The CBB

What language(s) are both polysynthetic (in the sense of having verbs with very many morphemes) and fusional (in the sense that morpheme boundaries are blurred and much is expressed with mutations and other such processes)?

Quenya comes to my mind. I like the case paradigm. It's agglutinative and still has some processes that make it interesting. The plural reduplication is also a nice idea. What if an over-heavy CV:N syllable appears stem-finally and you want to add a suffix? Then the syllable is not word-final anymore.

VaptuantaDoi wrote: ↑17 Mar 2024 10:32 [...] and some fairly lexical "aspect" prefixes which include some adverb-ish senses like "until" and a transformative.

Have you described them somewhere?

Keenir wrote: ↑16 Mar 2024 22:16

Omzinesý wrote: ↑16 Mar 2024 12:23 My lang Xawook is now Xiwook. I originally wanted it to be Xewook but the phonology does not have /e/.

maybe thats an exonym, or was originally thus?

It is also one option.
But I think allophony does the thing well. I could even try writing the name Xewook.

My Dlor, which is not polysynthetic in the full sense of the concept but has some features, has prefixes expressing body parts, 'to do with hands', 'to do with mouth/teeth' ... If the word, accent falls on the prefix its function is instrument, if on the root, its function is object.

How is the system of field/lexical affixes in your polysynthetic conlangs? What meanings are coded in the same slot? Mattissen's "A structural typology of polysynthesis" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00437956.2004.11432546 poses that they are the main feature making a lang po...

I started translating the Machiavelli quote (''Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for change as much as those who are doing badly.') and found that I have no way to say 'novelty'. Ra jén 'COMPL is.new' would translate 'Men desire that they are new'. I decided th...

My lang Xawook is now Xiwook. I originally wanted it to be Xewook but the phonology does not have /e/. Then I decided that /i/ just lowers to [e] adjacent to semivowels /j w/.

So it's /ksiwo:k/ -> [ksewo:k]

Motion verbs Kâj 'to go' (on the ground) Sab 'to fly' Bées 'to swim' Mût 'to go fast' Bïr 'to go slowly' Nub 'to follow' The typical lexical prefixes that can be attached to them are: ba- 'by a vehicle' tlu- 'by foot' Directional prefixes are also often attached to them. Without them, they mean 'to ...

Batz wrote: ↑11 Mar 2024 23:11

Omzinesý wrote: ↑21 Mar 2011 10:38 Ich muss mich ... konzentrieren

Warte (mal), ich muss mich konzentrieren.

Wie jung war ich!

Nouns are the simpler one of the open word classes. Their pattern is Person prefix-stem-suffix(case.number.definiteness) Person prefixes are simple k(a)- SG1 c(a)- SG2 s(a)- SG3 hu- PL1 cu- PL2 su- PL3 The allomorphs with /a/ appear if the stem starts with an obstruent. Marking case, number, and de...

The glottal stop in consonant mutations could be a remnant of an historical syllable boundary. la.ka -> la.k -> laʔk This kind of phenomenon has (probably) happened in Livonian and it has been speculated to be the origin of Danish stød too. It just seems to happen before voiced consonants. Maybe the...

Nice phonology. I've always been a fan of that shape of vowel system, and /ʉ/ is highly based. I like the phonology too. /a i o/ is common in Ameracas and /ʉ/ is my current favorite. Is there going to be much morphophonology? Morphophonology is not my strong skill. There might be final consonant mu...

I decided to put my ideas for a vaguely Amerindian language on one thread. I don't know how far it will proceed. p t k kʷ ʔ <p t k kw '> t͡s k͡s <c x> s h <s h> m n ŋ <m n ng> l ɹ j w <l r y w> i ʉ <i u> o <o> ä <a> Vowels can be short or long, written <ii uu oo aa>. /i o a/ can also be nasalized, w...

It's nice that this thread reappeared.
I could steal some ideas for my vague natam project.

I started translating the Machiavelli quote (''Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for change as much as those who are doing badly.') and found that I have no way to say 'novelty'. Ra jén 'COMPL is.new' would translate 'Men desire that they are new'.

thethief3 wrote: ↑27 Feb 2024 03:01

Omzinesý wrote: ↑26 Feb 2024 20:16 How to derives verbs 'to be hungry' from 'to eat'? 'to mind-eat' maybe?

want+eat seems good

'want to eat' is a bit different. And verbs (or basically anything) cannot be compounded in Dlor.

In general NI tends never to bring any modifiers, bound or otherwise, with the noun, so noun class markers will probably be dropped (NI nouns also quite often reduced from their free forms, or even suppletive). I was looking for something else but found a Coptic example. The gender marker t- is pre...

:con: Dlor Ká, be-bék sa! sg2.VOC, ANDAT-find sg3 'Go and find him!' Ka 'you' is the only word that has a special vocative form ká . Dlor has an andative form 'to go and V'. Imperative always demands a vocative "subject", like ká . Bék 'to find' can be used in the imperative. Rábek 'to loo...

I don't remember if we have discussed this before.
Which languages have both incorporation and noun classes / genders?
How do they interact? What happens to noun class markers when the noun is incorporated?