NeoWakii/Wakii

[Senlozan]

copied from a document :>

NeoWakii is a language I decided to make because I was bored. The speakers of NeoWakii live in an area that sometimes turns into a peninsula every year due to tides with differences of around 400m uptide and downtide.

NeoWakii Details
Object Verb Subject word order, or OVS. Question words like ‘How’ goes in the Verb part.
Few consonants, mainly vowels
The word structure is (V)(V)V(C)(V)(V), because the language needs to flow to be distinguishable on the flowing ocean.

Phonology
Phonology consists of the English vowels of [a, e, i, u] along with ʊ and ɯ, which are spelled h and w in writing. Doubling a vowel makes it long, while tripling a vowel [only possible at the start] makes it short. There is one consonant, being k.

Aspects
I felt this was important.
You can add an aspect to the beginning of a verb to change its time value. Beginning a sentence with an aspected word capitalizes the start of the original word and the aspect.
Ku - Future [as in will do]
Ke - Present [as in doing]
Ki - Past [as in did]

Example Sentence

Akhh [Water]
KeHuu [Drifting off, normal word Huu to drift off]
Ikhu [Fisherperson]
Akhh kehuu ikhu.
O=Water V=Drifting off S=Fisherperson
The fisherperson drifted off in the water.

Another Sentence!!!

Akhh
He [How/How is (depends on context)]
Akhh He
O=Water V=How/How is
How is the water?

[Senlozan]

If you're in the Conlangs Discord, before you ask, yes, this is mine

[Arayaz]

Is it intended to be naturalistic? Object-initial word order is very, very uncommon in natlangs (unless it's an ergative language, in which case terms like "subject" and "object" are rather misleading imo).

[Senlozan]

Is it intended to be naturalistic? Object-initial word order is very, very uncommon in natlangs (unless it's an ergative language, in which case terms like "subject" and "object" are rather misleading imo).

Eh, I was kinda basing this off of a theme from another discorder's conworld instead of naturalism. Though, I do wish for it to be at least pretty naturalistic, now that it's more "mine." If you can, please give advice.

[Arayaz]

Is it intended to be naturalistic? Object-initial word order is very, very uncommon in natlangs (unless it's an ergative language, in which case terms like "subject" and "object" are rather misleading imo).

Eh, I was kinda basing this off of a theme from another discorder's conworld instead of naturalism. Though, I do wish for it to be at least pretty naturalistic, now that it's more "mine." If you can, please give advice.

Basically, when a (nominative) language has a default word order, it's almost a guarantee that the subject will come before the object. If the language is ergative, the patient will almost always precede the agent; however, I don't think Wakii is ergative. (If it is, please let me know!) SVO and SOV are the most common word orders, and VSO is a distant third. VOS is more common than OSV and OVS, but I think it's mostly misanalyzed ergative languages. (Then again, it's just my opinion that "subject" and "object" aren't very applicable to ergative languages.)

Now, that's just for the *default*. Many languages allow you to use any order you wish, if they have case marking. Or perhaps you have topic-fronting and you're usually VSO, but to place emphasis on the object you could say OVS. That is to say, OVS can occur, just it's very rarely the default word order.

[Omzinesý]

If the language is ergative, the patient will almost always precede the agent;

I don't think so. I don't actually know any example of it.

(Then again, it's just my opinion that "subject" and "object" aren't very applicable to ergative languages.)

Many "ergative" languages do well with the concepts of subject and object. It's just morphological marking.
But there are languages with ergative word orders. I once read about a language in Mexico(?) that was EVA VA. The marking of transitive NP subjects had something to do with topicalization though. And there is at least one lang with ergative word order in Africa.

[Arayaz]

If the language is ergative, the patient will almost always precede the agent;

I don't think so. I don't actually know any example of it.

Really? Well, thanks then, and disregard what I said above. Remember my signature!

(Then again, it's just my opinion that "subject" and "object" aren't very applicable to ergative languages.)

Many "ergative" languages do well with the concepts of subject and object. It's just morphological marking.
But there are languages with ergative word orders. I once read about a language in Mexico(?) that was EVA VA. The marking of transitive NP subjects had something to do with topicalization though. And there is at least one lang with ergative word order in Africa.

Well, the thing is that (and despite my signature, I have genuine sources for this that I could probably dig up) ergative languages have a strong tendency to be either verb-initial or verb-final, which means that EAV = AV, and VEA = VA. EVA would be unusual, I think, though I'm sure it's attested.

Edit: While researching this, I found this gem on the ergativity wikipedia page (emphasis mine):

Ergative languages are classified into 2 groups: those that are morphologically ergative but syntactically behave as accusative (for instance, Basque, Pashto and Urdu) and those that—on top of being ergative morphologically—also show ergativity in syntax. No language has been recorded in which both the morphological and syntactical ergative are present.

This perhaps undermines the credibility of this wikipedia article, but for what it's worth (again, emphasis mine):

An ergative language maintains a syntactic or morphological equivalence (such as the same word order or grammatical case) for the object of a transitive verb and the single core argument of an intransitive verb, while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently.

This would suggest that EVA at least could = VA.