Omzinesý's Slavic lang

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Omzinesý
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Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

I think my Slavic a-posteriori projects haven't had their own thread. So here it is: my Slavic lang.

It's located somewhere between East and South Slavic languages, so it can have balkanisms but doesn't have to have all of them.

Linguistic features
- have-past instead of be-past
- perfecive verbs differentiate tense by stressing, mostly
- a reduced tense system
Last edited by Omzinesý on 23 Sep 2022 00:44, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Omzinesý's Salavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

verb inflection

читъц 'to read'

Imperfective

Imperfective present is formed as usual synthetically.

sg1читау
sg2 читаш
sg3 читат
pl1 читаме
pl2 читате
pl3 читаут

The future is formed from быц 'to be' and the infinitive.

sg1 буду читъц
sg2 будш читъц
sg3 будт читъц
pl1 будме читъц
pl2 будте читъц
pl3 будут читъц

The past tense is formed from the passive participle /n/ and ымц 'to have'. The participle has lost its gender inflection in this use (development towards finiteness) but it still has number inflection. Она читан. 'She wrote.' Они читани. 'They wrote.'

sg1 ыму читан 'I was reading.'
sg2 ымш читан
sg3 (ымт) читан
pl1 ымме читани
pl2 ымте читани
pl3 (ымут) читани

Perfective

The perfective future and past are very alike. Usually stressing is the only difference in them.

Future
sg1 прочитáу
sg2 прочитáш
sg3 прочитáт
pl1 прочитáме
pl2 прочитáте
pl3 прочитáут

Past
sg1 прóчитау
sg1 прóчитаx
sg2 прóчиташ
sg3 прóчитат
pl1 прóчитаме
pl2 прóчитате
pl3 прóчитаут

Passive

Perfective (or stative) passive is formed from the passive participle /n/ but now it has the perfective prefix.

Present (which is actually a stative)
sg1 йесу ~ щу проситан 'I am read.'
sg2 йесш ~ щеш прочитан
sg3 (йест ~ щет) прочитан
pl1 йесме ~ щеме прочитани
pl2 йесте ~ щете прочитани
pl3 (йесут ~ щут) прочитани

Past perfective
sg1 былу прочитан 'I was read.'
sg2 былш прочитан
sg3 был прочитан
pl1 былме прочитани
pl2 былте прочитани
pl3 былут прочитани

Future perfective
sg1 буду прочитан 'I will be read.'
sg2 будш прочитан
sg3 будт прочитан
pl1 будме прочитани
pl2 будте прочитани
pl3 будут прочитани
Last edited by Omzinesý on 23 Sep 2022 00:43, edited 14 times in total.
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Re: Omzinesý's Salavic lang

Post by Zekoslav »

This certainly looks interesting! It looks like the language has lost some thematic vowels in certain verb forms: is it due to heavy vowel reduction or some kind of analogy?

(Also, there's pl3 прóситаут with a probable typo of "с" instead of "ч")

The distinction between the tenses based on stress is intriguing. May I ask where you found the inspiration for it so I can learn more about it (In my native Croatian there is a tendency (originally limited to certain verb classes only) for aorist 2/3 sg. to have initial accent in contrast to all other forms, and aorist is of course perfective. This might have been the starting point in whatever language you took this from, but I'm just guessing at this point)?
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Re: Omzinesý's Salavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

Zekoslav wrote: 06 Mar 2019 11:46 This certainly looks interesting! It looks like the language has lost some thematic vowels in certain verb forms: is it due to heavy vowel reduction or some kind of analogy?
Both!
If you mean прочитат versus прочитает that appears in Russian, it's because of reduction
/aje/ => /a:/ => /a/
The short stessed /a/ is raised, so they don't merge:
/a/ => /ə/ <ъ>
I think that is not a heavier reduction than say in Croatian, am I wrong?

Some declensions still preserve the thematic vowels.

If you mean verb ымц and быц it's sporadic, which is not abnormal for an auxiliary.
Zekoslav wrote: 06 Mar 2019 11:46 (Also, there's pl3 прóситаут with a probable typo of "с" instead of "ч")
That was just a typo, which is fixed now.
Zekoslav wrote: 06 Mar 2019 11:46 The distinction between the tenses based on stress is intriguing. May I ask where you found the inspiration for it so I can learn more about it (In my native Croatian there is a tendency (originally limited to certain verb classes only) for aorist 2/3 sg. to have initial accent in contrast to all other forms, and aorist is of course perfective. This might have been the starting point in whatever language you took this from, but I'm just guessing at this point)?
The IRL reason is that I wonder why there are so complex stressing patterns without a meaning component. So this language has it :)

Yes, Church Slavic and the modern languages that still preserve the aorist seem to move the stress towards the beginning of the word in the aorist. I don't know the details but I'm aware of it. That is probably the trigger of the development. It though seems that the origin of the perfective with preverbs got its beginning in past participles -l and -n, instead of the finite aorist. So some analogical developments must still appear.

I am considering - was already before you mentioned it - to add some features of the aorist to the perfective past conjugation. Maybe -x as sg1 marker instead of -u. Maybe the diphtong /au/ doesn't even appear in unstressed syllables.
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Re: Omzinesý's Salavic lang

Post by Zekoslav »

There's no vowel reduction in the strict sense in standard Western South Slavic languages, just vowel contraction like in you present tense. There's some Croatian/Bosnian dialects which syncopate unstressed /i/ and /u/, and some Slovene dialects which do that and more (rendering them incomprehensible to me even though the languages are otherwise as different as, say, English and Scots, or Spanish and Portuguese (and my dialect is the equivalent of Galician)).

There's indeed a similar reduction of auxiliaries in Croatian. In the standard language the verb "to be" is used to form the future perfect of imperfective and optionally perfective verbs, so is rather rare and keeps the unreduced forms budem, budeš, bude... Now, in my dialect this tense is the only future tense, so is very common and the auxiliary has been reduced to bum, buš, bu... Same in standard Slovene.

Yes, those stress patterns are a pain to learn and a pain to reconstruct. I find it an interesting challenge, but to be fair many urban Croatian dialects nearly completely eliminate all stress shifts so what you did in your conlang is in no way unusual.

As for keeping some parts of the aorist tense, wouldn't be unusual since I guess your language would be spoken close to Bulgaria (if I'm right) and in Bulgarian the tense is live and healthy.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

OK, I see the difference between reduction/elision and contraction. This is not necessarily a strictly South-Slavic language. It just seems to be closest to what I want it to be.

Bulgaria is one of the possible locations. I've also considered Romania and South-Western Ukraine.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Zekoslav »

For all their sound changes, there's not many Slavlangs that do regular vowel deletion! As for contractions, they're only regular in the west. However, /aje/ > /a/ does happen in Bulgarian and some Ukranian dialects, so it fits your location very well.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

Something on nouns

There are 4 cases: Nominative, Genitive-Dative, Instrumental, and Vocative.

The Slavic accusative is replaced by the nominative. Pronouns still have different accusative forms.
The Slavic locative/prepositional and dative merge. (They are alike in many paradigms (though I'm still not sure if ѣ/ě and e merge), so this similarity is levelled.) This dative also replaces the old genitive.
The vocative, however, is preserved.

koń 'horse'
NOM коњ
GEN-DAT коњу
INSTR коњем
VOC кoњу

žena 'woman'
NOM жена
GEN-DAT жене
INSTR женой
VOC жено
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by gestaltist »

Do you plan on marking the direct object in another way then? Having nom=acc in the presence of other cases is really atypical. I could see the GEN-DAT extending to ACC easily, given Slavic case forms.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Ælfwine »

Its not too atypical. Romanian has fused both the nominative and accusative, and likewise the genitive and dative, while innovating a vocative case.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

gestaltist wrote: 12 Mar 2019 16:41 Do you plan on marking the direct object in another way then? Having nom=acc in the presence of other cases is really atypical. I could see the GEN-DAT extending to ACC easily, given Slavic case forms.
I actually disagree. For example for Uralic languages, it is very typical to have plenty of noun cases and still have zero-marked direct objects.
Ælfwine wrote: 12 Mar 2019 23:18 Its not too atypical. Romanian has fused both the nominative and accusative, and likewise the genitive and dative, while innovating a vocative case.
Romanian is one of my innovators in these Baltic features.

Some DOM probably appears. Dative may also participate. But in the basic construction both the subject and the object appear in the "Direct case".
I'm a fan of antipassives. We will see if I end up adding it here too, somehow.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

Before going further with the morphology, I have to make the phonology.
My understanding on Slavic phonologies - especially the development of affricates and sibilants with seem to vary between languages - is still quite limited. If somebody has good resources on its history, I would be glad to see it!

The phoneme inventory is noway atypical for my langs. I seem to repeat this phone inventory nearly identical.

Vowels

/i/, /ɨ*/, /u/
ʲe** ?
/ɛ/, /ɜ/, /ɔ/
/ä/

**I'm still considering if ě/ѣ should still be somewhat distinct causing palatalizations.
* I would like to have /ɨ/ though it has disappeared in South-Slavic languages. One option is that it is somehow recreated.


Consonants

/p/, /t/, /k/
/b/, /d/, /g/
/t͡s/, /t͡ʃ/, /t͡ɕ/
/f/, /s/, /ʃ/, /ɕ/, /x/
/v/, /z/, /ʒ/
/m/, /n/, /nʲ/
/r/, /rʲ/
/l/, /lʲ/, /j/


/t͡ʃ/, /ʃ/, and /ʒ/ (like /rʲ/, /lʲ/) don't appear before /i/.
/t͡ɕ/ and /ɕ/ don't appear before /ɨ/.
In other contests, they can appear both and are thus phonemic.

I'm still considering the Cyrillization, if they should be
<тш>, <ш>, <ж> and <ч> <щ>
or
<ч>, <ш>, <ж> and <чь>, <шь>
respectively.
Last edited by Omzinesý on 18 Sep 2022 23:41, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Zekoslav »

I've learned most of my Slavistics by heart, so I don't remember any specific resources (and most of my books aren't in English anyway), except that Kortlandt has a paper "From PIE. to Serbo-Croatian" available online which probably mentions the relevant developments in other languages too. You could ask Ælfwine since he's fished up some stuff while working on his own Slavlang.

As for cyrillization, I think it would depend on where these sounds come from.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

A filmstabber time

I just decided to update this lang.


Its new vowel inventory is the one below.

i u
e o
ɐ
ä

/ɐ/ and /ä/ are distinct only in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, they both realize as [ɐ]. /ä/ derives from the contraction /ajV/.
The diphthong /ɐu/ is also restricted to stressed syllables.

Code: Select all

/p/, /t/,          		/k/ 
/b/, /d/,	           	/g/ 
    	/t͡s/, /t͡ʃ/, /t͡ɕ/
/f/, 	/s/, /ʃ/, /ɕ/, 		/x/ 
/v/, 	/z/, /ʒ/, /ʑ/
/m/, /n/, 	/ɲ/
     /r/, 
     /l/,      /j/ 

Verb, a-conjugation

t͡ɕi'tɐ, prot͡ɕi'tɐ 'to read'

Imperfective present

t͡ʂi'tɐu 'I read'
t͡ʂi'täʂ
t͡ʂi'tä
t͡ʂi'täme
t͡ʂi'täte
t͡ʂi'tɐut

Perfective future

prot͡ʂi'tɐu 'I will read'
prot͡ʂi'täʂ
prot͡ʂi'tä
prot͡ʂi'täme
prot͡ʂi'täte
prot͡ʂi'tɐut

Perfective past

pro't͡ʂitɐx 'I read'
pro't͡ʂitɐʂ
pro't͡ʂitɐ
pro't͡ʂitɐme
pro't͡ʂitɐte
pro't͡ʂitɐ ?
Last edited by Omzinesý on 23 Sep 2022 01:05, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

Now that I have got some introduction to the origin of Serbo-Croatian palatals, which doesn't seem very complicated in the end, I think I can make discuss the main sound changes. Leading to

Code: Select all

/p/, /t/,          		/k/ 
/b/, /d/,	           	/g/ 
    	/t͡s/, /t͡ʃ/, /t͡ɕ/
/f/, 	/s/, /ʃ/, /ɕ/, 		/x/ 
/v/, 	/z/, /ʒ/, /ʑ/
/m/, /n/, 	/ɲ/
     /r/, 
     /l/,      /j/ 
- Proto-Slavic *t' and *d' developed to /t͡ɕ/ and /dʑ/, respectively, as in Serbo-Croatian. Later /dʑ/ was lenited to /ʑ/ in all environments.
- /ɕ/ can have the same etymology as the corresponding sound in Russian, i.e., *st' => st͡ɕ => ɕ: => ɕ. First the stop became an affirate, as above, the the stop part of of the affricate disappeared between the sibilants. In the end, the sound lost its longer length.

Writing could thus be

Code: Select all

/п/, /т/,          		/к/ 
/б/, /д/,	           	/г/ 
    	/ц/, /ч/, /ћ/
/ф/, 	/с/, /ш/, /щ/, 		/х/ 
/в/, 	/з/, /ж/, /ђ/
/м/, /н/, 	/њ/
     /р/, 
     /л/,      /j/ 
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Re: Omzinesý's Slavic lang

Post by Omzinesý »

The Slavic infinitive suffix -ti either disappears (vocalic stems) or becomes unsegmentable (consonantal stems).

There are three conjugations, as in many Slavic languages.

A-conjugation

Usually the stress falls on the last syllable. Then the thematic vowel of the infinitive is ɐ <ъ> and the thematic vowel of the finite forms is ä <a>.

[t͡ʂi'tɐ] 'to read'
[t͡ʂi'tä] 'he reads'

If the stress falls on another syllable, sg3 and the infinitive are identical.

['delɐ] 'to do, he does'

E-conjugation

The vowel of the finite forms is e. The infinitive suffix is often very fused with the stem or there is some stem change.

[i't͡ɕi] 'to go'
[i'de] 'he goes'

['pisa] 'he writes'
['pise] 'he writes'

I-conjucation

Many infinitives have the stress on the last syllable while many finite forms have the stress on another syllable.

[ʎu'bi] 'to love'
['ʎubi] 'he loves'

Some verbs lose the thematic i of the infinitive.

[go'vor] 'to speak'
[govo'ri] 'he speaks'


There are even triplets of stress changes.

[poʎu'bi] 'to fall in love'
[po'ʎubi] 'he will fall in love'
['poʎubi] 'he fell in love'
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