the Ethiopian natlang Hamer.
As far as I've been able to figure out, there's no writing system for it,
either de facto or de jure.
I reckon this situation could be improved upon.
So, consider this a con-scripting challenge, which appears to be more or
less on topic.
To recap:
* CONSONANTS *
b d J\ g
p t c k ?
q'
b_< d_< g_<
z
f s S x h
ts
4
l
m n J N
w j
Plus phonemic gemination non-initially, plus phonemic lack-of-release for
pulmonic stops finally.
* VOWELS *
i u
e o
a
Plus length, plus zero or one of { +glottal, +laryngeal }.
i;
E O
a;
Romanization seems pretty straightforward:
IPA for the consonants, with doubling for gemination, and an apostrophe
for lack-of-release, leaving out the redundant apostrophe for /q'/. Maybe
plain <r> instead of "fish-hook" for /4/. Vowels as written above for the
5-vowel triangle, plus doubling for length, and maybe acute for [ +glottal
] and grave for [ +laryngeal ]. Macrons or something on <a>, <e>, <i>, <o>
for the additional vowels. Question mark immediately following the marked
word in yes/no questions, and some kind of mark, maybe <^>, <¬>, or <~>
after the marked word in negative statements. Maybe <j> for /J\/ and <y>
for /j/. Maybe <ñ> for /J/ and/or <Å¡> for /S/. Punctuation (except as
already used for pitch marking) pretty much as in English.
What intrigues me, though, is a writing system that would let someone
literate in Hamer be more or less literate in the rest of Ethiopia. To
this end, I'm thinking of a Ge'ez based writing system.
There are a couple of key things to bear in mind:
* Unlike Amharic, consonants do not (almost) universally come with a
following vowel.
* Unlike Amharic, vowels carry a much greater functional load, can
cluster in at least VVV clusters, and are far more numerous.
With this in mind, I've been thinking of a semi-alphabetic system.
Consonants would be written purely alphabetically, using the Series 1 form
of the Ge'ez syllable (the /@/ series) plus some diacritics. There has
been talk of Amharic spelling reform to place two dots over geminated
consonants; I think that's a pretty good start. Maybe a single dot for
"lack of release". Acute and grave on the final (or first?) letter of
yes/no and negative words respectively.
Vowels could be written using the Aleph row for [ +glottal ], one of the
"spare" <h> rows for [ +laryngeal ], and the Ayin row for plain /
"umlaut". The additional vowels would be written with another of the
"spare" <h> rows.
The consonants would look something like this, in roughly the order above,
with some blanks to be filled in later:
á á° á á á ᰠḠᨠá á á ᰠḠá á ᨠá á á
á á á¨
Note that this order is for convenience of notation. I'd probably stick
with the H, L, X, M, ... order used for the relevant subset of Ge'ez.
The exact nature of the blanks, and the diacritics to be used, are left as
an exercise for the reader, along with the possibly-redundant process of
writing out the entire series for the vowels.
Questions, comments, suggestions?
--
Paul
Messages in this topic (1)
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