Ko:q Qləqo: - A Romp into Isolating Stuff and Transparency

[Pirka]

Welcome! Ko:q Qləqo: is a language I came up with not too long ago. The way I'm going to do this is to highlight an interesting feature every post with lots of examples. Here we go:

1. General Introduction: Background, In-universe Situation, History

Ko:q Qləqo: (henceforth KQ) was inspired in part by Caucasian languages, which gave it its somewhat large consonant inventory, and more specifically by Northwest Caucasian languages, which gave it its simple vowel system, and Northeast Caucasian languages, which gave it its non-polysynthetic verbal morphology and closed verb class.

KQ is spoken in the same universe as my other conlang, Kaynur; the two are not demonstrably related despite being relatively near each other. Kaynur has, however, loaned some words into KQ. KQ is, though, related to a lot of its neighbors. (Kaynur is actually the weird one out because the whole family is unrelated to anything else that surrounds it.)

...

Ok, honestly I haven't really thought about the history or anything conworldy yet. I guess the speakers of KQ live in fishing villages on some islands or something.

[MrKrov]

Ok, honestly I haven't really thought about the history or anything conworldy yet. I guess the speakers of KQ live in fishing villages on some islands or something.

Don't they all.

[Thakowsaizmu]

Ok, honestly I haven't really thought about the history or anything conworldy yet. I guess the speakers of KQ live in fishing villages on some islands or something.

Don't they all.

You know, it really seems that way. I should really move some of my people off of islands...

[Pirka]

2. Phonology (sorta)

KQ's phonological inventory has two anomalous points:

1. The stop set has a lot of holes in it. As you can see in /p b bʷ d dʷ k kʷ gʷ q/, /pʷ t tʷ g qʷ ɢ ɢʷ/ are missing. They're not there. Except for /qʷ ɢ ɢʷ/, which never really existed in the first place (/q/ was borrowed from a substratum), all of the missing sounds disappeared as a result of sound change.

2. There's a vowel. The schwa. /ə/. Is it not fantastic? (There used to be a two-way distinction between /ə/ and /a/ but things happened. Something went ~renegade~. That's my official explanation for everything that I haven't thought about yet.)

The whole inventory is listed below.

Code: Select all

m           n           ŋ            
p     b  bʷ       d  dʷ k  kʷ    gʷ q  
            s
                                    χ  ʕ
j           l

ə

Now, as I start giving you examples you'll see that I write in IPA, with the sole exception of <x> for the voiceless uvular fricative (even in the phonemic transcription). You'll also notice that the phonemic transcription doesn't match the orthography, which is largely phonetic; I'm too lazy to, you know, actually explain all the allophony that automatically goes off in my brain when I'm handed a string of KQ but I'll get to that. I promise. (You could probably actually figure out most of the allophony on your own anyway, at the stage it is...)

Ok, honestly I haven't really thought about the history or anything conworldy yet. I guess the speakers of KQ live in fishing villages on some islands or something.

Don't they all.

I guess that's the default for when you haven't actually come up with anything substantial yet.

2a. Phonology: Schwa-Distribution

Perhaps the best spot to start in the allophony is the distribution of the [ə]. This bad boy makes the language, which phonemically looks like a consonant-cluster heaven, into something that likes clusters a little bit less. (The distributed [ə] should not be confused with the phonemic /ə/.) [ə] actually has a special counterpart, [ɨ], which appears as a distributed vowel along the lines of [ə], but also in other places as well.

The basic idea is to break up long strings of consonants, such as /CC/ and /CCC/.

/CC/ is pretty simple; [ə] is inserted between the two consonants, yielding [CəC]. For example, /ŋk/ yields [ŋək].
/CCC/ actually is a lot more complicated, but there are two possibilities depending on the identity of the consonants: [CəCC] or [CCəC] are possible, but this depends on whether the resulting *[CC] is a valid consonant cluster. For example, /qld/ yields [qləd] but /ŋps/ yields [ŋəps].
/CCCC/ is a lot rarer but, does occur. If possible, a [CCəCC] output is recommended, but, again, this would only work if the resulting *[CC]s are valid consonant clusters. For example, /sdks/ yields [stəks]. Otherwise, the structure is split into two /CC/ units and dealt with accordingly.

[ɨ] is distributed everywhere where [ə] would be, except only before voiced velars. For example, /ŋŋ/ yields [ŋɨŋ], but /ŋk/ yields [ŋək].

There are a couple of exceptions to the distribution of [ə]: labialized consonants (/bʷ dʷ kʷ gʷ/) are all realized as [Cu] in consonant clusters and need no [ə] distribution to break up the clusters. For example, /kʷs/ yields [kus]. (Word-finally they are realized either as [du] or [ud], depending on the previous consonants. For example, /gʷəndʷ/ yields [gʷandu], but /bʷsbʷ/ yields [busub].)
Word-finally, after voiced velars, /j/ is realized as [ɨː]. For example, /ŋj/ yields [ŋɨː].

[Pirka]

3. Basic Premise a.k.a. How Words Work

The whole thing that spawned this project is the thought that polysynthesis is for noobs. It was time for change. So I had the perfect idea that roots can only take one suffix. This low amount of slots - well, there's only one - does not presuppose a lack of categories on, say, the verb. Not being able to fit into one slot, all additional categories spread out as particles before the verb in a hierarchy of categories; thus, the higher on the hierarchy, the closer to the verb the particle is. The highest on the hierarchy of the categories goes into the coveted slot on the root. My god, "coveted slot" makes me giggle like I'm twelve years old.

Verbs are the most exemplary of this phenomenon. They don't have any deficit of categories to mark, as opposed to nouns, which can mark, like, two categories at a time or something. I don't really know yet.

Some example categories of verbs:
The hierarchy of categories is usually pretty loose past the root suffix, but for verbs it's pretty much something like this (place on hierarchy being in increasing order):
subject (a.k.a. person) - e.g. /k/, first person
TAM - e.g. /gʷn/, potential mood
valency - e.g. /d/, transitivity
random syntactic stuff - e.g. /ps/, verbal noun marker

Here's some basic examples of categories fighting over the suffix slot.

Ŋək.
/ŋ-k/
eat_meal-1
"I ate a meal."

One category - no displacement.

Kə ŋɨ:.
/k ŋ-j/
1 eat_meal-PROG
"I am eating a meal." or "I was eating a meal."

A higher category is added - /k/ is displaced.

Kəs nə ŋəd.
/ks n ŋ-d/
1.3o DES eat_meal-TR.C
"I want to eat it."

Three categories now.

So: qəl: ja: kəs nə bu ŋəps.
/səʕ ql-ʕ jə ks n bʷ ŋ-ps/
3.3o see-TR.A SEP 1.3o DES CAUS eat_meal-VBN
"He saw that I wanted to feed it."

Four. You can count, I'm sure... (Also ignore the point before /jə/; that's the independent clause, whereas the displacement is happening in the dependent clause.)

[Pirka]

4. But what if I received this message...?

YOUR PARTICLES ARE JUST PRECLITICS/PREFIXES THAT YOU DECIDED TO WRITE WITH SPACES TO PRETEND THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY NOT CRAM EVERYTHING ON THE VERB YOU'RE THE WORST AT CONLANGING!!!! LOL

This question would be easily answered with an explanation of the allophonic system. But since the reason for why particles are particles in KQ would basically explain 50% of the allophonic system in a post that wasn't supposed to explain it, you'll just have to trust me on this one. I promise it has to do with word boundaries and vowel length and /ə/ realizatioN I PROMISE

[kanejam]

Ok, honestly I haven't really thought about the history or anything conworldy yet. I guess the speakers of KQ live in fishing villages on some islands or something.

Don't they all.

Islands and primitive fishing villages are just really appealing for conlanging; easy vocab points and easy distribution into dialects.

It's like someone once said: the Polynesian languages evolved solely for the linguistics lecturers to teach language change to students.

@Pirka, I wouldn't say that the labialised uvular consonants were holes, and the lack of a voiced uvular isn't nearly as surprising as the holes in the coronals. I do like the explanation of BRIGHT PINK though

Very interesting morphology, I wonder what the potential for ambiguity or mishearing of syllables will be...

[Pirka]

5. A Comment on Categories and their Realization as Suffixes or Particles

The concepts of suffixes and particles are pretty interchangeable; 90% of all categories have a suffix/particle pair which may or may not be identical to each other. For the most part they're identical, something around 60%.

For example, the transitive category realizes as /d/ as both the suffix and particle; the desiderative category, however, realizes its suffix as /l/ but the particle as /nə/. Why some category's have non-identical suffix/particle pairs I shall explain in the next post. It has to do with morpheme transparency.

Remember that 90% statistic I mentioned? The 10% of categories that don't have a pair are all suffixed-only. They are thus considered to be at the very top of the hierarchy of categories and, coincidentally, cannot coöccur, otherwise things would break.

break real bad

[Prinsessa]

This is the best.
Ridiculously short roots are the best.

Restrictions are the best ways to make for interesting grammar. Make up some restrictions and try to solve constructions without breaking them. Fantastic.

Also, small inventories with wide allophony are the best.

[Pirka]

6. My Morphemes are Transparent like a White Shirt on a Rainy Dayno but seriously it's super awkward when that happens to anybody in general. but has it happened to me?**

**

Spoiler:

yes

Another premise of KQ was to make grammaticalized morphemes as transparent as possible. Here is a list of some of the most common morphemes with their transparent equivalent, usually a verb root:

Topical marker /q/ - from old "to see", /q/ ("to see" is now /ql/ and is one of the rare examples of two verbs, in this case "to see" and "to do", /l/, compounding)
Adverbial marker /bʷə/ - from the adverb "well"
Desiderative suffix /l/ - from - you guessed it - "to do"
Potential marker /gʷn/ - from "to hold"
Transitive marker /d/ - from "to give"
Causative marker /bʷ/ - from "to carry over"
Progressive suffix /j/ - from "to go by foot"

I promised to explain why some particle/suffix pairs are non-identical; well, it's always the pairs that are from transitive verbs that remain identical when grammaticalized.

That rule is immediately contradicted by the fact that the desiderative particle is not identical to the suffix. This is an exception. One of the few. Or many. I have yet to tell. But for now there's only a few of them. The exceptions.

[Micamo]

Ok, honestly I haven't really thought about the history or anything conworldy yet. I guess the speakers of KQ live in fishing villages on some islands or something.

Don't they all.

You could have fishing villages in the middle of a desert.

[Pirka]

7. Personal Pronouns! I Guess They Fuse? Some of Them Do

So far we've seen three personal pronouns in examples: /k/, /ks/, /səʕ/. The first pronoun is pretty basic, but what's the deal with the last two? They were glossed as 1.3o and 3.3o respectively.

These are fused pronouns. They encode the subject and the object; first person subject and third person object - third person subject and third person object respectively. There are only two personal pronouns that fuse. Those two. The only two. The best two.

Anyway, the whole personal pronoun set is as such:

Code: Select all

  sg  pl
1 k   χ
3 s   sə

1.3o  3.3o
ks    səʕ

Note: 1pl has a non-identical suffix/particle pair. /χ/ is the suffix, and /kə/ is the particle. 

As particles, the non-fused personal pronouns may be either subjects or objects. However, object pronoun particles are not the same as subject pronoun particles in the sense that they follow the verb as opposed to coming before it. They are not considered a verbal category.

Sə qəlgu kə.
/s ql-gʷ k/
3 see-TR.R 1
"He sees me."

The fused personal pronouns, despite involving an object, must always be a category, thus they appear either as a suffix or a particle.

Dəks.
/d-ks/
give-1.3o
"I gave it away."

Kəs kəni: stugbʷa gʷandu ləg.
ks knj sdʷk-bʷə gʷəndʷ lk-ʕ
1.3o INSTR stone-ADV guts pull_out-TR.Ca
"I gutted it with a stone tool."

(In fact, /d/ and its derivatives are the only verbs that can take a fused personal pronoun as a suffix because they do not require the transitive marker, which invariably comes higher than the personal pronoun and thus never allows it to become a suffix.)

You must have several burning questions by now.

You have plural distinction in non-fused pronouns; what about in fused pronouns?

What happened to the second person pronouns?

Who am I?

Where am I?

What's that strange smell?

While I can't reliably answer Poster 3's questions, I can address Posters 1's question rather easily in the next post. Which will be an introduction to nouns actually. Well kinda. Since it's going to mention nouns in passing. but no seriously what is that smell

[kanejam]

Dəks.

Lol that sounds like dicks...

I enjoy your presentation. Keep up the good work!

[Click]

Ok, honestly I haven't really thought about the history or anything conworldy yet. I guess the speakers of KQ live in fishing villages on some islands or something.

Don't they all.

You could have fishing villages in the middle of a desert.

Yeah, and you could have deserts on islands.

Dəks.

Lol that sounds like dicks...

I enjoy your presentation. Keep up the good work!

Me too.

[Pirka]

8. Plurality/Pluractionality: a Nominal/Verbal Category that Doesn't Really Behave Like the Others. It's Special.

So, at the end of the last post I said that I would be able to answer Poster 1's question. I will now. ARE YOU EXCITED

As you could have probably guessed from reading the title of this post, the plural/pluractional (henceforth just plural) category behaves in a way that does not correspond with the other categories that appear on nouns and verbs:

1. The plural category is marked with a simple ablaut system that involves the addition of an /ə/ into the root. The system of this schwaddition is thus far 90% ~renegade~, but I do know that /CC/ roots at least schwadd the schwa between the two consonants, and /CCCC/ roots schwadd right after the third consonant. For example, the pluractional stem of /ql/ "to see" is /qəl/, and the plural stem of /psps/ "hunting boot" is /pspəs/.

2. The plural category can coöccur with other nominal/verbal categories because it doesn't interfere with the struggle for the suffixal slot; it has its own slot.

3. Whereas >90% of all roots can take all categorical particles/suffixes that are appropriate to their part of speech, by far not all roots can have the plural category. These roots are mainly those that already have a schwa in their root, among other things; for example, /jəj/ "water" (a loan from Kaynur) does not have a plural form, and /nəj/ "to give birth to" does not have a pluractional form.

Despite me conflating plurality and pluractionality above for the way of abbreviation, the two are very different. Well, that is to be expected when the two different categories belong to two different parts of speech, but you know. Whatever.

Plurality is pretty basic. There are a couple of additional features to plurality but I won't cover them here. Why? Shit's ~renegade~.

Pluractionality, on the other hand, isn't all that ~renegade~. Basically, pluractionality happens on the verb in order to pluralize the subject of the verb. However, most of the time, it acts as a form of deference to the subject; in fact, some nouns only differ based on whether their verb has pluractionality marked. For example:

Ko:q dʷaja: ŋɨ:.
/kə-q dʷəj-ə ŋ-j/
1p-TOP father-POSS eat-PROG
"Our father is eating."

Compare to:

Ko:q dʷaja: ŋəj.
/kə-q dʷəj-ə ŋə-j/
1p-TOP father-POSS eat.PL-PROG
"Our grandfather is eating."

Additionally, the pluractionality of a verb may not correspond with the plurality of the subject. For example, an arrogant, self-absorbed douchebag may insist on employing pluractionality when referring to himself, but it would be simply grammatically unacceptable for one person to refer to himself with the first person plural pronoun; likewise, it's considered good lower register form to have no pluractionality referring to a first person plural when referring to one's self and peers. There's a bunch of other features that I'm planning, but that's for another episode.

Now, I shall answer Poster 1's question. There is no plurality distinction in fused pronouns, but there is one in the verbs' pluractionality. Simple as that.

Next post, Poster 2's question.

Bam.

I've been called a machine for pumping these posts out so quickly.

beep boop

beep boop beep

beEP BOOP BEEP BOOP

[Pirka]

9. Where'd You Go?

heh

So, if you remember from the personal pronouns post, Poster 2 was very curious about what happened to the second person pronouns. It is in their name, after all. The number two.

Well, the answer to Poster 2's question is that there has been such a strong social taboo against using the second person that it has all but disappeared.

In its stead, an indirect, periphrastic method has developed:

1. Whatever would be referred to as the second person is assigned to a noun that describes it in some way. The most common nouns for this are /gʷəs/ "man" or /kʷs/ "woman", which are neutral, and /dʷəj/ "father" and /nəj/ "mother", which are highly respectful; there is a score of others used for a variety of other situations, such as pronouns that you would use with your friends or a lover.

2. A special adverb /xkbʷə/ "away from me", glossed 1.AND is used somewhere** in the sentence.

Examples:

Gʷas xkəbʷa nab:ʷa loəʔ səs.
/gʷəs xkbʷə nəp-bʷə l-ʕ s~s/
man 1.AND hand-ADV do-TR.Ca 3~PROX
"You, man, made this."

Өnəxən xkəbʷa nab:ʷa ʕo: qləd qo:.
/xnxn xkbʷə nəp-bʷə ʕə ql-d q-ə/
knife 1.AND hand-ADV PROG see-TR.R eye-POSS
"My love, you're holding a knife." literally "My eye (my love) sees a knife in its hand."

PS: Do you see how the verbs in both of those sentences don't agree with /s/ 3? This is because they have nouns as subjects.

**

Spoiler:

By "somewhere", I mean in a strict, syntactically defined position in or next to the verb phrase. More on that later.

[Pirka]

Yeah. Yeah. I changed the name. Shoot me.

[Pirka]

10. Align Yourself!

You know you want to.

So.

KQ is a split-ergative language. An ergative alignment is used when both the subject and object are nouns, and an accusative alignment is used when a pronoun is involved.

In KQ, the ergative and accusative cases are marked by being positioned after the verb (whereas the absolutive and nominative come before the verb), and thereby three basic word orders can be defined: accusative SNOMVOACC, ergative OABSVSERG, and intransitive SNOM/ABSV. The cases are not marked in any other way.

Examples -

Accusative:
Kəq ʕo: qəlgu naja:.
/k-q ʕə ql-gʷ nəj-ə/
1-TOP PROG see-TR.R mother-POSS
"I see my mother."

Ergative:
Dʷaja: ʕo: qəgu naja:.
/dʷəj-ə ʕə ql-gʷ nəj-ə/
father-POSS PROG see-TR.R mother-POSS
"My mother sees my father."

Intransitive:
Өnəθna: xəmbʷad.
/xnxn-ə xnbʷə-d/
knife-POSS well_carved-C
"His knife is carved elaborately."

But are there any quirks? Surely, as Pirka, the great "I'm going to shove like five alignment systems into this language lol"-guy, I could not let a simple little alignment system like this slide?!

As it turns out

i can

't

but it's ~renegade~

[Pirka]

11. Nouns. Gotta Love 'Em. They're... Just... Nouns, I Guess. So Here's Their Hierarchy of Categories.

So remember when I shat on nouns and said that they're totally uncool and

can mark, like, two categories at a time or something

and then that I wasn't actually sure about it at all? And how I listed a whole four verbal categories? Turns out I lied a lot. I guess I'm a liar. Go ahead. Laugh.

As it turns out, nouns actually have a good number of categories, comparable to that of verbs - except theirs is more clean-cut (so far lol I'll always find a way to ruin a perfectly nice and simple system with some batshit insane quirk). So what sort of categories can a noun have? I'll show you. In increasing, hierarchical order. BEHOLD:
6. Adverbalizer /bʷə/ - as in nab:ʷa "by hand" from na:p "hand
5. Topicalizer /q/ - as in gʷasəq "the man; hey, man!"
4. Demonstrative markers: proximal /k/ and distal /s/ - as in θnəθnək "this knife" and θnəθnəs "that knife"
3. Neocompounding - as the ms "blood" in ma:dums "mosquito" from ma:du "bird".
2. Various adposition markers - as the du "in" in gʷandu "room, inside a house" from gʷan "house", or as the kəni: "with" in stuk:əni: "stone tool" from stuk "stone".
1. Relationship markers: possessive /ə/ and counting /ms/ - as in ko:q qləqo: "our language; KQ" and na:pəq na:pəms "five hands"

All but the deixis markers have identical suffix/particle pairs, which are /kk/ and /ss/ (reduplication woo) respectively.

Come to think of it, this isn't that much of a list and verbs still have more categories. But it's not a contest, I should think. Verbs are only winning by one or two categories anyway. holy shit suddenly there are six possible noun categories

Anyway, in the next four or two or one posts I will describe how the listed above markers and stuff actually work. They're pretty cool. I think you'll like the topicalizer.

[Pirka]

12. Noun Class

Noun class is a covert category; in other words, it is not marked directly on nouns except for a single exception, which I shall explain later. All in due time, friends. My dearest friends. The ones that don't exist and aren't reading the thread. Thank you. Thank you.

There are three noun classes: rationals, concretes, and abstracts. Noun class is assigned semantically and is relatively simple. All beings capable of reasoning and/or speech and/or complex thought are considered rational; this applies to all humans except for infants, who are considered concrete. Everything that isn't rational but tangible is considered concrete. All else is abstract.

Rational nouns:
gʷas /gʷəs/ "man"
kus /kʷs/ "woman"
bus /bʷs/ "evil spirit"

Concrete nouns:
kun /kʷn/ "infant"
məs /ms/ "blood"

Abstract nouns:
pəs /ps/ "hunt"
mama: /məmə/ "scouting point, view"
qləj /qlj/ "long gaze, stare"

Some nouns differ only in noun class and are phonologically identical.

ŋɨŋ /ŋŋ/ concrete "piece of food, meal", abstract "eating habit(s)"
gʷas /gʷəs/ rational "man", abstract "manhood, manliness"
gʷandu /gʷəndʷ/ concrete "guts, innards", abstract "inner workings of something"
dud /dʷd/ rational "heart", concrete "center"
man/Man /mən/ concrete "earth", rational "equivalent of an earth god"

Now, here's the thing about noun class: nouns experience a sort of animacy-lowering when they are the object; more specifically, the noun class is lowered to the next one on the list. This means that a rational noun becomes a concrete noun when it is the object, and a concrete noun becomes an abstract noun. Abstract nouns stay abstract, though. They give zero fucks.

I mentioned that the system of noun class is covert, so what's the point of having it? Well, turns out that two features in the language agree with a noun's class: adjectives and stative verbs. I also happen to not be covering those quite yet because wow i have so much to cover before that jfc (and just so you know i'm kinda desperate to get this all out because it's been floating around for a while now)

I also mentioned an exception to the covertness. This exception is /gʷəs/ "man". As a preview to the adjective/stative verbs post, I'll explain in what way it's an exception and why:

/gʷ/ is, well, the morpheme that adjectives and stative verbs use to agree with rational nouns. /gʷəs/ is one of them. The etymology of /gʷ/ the morpheme is /gʷə/, which is a verb meaning "to build" (it, like most transitive verbs, comes with a transitive /d/ marker). The reason "to build" was used as the marker for rational nouns is twofold: 1) it was judged that only rationals build things (a semantic reason) and 2) /gʷəs/, which is actually /gʷə/ "to build" + /s/ a derivational actor suffix, starts with it, therefore rational nouns started to agree as well (an analogical reason). In the culture associated with KQ, it was thought that it was the dudes that could build the best, which is why a "builder" is a "man".

Next post: finally some freakin' noun categories.

Edit: Wait, so why did I talk about a covert noun class long before talking about all the features that make it overt? Eh, my own mind is a mystery to me sometimes. Shit's cray cray.