Search found 690 matches
- 10 Dec 2024 11:13
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 2224
- Views: 522446
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I'm not sure what to make of it, but Corbett's own book, the Cambridge Textbook in Linguistics "Agreement", has an entire chapter on alliterative agreement. Either there's an inconsistency in his statement, or broad generalisation which intentionally omits the idea as an irrelevant outlie...
- 10 Dec 2024 08:31
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 2224
- Views: 522446
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Greetings, O Master of Jugs upon Platforms! I like a lot of what’s going on in the thread on your latest lang. I also deeply sympathise with the deep resentment you must be harbouring towards your word forms, which, albeit lovely, will inevitably stab at the heart of their creator. [:D] According t...
- 08 Dec 2024 11:49
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 2224
- Views: 522446
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
If we think of adjectivizers, we would probably have to think about their origin, too. I mean, what is the difference between a deverbal adjective and a participle anyway. Yes indeed - this was essentially my question: if there are multiple ways of forming deverbal adjectives (which aren't initiall...
- 07 Dec 2024 12:28
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Davushian Scratchpad
- Replies: 5
- Views: 881
Re: Davushian Scratchpad
Ok, all is not lost with Xi. I might just need to use a wordgen and accept the outcomes – I don't actually like any of the words I'm creating, and the small phonology is making it difficult. Anyway... Nouns I want nouns to have a kind of distinct 'shape' from verbs, although the small phonology isn'...
- 05 Dec 2024 23:53
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 2224
- Views: 522446
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Hmm, I am not sure that I get your question. Is it about orientation? Okay, let's take Finnish -ttu as an example. According to Wiktionary it derives from a combination of the passive suffix -tta and a category changing vocalic suffix in Proto-Finnic, probably either the nominalizer -u or the adjec...
- 04 Dec 2024 17:03
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 2224
- Views: 522446
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Participles can also come from nominalized forms. In English you can have forms that are relatively neutral. 'I was in a beating.' can mean I was beaten, I beat s.o. or both. Your participles could also extend their function from an attributive (relative clause-like) function to being combined with...
- 04 Dec 2024 08:47
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 2224
- Views: 522446
Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
I have a question about participles. Recently I've been wanting to make a language where participles 'take over' and become a major part of the verbal system, but this leads to the question: where do participles come from? The obvious answer is adjectivising affixes of some kind, but more specifical...
- 03 Dec 2024 18:51
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Davushian Scratchpad
- Replies: 5
- Views: 881
Re: ΞΙ (Xi) Scratchpad
If the same morpheme codes both progressive and frequentative, it's quite much what imperfective codes. Should the morpheme rather be analyzed as a past marker? Does ΞΙ (Xi) code tense? Of course real semantics is hard to abstract below labels. Yes, true. Although I think there can be a subtle diff...
- 03 Dec 2024 08:39
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Lexember 2024
- Replies: 287
- Views: 19576
Re: Lexember 2024
(Well that was predictable. I'm already bored with the restrictive phonology of Xi after a grand total of a day.) Trying something else I'll call Phi-Zeta (ΦΖ) for now. Lexember 1 φόασι (pl. (φοάστε) /ˈfo.a.si/ snake σέφον (pl. σέφτιν) /ˈse.fon/ dog νέσεραν (pl. νεσεράδιν) /ˈne.se.ɾan/ animal Lexemb...
- 01 Dec 2024 13:23
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Lexember 2024
- Replies: 287
- Views: 19576
Re: Lexember 2024 (Suggestions end November 25th, Voting ends November 30th)
Let's see how far I get with this... ιτρι - ıtrı - to gather υτρυ - utru - to be gathered, to be dense πρακι - prakı - to hunt πσύτιμι - psu̇tımı - a type of wheat μιπρακάκια σα τσαράιρα τάυτρυα mı-prak-ȧk-ıa sa tsar-ȧır-a t-ȧ-utru-a 1PL-hunt.IPFV<PROG>-PL in tree<PL> REL-IPFV-dense-PL We were hunti...
- 01 Dec 2024 12:03
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Davushian Scratchpad
- Replies: 5
- Views: 881
Re: ΞΙ (Xi) – Scratchpad
That is a very pretty looking language. Thanks! Part of the challenge with a small phonology (although not exactly small in comparison to some of the languages here...!) is making something that doesn't sound/look terribly monotonous. --- More on Verbs I would like there to be some sort of distinct...
- 30 Nov 2024 12:41
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Davushian Scratchpad
- Replies: 5
- Views: 881
Davushian Scratchpad
ΞΙ (Xi) Scratchpad This is a language I've been thinking about for a while so I thought I'd start a scratchpad. A main 'premise' of the language is a relatively small phonology with a somewhat interesting morphology. Although really I just want to make something that I like, with lots of aesthetica...
- 05 Apr 2024 09:47
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: The Language of Three (inter alia)
- Replies: 5
- Views: 1294
Re: The Language of Three (inter alia)
I really like this. Thanks! Some grammatical notes There won't be extensive morphology - mostly just agglutinative. The language will be quite head-initial. Pronouns Pronouns come in three forms: independent, prefixed, and suffixed. The prefixed forms are used as subject markers on the verb; the su...
- 02 Apr 2024 14:04
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: The Language of Three (inter alia)
- Replies: 5
- Views: 1294
Re: The Language of Three (inter alia)
As usual, I was adding things and taking things out, not liking any of the results. The word /vka/ [fka] popped into my mind, which I really liked, so i thought perhaps this comes from earlier *uká , with unstressed initial *u > /v/. Then I thought why not have unstressed initial *i > /s/, in parall...
- 31 Mar 2024 16:15
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: The Language of Three (inter alia)
- Replies: 5
- Views: 1294
Re: The Language of Three (inter alia)
I'll call this language Áiuaiu /ˈeβeu/, which I think is befitting the 'theme of three'. Verbs As mentioned, verbs are characterised by their stem vowel changing. I actually quite like the tripartite Irrealis - Imperfective - Perfective thing, so I'll keep that for now. However, I don't like the inh...
- 31 Mar 2024 03:22
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: The Language of Three (inter alia)
- Replies: 5
- Views: 1294
The Language of Three (inter alia)
This thread is for my random experimental/philosophical/artistic ideas which aren't exactly naturalistic, but might be fun to try out nonetheless. — A recent idea I've had is one where the language is characterised by its features (mostly) occuring in sets of three – in the phonology, grammar, lexic...
- 30 Mar 2024 10:06
- Forum: Conlangs
- Topic: Tsayyākan - Scratchpad
- Replies: 14
- Views: 1772
Re: Tsayyākan - Scratchpad
Sounds like Hindi. Yes indeed, I will have to take a closer look. It seems like when verbal systems are remodelled, participles taking over finite-forms often play a very large role. Gender As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I am thinking of having a gender system in this language. It will proba...
- 30 Mar 2024 09:15
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1301
- Views: 404555
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
My guess at a functional explanation would be kind if the opposite of what Davush said. (I pretty much said exactly the same thing) [...] people also like to be able to switch things around for focus, emphasis, etc. [...] If word order then also had to take on the additional load of marking number,...
- 28 Mar 2024 21:12
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1301
- Views: 404555
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
A current curiosity of mine: for how many grammatical functions do natural languages employ word order? And what are those functions? Though I'd wager the answer will probably be 'everything and anything', so perhaps a more specific question - among the languages anyone here might know about, which...
- 28 Mar 2024 13:40
- Forum: Linguistics & Natlangs
- Topic: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
- Replies: 1301
- Views: 404555
Re: (L&N) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here
Another of my 'speculative' questions... How might a language develop an animate/inanimate (or any other binary gender-like) distinction, on demonstratives specifically? I ask about demonstratives, since they are likely one of the first points in the development of a gender system (at least accordin...