The CBB

In languages with case prefixes, is number also often prefixed as well?

When the agent is reintroduced using the dative case, it implies that the agent did the action for their benefit. Miik yan snarin. Do you mean that the subject appears in Dative noun-DAT verb-MEDPASS or that there is a distinct dative argument noun-NOM verb-MEDPASS noun-DAT ? Sorry for the confusio...

Grammar Part Three: Verbs (Part One) Yønsen verbs mostly distinguish aspect over tense, although a future tense can be indicated using the auxiliary verb “rya” meaning to come. Verbs are conjugated to imperfective and perfective, as well as habitual, inchoative, and cessative. Likewise there is a d...

Nice, a new conlang. I like the vowel inventory. It is strange but when I look at it deeply I cannot find any specific strange or "unnatural" feature in it. Do you have some linguistic feeling/inspiration behind it, say it should feel like Sanskrit or a native American language or something? Thanks...

Grammar Part One: Typology (I meant to add this to the introduction but I forgot lol) Yønsen can be classified as following: Nominative accusative Head marking Head final Synthetic (agglutiative) Primarily suffixing Grammar Part Two: Nominals and Pronouns Nominals (Nouns and adjectives) and pronoun...

Introduction Yønsen, or more specifically Lens Yønsen “Standard Yønsen,” is a language spoken in the Yønir Prairie by a society at a technological development roughly similar to that of Classical Greece. They live in rather large cities (for the time period), mostly farming wheat and oats, and trad...

Hilariously, I know of one example of the opposite, where clitic pronouns are the only ones that have vowel harmony. In Standard Arabic, inflectional affixes (like na-, -na, -u, -tu, -tum, -tunna, -aani) and derivational affixes (like mu-, mi-, ta-, -iiya) do not undergo vowel harmony, but a few of...

Thanks!

At this point I'm already attached to them being clitics (they get used similarly in other places as part of the increasing head marking-ness of the language as it evolves.) The scope of vowel harmony is extremely language specific. Harmony can be either progressive or regressive (or both) and may a...

How likely is it for prefixed subject/object clitics to not interact with vowel harmony Not very, I think, but certainly it's not unheard of to have affixes that ignore harmony. Hungarian has the suffix -kor , which ignores vowel harmony, thus: egykor "at one" kettőkor "at two" háromkor "at three" ...

How likely is a verbal system with just perfective and imperfective where some verbal roots are inherently perfective and need an affix to make them imperfective? (I know this existed in PIE but is it attested elsewhere?) Assuming the default unmarked aspect is imperfective. Likewise, would a syste...

I took a break from conlanging for a while due to work and a little bit of depression, but I'm back baby! And today I bring you my latest conlang: Auitluo. Here are a few basics: Split ergative alignment (inanimate nouns are ergative) Slightly agglutinative but mostly analytical inflection SOV Adje...

How naturalistic is it for a language to have an auxiliary (derived from a verb meaning do) that takes person/maybe tense (its an agglutinative language so the two are completely separate) that comes after a serial verb construction? It would replace person/tense on the meaning verbs in the construc...

Speaking of which, how do langs with no tense and only aspect convey a generic past tense? Do they use perfective aspect? Wouldn't that just make it a tense anyways? For example how would they say "John fought the snake?" Langs without tenses don't convey tenses because they don't need to. Most con...

Using perfective is a common strategy, but that doesn't make it a past tense; it's just that most of the time an event considered without internal structure takes place in the past. Any event in the present is ongoing to some extent, and while the future is a possibility, it's just less likely than...

Speaking of which, how do langs with no tense and only aspect convey a generic past tense? Do they use perfective aspect? Wouldn't that just make it a tense anyways? For example how would they say "John fought the snake?"

Verbs II (Voice & person) Verbs in Laameta feature polypersonal agreement to number person and gender (in the 3rd person only). They also have 7 voices: active, passive, reflexive, reciprocal, causative, and two forms of applicative. Let's start with voice: Voice affixes in Laameta can be divided i...

Verbs I (The basics) Laameta is a highly head marking language, meaning verbs take a lot of information. There is a strict order for these affixes: Verb-instrumental(class 1)-instrumental(class 2)-voice-person-aspect-tense-mood-negative Instrumental class 1 is a closed class of highly productive af...

Numerals & Minor Updates Also: I've decided on a color for Laameta (as you can probably tell). Numerals Laameta has a base ten counting system, and numbers exist in one of two forms: counting and enclitic. They are listed in that order. If there is only one form then the number simply doesn't chang...

Before I type out the verbal paradigms (I may just link a PDF of the chart so I don't have to redo it), are some example sentences with glosses: Naantussa. [ná:n.tùs.sǝ] naan-tu-ssa-Ø eat-1s-PROG.PRE-DEC "I am eating." Naanweseslapo. [ná:n.wɛ.sès.lǝ.pɔ] naan-wese-sla-Ø-po eat-3sA>3sI-PERF.PRE-DEC-NE...