Random ideas: Morphosyntax

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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by k1234567890y »

An isolating language where there are no adpositions, and there are no inflectional affixes and productive derivational affixes either, all meanings of adpositions are conveyed by the use of verbs and nouns(and the language has serial verb construction), and most conjunctions are from content words(i.e. conjunctional "when" is from the word meaning "time" or the phrase "be at the time") too, and compounding and complete reduplication are used for derivations.

Besides there are no singular-plural distinction even in personal pronouns, there are no way distinguishing the subject from the direct object except for the word order, and there are no definite articles, and the basic word order is SOV and strongly left-branching.

For possessive phrases, the language uses juxtaposition of the uninflected possessor and possessed nominals, with the 3rd pronoun being inserted between the possessor and the possessed.
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

Creyeditor wrote: 02 Aug 2019 23:29 I really like the idea of combining these. This is very construction grammar like conlanging, I feel. I think assuming n to be the same for all three categories (preposition, postposition, suffix) is not strictly neccessary, right? I can't do the math, but even with small numbers I think this gives an interesting language. I will try to give this idea some substance.
Imagine you take latin prepositions 'ad' and 'de' + German case suffixes -em and -en + German postpositions 'halber' and 'entlang'. Assuming that all of these are compatible, we should get 27 (=(2+1)*(2+1)*(2+1)) possible combinations, IINM.
The whole thing would be simplest if any case-ending (including “no case-ending”) and any postposition (including “no postposition”) and any preposition (including “no preposition”) can all go together.
Then if you have C Case-endings and O pOstpositions and R pRepositions, you can indicate up to
(1+R)(1+C)(1+O) different case-like semantic or syntactic or thematic case-roles or theta-roles.
If C=O=R=5 that’s 216, more than Tsez has cases.
If C=R=O=3 it’s 64, more than Heinz has varieties of pickles.

To vaguely approximate what I am/was looking for, I have the following desiderata.
Spoiler:
At most one case-ending should require that some postposition also be used; all other case-endings should be grammatical even if there’s no postposition.
At most one case-ending should be compatible with every postposition; most case-endings should be incompatible with either one or two postpositions.

At most one case-ending should require that some preposition also be used; all other case-endings should be grammatical even if there’s no preposition.
At most one case-ending should be compatible with every preposition; most case-endings should be incompatible with either one or two prepositions.

....

At most one postposition should require that a non-zero case-ending also be used; all other postpositions should be grammatically useable even with the bare, mere, absolute noun (“zero-marked” or “nominative” case).
At most one postposition should be grammatically useable with every case-ending; most postpositions should be grammatically incompatible with one or two case-endings.

At most one postposition should require that some preposition also be used; all other postpositions should be grammatically useable even without any preposition.
At most one postposition should be grammatically useable with every preposition; most postpositions should be incompatible grammatically with one or two prepositions.

....


At most one preposition should require that some “nonzero” case-ending also be used. Every other preposition should be grammatically useable with the bare, mere, absolute, unmarked or zero-marked, “nominative” noun or pronoun.
At most one preposition should be grammatically useable with every case-ending. Most prepositions should be incompatible (grammatically) with one or two case-endings.

At most one preposition should require that some postposition or other must also be used. Any other preposition should be grammatically useable without any postposition.
At most one preposition should be grammatically compatible with every postposition. Most prepositions should be grammatically incompatible with one or two postpositions.
====================

I like it better if:
Spoiler:
For every, or almost every, or at least most, pairs of a case-ending and a postposition that are compatible with each other, there’s more than one preposition for which the trio of Prep-Case-Postp is compatible and grammatical.
For every, or almost every, or at least most, pairs of a case-ending and a preposition that are compatible with each other, there’s more than one postposition for which the trio of Prep-Case-Postp is compatible and grammatical.
For every, or almost every, or at least most, pairs of a postposition and a preposition that are compatible with each other, there’s more than one case-ending for which the trio of Prep-Case-Postp is compatible and grammatical.
Spoiler:
There are at least as many case-endings incompatible with just one postposition, as there are incompatible with two or more.
There are at least as many case-endings incompatible with just one preposition, as there are incompatible with two or more.
There are at least as many postpositions incompatible with just one case-ending, as there are incompatible with two or more.
There are at least as many postpositions incompatible with just one preposition, as there are incompatible with two or more.
There are at least as many prepositions incompatible with just one case-ending, as there are incompatible with two or more.
There are at least as many prepositions incompatible with just one postposition, as there are incompatible with two or more.
Spoiler:
There are no, or very few —— perhaps at most two? —— trios of a preposition and a case-ending and a postposition, that each two of them are grammatically useable with each other, but the entire trio is not grammatically useable all together.
And I prefer that each useable, grammatical combination, be semantically or syntactically or pragmatically different, from each of the others.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

Creyeditor wrote: 16 Apr 2018 17:39 .... and nobody would have gotten confused [:)]
You underestimate me, sir! [;)]
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

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k1234567890y wrote: 05 Aug 2019 07:34 An isolating language where there are no adpositions, and there are no inflectional affixes and productive derivational affixes either, all meanings of adpositions are conveyed by the use of verbs and nouns(and the language has serial verb construction), and most conjunctions are from content words(i.e. conjunctional "when" is from the word meaning "time" or the phrase "be at the time") too, and compounding and complete reduplication are used for derivations.

Besides there are no singular-plural distinction even in personal pronouns, there are no way distinguishing the subject from the direct object except for the word order, and there are no definite articles, and the basic word order is SOV and strongly left-branching.

For possessive phrases, the language uses juxtaposition of the uninflected possessor and possessed nominals, with the 3rd pronoun being inserted between the possessor and the possessed.
I really like this. I've thought about doing an "extreme isolating" language before with minimal word-class distinctions but at the time I didn't know about the possibility of eliminating adpositions. It goes a ways beyond a creole, since even those tend to have a couple or a handful of adpositions and other particles. More like Old Chinese.

I wonder what verb you could use for "and". I mean, you could just use apposition. Nothing. Or maybe a verb meaning something like 'join' or 'be.alongside'.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

I wonder what verb you could use for "and". I mean, you could just use apposition. Nothing. Or maybe a verb meaning something like 'join' or 'be.alongside'.
There is a natlang with a verb meaning “to be two”.
It is used both instead of the conjunction “and” and instead of the comitative preposition “with”.

I can’t remember which natlang but I have the impression it is not a northern temperate zone language.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by DesEsseintes »

Porphyrogenitos wrote: 10 Oct 2020 07:30I wonder what verb you could use for "and". I mean, you could just use apposition. Nothing. Or maybe a verb meaning something like 'join' or 'be.alongside'.
to follow
to join
to be alike/the same as
to accompany
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by k1234567890y »

Porphyrogenitos wrote: 10 Oct 2020 07:30
k1234567890y wrote: 05 Aug 2019 07:34 An isolating language where there are no adpositions, and there are no inflectional affixes and productive derivational affixes either, all meanings of adpositions are conveyed by the use of verbs and nouns(and the language has serial verb construction), and most conjunctions are from content words(i.e. conjunctional "when" is from the word meaning "time" or the phrase "be at the time") too, and compounding and complete reduplication are used for derivations.

Besides there are no singular-plural distinction even in personal pronouns, there are no way distinguishing the subject from the direct object except for the word order, and there are no definite articles, and the basic word order is SOV and strongly left-branching.

For possessive phrases, the language uses juxtaposition of the uninflected possessor and possessed nominals, with the 3rd pronoun being inserted between the possessor and the possessed.
I really like this. I've thought about doing an "extreme isolating" language before with minimal word-class distinctions but at the time I didn't know about the possibility of eliminating adpositions. It goes a ways beyond a creole, since even those tend to have a couple or a handful of adpositions and other particles. More like Old Chinese.

I wonder what verb you could use for "and". I mean, you could just use apposition. Nothing. Or maybe a verb meaning something like 'join' or 'be.alongside'.
thank you and yeah
I prefer to not be referred to with masculine pronouns and nouns such as “he/him/his”.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

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Porphyrogenitos wrote: 10 Oct 2020 07:30I really like this. I've thought about doing an "extreme isolating" language before with minimal word-class distinctions but at the time I didn't know about the possibility of eliminating adpositions. It goes a ways beyond a creole, since even those tend to have a couple or a handful of adpositions and other particles. More like Old Chinese.

I wonder what verb you could use for "and". I mean, you could just use apposition. Nothing. Or maybe a verb meaning something like 'join' or 'be.alongside'.
Classical Chinese itself uses a verb meaning 'to give' (與, Mandarin yǔ, Cantonese yu5), besides also using plain apposition / nothing. And the Standard Mandarin words for 'and' come from words that used to be verbs meaning 'to be in harmony with sb/sth' (和 hé), 'to follow sth' (跟 gēn), and 'to reach sth' (及 jí). Cantonese uses a word that used to be a verb meaning 'to be with sb/sth, accompany' (同 tung4, some southern forms of Mandarin in China also use this).
hīc sunt linguificēs. hēr bēoþ tungemakeras.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

Semantic Scope of Morphemes in a Word:
A conlang in which the morphemes are each assigned a one-digit rank from 0 to 9.
A morpheme with even rank has scope over all the lower-ranking morphemes after it (“to its right”) up to but not including the next morpheme with the same or higher rank. (So rank 0 morphemes don’t have scope over anything.)
A morpheme with odd rank has scope over all the lower-ranking morphemes before it (“to its left”) back to but not including the last previous morpheme with the same or higher rank.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Creyeditor »

I was thinking of head-marking languages and dependent-marking languages and how they are not exact opposites. How would the exact opposites look?

Sub-idea 1: A head marking language that only marks case.

Imagine a language, where the verb encodes the abstract case for each argument only, i.e. its presence or absence. No person, gender or number marking. In an intransitive sentence you would mark the verb with a suffix that indicates the presence of a nominative argument.

Minu sukuni.
minu suku-ni.
sun shine-NOM
`The sun shines.'

In a monotransitive sentence, the verb would get two suffixes, one indicating the presence of a nominative argument, another one that indicates the presence of an accusative argument.

Nun tamu kinanisa.
Nun tamu kina-ni-sa
girl women admire-NOM-ACC
`The girl admires the women.'

And, as you propably would have guessed, in a ditransitive sentence you just add another suffix because there is a dative argument present.

Si napi nupum kinunnisapu.
Si napi nupum kinun-ni-sa-pu
1SG mayor stakeholder introduce-NOM-ACC-DAT
`I introduced the mayor to the stakeholders.'

If this lang has qirky subjects, you would get a different suffix combination at the verb, e.g. DAT and ACC.

Ka ani piku-sa-pu.
ka ani piku-sa-pu.
3SG money need-ACC-DAT
'She needed money.'

Why is there nothing like this in natlangs. Probably, because if there was something like this, it would be analyzed differently. NOM would be analyzed as a finite verb marker since it occurs on all finite verbs except for a closed class of exceptions. ACC would be a marker of monotransitive verbs and DAT a marker of ditransitive verbs.

Sub-idea 2: A dependent-marking language that marks person and number on subjects only.

In this language, number and person of the subject are marked on the subject itself. In intransitive sentences this means you mark the single argument of an intransitive verb with its person and number.

Minuni suku.
minu-ni suku.
sun-3SG shine-NOM
`The sun shines.'

Tamusa kisan.
tamu-sa kisan
women-1PL shout
`We women shout.'

In transitive sentences, only the (abstract nominative) subject will get person and number marking. The other arguments will not.

Nunni tamu kina.
Nun-ni tamu kina
girl-3SG women admire
`The girl admires the women.'

Si-pu napi nupum kinun.
Si-pu napi nupum kinun
1SG-1SG mayor stakeholder introduce
`I introduced the mayor to the stakeholders.'

If this language would have some nouns/verbs that block agreement, this would mean that both arguments are unmarked.

Ka ani piku
ka ani piku
3SG money need
'She needed money.'

Does any of you know a natlang precedent of the second one? Or why there is none?
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

There are three places, not just two, that a head-dependent relationship can be marked in Profs Nichols’s and Bickels’s “locus of marking” scheme.
1. The head-word may, or may not, be marked with some semantic (e.g. gender or number) or syntactic (e,g. case) information about the dependent-word; possibly but not necessarily including information about the type of the head-dependent relationship.
2. The dependent-word may, or may not, be marked with some semantic (e.g. gender or number) or syntactic (e,g. case) information about the head-word; possibly but not necessarily including information about the type of the head-dependent relationship.
3. Some free-floating marker-word may be marked with some semantic and/or syntactic information about both the head-word and the dependent-word; and necessarily also information about the type of the head-dependent relationship.

3 is rarer than 1 or 2.

A language can use none of these, relying solely on word-order to communicate which head goes how with which dependent.

Or a language can rely completely on just one of them.
If 1 is used extensively and 2 and 3 not at all, the language is “solidly head-marking”.
If 2 is used extensively and 1 and 3 not at all, the language is “solidly dependent-marking”.
If 3 is used extensively and 1 and 2 not at all, I don’t know the term for that; “floater-marking”, maybe?

Or a language can make extensive use of two of them.
Such languages are called “double-marking”.
When someone says a given language is double-marking, they almost always mean (and their audience almost always think they mean) that it is both head-marking and dependent-marking.
But when someone says a group of languages are all double-marking, there is always implicit the possibility that some of those languages use free-floating markers with head-marking, and/or some of them use free-floating markers and dependent-marking.

We’re conlangers so we can imagine a language that makes extensive use of all three techniques. I have never seen it proposed that any natlang does so.

..........

Another real-life consideration for Nichols’s and Bickels’s typology is that in real life it’s not binary, it’s scalar.

I propose one divide the language’s head-dependent relationships into eight classes, by which strategy or combination of strategies it uses to mark that particular relation ship, and assign a percentage (to the nearest 10%) from 0% to 90% to each combination of strategies to say how many of that language’s head-dependent relationships are marked by that combination of strategies.
(I don’t think the 100% notation would turn out to be needed among natlangs).
Spoiler:
Like maybe:
1 head only : 20%
2 dependent only: 20%
12 head and dependent: 20%
0 unmarked: 10%
3 floating marker only: 10%
13 head and floating: 10%
23 dependent and floating: 10%
123 all three loci: 0%

Or like maybe:
1 head only : 30%
2 dependent only: 30%
12 head and dependent: 20%
0 unmarked: 10%
3 floating marker only: 10%
13 head and floating: 0%
23 dependent and floating: 0%
123 all three loci: 0%
Or, if that’s too detailed, just use a five-value rating system of
“Never vs Sometimes vs Frequently vs Usually vs Always”.

Or if you don’t want to rank each combination of strategies, just rank the individual strategies.
Add “strategy #0: no marking”.
and answer these four questions with Never or Sometimes or Frequently or Usually or Always:
0 How often is a head-dependent relationship left unmarked?
1 How often is a relationship head-marked?
2 How often is a relationship dependent-marked?
3 How often is a head-dependent relationship marked on a free-floating marker?

.....

One possible upshot is:
0 sometimes
1 usually
2 usually
3 sometimes

In a language like that, most head-dependent relationships are head-marked, and also most are dependent-marked, so we could expect that they’d frequently be double-marked on both the head and the dependent.
Some head-dependent relationships would be marked by a free-floating marker-word; maybe sometimes only by that means, or sometimes also head-marked, or sometimes also dependent-marked.
And some head-dependent relationships wouldn’t be marked on any word.

.....

TL;DR?
Then here’s a summary;
I don’t think either term could have an exact opposite.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

@Creyeditor:
I like the sub-ideas you’ve proposed.

If I am being serious I hesitate to call them “exact opposite” to the Nichols&Bickel ideas, because, I’ve put a lot of work and thought into N&B’s typology; and if their types have “exact opposites” then all that work was wasted.

If I’m just having fun, like a conlanger, what you’re suggesting seems like great fun! And why shouldn’t we call it what you like?

.....

I don’t know any natlang has done what you’re talking about; and I don’t know none has.

There’s so much about normal human behavior I can’t explain that I think I’d be wasting everybody’s time and space and electricity by trying to explain why there isn’t one, if there isn’t.

......

In sub-idea 2, what about marking the subject with the person and number of ALL the participants?
Does that fail to be the “exact opposite” of what you’re looking for?
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Creyeditor »

Thank you for your recapitulation of Nichols and Bickel. They seem to include my opposites in their typology, but still IINM empirically dependent marking on the clause level usually marks case, whereas head marking languages usually mark features like person, number, gender. That's what I was thinking about. Another quick idea on the noun phrase level: What if in possession constructions, you would mark person/number/gender of the possessed noun on the possessor?
eldin raigmore wrote: 29 Oct 2020 02:09 In sub-idea 2, what about marking the subject with the person and number of ALL the participants?
Does that fail to be the “exact opposite” of what you’re looking for?
Well, this would be the opposite of a dependent marking language, that marks all cases of the participants on the subject. I hadn't thought about this option yet. Just a quick example to illustrate what I mean.

Sinisapu napi nupum kinun.
Si-ni-sa-pu napi nupum kinun
1SG-NOM-ACC-DAT mayor stakeholder introduce
`I introduced the mayor to the stakeholders.'

This would probably be reanalyzed as a language with a complex ergative case and an even more complex pegative case.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

Another quick idea on the noun phrase level: What if in possession constructions, you would mark person/number/gender of the possessed noun on the possessor?
If you look at their features and articles in WALS.info that sort of thing is exactly what they talk about in feature 24A.
https://wals.info/chapter/24
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases

Possessed items are almost always third person; maybe 4th person if your language has one.
The chose possedee or possessum is the head; the possessor is the dependent.
Marking the person of the possessum on the possessor is almost never done.

Marking the number and gender of the possessum on the possessor is rather frequently done in Romance languages.
It’s one of the things that trips up L1-Anglophones trying to speak a Romance L2, to remember to make the genitive pronoun agree with the gender and number of the possessum rather than the possessor. And it trips up Romance L1-speakers trying to speak English to try to make the genitive pronoun agree with the gender and number of its antecedent (which is the possessor) instead of the possessum.
I am under the impression that’s a general Germanic-vs-Romance stumbling block, though probably English is the worst among Germanic languages from this point of view.

....

When possessive noun phrases are head-marked, the possessum is said to be in construct state, rather than construct case. At least in Semitic languages; I think in others as well? As if “construct” contrasts with “definite”, “indefinite”, “specific/referential”, and “nonspecific/nonreferential”, rather than say “accusative” “ergative” “instrumental” “comitative” “attributive” “partitive” etc.

Akkadian as i inderstand it is one Semitic language in which possessors were in genitive case and possessums were in construct state. The possessum/possessor relationship was double-marked; both head-marked and dependent-marked.

.....

The things I was talking about in my earlier post were about “whole-language typology”.
Their WALS chapters try to do “locus in the clause (where the verb is the head and the core participants are the dependents)” in chapter 23, and “locus in the possessive NP” in chapter 24, and “whole-language marking-locus typology” in chapter 25.
They invite readers to look at chapters 20 thru 26 to see their methods for doing such things. Or if that’s not enough, consult their books!

.....

They talk about “headward-migrating dependent marking” as a minority type.
Maybe marking the subject to agree with all the participants is an example of dependentward-migrating head-marking?
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Omzinesý »

Hindi has a genitive postposition/adjective that agrees the possessed.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Vlürch »

A language that has prefixes on verbs for a bunch of stuff (not sure what all categories would be included, but a lot). Also obligatory prefixes to mark possession on all nouns but suffixes to indicate whether it's inalienable or alienable, with inalienable as the default (and unmarked), although nouns that don't belong to anyone or anything in particular are unmarked (eg. abstract or collective nouns). In addition to the singular and plural possessives, there's an additional category for "communal ownership" that can be used for ownership by families/households/workplaces/classrooms/whatever, different from the regular plural in its implications.

Nouns can be incorporated into the verb, but usually only the object of the sentence and in more complex cases it's mostly restricted to a fossilised set of nouns-verb pairs. Adjectives can be formed from verbs (including ones incorporating nouns) with affixes; adjectives come before nouns, but possessive prefixes come before them and they're written together with the noun. There's a lot of redundancy. Although word order is more or less free, the default is VSO.

Katiskatirkahotapisawiranum minkatisirinumhatupulutiwaso hinewiku hikunkatisohogahawampattupipitiwaho.
ka-ti-sə-ka-ti-rə-ka-hə-tapi-sawi-ra-numə mi-Ø-nə-ka-ti-siri-numə-ha-tu-pulu-ti-wa-sə hi-Ø-nə-wiku-Ø hi-kunə-ka-ti-sə-Ø-hə-ga-hawa-mə-patə-tu-pipi-ti-wa-hə
3P-PL-AGT-3P-PL-BEN-3P-PL-ACC-HOD-ASS-PST-eat 1P-SG-POS-3P-PL-worm-eat-DESI-ADJ-friend-PL-ALIEN-AGT 2P-SG-POS-family-INAL 2P-[communal]-3P-PL-AGT-4P-ACC-CAUS-aww-PRED-say-ADJ-hamster-PL-ALIEN-ACC
I assume my famished friends ate your family's cute hamsters earlier today.

(want-to-eat-worms = famished)
(makes-one-say-aww = cute)

Not sure if a term for communal ownership exists (if it does, I couldn't find what it's called), or if any language even makes such a distinction, but... I'm also not sure how natuarlistic everything else is since I have a very poor grasp on how polysynthesis or things like that work, but well.

Also a phonological note, just because: /ə/ never surfaces as [ə], only as [e̞] or [o̞] depending on whether it's followed by a front vowel or a back vowel. It's dropped entirely when followed by a homorganic consonant to the one preceding it, when the resulting cluster is /mn ms mj mr ml nk ng nj nh/ or /rC lC/ (except /rs rl ls lr/) and word-finally after /m n l/.

PS: If this is an absolute mess that makes zero sense, blame it on me not sleeping last night (aside from a short nap in the early evening) and only sleeping two hours the night before.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by eldin raigmore »

I like it!
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Vlürch »

Even stupider idea, which almost certainly has already been thought of several times... a language spoken by time travellers with the following tenses:

hesternal distant past (yesterday, but in the distant past)
hesternal recent past (yesterday, but not really yesterday)
hesternal immediate past (yesterday, but actually earlier today)
hesternal (yesterday... like, actually yesterday)
hesternal present (yesterday, but now)
hesternal immediate future (yesterday, but within an hour or so)
hesternal recent future (yesterday, but in a couple of days)
hesternal distant future (yesterday, but in the distant future)

hodiernal distant past (earlier today, but actually in the distant past)
hodiernal recent past (earlier today, but a couple of days or so ago)
hodiernal immediate past (earlier today... like, actually earlier today)
hodiernal (any time today)
hodiernal present (now)
hodiernal immediate future (later today... like, actually later today)
hodiernal recent future (later today, but not actually today)
hodiernal distant future (later today, but actually in the distant future)

crastinal distant past (tomorrow, but in the distant past)
crastinal recent past (tomorrow, but actually today or yesterday or so)
crastinal immediate past (tomorrow, but actually earlier today)
crastinal present (tomorrow, but now)
crastinal (tomorrow... like, actually tomorrow)
crastinal immediate future (tomorrow, but within an hour or so)
crastinal recent future (tomorrow, but not really tomorrow)
crastinal distant future (tomorrow, but in the distant future)

For example:

Olomōfa siyułpahĭsabūsŭ Hitlerfa 1929'la qōłtahtahūqwă?
/ɔɮɔmɔːfɑ sijuɬpɑχi̥sɑbuːsu̥ χitɮɛrfɑ inɑːsunɑːɮɑ qɔːɬtɑχɑ̥tɑχuːqʷɑ̥/
[ɔɮ̪ɔmɔːfɑ ɕijʊɬ̪pɑχɪ̥s̪ɑbuːsʊ̥ χɪt̪ᵊɮ̪ɛr̪fɑ in̪ɑːs̪un̪ɑːɮ̪ɑ q͡χɔːɬ̪t̪ɑχɑ̥t̪ɑχʊːq͡χʷɒ̥]
olomō-fa siyu-łpa-hĭ-sa-bū-sŭ Hitler-fa i-nā-su-nā-la qō-łta-hă-ta-hū-qwă
breakfast-ACC eat-HOD-IMME-FUT-1P.PL.INCL-CONN Hitler-ACC one-nine-two-nine-TEMP kill-CRAST-DIST-PST-2P.PL-INTER
Before we eat breakfast this morning, will you guys kill Hitler tomorrow in 1929?

Of course, it'd get really confusing really fast, but I guess if time travel was possible and so widespread that it'd affect the tense systems of languages, it'd be easy to keep track of things for native speakers.
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Ahzoh
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Ahzoh »

I like to think it could be spoken by 4D beings where time is less linear and more fluid and thus having such distinctions like these would actually be useful (and also not be as much of a cognitive load).
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Creyeditor
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Creyeditor »

Isn't (some version of) Kiwikami's Hypry a bit like that?
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