Vissard

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VaptuantaDoi
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Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Vissard

The idea for Vissard was originally as an ergative Gallo-Romance language spoken in the alt-history country of Vissey, an island corresponding to Doggerland, a submerged landmass in the North Sea. Since then it's changed significantly, but its location is pretty much the same.

Vissard is spoken by about 600,000 people in the kingdom of Vissey, consisting of two islands in the North Sea to the west of England; Vissey (about 130 by 60 miles, corresponding to Dogger Bank) and Southey (about 15 by 10 miles, corresponding to Cleaver Bank. Its closest relatives are the Northern Gallo-Romance languages Picard, Norman and Walloon, although its prolonged separation from Romania has resulted in a number of conservative features and some innovations due to Germanic contact.


Below is a vigorously plagiarised map of Vissey and Southey in the North Sea:

Image


The two islands are natively called Vissie /viˈti/ and Sudie /yˈdi/; note the major cities shown of Élin /eˈlẽ/, Chirchetosints /ʃiʃˈtwẽn/, Asdeu-sope-Demer /ɛˈdœtopədˈme/ and Béwis /beˈwiː/, as well as the two largest waterways, the Wine /ˈwin/ and the Demer /ədˈme/. There are distinct English names for Élin (Alon /ˈɛɪ̯lɒn/) and the Wine (Ogine /ˈəʊ̯d͡ʒaɪ̯n/), as well as Vissey /ˈvɪsi/ and Southey /ˈsʌði/ for the two islands.



Just for shits and giggles, here's some sample texts I've made over the past 16 months from different incarnations of Vissard:
Spoiler:
July 2021:
Padre mø u feç vient i u vinød.

My father saw me and came to me.
August 2021:
N’avertesement entri la torist: L’asnos tra sêvajo sons, e tra ferlic possens êstri! Lo pos k’ lês batens din mêngent o din foint. Lo pos k’ ovês scaens cretecament! La vies e la paris ovês varda! Serva la thin devras dr’asno!

Warning for tourists: The donkeys are wild and can be very dangerous! They may fight each other when they are eating or mating! You could easily be seriously injured! Elderly people and parents, use care! Keep dogs away from the donkeys!
December 2021:
Françi (français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] o langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) ît na lendja român d’a famîllia Indo-Europeân. Lu deçendô d’a Latîna Vulgâ de l’ Empi Român, cun tûtê lê lendjê românê. Françi evoluô d’a Latîna Vulgâ Gali, la varietêt pabiêta en Gôl, e pi specificament en Gôl d’e Nort. Si paents pi prûns sunt lê ôtrê lendjê d’Oïl – lê lendjê pabiêtê historicament en la França d’e Nort e Belgîtç d’e Sût, co l’ Françi standart repieçûra en grant partît.

French (français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French largely supplanted.
January 2022:
Si t’ irées a la Franhe, tu veras que h’ ès non ossi belle qu’ la Vissée.

If you go to France, you'll see that it's not as beautiful as Vissey.
Febuary/March 2022:
Boréa et l’ Soléillus sé désputaivas sur loira forcha, quand un heumou arrivà emballéus en unou mantellou caloroisou. Is décidèro que l’unou qui avussé dou succèssou primairamenté a déspoullier l’ hamé de sous véstementous...

The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off...
April 2022:
U museus se yepre quand ke jo me lève, es é se ferme quand ke jo daige me koukier. Quand ke jo en age desvenut satou, é se fermara por de bon.

The museum opens when I wake up and closes when I must go to sleep. When I have had enough, it will close for good.
Late April 2022:
Ele est eune véritat universalement reskonute ke uns on célibataires provus de eune forte rikece dai tenir envaye de prendre eune uif.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
September 2022:
Dent lx temps bien passats : If evat un buen rei
Ki bacit un pelace magnifike et énorme
Plx de touts dent le terre. Il volit ke il hevist
Le maskot plx perfeit : Plien de beices troupit il
En fait plx ke setente. Mais ne mites satisfait
Il hat stat evok ex touts – Che est a dire jxke le beice
De le nombre setente-un : El sours homble de le cylve.


Once upon a time, there was a good king
Who built an enormous and magnificent palace
More so than any in the world. He wanted to have
The most perfect pet. So he found many animals,
In fact more than seventy. But he was not satisifed
At all by any of them - that is, until the animal
Which came seventy-first: The humble mouse.
October 2022:
Chi le a fait se far konsilor en investisement.

It made him become an investment advisor.
November 2022:
Por le emor de Du et por le tricen peppe et por nute komun selut, en evanceant dis chel jone, tant ke Dus me donne le sapir et le potir, donk va-jou sokulre chel mun frate Karle, et ent aidar kant toute kose, komme che ke til faut fare por sokulre seon frate par drit, si ke til me fonne le metisme; Et to Lother akeun ekord ne va-jou imas prendre, ki vel vonne esre nuskisaule a chel mun frate Karle.

For the love of God and for Christendom and our common salvation, from this day onwards, as God will give me the knowledge and power, I shall protect this brother of mine Charles, with aid and all things, as one ought to protect one's brother by rights, provided that he do the same for me. And with Lothair I will not make a covenant, that, by my will, would harm this brother of mine, Charles.
Last edited by VaptuantaDoi on 15 Nov 2022 23:32, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Vissard

Post by Jackk »

Doggerland Romance [<3]
The aesthetic is very fun; using the circumflex as the main diacritic is a distinctive choice.

Does Vissard have any areal features taken from its closest neighbours?
terram impūram incolāmus
hamteu un mont sug
let us live in a dirty world
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Re: Vissard 7.0

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Phonology

Consonants

/p b t d k ɡ/
/m n ɲ ŋ/
/f v s z ʃ ʒ (h)/
/r l j w/

​ ​ ​ ​ /ŋ/ is marginally phonemic word-finally following a nasal vowel, e.g. fong /fɔ̃ŋ/ vs. fond /fɔ̃n/.
​ ​ ​ ​ /h/ only occurs in conservative dialects as a reflex of Latin S (SEPTEM → /hɛ/ for standard /ɛ/ sët)
​ ​ ​ ​ /r/ may be a tap [ɾ] or a short trill [r]; it's never uvular like in French

Vowels

Plain vowels:
/i y u/
/e ə o/
/ɛ œ ɔ/
/a/

​ ​ ​ ​ /ə/ only occurs in unstressed syllables
​ ​ ​ ​ /œ/ mostly occurs in stressed syllables, but note that the prefix <ex-> makes it quite common, like examen /œjaˈmɛ̃/

Nasal vowels:
/ẽ ø̃/
/ɛ̃ ɔ̃/
/ã/

Nasal vowels behave differently to French. They are always followed by a nasal consonant, unless they occur word-finally. Almost all word-internal syllables ending in a nasal contain a nasal vowel, but sometimes they don't. I suspect that a higher-level analysis using underlying schwas and emergent consonants could make nasal vowels entirely predictable, but I cbf.

Long vowels:
/iː yː uː/
/eː/
/ɛː/

These only occur in stressed syllables, and generally only in open syllables.

Orthography

Vissard orthography is relatively (-ish) straightforward. Consonants are pretty regular:

/p b t d k ɡ/ <p b t d k~c g~gu>
/m n ɲ ŋ/ <m n gn n>
/f v s z ʃ ʒ (h)/ <f v c~ce z ch g~j s>
/r l j w/ <r l y w>

​ ​ ​ ​ /k/ is written <k> in all native words; in some borrowings it's <c> or <qu>.
​ ​ ​ ​ /ɡ s ʒ/ are <gu c g~j> before <i e y> and <g ce j> everywhere else.
​ ​ ​ ​ Note that <s> and <h> are silent (except in dialects where <s> is /h/), and final <r l p b t d k g> are also silent
​ ​ ​ ​ Intervocalic <s> however is read as /j/
​ ​ ​ ​ <x> can be used as shorthand for the sequence <us>, most often in final syllables. This is how it's read in borrowings like exacte /œˈjakt/.

Vowels require a bit more explanation. Plain vowels are easy-ish

/i y u/ <i u o~ou>
/e ə o/ <e~é e o~au>
/ɛ œ ɔ/ <e~ë eu o~ô>
/a/ <a>

​ ​ ​ ​ /u/ is <o> in unstressed syllables and <ou> in stressed syllables
​ ​ ​ ​ /ɛ/ is <e> before a (orthographically) doubled consonant in a stressed syllable, and <ë> otherwise. Also final <el> is /ɛ/.
​ ​ ​ ​ pre-tonic <e> followed by a doubled consonant or <r> + a consonant is read as /e/ (chervul /ʃeˈvy/).
​ ​ ​ ​ /e/ is <é> word-finally, unstressed or before final <l>, and <e> otherwise
​ ​ ​ ​ Also /i/ can be written <y> in some borrowings
​ ​ ​ ​ <ô> is always /ɔ/ and <au> is always /o/; <o> in stressed syllables is generally /ɔ/ followed by a doubled consonant and /o/ otherwise
​ ​ ​ ​ Initial unstressed <Ce> is generally read as /əC/, subject to liaison (e.g. celar /əsˈla/)

/ẽ ø̃/ <iN uN>
/ɛ̃ ɔ̃/ <eN oN>
/ã/ <aN>

​ ​ ​ ​ Word-finally, <VN> represents a nasal vowel, <VNe> represents an oral vowel followed by a nasal.
​ ​ ​ ​ The sequences <Vmp Vmb Vnt Vnd Vnc Vng> represent /Ṽm Ṽm Ṽn Ṽn Ṽŋ Ṽŋ/.
​ ​ ​ ​ The sequences <Vnm> and <Vnn> represent /Ṽm Ṽn/ in some etymological cases, e.g. anme /ãm/ < ANIMA
​ ​ ​ ​ <VN> represents /ṼN/ when followed by any written consonant.

/iː yː uː/ <is us/os/ous/eus aus>
/eː ɛː/ <es as>

​ ​ ​ ​ In unstressed syllables before a consonant, <as aus es is os ous us> represent /ɛ u i i y y y/.
​ ​ ​ ​ /yː uː/ can also be <x/ox ax>. Unstressed <ex> before a consonant is /y/ as well (extent /yˈtɛ̃n/)


Emergent consonants

Actually fuck it I'll leave liaison for a different post.
Last edited by VaptuantaDoi on 12 Nov 2022 12:37, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Post no longer relevant

1.4 Orthography
Spoiler:
Vissard's orthography is similar to that of French, but with diacritics being less common and a couple of non-intuitive features. While mostly regular, there is some room for ambiguity. This version is inspired mostly by Old Picard; using <k>, going light on accents etc.

1.4.1 Short vowels

The ten short vowels are represented using five vowels and two vowels with diacritics.
  • The vowels /i y œ a/ are pretty much always <i u eu a> (although see §1.4.5 for a note on <eu>, and /i/ is occasionally <y>)
  • /u/ is either <o> or <ou> in unstressed syllables and always <ou> in stressed syllables.
  • /e/ is <e> in stressed syllables and <é> word-finally, before a final silent <e> and in unstressed syllables. In closed* stressed syllables it's sometimes <é> and sometimes <e>. Note that word-final <er> is always /e/, never /ɛ/.
  • /ɛ/ is <ai> sometimes, and at other times <e> in closed syllables and <è> in open syllables. Unstressed, it's <e> in closed syllables and <ai> in open syllables.
  • /ə/ is always <e>; <e> is read as /ə/ in pre-tonic open syllables (except when preceding a vowel, see §1.4.5) or in an unstressed monosyllable.
  • /o/ is generally <au>, except some instances in stressed syllables where it's <o>. /ɔ/ is always <o>.
  • /o̯ɛ/ is <oi>

1.4.2 Long vowels

Long vowels are primarily indicated by a following <s>, but there are two other secondary methods.
  • When word-final or preceding a consonant other than another s, <as ais aus es és ès eus is os ous us ois> represent /ɛː eː uː eː iː eː yː iː yː yː yː wiː/; for any of these <s> can be replaced by <z> especially when deriving from Old Vissard ts, e.g. in 2pl verb forms. <ax ex ox> are read as <aus eus ous>. All instances of word-final <x> are read as <us>, even when unetymological; e.g. complex /kãˈpʎyː/ vs. complexe /kãˈpʎɛks/.
  • /s/ following a long vowel is written <ç/c>.
  • <Vs> sequences change in quality but not length in a few unstressed function words, such as the articles lus /ly/ and las /lɛ/, the verb form est /e/ and the adjectival gender particles -as /ɛ/ and -us /y/.
  • Vowels with a circumflex are long without any change in quality; this occurs mostly in the feminine form of "one" eûne and a few borrowed words or random instances.**
  • Long vowels which arose from denasalisation*** are shown by doubling of the following nasal; i.e. vowels before <mm nn> are lengthened.

1.4.3 Nasal vowels

Nasal vowels are pretty simple
  • When preceding a consonant other than a nasal, or word-finally, <in un en on an ien oin> are /ẽ ø̃ ɛ̃ ã ɛ̃ ĩ ãɛ̯̃/; <n> can be replaced by <m> word-finally or before <p b>.
1.4.4 Consonants

Consonants are generally simpler than vowels.
  • The consonants /p b t d m n ɲ f v ʃ x l r/ are written <p b t d m n gn f v ch h l r>; other than v h and digraphs, these can all be doubled with no change in pronunciation (except see §1.4.1).
  • /k/ is always written <k>, even before back vowels or consonants, except in recent loans where it may be <c>. <qu> is always /kɥ/.
  • In any position, /ɡ/ may be any of <g gh gu> depending on etymology or random scribal fuckery. <gu> sometimes represents /ɡɥ/, except when it doesn't.
  • /ʒ/ can be written <j> in any position, and can optionally be written <g> before one of <i e>.
  • /ʎ/ is written <l> after a consonant and <ill> otherwise, except after i where it's <ll> and thus indistinguishable from /l/.
  • /j w/ are generally <y w>, occasionally <i o(u)> before a vowel.
  • /ɥ/ is <u>.
  • /s z/ are <ss s> intervocalically and <s z> otherwise. /s/ may also be represented by <c> before one of i e or <ç> anywhere. See §1.4.2 and §1.4.6 for more about <s>.

1.4.5 Silent letters

Vissard wouldn't be a langue d'Oïl if it didn't have plebty of silent letters to confuse everyone!
  • Word-final <e> is silent unless it's the only vowel in a word.
  • Word-final <le re> are silent when following a consonant.
  • Sometimes <h> is silent, when it's not being /x/.
  • Word-final <p k> are always silent; <t d f s z x r> are silent except when they undergo liaison (§1.4.6).
  • When preceding a vowel, <e> is silent; this means <eu> can be either /ø/ or /y/ with no warning; e.g. keut "fallen" is /ky/ vs. feule "weak" /føl/.

1.4.6 Liaison
Liaison occurs to a lesser extent than in French, but is still important. It is not consistently indicated in the orthography.
  • <s,z,x> surface as /z/ word-finally after a vowel, t or a nasal when the following word begins with a vowel and is not separated by a pause. They still has their lengthening and quality effect on the vowel, e.g. le nais a keut /lə ˈneːz ͜ a ˈky/.
  • <t,d f> which are normally silent word-finally surface as /d v/ before a vowel; e.g. drand anne /drɛ̃ˈd ͜ aːn/, if alar /iv ͜ aˈla/.
  • Nasal vowels excrete /n/; bon effant /bãn ͜ ɛˈfɛ̃/. The oblique masculine indefinite article un has a special form eun when preceding a vowel, which is pronounced as oral /øn/; eun an /øn ˈɛ̃/.
  • Word-final <r> following a vowel becomes /r/; tutar un mokaur /tyˈtar ͜ ø̃ muˈko/.
  • Word-final <re le> become /r ʎ/; le table est /lə ˈtabˌʎ ͜ e/.
  • /ə/ is lost in monosyllables whenever it would come into contact with another vowel, or when it can be dropped without creating a consonant cluster of three or more consonants. In unstressed syllables of longer words it may also less consistently be dropped in the same conditions; compare un metesme /ø̃ mˈtiːm/ vs. eune metesme /øn məˈtiːm/.



*"Closed" means orthographically closed, i.e. followed by two consonants other than the digraph <ch>; <x> when it represents /ks/ rather than us is also considered closing. An orthographically closed syllable can be phonologically open or vice versa.
**There is one regularity; the sequence MNI became /ːɲ/, written <^gne, e.g. SOMNIUM > sâgne, CALUMNIA > kelâgne, DOMINIŌNEM > dâgnon.
***A rule by which a nasal vowel was denasalised before a nasal consonant, becoming long oral vowels (nasal vowels being allophonically longer than short oral vowels); for example ANIMA > /ɛ̃m/ > /ɛːm/.
Last edited by VaptuantaDoi on 12 Nov 2022 12:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Kinda skipping around here, but this is IMO one of the more distinctive and interesting things in Vissard grammar.


Strong adjective particles

While all Langues d'Oïl, including Vissard, greatly reduced their post-tonic vowels, there are a few instances where they were retained due to the phonological conflation of syntactic units. For example, the definite articles lo, le, li, lus and las all maintain reflexes of the second syllable of ILLE¹ even though it would be post-tonic by regular Latin stress rules. This tendency was extended to "strong" adjectives in Vissard, and also less consistently in Walloon and Picard².

Strong adjectives
Strong adjectives refer to adjectives within a noun phrase which precede a noun, in opposition to weak adjectives which appear alone following stative verbs (e.g. red is a strong adjective in the red house and a weak adjective in the house is red). In Vissard, these typically decline for case, number and gender as follows:

Code: Select all

     Masculine  Feminine
     sing plur  sing plur
nom  -s   -Ø    -e   -es
obl  -Ø   -s    -e   -es
However, in some circumstances, strong adjectives drop their endings and instead are followed by particles. Hence this is referred to as the "weak declension", even though it's also used for many strong adjectives.

Post-adjectival particles
In weak form, Latin adjectives lost their post-tonic vowels in Vissard by a regular process. However, in strong position, their post-tonic endings were resistant to being lost as the stress on their tonic syllable was less forceful in comparison to the stress of the noun. This meant that as late as in early Old Vissard, strong adjectives still declined with a complete set of "post-tonic" endings:

Code: Select all

     Masculine  Feminine
     sing plur  sing plur
nom  -us  -i    -a   -as
obl  -o   -os   -a   -as
For example, a 12th-century text about cheeses contains the phrases "sieis blanki Formacze de Normandiie" (six white cheeses from Normandy) and "cuatre gaulnos Furmaczes de Borgonge" (four yellow cheeses from Burgundy). These endings were gradually lost outside of the oblique plural, where they were retained probably due to similarity with the oblique plural definite articles and their greater phonological robustness than the single-vowel endings. In modern Vissard, they appear as two particles; masculine us and feminine as. These each have two allomorphs; /y ɛ/ preceding a consonant and /yz ɛz/ preceding a vowel or semivowel; as mentioned in §1.4.2, they are not pronounced as long vowels despite their appearance.

Distribution
Through a process of analogy, the distribution of these particles has changed somewhat. They appear only in the oblique, even though outside of this process the feminine oblique is always identical to the nominative. While they act phonologically as part of the NP, they are written as separate words us and as, and the preceding adjective is written in its masculine oblique singular form. These particles can follow any adjectives, spreading analogically to third-declension adjectives which ended in -ĒS in Latin, and borrowed adjectives.
Vus avaiz si drant as oreilles, manon!
/vyːz ͜ aˈveː si ˈdrɛ̃d ͜ ɛz ͜ uˈreʎ | maˈnã/
2PL have-2PL so big F.PL ear.PL, grandmother
"What big ears you have, grandma!"

É va tojoune a las hip as tavarnes.
/e va tuˈʒun a lɛ ˌxi ɛ taˈvarn/
3SG.M go.3SG always to the.F.O.PL hip F.PL bar-PL
"He's always going to hip bars."
Vissard is relatively free with its order of adjectives compared to French; most can either precede or follow the noun they modify. When they follow the noun, they take the weak declension (as shown in the previous table) and no particles.
Jo ame lus vascés seuts.
/ˈʒ am ly vɛːˈsiː ˈsø/
1SG love.1SG the.M.O.PL cake-O.PL sweet-M.O.PL
"I love sweet cakes."
In lists of multiple adjectives, the particle only follows the last one, but all adjectives drop their weak declension endings. Even when separated by a conjunction like es, o or mas, the first adjective still has no suffix.
Jo ne vi jemas si lage, ful as majons!
/ʒu n ˌvi ʒˈmɛː si ˈlaɡ ˈfyl ɛ maˈʒã/
1SG NEG see.1SG.PERF such short ugly F.PL house-PL
"I've never seen such short ugly houses!"

L’ esçaient dus fier es fort us uerrers.
/l iːˈsɛ dy ˈfjer ͜ e ˈfɔrd ͜ yz ͜ ɥɛˈre/
3PL be-3PL.IMPF PART.M.PL proud and strong MPL warrior-O.PL
"They were proud and strong warriors."

Das bé o bon as besces.
/dɛ ˈbe u ˈbãn ͜ ɛ ˈbeːs/
PART.F.PL beautiful or good F.PL animal-PL.
"Beautiful or good animals."
More recently, these particles began to be used with numbers, which originally didn't mark gender other than un/eûne. This process was historically proscribed, but has become increasingly widespread. In formal speech, the particles aren't used.
Ele if a sétente es juit us annes achik.
/ˌel iv ͜ a seˈtɛ̃t e ˈʒɥid ͜ yˈz ͜ aːn aˈʃi/
3F.N.SG here have.3SG seventy and eight M.PL man.OB-PL here
"There's seventy-eight men here."

Mas Captans, ele ne if a ke vinte tonés de pork salat ki rescent.
/mɛː kapˈtɛ̃ | el n iv ͜ a k ˈvẽt tuˈniː d ˈpɔr saˈla ki ˈreːs/
but 2PL.POSS highness, 3SG.F NEG there have.3SG than twenty barrel.PL of pork.O salt-PPL that rest-3PL
"But captain, there are only twenty barrels of salt pork remaining."
This even goes as far as compound numbers in which chent "100", mile "1000" etc. are treated as plural nouns.
Tu me dices ke ches on age quatre us chents es nief us ans?
/ty m ˈdis kə ʃeːˈz ͜ ãn ͜ aʒ ˌkɥatr ͜ y ˈʃɛ̃z ͜ e ˌnjev ͜ yˈz ͜ ɛ̃/
2SG 1SG.OBJ say.2SG that this.M.N.SG man have.3SG.SUBJ four M.PL hundred-PL and nine year-O.PL
"You're telling me that this man is four hundred and nine years old?"

Depusce trais us mil us sieches, jo suis gelat cryogénikement denz che kapsule.
/dəˈpyːs ˌtreːz ͜ y ˌmil y ˈsjeʃ | ʒu sɥiː ʒˈla kriuˌʒenikˈmɛ̃ dɛ̃ ʃ kapˈsyl/
since three MPL thousand MPL century-O.PL, 1SG be.1SG freeze-PPL cryogenically in this.F.SG pod
"For three thousand centuries, I have been cryogenically frozen in this pod."
Further notes
One very specific but occasionally productive usage for these particles is when a speaker wants to imply an adjective without stating any specific one; most commonly used in euphemistic insults. Somewhat like saying "so-and-so" instead of an actual insult, a Vissard speaker can use the strong adjective particles to imply a pejorative adjective. Note that this also doesn't cause liaison of the previous word to help imply a missing adjective.
Che’st at faute dus us bureaucrates!
/ʃed ͜ a ˈfot dy y byroˈkrat/
it.is at fault of.the.M.PL. M.PL bureaucrat-O.PL
"It's all the fault of those so-and-so bureaucrats!"

Non, ke dices-tu, jo ne desteste mike tus us effants.³
/nã | kə dis ˈty | ʒu n diːteːt ˈmik ty yz ͜ ɛˈfɛ̃/
no, what say-2SG 2SG, 1SG NEG hate NEG your.M.O.PL M.PL child-O.PL.
"No, what do you mean, I don't hate your children /s"


1) Specifically ILLUM > lo, ILLA(M) > le, ILLĪ > li, ILLŌS > lus, ILLĀS > las.
2) As described in this paper.
3) Something which is lost in English is that the speaker is using the generic negator ne mike, rather than the emphatic ne point. Normally answering an accusation like this you'd say point, so saying mike makes it seem more sarcastic.
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Noun declension

Nouns have mostly unchanging gender, either masculine or feminine, while they decline for number (singular/plural) and case (nominative/oblique). This two-case system was seen throughout early Western Romance, surviving into Old French until the 13th century and until the present day in a few Arpitan lects. Most nouns have two distinct phonological forms, with a few irregular nouns having a third form in the nominative singular. The least marked form is the oblique singular, from which the other three forms are usually predictable.

Articles
Both definite and indefinite articles mark case.

Image
Image

Masculine nouns
All masculine nouns have an identical obl. sg. and nom. pl., and most of the time the nom. sg. and obl. pl. are also identical. Note that inflectional -s is not pronounced when not in liaison (see §1.4.6), however when following a vowel it has the expected effects as described in §1.4.4. Where -us would be expected to occur following a vowel, it is consistently replaced with -x; e.g. *kevaus > kevax.

Regular masculine nouns are unmarked in the obl. sg. and nom. pl., and take -s in the nom. sg. and obl. pl.

Code: Select all

nom. sg.        obl. sg./nom. pl.  obl. pl.

murs ‘wall’     mur                murs
amiks ‘friend’  amik               amiks
pans ‘bread’    pan                pans
laups ‘wolf’    laup               laups
Most nouns which end in -re and all those which end in -ache in the obl. sg. do not take -s in the nom. sg. There are a few exceptions with nom. sg. -res.

Code: Select all

nom. sg.           obl. sg./nom. pl.  obl. pl.

faure ‘smith’      faure              faures
patre ‘father’     patre              patres
vilache ‘village’  vilache            vilaches
annache ‘homage’   annache            annaches
genepres ‘juniper’ genepre            genepres
nombres ‘number’   nombre             nombres
A sizeable number of masculine nouns have an unpredictable nom. sg. form which may drop a consonant or a syllable. Some of these still take -s:

Code: Select all

nom. sg.          obl. sg./nom. pl.  obl. pl.

pards ‘pheasant’  pardiche           pardiches
nies ‘nephew’     nepaut             nepauts
effes ‘child’     effant             effants
juis ‘judge’      juge               juges
bus ‘ox’          bief               biefs
pais ‘foot’       pié                piés
kons ‘count’      konte              kontes
nais ‘snow’       naif               naifs
Nouns with an obl. sg. in -ataur or -aur generally have -(at)re in the nom. sg. Especially with those in -aur, this may cause some irregularity.

Code: Select all

nom. sg.              obl. sg./nom. pl.  obl. pl.

tropatre ‘troubadour’ tropataur          tropataurs
trayatre ‘believer’   trayataur          trayataurs
sindre ‘sir’          seignaur           seignaurs
pastre ‘shepherd’     pastaur            pastaurs
doudre ‘pain’         dolaur             dolaurs
Nouns with an obl. sg. ending in a long vowel followed by a nasal have a reduced nom. sg. with a nasal vowel, apart from the regular asne "donkey".

Code: Select all

nom. sg.        obl. sg./nom. pl.  obl. pl.

on ‘man’        anne               annes
essen ‘swarm’   essenne            essennes
non ‘name’      nanne              nannes
lun ‘vegetable’ leunne             leunnes
Some nouns with obl. sg. -on have a nom. sg. in -Ø~-e

Code: Select all

nom. sg.         obl. sg./nom. pl.  obl. pl.

garse ‘boy’      garson             garsons
bar ‘baron’      baron              barons
bak ‘bacon’      bakon              bakons
masse ‘mason’    masson             massons
A few other irregularities exist

Code: Select all

nom. sg.         obl. sg./nom. pl.  obl. pl.

auspes ‘host’    ausce              ausces
prestre ‘priest’ presvetre          presvetres
ris ‘nothing’    rien               (riens)


Feminine nouns

Feminine nouns ending in -e, which constitute the majority of feminine nouns, take -es in the pl., thus not differentiating case at all.

Code: Select all

nom./obl. sg.  nom./obl. pl.

danne ‘woman’  dannes
matre ‘mother’ matre
lane ‘wool’    lanes
égise ‘church’ égises
Regular feminine nouns which end in a letter other than -e in the obl. sg. take -s in the nom. sg. and the pl.

Code: Select all

nom. sg.        obl.sg.  nom./obl. pl.

naus ‘ship’     nau      naus
girs ‘dormouse’ gir      girs
miés ‘honey’    mié      miés
piés ‘skin’     pié      piés
A few nouns have a reduced nom. sg. form. Most notably, those with obl. sg. -at take -es and those in -sson/-cion/-tion take -sse.

Code: Select all

nom. sg.             obl.sg.   nom./obl. pl.

chites ‘city’        chitat    chitats
amites ‘friendship’  amitat    amitats
raisse ‘reason’      raisson   raissons
tentace ‘temptation’ tentation tentacions
race ‘ration’        ration    rations
There are a couple of irregular ones:

Code: Select all

nom.sg.  obl.sg.  nom./obl. pl.

flus     flaur    flaurs
siere    soraur   soraurs
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

The n-subjunctive

Why exactly am I making a post on a pattern in the formation of irregular subjunctives in a revamped Vissard without posting anything about phonology or any other aspects grammar first? That's a very good question.

With that out of the way, let's get into it.


What is the n-subjunctive?

The n-subjunctive is a term in Vissard for irregular verbs which have /n/ in their subjunctive stems (which are also their 2/3pl indicative stems, which I'll get to later). This (mostly) can't be explained through regular sound change, for example:

​ ​ ​ ​ Latin: HABET, HABEAT (have 3sg.pres.indic and 3sg.pres.subj respectively)
​ ​ ​ ​ Old Vissard: at, auge
​ ​ ​ ​ Middle Vissard: a, ouge

This all seems right and proper (well, maybe it doesn't, but I assure you it is). But then, insidious Late Middle Vissard comes along!

​ ​ ​ ​ Late Middle Vissard: a, onne
​ ​ ​ ​ Modern Vissard: a, onne

Where the fuck did that come from, I hear you asking? Well, that's why I made this post. Read on and prepare to be not particularly impressed and/or doubtful of the realism of this.


Origin of the subjunctive

In simplest terms, the Vissard subjunctive derives from the Latin subjunctive. This is pretty obvious in verbs like divir "to owe" and sapir "to know".

Indicative:
​ ​ ​ ​ Latin DĒBET > Old Vissard deit > Modern Vissard di
​ ​ ​ ​ L SAPIT > OV sapt > MV sa

Subjunctive:
​ ​ ​ ​ L DĒBEAT > OV deuge > MV duge
​ ​ ​ ​ L SAPIAT > OV sauche > MV souche

This all makes a lot of sense (I hope). This is how all subjunctives worked in Old Vissard, bar those which had already been regularised by analogy. However, at this point it's important to note that Old and Middle Vissard experienced a lot of influence from Germanic languages (especially those pesky Norse ones). Having seen the possibilities of nice simple Germanic verbs, the Vissards got jealous and started throwing away all their excess verb forms, like the imperfect and conditional and future and imperative and pretty much anything else they could find. Being mostly French at heart though, they were too sentimental to let go of their beloved subjunctive. They nevertheless analogised the shit out of it in a number of ways.


The third person plural present indicative form

When learning French, you're taught that the subjunctive stem is taken from the third person plural present indicative form of the verb¹; for venir you get je vienne, for prendre, je prenne, for manger, je mange. This doesn't actually work particularly well in French, but it did work pretty consistently in Old Vissard. This is mostly because quite a lot of irregular verbs had retained the yod from the Latin 3pl -I̯UNT ending, a yod which also coincidentally appeared pretty often in the subjunctive:

​ ​ ​ ​ SAPIT, SAPIUNT, SAPIAM > OV il sapt, li sauchet, jo sauche
​ ​ ​ ​ VENIT, VENIUNT, VENIAM > OV il vent, li veignet, jo veigne

There's also some other reasons:

​ ​ ​ ​ PREHENDIT, PREHENDUNT, PREHENDAM > OV il prent, li prendet, jo prende
​ ​ ​ ​ CŌNSUIT, CŌNSUUNT, CŌNSUAM > OV il koxt, li kouset, jo kouse

This triggered analogy amongst verbs which didn't originally have that pattern:

​ ​ ​ ​ Early OV il vat, li alet, jo aille > Late OV il vat, li alet, jo ale
​ ​ ​ ​ Early OV il bestist, li bestisset, jo baste > Late OV il becist, li becisset, jo becisse


Bringing it all together

At the same time, sound changes were happening, as they are wont to do, which made speakers of late Middle Vissard get quite loose and easy with their irregular third person plural present indicative forms. Originally, they had verbs like li ont, li sont, li font, li dont. These came to be pronounced with the ending /ɔ̃n/. This, however, sounded very similar to the ending /ɔn/² in the third person plural present indicative, which appeared in some other verbs like li mentionnet, li ordonnet, li pardonnet, li sonnet. Being rather lazy fellas, Vissard speakers gradually began to treat all the -ont forms as if they were -onnet forms. Forms like li onnet, li sonnet, li fonnet begin to crop up around the 16th and 17th centuries. This impacted all the -ont forms, until eventually there were none left at all.
The verbs which were affected by these were mostly very common verbs, which made the ending -onnet very common, which was not missed by the Vissards. It was analogised to other common verbs like li prendet > li pronnet, li vuelet > li vonnet, li mettet > li monnet. In a few cases, the vowel was changed; li dichet > li dinet, li viët > li venet.

The tendency for the subjunctive stem to be the same as the third person plural present indicative stem was strong enough that all of these were generalised to the subjunctive, replacing all the existing forms by the 19th century:

​ ​ ​ ​ til sie > til sonne
​ ​ ​ ​ til oge > til onne
​ ​ ​ ​ til mette > til monne
​ ​ ​ ​ til dike > til dine

And that, more or less, is how the n-subjunctive came into being.


To summarise

tl;dr
Vissard simplified verbs a lot, which included making the subjunctive stem systamatically identical to the 3pl stem. At the same time, the 3pl forms of common verbs ending in -ont were changed to -onnet by analogy. By even more analogy, these spread to the subjunctive, including in some verbs which never ended in -ont in the first place.

In the spoiler below, there's a list of the majority of the verbs which have the n-subjunctive. It doesn't look like much, but it's by far the most common irregular subjunctive formation, and a lot of these verbs are extremely common.
Spoiler:
These are all given with the following formula:
infinitive "translation" ​ – ​ 3sg.indic, 3pl.indic ​ – ​ 1sg.subj /IPA/ (LATIN, (Late) Middle Vissard 1sg.subj)

dare "to give" ​ – ​ til da, li donnet ​ – ​ i donne /i ˈdɔn/ (*, je da)
dire "to say" ​ – ​ til di, li dinet ​ – ​ i dine /i ˈdin/ (DĪCŌ, je dike)
esre "to be" ​ – ​ til ist, li sonnet ​ – ​ i sonne /i ͜ ˈjɔn/ (SUM, je sie)
fare "to do/make" ​ – ​ til fa, li fonnet ​ – ​ i fonne /i ˈfɔn/ (FACIO, je fache)
fir "to flee" ​ – ​ til fi, li funet ​ – ​ i fune /i ˈfyn/ (FUGIŌ, je fuge)
ir "to have" ​ – ​ til a, li onnet ​ – ​ je onne /ʒ ˈɔn/ (HABEO, je oge)
kir "to fall" ​ – ​ til ka, li konnet ​ – ​ i konne /i ˈkɔn/ (*CADEŌ, je kage)
metre "to put" ​ – ​ til met, li monnet ​ – ​ i monne /i ˈmɔn/ (MITTŌ, je mete)
vinir "to come" ​ – ​ til ven, li vinet ​ – ​ i vine /i ˈvin/ (VENIŌ, je vine)
prendre "to take" ​ – ​ til prend, li pronnet ​ – ​ i pronne /i ˈprɔn/ (PREHENDŌ, je prende)
rendre "to render" ​ – ​ til rend, li ronnet ​ – ​ i ronne /i ˈrɔn/ (*RENDŌ, je rende)
se esir "to sit" ​ – ​ til se esi, li se esonnet ​ – ​ i me esonne /i məˈjɔn/ (ASSIDEŌ, je me esie)
vendre "to sell" ​ – ​ til vend, li vennet ​ – ​ i venne /i ˈvɛn/ (VENDŌ, je vende)
wer "to see" ​ – ​ til vi, li venet ​ – ​ i vene /i ˈven/ (VIDEŌ, je vie)
volir "to want" ​ – ​ til velle, li vennet ​ – ​ i vonne /i ˈvɔn/ (*VOLEŌ, je vile)

Generally these can be extended to any longer verbs which end in these, like reswer "to see again", susprendre "to surprise", resfare "to redo", admetre "to admit", esmetre "to emit", preswer "to forsee" (i resvene, i suspronne etc.).



¹ Basically because that's the form that has initial stress and a final schwa to keep consonants out of the coda. This is muddied by how French put a schwa back on to most of the first person singular forms. And how most of the irregular subjunctives are irregular in a different way, but the point still stands.
² Technically, Vissard distinguishes all of /V Ṽ Vn Ṽn/, e.g. a an Anne ans /a ã an ãn/, but in rapid speech they blur together. Something that also helped is that they both have /t/ as an emergent consonant as well.
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

The Reflexive

Just a short post to showcase part of Vissard grammar. I'm not sure if this is a feature other Romance languages have, but I feel like it's pretty realistic.

Vissard, like French, uses a lot of reflexive verbs, much more so than in English. In the singular, they refer to an action performed to oneself:

​ ​ ​ I me kouke.
​ ​ ​ /i m ˈkuk/
​ ​ ​ 1SG.SUBJ 1SG.REFL go.to.bed.PRES
​ ​ ​ "I go to bed."

​ ​ ​ Komme tu te klame?
​ ​ ​ /ˈkɔm ty t ˈtlam/
​ ​ ​ how 2SG.SUBJ 2SG.REFL call.PRES
​ ​ ​ "What do you call yourself?"

It can also be used in the third person with an impersonal/passive sense:

​ ​ ​ Chel peis t-se troppe le nort Efrike.
​ ​ ​ /əʃ ˈpiː tə ˈtrup əl ˈnot əˈfrik/
​ ​ ​ DEM country.NOM 3SG.REFL find.PRES the.OBL north Africa
​ ​ ​ "This country is found in North Africa."

​ ​ ​ Le linne Pikarte se parle en Franche.
​ ​ ​ /əl ˈlẽn piˈkat ə ˈpal ɛ̃ ˈfrãnʃ/
​ ​ ​ the.FEM language Picard.FEM 3SG.REFL speak.PRES in France
​ ​ ​ "The Picard language is spoken in France."

In the plural, there are two distinct reflexive expressions (at least for first and second person). The first type uses se, the 3SG/3PL reflexive pronoun, and has a true reflexive meaning.

​ ​ ​ Nus t-se faske receon de chil.
​ ​ ​ /ny tə ˈfɛːk ərsɔ̃ d ˈʃi/
​ ​ ​ 1PL.SUBJ 3SG.REFL anger.PRES because of DEM
​ ​ ​ "We're getting angry about that."

​ ​ ​ Us t-se varit-jou la?
​ ​ ​ /y tə variˈʒu ˈla/
​ ​ ​ 2PL.SUBJ 3SG.REFL park-PAST-INT there
​ ​ ​ "Did you park over there?"

However, if the 1PL and 2PL reflexive pronouns (nus and us) are used, they have a reciprocal sense (cf. French nous nous connaissons "we know each other").

​ ​ ​ Nus va nus tutar.
​ ​ ​ /ny va ny tyˈta/
​ ​ ​ 1PL.SUBJ go.PRES 1PL.REFL kill-INFIN
​ ​ ​ "We're going to kill each other."

​ ​ ​ Vus t-us konuset-jou?
​ ​ ​ /ˈvyː ty kunyˈʒu/
​ ​ ​ 2PL.EMPH 2PL.REFL know.PRES-INT
​ ​ ​ "You know each other?"

This means that where French would be ambiguous, Vissard is not:

French: Nous nous regardons "we look at ourselves / we look at each other"

Vissard: Nus t-se revarde "we look at ourselves"
​ ​ ​ Nus nus revarde "we look at each other"



The problem with se

Currently se is a bit problematic. Because /s/ was lost and /ə/ is very unstable, it tends to be pretty tricky to distinguish se from the surrounding words, which is a bit fucky cause it can be pretty important. nus t-se revarde is /ny ͜ t ͜ ərˈvad/, while nus revarde is /ny ͜ rˈvad/; even worse, le ompe se revardet /ˈl ͜ ɔ̃mp ə ͜ rˈvad/ vs. le ompe revardet /ˈl ͜ ɔ̃mp ərˈvad/. There's a couple of possible solutions:

1. Change the liaison pronunciation of <s>.
Currently, <s> becomes /j/ in liaison (reflecting something like /VsV/ → /VhV/ → /VçV/ → /VjV/). I could change it to being zero, like h aspiré in French, but that doesn't really fix anything. Other possible options are /ʔ/, /h/ or more adventurously /t/. None of these change the fact that between a consonant and a vowel, se simply disappears. It's now /t/, at least for the time being. The disappearing thing is still a problem.

2. Keep the ambiguity.
To be honest, there's only ambiguity in a few cases. This could be distinguished with redundant subject clitics - le ompe li t-se revardet /ˈl ͜ ɔ̃mp li ͜ tə ͜ rˈvad/, Leon et Georges se esire > Leon et Georges us t-se esire /ˈlɔ̃ e ˈʒoʒ y ͜ tə ͜ ˈjir/.

3. Innovate a new reflexive pronoun.
Combining this with #2, I could base this off the 3SG il se > iles /il/ (nus t-iles revarde), or 3PL li se > lise (nus lise revarde). Alternatively I could add another consonant in like with the 3SG.SUBJ pronoun til, i.e. tes (nus tes revarde). I could even preserve the liaison /j/ and make it ye (le ompe ye revardet /ˈl ͜ ɔ̃mp j ͜ ərˈvad/).
3b. Innovate a series of pronouns.
I could even combine til, ele, nus, us, li (3.M.SG, 3.F.SG, 1PL, 2PL, 3PL) to create a series of reflexive pronouns iles, eles, nuyes, uyes, liyes /il el nyj uj lij/. This might be going a step too far though.


Currently I'm leaning towards ye. One final possibility is that I develop it irregularly, something like /VsV/ → /VhV/ → /VçV/ → /VʃV/ and make it che. That does make it synonymous with the demonstrative che though, which isn't ideal. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Edit: I think I'll go with Knox's suggestion as explained below
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Re: Vissard

Post by Knox Adjacent »

The classic example is renewal by intensifiers and most likely in a Romance context.
Wals wrote:Another way of renewing reflexive markers is by intensifying weak reflexives. Such developments are widely attested in Romance languages, where the reflexive clitics are being replaced by the respective tonic forms in combination with intensifiers (cf. (10) from Portuguese; similarly in Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch).

(10) Portuguese

Maria olha a si mesma no espelho.
Maria looks at refl intf in mirror
‘Maria looks at herself in the mirror.’
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Knox Adjacent wrote: 04 Nov 2022 16:29 The classic example is renewal by intensifiers and most likely in a Romance context.
Wals wrote:Another way of renewing reflexive markers is by intensifying weak reflexives. Such developments are widely attested in Romance languages, where the reflexive clitics are being replaced by the respective tonic forms in combination with intensifiers (cf. (10) from Portuguese; similarly in Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch).

(10) Portuguese

Maria olha a si mesma no espelho.
Maria looks at refl intf in mirror
‘Maria looks at herself in the mirror.’
That's interesting, thanks for letting me know about this.

​ ​ ​ Marie resvarde a si metisme en le mirure.
​ ​ ​ [mari riˈvad a i ͜ mˈtiːm ɛ̃ ͜ l miˈryr]
​ ​ ​ Maria looks at REFL.TONIC same in the mirror

​ ​ ​ Nus faske si metismes receon de chil.
​ ​ ​ [ny ˈfɛːk i ͜ mˈtiːm ərsɔ̃ ͜ d ˈʃi]
​ ​ ​ 1PL.SUBJ anger.PRES REFL.TONIC same-PL because of DEM
​ ​ ​ "We're getting angry about that."

​ ​ ​ Vus konuset-jou vus ates?
​ ​ ​ /vy kunyˈʒu vy ˈat/
​ ​ ​ 2PL.SUBJ know.PRES-INT 2PL.TONIC other-PL
​ ​ ​ "You know each other?"

That's a good option for emphasis/disambiguation. It would also make sense with the high level of English/Germanic influence.



Edit: Turns out I was ANADEWed by garderano Ladin

In garderano there's an alteration in the 1pl between reflexive /sə/ and reciprocal /nəz/, just like in Vissard:

/næws sə oŋ kumˈpra dʒawˈloni/
1PL.SUBJ REFL have buy-P.PPL sweet-PL
"We have bought ourselves sweets."

/næws nəz oŋ manˈda dʒawˈloni/
1PL.SUBJ 1PL.OBJ have send-P.PPL sweet-PL
"We have sent each other sweets."

Although this doesn't extend to the 2pl or 3pl.
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Vissard verbs

This is probably gonna end up being quite a big post, cause there's quite a few irregular verbs in Vissard. However, most verbs only have five forms, and the one with the most forms (as you'd probably expect that's esre "to be") has nine. Thankfully for the many aspiring learners of Vissard, regular conjugations are very simple; for example the subjunctive is always predictable based on the present 3pl form.

Person and number

Vissard is distinct from the major Romance languages in having only vestigial person/number marking on verbs. All verbs except for esre have one form for the singular (in all persons) and the first person plural, and another form for the second and third person plurals. esre has a distinct first person singular form as well. For regular verbs in conjugations 1, 1b and 2, this distinction is mostly orthographical and is only phonologically evident in liaison conditions. In the synthetic past tense, person and number are not distinguished at all except in the three verbs where the past tense form is distinct from the past participle, namely esre, ir "to have" and fare "to do" (these all have the same distinction as normal verbs do in the present).

Tense (and aspect)

Verbs distinguish only two synthetic tenses; present and past. The present is equivalent to the general Romance present, while the past is a merger (incomplete in the three verbs mentioned above) of the past participle with the perfect (i.e. the Oïl past historic). As such, person and number aren't distinguished in the past tense; this is almost certainly down to Germanic influence. The past tense has also extended, downplaying its originally perfect aspect; now it's a more general past like in English. All other tenses were lost at quite an early point in Vissard history, and were replaced by compound tenses.

Mood

Despite the loss of distinct tenses, the indicative/subjunctive distinction is still important, more so than in French even. The subjunctive is synchronically derived from the second/third person plural of the present tense for all verbs (yes, even esre), as mentioned in the post on the n-subjunctive. However, the subjunctive is only formally distinct from the indicative in conjugations 3 and 4 and many irregular verbs; in all cases, it's identical in the 2/3pl forms.

Conjugations

There are four regular conjugations in Vissard, distinguished (mostly) by their infinitives:

1 : Infinitive in -ar /a/ (from Latin -ĀRE)
1b : -er /e/ (-ĀRE following a palatal)¹
2 : -ir /i/ (-ĒRE, as well as -ĪRE without -ĒSC-)
3 : -ir /i/ (-ĪRE with -ĒSC-)
4 : -re /∅/ (-ERE)

There's also a large number of irregular verbs which I'll also address partially.


The first conjugation

This is the default conjugation; most borrowings end up in here, and it's the largest single conjugation by quite a lot. Also, there are almost no irregular verbs (possibly none in fact) in this conjugation. Here's the verb kantar "to sing" as an example:

kantar "to sing", ger. kantant, p.ppl. kantit
Pres. indic.: i kante, li kantet² etc.
Pres. subj.: i kante, li kantet
Past: i kantit

Note that until pretty recently the past participle was kantat < CANTĀTUS, although kantit spread by analogy from c2 and c3. Adjectives or nouns ending in -at(e) are still pretty common (e.g. pensate "thought" < pensar, modern p.ppl pensit). Also the subjunctive is always identical to the indicative for c1.


The 1b conjugation

A sizeable number of verbs are in this conjugation, including all verbs in -izer, equivalent to English -ise.

aséger "to recite", ger. aségeant, p.ppl. aségét³
Pres. indic.: je asége, li aséget etc.
Pres. subj.: je asége, li aséget
Past: je aségét

Note that for the gerund, the -e- is only included for stems ending in c or g to retain the soft pronunciation; cf. manzant "eating". The reason for c1b arising is because of Bartsch's law, by which tonic /a/ following a palatal became /je/, with the /j/ later being later regularly reabsorbed into the palatal (this was a sub-conjugation in Old French, and is a full conjugation in Arpitan). Incidentally, the stems of these verbs always end in one of c, z, ch, g, j, s, n, l, i or r.


The second conjugation

These verbs are a combination of all those verbs which ended in -ĒRE, and those verbs which ended in -ĪRE but irregularly failed to take the inchoative infix -ĒSC- like other -ĪRE verbs. These two classes just happened to formally merge.

mourir "to die", ger. mourant, p.ppl. mourit
Pres. indic.: i moure, li mouret etc.
Pres. subj.: i moure, li mouret
Past: i mourit

There are a lot of verbs which are traditionally placed in c2 but have some irregularities, either in the subjunctive, the past or both. Often these are n-subjunctives, most of which were mentioned in that post. A few verbs have a past in -ut, such as tenir (and its many derivatives like kontenir) and venir (and its derivatives like resvenir). Other irregulars include wir "see" and wir "hear", all verbs ending in -chepir like perchepir "perceive"; keir "fall", venir "come", sapir "know", potir "be able to", divir "have to", volir "want to". Currently it's likely that there's more irregulars than regulars in this conjugation.


The third conjugation

These are a smaller number of verbs distinguished by having an infix -is- in their present, subjunctive and gerund forms.

diskir "to say", ger. diskisant, p.ppl. diskit
Pres. indic.: i diskis, li diskiset etc.
Pres. subj.: i diskise, li diskiset
Past: i diskit

Notably, the subjunctive is distinct for the 1/2/3sg + 1pl forms, both phonologically and orthographically; i diskis /i diˈkiː/ vs. i diskise /i diˈki/. Quite a few of these verbs, especially those in -skir, were originally -ERE verbs with perfect forms in - in Latin; this often metathesised *-ski in proto-Vissard and then shifted over to c3.⁴ Examples include naskir "be born", diskir, viskir "live"; and from -ĀRE laskir "allow".


The fourth conjugation

These are an even smaller number of verbs, although they're more of a real group than -re verbs in French.

perdre "to lose", ger. perdant, p.ppl. perdut
Pres. indic.: i perd, li perdet etc.
Pres. subj.: i perde, li perdet
Past: i perdut

Note how the subjunctive is again distinguished (i perd /i ˈpe/, i perde /i ˈped/). A number of verbs are notably irregular in the past tense department, like metre "put" (i mis), strire "write" (i strit), prendre "put" (i pris), etinre "attain" (je etint).


Irregular verbs

According to Vissard grammarians (i.e. me), only a limited number of verbs are considered outside any category; although there's lots more irregular verbs, they mostly conform at least a little bit to one of the classes (usually c2 or c4). Some major highly irregular verbs include:

esre "to be", ger. stant, p.ppl. stut
Pres. indic.: i sus, til ist, li sonnet etc.
Pres. subj.: i sonne, li sonnet
Past: i fut, li fuyet

ir "to have", ger. ant, p.ppl. ut
Pres. indic.: je a, li onnet etc.
Pres. subj.: je onne, li onnet
Past: i ut, li uyet

There's also three verbs which by analogy have formed a kind of monosyllabic -are class; fare "do/make", dare "give" and lare "tack"⁶. Here's dare as an example:

dare, ger. donnant, p.ppl. dit
Pres. indic.: i da, li donnet etc.
Pres. subj.: i donne, li donnet
Past: i dat

fare has a separate past tense with singular i fache, pl. li fachet.



¹ The only reason it's labelled as "1b" rather than as a separate conjugation is because of its shared origin with c1; functionally they're relatively dissimilar.

² Note that final 2/3pl. -et is treated as if it were singleton -e, i.e. it is silent and unstressed like French -ent. Otherwise -et is read as /e/.

³ In this case the past form is written with -ét rather than expected -et to distinguish it from the 2/3pl. present in silent -et.

⁴ Compare how VL *NASCERE, *NĀXĪ gives Norman nâquir, and CL VĪVERE, VĪXĪ > Walloon viker; also SFr past historic je vécus. There may be other examples I'm not aware of.

⁵ Some speakers have analogised a "past subjunctive" ?i fuye although this is proscribed.

⁶ As in, tack against the wind. It's from Old Norse slá "beat". Why is this random verb so irregular? What can I say, the Vissards do a lot of sailing.
Last edited by VaptuantaDoi on 12 Nov 2022 13:01, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Some sound changes

This is an idea I had inspired by Walloon regarding word-final obstruent devoicing. All langues d'Oïl devoiced final consonants when there was no following schwa, for example:
CAPUT (VL *kápos) → Proto-Gallo-Romance *kę́v → Old French chief /t͡ʃi̯ef/
GRANDEM → Proto-Gallo-Romance *gránd → Old French grant /ɡrãnt/
But they were retained in old langues d'Oïl when there was a schwa:
GAMBAM → PGR *gámbə → Old French jambe /ˈd͡ʒãmbə/
RĪPA → PGR *ríβə → Old French rive /ˈrivə/
However, Walloon also devoices where there previously was a schwa, for example:
RUBEUS → OFr roge /ˈrod͡ʒə/ → Walloon rodje /ˈʁɔt͡ʃ/
ARBOREM → OFr arbre /ˈarbrə/ → Walloon åbe /ˈɔːp/
TUMBA → OFr tombe /ˈtõmbə/ → Walloon tombe /ˈtɔ̃p/
In Vissard, the changes went something like this:

Proto-Romance: -CV# -Ca# -CRV#
→ Old Vissard: -C[–voice]# -Cə# -CRə#
→ Middle Vissard: -∅# -C# -CR#
→ Modern Vissard: -∅# -C[–voice]# -C[±voice]

e.g.
UNDE → *ọ́nde → /ˈont/ → /ˈõn/ → /ˈɔ̃n/ <ont>
UNDAM → *ọ́nda → /ˈondə/ → /ˈõnd/ → /ˈɔ̃nt/ <onte>
UNGULAM → *ọ́ngla → /ˈonɡlə/ → /ˈõndl/ → /ˈɔ̃nd/ <onde>
This means that word-final voiced obstruents only occur where previously CR occurred. This is quite a limited number of word especially taking into account Vissard's general lack of epenthetic consonants:
CINEREM → /ˈt͡ʃenrə/ → /ˈt͡ʃẽnr/ → /ˈʃɛ̃n/ <chenne> (cf. Fr cendre)
HUMILIS → /ˈymlə/ → /ˈỹml/ → /ˈø̃m/ <hunme> (cf. Fr humble)
CUCUMEREM → /kuˈkomrə/ → /kuˈkõmr/ → /kuˈkɔ̃m/ <kokonme> (cf. Fr concombre)
There are still however a few examples, most notable in fourth-conjugation verbs
PREHENDERE → /prɛ̃nd/ prendre
VĒNDERE → /vɛ̃nd/ vendre
ARBOREM → OV anbre → /ãmb/ ambe
Old English tungol → OV tongle → /tɔ̃ŋɡ/ tongue
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Re: Vissard

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Vissard has just reached 1,000 words in a non-exhaustive dictionary I've been expanding through some translation projects. The latest word was chervul /ʃeˈvy/ meaning "brain". I've taken this opportunity to analyse the origin of Vissard vocabulary to see what sets it apart from other romance languages. The basic breakdown is:

- Romance: 62.9%
- Germanic: 11.8%
- Other: 25.3%

More specifically,

Latin (60%)
- Classical 29.9%
- Vulgar 13.0%
- Learnèd borrowing 12.6%
- Semi-learnèd 4.5%

Other (25.3%)
- Internal derivation 25.1%
- Onomatapoeia 0.1%
- Unknown 0.1%

Germanic languages (11.8%)
- Old English 6.1%
- English 1.6%
- Old Norse 0.9%
- Frankish 2.5%
- Gothic 0.2%
- Middle Dutch 0.5%

Other Romance languages (2.9%)
- French 1.2%
- Old French 0.5%
- Italian 0.8%
- Iberian 0.4%

Here's a pie chart representing this data:

Image

As would be expected, Latin is by far the largest source, accounting for three out of every five words. About a quarter of words are a result of internal derivation, and the remaining twelfth are primarily of Germanic origin. If internally-derived words are ignored, the stats change to:

- Latin: 80.1%
- Germanic languages: 15.8%
- Romance languages: 3.9%

If anything, the figure for Latin is a slight under-estimate; my lexicon doesn't include most function words which are exclusively Latin origin. Interestingly about one in ten words is of English origin, although often this isn't obvious. Examples include kwécher, cognate to "quake", and hanir, cognate to "hone". Some words come from Old English words which aren't reflected in modern English, like éanbrut "eyebrow" (ēaganbrū), félant "estate" (feohland) and chizétan "gravel" (ċeoselstān).
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Re: Vissard (NP: Question particles)

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Forming questions

Vissard has a rather distinctive way of forming questions which was inspired by a structure used in Picard. In this post I'll briefly outline this structure in Picard, and how Vissard does something similar. This is quite a long post so if you don't want to read it there's a quick summary at the bottom.


Questions in Picard

The main way of forming questions in Picard is by postponing the particle -ti, originally a third-person pronoun. Its old usage is evident in cases such as:

​ ​ Il est-ti leu mn'honme?
​ ​ 3SG.SUBJ be.3SG – INT there my=man
​ ​ "Is my husband here?"

However, this has been extended to other persons by analogy, for example:
Spoiler:
​ ​ O sommes-ti d’accord, Polyte?
​ ​ 1PL.SUBJ be.1PL – INT of agreement, P—?
​ ​ "Are we in agreement, Polyte?"

​ ​ Éj coprai-ti à travér camps?
​ ​ 1SG.SUBJ cut-1SG.FUT – INT at across field-PL
​ ​ "Will I cut across the fields?"

​ ​ O passez-ti pér Boégny?
​ ​ 2PL.SUBJ pass-2PL – INT by Buigny
​ ​ "Do you go through Buigny?"
Additionally, in central Picard (e.g. the dialect of Démuin), -jou could be used with the same function, originally being a first person pronoun:
Spoiler:
​ ​ T'iros-jou?
​ ​ 2SG.SUBJ=go-2SG.FUT – INT
​ ​ "Will you go?"

​ ​ Is y sont-jou?
​ ​ 3PL.SUBJ there be.3PL – INT
​ ​ "Are they there?"
In fact this also exists as a pre-verbal particle:
Spoiler:
​ ​ Jou que t' y vos?
​ ​ INT REL 2SG.SUBJ there go.2SG
​ ​ "Are you going there?"

Questions in Vissard

Old Vissard generally employed a simple inversion technique to ask questions, basically just switching the order of the subject pronoun and verb:

​ ​ Aons-nos ent parlat?
​ ​ have.1PL – 1PL.SUBJ of.it speak-P.PPL
​ ​ "Have we talked about it?"

​ ​ Vat-il te veëir deman?
​ ​ go.3SG 3SG.SUBJ 2SG.OBJ see-INFIN tomorrow
​ ​ "Will he se you tomorrow?"

​ ​ Suis-jo sorts?
​ ​ be.1SG – 1SG.SUBJ deaf
​ ​ "Am I deaf?"

Modern Vissard preserves a system of inverted subject pronouns which differ slightly from the non-inverted forms
Spoiler:
1sg: i, -jou
2sg: tu, -tu
3m.sg: til, -til
3f.sg: ele, -tele
1pl: nus, -nus
2pl: us, -vus
3pl: li, -li
These are used in literary language to form questions, but they are very marked in spoken language (comparable to the use of the past historic in French).

​ ​ Songe-tu en Franchis nankor?
​ ​ dream.PRES–2SG.INV in French still
​ ​ "Do you still dream in French?"

​ ​ Iwale ore du-jou esviler le metin?
​ ​ at.what.FEM hour must.PRES–1SG.INV awaken-INFIN the morning
​ ​ "What time must I wake up in the morning?"

In spoken Vissard however, only the pronoun -jou is used for question marking:

​ ​ Chil ist-jou fonnaule?
​ ​ DEM be.PRES–INT feasible
​ ​ "Is it feasible?"

​ ​ El monts velle-jou trepiler?
​ ​ the.NOM people want.PRES-INT work-INFIN
​ ​ "Do the people want to work?"

​ ​ I-t sus-jou pres parlar eceas lentement por vox me komprendre?
​ ​ 1SG.SUBJ be.PRES.1SG-INT after speak-INFIN enough slow-ADV for 2PL.TONIC 1SG.OBJ understand-INFIN
​ ​ "Am I speaking slowly enough for you to understand me?"

This particle can be used alongside WH-fronting using pronouns like ki "who, what", kand "when", ont "where" etc.

​ ​ Ki le on enterre-jou a le édinon deman?
​ ​ who the.NOM man bury.PRES-INT at the funeral tomorrow
​ ​ "Who are we burying at the funeral tomorrow?"

​ ​ Ont te a-jou troppit chit kor kopert to drit?
​ ​ where 2SG.SUBJ have-INT find-P.PPL this body covered with dirt
​ ​ "Where did you find this body covered with dirt?"

​ ​ Kand til faut-jou ke nus partise por piskar?
​ ​ when 3SG.SUBJ be.necessary.PRES-INT REL 1PL.SUBJ leave.SUBJ for fish-INFIN
​ ​ "When do we have to leave to go fishing?"

However, WH-fronting is often used without the addition of the question particle:

​ ​ Ont ke tu va?
​ ​ where REL 2SG.SUBJ go.PRES
​ ​ "Where are you going?"

​ ​ Konment ke tu te klame?
​ ​ how REL 2SG.SUBJ 2SG.REFL call
​ ​ "What do you call yourself?"

Also common is a more collocative construction like

​ ​ Ont ist-jou jent tu va?
​ ​ where be.PRES-INT REL 2SG.SUBJ go.PRES
​ ​ "Where is it that you're going to?"

​ ​ Ik ist-jou par leka te if a venut?
​ ​ what be.PRES-INT with which 2SG.SUBJ there have.PRES come-P.PPL
​ ​ "How did you get here?" (lit. ?"What is it by which you came here?")

One final way of forming questions uses the preverbal particle hejou ke, of uncertain etymology. Most likely it comes from the Old Vissard sa-jo ke "do I know that", but the initial h is unexpected. Potentially this was an inter-dialectal borrowing from a lect which debuccalised /s/ earlier than standard Vissard. Alternatively, the h could be unetymological, and the initial schwa could be an analogy from words like evant, eplus, eceas, elore (before, additionally, enough, elsewhere).

​ ​ Hejou ke te if va?
​ ​ INT REL 2SG.SUBJ there go.PRES
​ ​ "Are you going there?"

​ ​ Hejou ke vus t-us me komprend?
​ ​ INT REL 2PL.TONIC 2PL.SUBJ 1SG.OBJ understand.PRES
​ ​ "Do yous understand me?"


Summary

Vissard has four methods of forming questions. These are:
  • Inversion of the verb and subject pronoun (now only common in literary language)
  • Postposition of the question particle -jou to the verb
  • WH-fronting with no question particle
  • Prefixing of the particle hejou ke



Sources:

All the Picard examples are taken from the below, although with slight modification of orthography and glosses, and occasionally an added English translation:

  • Julie Auger. Pronominal clitics in Picard revisited. In Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, Richard Cameron (eds.), 2001 A Romance perspective on language knowledge and use.
  • Julie Auger, 2003. Les pronoms clitiques sujets en picard: une analyse au confluent de la phonologie, de la morphologie et de la syntaxe. Journal of French Language Studies.
  • Eduard Hrkal, 1910 Grammaire historique du patois picard de Démuin. Revue de Philologie Française.
  • John Charles Smith. French and northern Gallo-Romance. In Adam Ledgeway and Martin Maiden (eds.), 2016. The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages.
  • Aiden Benedict Coverly, 1989. Variation in interrogation and negation in spoken French. University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
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