Genitive/Adjective Syntax issues in conlang

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aereastra
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Genitive/Adjective Syntax issues in conlang

Post by aereastra »

Hey guys I'm new to this site but have been conlanging for quite a while since I joined CBB/Zompist a year ago.
Got a major question to ask here regarding genitives/adjective structures.

For example, 'the color of the red car'/'the red car's color' could be constructed in many ways -
Japanese style: aka-i kuruma-no iro [red-adj car-gen color] - Extremely consistent head-final order; adjectives goes before the noun.
Italian style: il colore del auto rosso [the color of-the car red] - Tail-final(?) order; adjectives go after the noun.

In my conlang, I'm trying to come up with a consistent rule that combines both above forms without trying to use 'of/de'. That is, adjectives go after the nouns while at the same time using a head-final order.

The closest ones I can come up with are -
1. incúedo-n roúg-u colore (car-poss red-adj color)
2. incúedo-n roúg-u color-ile (car-poss red-adj color-of)
3. incúedo-n color-ile roúg-u (car-poss color-of red-adj)
4. colore de incúedo roúg-u (color of car red-adj) ...this uses 'of/from', just in case. Guess that would be blatant plagiarizing for my conlang.

Another example (land of the holy people)
1. hominere-ú rever-i lanta (people-poss holy-adj land)
2. hominere-ú rever-i lant-ela (people-poss holy-adj land-of)
3. hominere-ú lant-ela rever-i (people-poss land-of holy-adj)
4. lanta d'hominere rever-i (land of people holy-adj)

It looks like the best way I can deal with this would be to use an enclosing clitic (~ile/~ela) for the final(?) noun to distinguish it from any adjectives. If you have a better alternative, any suggestions on how to deal with a situation like this, or know of a language that deals with syntax like this, that would be greatly appreciated.
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Sankon
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Re: Genitive/Adjective Syntax issues in conlang

Post by Sankon »

Verbs!

The car's color that reds.
The car's redding color.
The redding car's color.
etc.
Golahet
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Re: Genitive/Adjective Syntax issues in conlang

Post by Golahet »

aereastra wrote:Tail-final(?)
Head-initial.


I see no problem with any of those, except that
aereastra wrote:3. incúedo-n color-ile roúg-u (car-poss color-of red-adj)
3. hominere-ú lant-ela rever-i (people-poss land-of holy-adj)
seems either to mean "the red color of the car" and "the holy land of the people", or to have non-linear syntax. There's as far as I know no problem with non-linear syntax, except that I personally don't like it (and that it is difficult to make a non-linear syntax unambiguous).
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