Alál: 59 Circumstantials and an Antipassive

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Re: Alál: I finally describe what axis markers are

Post by kiwikami »

Khemehekis wrote: 08 Aug 2021 07:49I'm going to go off on a limb and guess that haaka means "sky"?
Technically haka (the a in the root HAK normally deletes before the case marker a#a, but it sticks around when s separates the two), but yes!
Khemehekis wrote: 08 Aug 2021 07:49In Kankonian, "skybox" is oshmulhozos, from oshmul (sky) and hozos (cube).
Ooh, I love a good sky cube!

Image

Hm, it strikes me that Alál has a word for 'quadrilateral' (lımuṭ, from LIṬ 'four' and mu 'visual abstraction') but not for 'cube'. I will give some thought to that.
Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

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Re: Alál: I finally describe what axis markers are

Post by Khemehekis »

kiwikami wrote: 08 Aug 2021 07:59
Khemehekis wrote: 08 Aug 2021 07:49I'm going to go off on a limb and guess that haaka means "sky"?
Technically haka (the a in the root HAK normally deletes before the case marker a#a, but it sticks around when s separates the two), but yes!
So I got it!
Khemehekis wrote: 08 Aug 2021 07:49In Kankonian, "skybox" is oshmulhozos, from oshmul (sky) and hozos (cube).
Ooh, I love a good sky cube!

Image
[+1]
Hm, it strikes me that Alál has a word for 'quadrilateral' (lımuṭ, from LIṬ 'four' and mu 'visual abstraction') but not for 'cube'. I will give some thought to that.
When you add a word for "cube", are you also going to add "tetrahedron", "octahedron", "dodecahedron", and "icosahedron"?

What about "tesseract"?
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Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by kiwikami »

Khemehekis wrote: 08 Aug 2021 10:38When you add a word for "cube", are you also going to add "tetrahedron", "octahedron", "dodecahedron", and "icosahedron"?

What about "tesseract"?
I absolutely should! I'm thinking of deriving 'cube' from some prior word for '(six-sided) die' as in κύβος, since six-sided shapes in particular have cultural significance to speakers and it's very likely that such objects were created long before geometry was a common area of study.


Basics of Prepositions and Axes Part 2: Y

As usual, I apologize for any incoherence. I should be working on my dissertation, so of course I am instead fuzting around with words. Currently running on five hours of sleep, 16 oz of coffee, and a playlist of Castlevania soundtracks. What is a conlang? A miserable little pile of grammar. But enough talk! Let's have at it!

-

The first prepositional phrase modifying a noun or verb is discontinuous; the object of the preposition follows the noun or verb phrase, while the preposition itself precedes it and is cliticized to the noun/verb. This is illustrated via an interpunct (·). The object of the preposition must be in the oblique case.

Notably, this cliticization means that certain phonological processes occurring word-finally do not apply to prepositions, namely schwa deletion, but the first consonant of the noun/verb following a vowel-final clitic is not considered intervocalic for the purposes of voicing. E.g. the preposition aka 'upwards' is [ɐg] in isolation (schwa deletion), and the causative form of Kıutaı ['kɛvdəj] 'it swims' is Úkutıs ['ugʊdɪs] 'it makes it swim' (intervocalic voicing) but for aka·Kıutaı 'it swims above (something)' we have [ɐgə'kɛvdəj] (no schwa deletion, no voicing).

kaızaás 'salt flat.OBL' (KAızaS1 from KAS 'salt' + ıza 'stretching forth' + á 'OBL')
kuár 'mountain.OBL' (KUR1 'mountain' + 'OBL')
aka 'motion upwards / rising up from' (Y*+ 'approaching Y+/upwards from a reference point')

aka·kuár kaızaás
 upwards mountain.OBL salt_flat.OBL
 'the mountain rising from the salt flat'
 'The mountain is rising from the salt flat.'

Prepositional constructions such as these are complete utterances, no verb required. The object may also be omitted:

aka·kuár
 upwards mountain.OBL
 'the mountain rising up'
 'The mountain rises up.'

Note that, since prepositions are also axis markers (though their axis forms are typically reduced), it is sometimes possible to produce a similar construction via adding the corresponding axis to the noun/verb in question:

kuakuaár
 mountain.upwards.OBL
LIT. 'the mountain rising up'
 'an especially tall mountain'

For nouns and non-motion verbs, these two constructions are not synonymous. Axis markers suggest innate characteristics of an object rather than some modification of that object's default state, and are highly subject to semantic shift. Using the same aka marker, we have for example laku 'vine, road' versus luakaaku 'switchback', or már 'investigation' versus maakaár 'radio tower' (both from MAR 'whisker'). If instead of luakaaku we had aka·laku, this would not mean 'switchback' but rather 'road stretching up' (e.g. heading up a mountain), with the implication that the road does not zig-zag as a switchback does.

One can also not introduce an object to an axis marker as one can with a preposition (for nouns). Thus, we cannot have *luakaaku kuár 'the switchback up the mountain'; rather, this would be aka·luakaaku kuár. Despite first appearing redundant, the aka in luakaaku is truly a derivational affix, not a functional indicator of the road's location relative to any reference point.

One can introduce an object to an axis marker for some verbs, namely motion verbs and any case in which the axis marker is in fact indicating direction of motion rather than some lexicalized or idiomatic meaning. To illustrate, first some context; here is the marker used in its direction-of-motion meaning:

Zuàraı 'I am lugging it around' (from ZUŔ 'handle large solid object')
hmáktas 'kiln.OBL' (HMAktaS1 from HMAS 'clay' + kta 'nest.OBL')
sù(tu) 'northward/leftward/excessively' (X*- 'approaching X-/north/left from a reference point')

Sùtu·Zuàraı.
north/left I_am_lugging_it
 'I am lugging it northward.'
 'I am lugging it over to the left.'

Adding an oblique object gives us a new reference point for X*- that isn't the verb's subject:

Sùtu·Zuàraı hmáktas.
north/left I_am_lugging_it kiln.OBL
 'I am lugging it over to the left/north of the kiln.'

If we incorporate sù(tu) not as a preposition but as an axis marker (taking the reduced form ), it becomes ambiguous in a motion verb between the direction-of-motion meaning and the idiomatic 'do X excessively' meaning, though the latter is typically preferred (as there is still the non-ambiguous sùtu·Zukàraı, which someone intending the motion meaning could have used instead):

Zuàrsùaı.
I_am_lugging_it.
 'I am lugging it around too much.' (preferred)
 'I am lugging it over to the left.' (dispreferred)

The main reason this construction is still in use despite being dispreferred is because incorporating a direction-of-motion marker allows for a circumstantial voice construction, which I talk a bit about here. Adding an oblique object here is possible, where it is not in nouns. It (...typically...) forces the direction-of-motion meaning:

Zuàrsùaı hmáktas.
I_am_lugging_it. kiln.OBL
 'I am lugging it over the the left of the kiln.'

If the verb is not a motion verb and there is thus no direction-of-motion alternative meaning, this forced motion interpretation via adding an oblique noun is not possible. The axis marker in these cases, restricted to the 'excessively' meaning is a derivational affix which, like in nouns, is not a functional indicator of the verb's location relative to any reference point. As such, a non-motion verb with such an affix acts just like a verb that has no axis marker at all; in this case, an oblique noun added after the verb will instead act as a benefactive:

Kàtaı
 'I am looking at it.'

Kàt
 'I am looking at it excessively.' (i.e. staring)
 *'I am looking at it to the left/north.'

Kàtaı hmáktas
 *'I am looking at it to the left of the kiln.'
 'I am looking at it for the kiln.' (the benefactive interpretation)

And yes, technically the benefactive is also a valid interpretation in a motion verb with Zuàrsùaı hmáktas, in which case the is interpreted as not direction-of-motion but 'excessively', thus 'I am lugging it around too much for the kiln'. Given the ambiguity in motion verbs, however, this would usually be specified using the benefactive's associated preposition xa, which is beyond the scope of my brain tonight. I ramble on a bit about the benefactive and how it works here and here.

Another point to make is that while I draw a strict distinction between motion and non-motion verbs for determining whether a given incorporated axis marker is likely to be interpreted as direction-of-motion or some lexicalized derivational thingamajig, the R and E axes will behave the same way for all verbs, as they deal with time and tense and thus do not especially care whether an action is moving in space or not. I'll get to that when I actually start talking about tense.

So. That's how the first prepositional phrase works.

Additional prepositional phrases attached to the same noun/verb phrase use a slightly different construction; rather than surrounding the phrase in question, they instead surround either the particles MAS2 (irregular oblique form sa) or RAŔ2 (oblique form ráa), glossed somewhat unhelpfully as 'that' and 'this' in my notes, with this entire construction then either following or preceding the phrase, respectively. This is technically possible for the first prepositional phrase as well, though the result feels stilted and formal.

aka·ráa kaızaás kuár
 upwards this.OBL salt_flat.OBL mountain.OBL
 'the mountain rising from the salt flat'
 'The mountain is rising from the salt flat.'

kuár aka·sa kaızaás
 mountain.OBL upwards that.OBL salt_flat.OBL
 'the mountain rising from the salt flat'
 'The mountain is rising from the salt flat.'

I'll dedicate a post or two to RAŔ2 and MAS2 eventually, but suffice it in the short term to say they refer to the next and previous phrase respectively ('this thing/event I'm about to mention', 'that thing/event I just mentioned'). In some constructions they serve the role of complementizers, since they can carry case and thus act as the object of some transitive verb to introduce an entire VP as the object, instead of nominalizing the VP to force it to carry case.

In constructions with more than one prepositional phrase, old or known information is typically preferred for displacing around the NP/VP; similarly, in those with 2+ prepositional phrases, RAŔ typically indicates newer or more salient information than MAS2.

aka·ráa kaızaás tù·kuár záz
 upwards this.OBL salt_flat.OBL north mountain.OBL sea.OBL
 'the mountain, north of the sea, rising from the salt flat'
 'The mountain north of the sea is rising from the salt flat.'

tù·ráa záz aka·kuár kaızaás
 north this.OBL sea.OBL upwards mountain.OBL salt_flat.OBL
 'the mountain, rising from the salt flat, north of the sea'
 'The mountain rising from the salt flat is north of the sea.'

The object of prepositions can of course take prepositions, the first of which can be displaced as normal:

aka·kuár tù·kaızaás záz
 upwards mountain.OBL north salt_flat.OBL sea.OBL
 'the mountain rising from the salt flat that is north of the sea'
 'The mountain is rising from the salt flat that is north of the sea.'

Any second prepositional construction with MAS2 is ambiguous in that it can also modify the object of the first preposition:

aka·kuár kaızaás tù·sa záz
 upwards mountain.OBL salt_flat.OBL north that.OBL sea.OBL
 The mountain is rising from (the salt flat that is north of the sea).
 (The mountain that is rising from the salt flat) is north of the sea.

This can be disambiguated in part by using MAS3 instead but I do not have it in me to talk about how that works right now.


Z - up-to-down

And now for another round of axis markers. Now with pictures, to break up the wall of text - the writing system shown here is the ornamental ḳùa·kalàs arrangement of the syllabary, which organizes words into rectangular glyphs typically used for decoration rather than in long-form texts, though proper names and the like may appear in this style in texts to visually highlight them. Y encodes the vertical axis - no more cardinal direction ambiguity (we'll get back to that with Y).

 z* h[k] (ak) vertically aligned
In motion verbs (h(a)k): Vertically steady movement [Hak·ḳuhkulaı 'He flies it (a plane) steadily']. The (a) here appears only epenthetically to break up illegal consonant clusters, instead of using the root vowel of the verb stem.
In other verbs (h(a)k): As above in a few idiomatic expressions [Saılhakí 'He is rude/disgraceful' (lit. 'he stands steady', i.e. without prostrating oneself before authority)]. Otherwise, deceptively or falsely [Hıuṭhakḳá 'He pretends to laugh', Ḳaılhakǎ 'He faked his death']. This usage in most volitional verbs triggers a switch to the extra-volitional (e.g. final -a in Hıutḳa 'He laughs' becoming ).
In nouns (h): Stand-in, equivalent, object or state that resembles or mimics another [mluharu 'regent', halı 'unconsciousness' from malı 'sleep', ḳahàr 'electrical outlet' from ḳàr 'mouth'].
As preposition (ak): Vertically level [ak·hàk lkırù 'the bird level with the airplane']. Of equal height [ak·kaha sıám 'the man as tall as me']. With contact morpheme mv (I'll get to that later), vertical attachment [akma·ızàıl mraka 'the drainpipe on the wall']. Generic 'at' or 'in' for large or open-air places identified prominently by vertical orientation [ak·haxı kuár 'the town (up) on the mountain', ak·ḳmaṭù txahaála·ḳmâktà 'the scientist (down) in the ocean-floor laboratory'].

 z+  up/above
In motion verbs (): Motion above some reference [Haık 'He is flying above (us)'].
In other verbs (): As above, or involving the head or top of the body [Tzîka 'He is carrying it (a platter) on his head'].
In nouns (): Elevated, raised, in the sky [ḳaaṭ 'blimp', muuám 'thunder']. Involving the head or top of the body [tzuasu 'short-cropped hair'].
As preposition (): Above, over [·kaızaàh kıuzuaáḳ 'the aurora over the arctic'].

 z- ha down/below
In verbs (ha): Motion below some reference [Ḳaıṭha 'He is crawling below (us)'].
In nouns (ha): Low, relating to the ground or soil [ḳuhaamu 'stone floor', mahaàṭ 'ground provisions', txahaál 'ocean floor', muhuaám 'earthquake' (note ua metathesis; compare mukàuám above)].
As preposition (ha): Below, under [ha·maza hútaıl 'the lava under the ash cloud'].

Image

 z+* (h)ká above-to-here
In verbs (): Motion to a reference point from above [Huǎrka 'I'm bringing it (a bundle of things) down (from there)']. Downwards flow of a liquid [Zmaımı 'He's dripping saliva'].
In nouns (): Hanging, descending, reaching or falling down to a terminating point from above [alı 'waterfall', haaṣa 'beaded curtain', hmuuár 'mudslide', lkaala 'spiral staircase'].
As preposition (hká): Descending, moving or stretching towards a reference point from above [hká·xatı maza 'the rain falling on the lava', hká·maıkaatı hrahaás 'the ladder down to the basement'].

 z*+ aka here-to-above
In verbs (aka): Motion upwards from a reference point [Lkaılakaı 'It ascends in a spiral', Haıh·kuakatàx 'He swam up for air'].
In nouns (aka): Rising, moving, or stretching upwards [kmaıkaàıh 'stream of bubbles', luakaát 'scaffolding']. Especially tall or spacious [ḳaakaara 'cave with a high ceiling', ḷáakasas 'castle or large fortification'].
As preposition (aka): Ascending, moving or stretching upwards from a reference point [aka·laḷu hutal 'the smoke rising from the fireplace'].

 z-* ah(à) below-to-here
In verbs (ah): Motion to a reference point from below, or involving removing an object from the ground [Zárahàx 'He scooped it (a liquid) up in his hands', Ḳrîhumtahḳa 'He is pulling weeds'].
In nouns (ah): not found
As preposition (ahà): Ascending, moving or stretching towards a reference point from below [ahà·htumal lkakáala 'the mortician coming up the spiral stairs']. In the opinion or from the perspective of someone [ahà·Ḳaılkalí htumal 'In the mortician's opinion, he's dead']. This latter usage typically triggers the inferential/reportative evidential marker k(a)l (which, for the record, is indeed another axis marker, E* - these things get around).

Image

 z*- hà(ka) here-to-below
In verbs (): Motion downwards from a reference point, impacting or involving the ground [Zaıḳ 'He digs into the soil', Mhuḷax 'He tackles him to the ground'].
In nouns (): Deep, hanging or stretching down from some other object [za 'chasm', ṭıhàatı 'stalactite', mhuaḷu 'anchor'].
As preposition (hàka): Descending, moving or stretching downwards from a reference point [hàka·mhuhàaḷu kaḳhax 'the anchor attached to the log raft', hàka·uḳàu ṣaakaaha 'the basket hanging from the balloon'].

 z+- kha(k) above-to-below
In verbs (k(a)ha): Motion downwards through, past, or in lieu of a reference point, or without landing on a lower surface [Kustuxkahaà 'He fell through the floor', Kírkahaı 'It is in freefall'].
In nouns (kha): not found
As preposition (khak): Motion downwards past or through some object [khak·hakàx tazı 'He flew down through the cloud']. Despite or regardless of some obstacle [khak·Ḳàlàx lıúıskìraí 'I killed him even though he's immortal'].

 z-+ ıḳà below-to-above
In motion verbs (ıḳà): Motion upwards through, past, or in lieu of a reference point, or without landing on a higher surface [Zkaımıḳàı 'He is floating upwards'].
In other verbs (ıḳà): Forcefully, bombastically, dramatically [Ḳıṣıḳàax 'He stabbed him forcefully', Hírıḳà 'He wailed (in mourning)'].
In nouns (ıḳà): Coming up from below ground [maıḳǎz 'volcanic eruption', ıḳàaık 'seedling (of a tree)', htıuḳàalu 'reanimated exhumed corpse' (note ıu metathesis)].
As preposition (ıḳà): Motion upwards past or through some object [ıḳà·Rírıá ḷáakasas ız·kaıh xutas 'The man with a whip made his way up through the castle'].
Last edited by kiwikami on 10 Nov 2021 07:39, edited 3 times in total.
Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by Khemehekis »

kiwikami wrote: 20 Aug 2021 07:32
Khemehekis wrote: 08 Aug 2021 10:38When you add a word for "cube", are you also going to add "tetrahedron", "octahedron", "dodecahedron", and "icosahedron"?

What about "tesseract"?
I absolutely should! I'm thinking of deriving 'cube' from some prior word for '(six-sided) die' as in κύβος, since six-sided shapes in particular have cultural significance to speakers and it's very likely that such objects were created long before geometry was a common area of study.
I'm figuring you already have a word for "hexagon", since you seem to have all the basic n-gon words.

Do you have a word for "honeycomb"? If not, you could derive it from "hexagon"!
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31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by kiwikami »

Khemehekis wrote: 23 Aug 2021 22:11I'm figuring you already have a word for "hexagon", since you seem to have all the basic n-gon words.

Do you have a word for "honeycomb"? If not, you could derive it from "hexagon"!
I do indeed have 'hexagon' (tumú) - it's actually the highest n-gon with a word right now since only the numbers from 1-6 (and 12, 24, and 36) are monomorphemic and can thus follow the same derivation pattern. Haven't figured geometry out past that yet. Intuitively, bimorphemic numbers that are compounds can probably still derive n-gons this way (taḳ·laṭı 'eight' -> taḳ·lımuṭ 'octagon'). It feels a bit odd to do this with trimorphemic ones made via prepositional phrase (ak·táu xama 'seven' ?-> ak·tumú xama 'heptagon') but this is probably the most logical method since those are the most numerous, even if 'hexagon-and-one' feels like a strange way to put it.

Actually, it might be interesting if the n-gons acted like ordinals (or like how cardinals do when modifying nouns) and didn't allow compound numbers outside of certain multiples of six. No 'two fours' for you, you get 'six-and-two' only. Which would make octagon ak·tumú taḳa 'hexagon-and-two'. It's a bit of a mess because the method used for counting and referring to specific numbers of unspecified things (Râsax taḳ·lıṭ 'two-fours have arrived') is different for some numbers from the method used for indicating how much of something there is (kaha ak·tûrum taḳa 'six-and-two people'), and it's not immediately clear which system would be appropriate here. This is what happens when you come up with a number system, forget it, come up with another years later, find your old notes, and decide to keep both. Generations of conworld academics can argue about whether the prescriptively correct octakaidecagon is a three-sixes-gon (tú·zımus) or a twelve-and-six-gon (ak·zkumul táu). I'll leave them to it, I think.

It's probably the latter, though.

Oh, I love the hexagon -> honeycomb idea! The diminutive of tumú [tɔ'mu] would be tǔmu ['ftomu], which works very well there. Many thanks!

--

...I just had a terrible thought about interpreting compound numeral noun forms (e.g. taḳ·laṭı 'eight things') as actually acting as multiple discrete entities - in this case, two sets of four - and thus permitting, in this case, dual number agreement on a verb. I say 'terrible' because this would lead to situations where something like Rátḳasàx would by default mean 'They two arrived' but would not be ungrammatical if the subject was later specified as 'they eight' or 'they ten' (being two sets-of-four/sets-of-five respectively). There'd also be Rázsısàx for 'they three', but also allowing for 'they nine', 'they fifteen', and 'they eighteen'. Rálṭısàx for 'they four' as well as 'they twenty'. Rázḷasàx for 'they five' but also 'they thirty'. It technically works. The verbal numerals are just subject/object incorporation in a funny hat anyway.

I both hate this and sort of love it. It's simultaneously needlessly complicated numerical nonsense and kind of delightful. Good comedic potential.

Îka·Makàzzısâamuax ḳaẓaṭa mzaúr? 'Can I bring some (presumably three) friends to the dinner party?'
Ùl. 'Sure.'
Ràṭ rà·Rıâkazsıssìàx zıs·túr rasa. 'Great, all eighteen of them will be here soon.'
Amìḷas. 'I beg your pardon.'
Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by Khemehekis »

kiwikami wrote: 24 Aug 2021 06:03 I both hate this and sort of love it. It's simultaneously needlessly complicated numerical nonsense and kind of delightful. Good comedic potential.

Îka·Makàzzısâamuax ḳaẓaṭa mzaúr? 'Can I bring some (presumably three) friends to the dinner party?'
Ùl. 'Sure.'
Ràṭ rà·Rıâkazsıssìàx zıs·túr rasa. 'Great, all eighteen of them will be here soon.'
Amìḷas. 'I beg your pxrdon.'
Hee.



Glad you liked the hexagon -> honeycomb idea! It's lovely how nature can make such a perfect regular hexagon, isn't it?

For reference, here are the "Form and Pattern" words from the Landau Core Vocabulary; this category includes all the shape names.

Form and Pattern (Part IV)
Spoiler:
shape
angle
bump (on the head)
bump (in a road)
curve
dot
drop
hole (in the ground)
hole (in a wall, sofa)
hole (that goes all the way through)
knot (in rope or string)
knot (in ribbon)
line
mark (leaves a ~)
opening (in cave, tunnel, etc.)
pit (hole)
point (in space)
ring (torus)
spiral
spot (on giraffe, jaguar)
spot (part of pattern)
stain, spot, mark
stripe (on fabric or wallpaper)
stripe (on tiger, zebra)
tube (thin, flexible)
tube (thicker, flexible)
tube (thin, inflexible)
tube (thicker, inflexible)
circle; round
square
triangle; triangular
cross
star
heart
cube; cubical
sphere; round*
flat
More Form and Pattern (Part V)
Spoiler:
horizontal
vertical
diagonal (in pattern or design)
rectangle; rectangular
rhombus/diamond
trapezoid; trapezoidal
oval
arch
crescent
pentagon; pentagonal
hexagon; hexagonal
octagon; octagonal
cone; conical
pyramid
cylinder; cylindrical
dome; hemispherical
As you'll see, I have pentagon, hexagon, octagon . . . but leave out heptagon, enneagon, decagon, hendecagon, and dodecagon as too uncommon for a core word list. I mean, when was the last time you talked about hendecagons?
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by elemtilas »

Khemehekis wrote: 31 Aug 2021 01:46 As you'll see, I have pentagon, hexagon, octagon . . . but leave out heptagon, enneagon, decagon, hendecagon, and dodecagon as too uncommon for a core word list. I mean, when was the last time you talked about hendecagons?
Well, Canadian dollars are hendecagonal, so I am certain it's a robust lexeme in the everyday vocabulary of your average Canadian.

Also, I am in need of an elevensided figure for a project I'm working on and you unwittingly led to me a resource on constructing such a figure! Woohoo!
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by Khemehekis »

elemtilas wrote: 31 Aug 2021 02:01
Khemehekis wrote: 31 Aug 2021 01:46 As you'll see, I have pentagon, hexagon, octagon . . . but leave out heptagon, enneagon, decagon, hendecagon, and dodecagon as too uncommon for a core word list. I mean, when was the last time you talked about hendecagons?
Well, Canadian dollars are hendecagonal, so I am certain it's a robust lexeme in the everyday vocabulary of your average Canadian.

Also, I am in need of an elevensided figure for a project I'm working on and you unwitt-ngly led to me a resource on constructing such a figure! Woohoo!
Canadian dollars? I did not know that. And you're welcome for the link!

In the most recent word list my friend made from his corpus, "pentagon" ranks as word #4,462 (no doubt because of the military building in the U.S.), "octagon" is #20,418 (maybe articles about wrestling?), and "hexagon" is #21,541 (though "hexagonal" is #20,463). I use "hexagonal" myself when describing the shape of Taco Bell's Crunch Wrap Supreme, and when talking about honeycombs, so I can see how it's a useful word. The adjective "octagonal" comes in at #28,321. The adjective "pentagonal" and the other -agon words don't make the top 30,000.
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by elemtilas »

Khemehekis wrote: 31 Aug 2021 02:28 Canadian dollars? I did not know that. And you're welcome for the link!

In the most recent word list my friend made from his corpus, "pentagon" ranks as word #4,462 (no doubt because of the military building in the U.S.), "octagon" is #20,418 (maybe articles about wrestling?), and "hexagon" is #21,541 (though "hexagonal" is #20,463). I use "hexagonal" myself when describing the shape of Taco Bell's Crunch Wrap Supreme, and when talking about honeycombs, so I can see how it's a useful word. The adjective "octagonal" comes in at #28,321. The adjective "pentagonal" and the other -agon words don't make the top 30,000.
How about pentacular and septaconical and tesseractagonal? Surely people must be talking about these ubercommon shapes!

Octagon is useful for stop signs as well as a whole class of rather strange deep sea creatures, known as octagopeds.
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by kiwikami »

Khemehekis wrote: 31 Aug 2021 01:46 Form and Pattern (Part IV)
Spoiler:
shape
angle
bump (on the head)
bump (in a road)
curve
dot
drop
hole (in the ground)
hole (in a wall, sofa)
hole (that goes all the way through)
knot (in rope or string)
knot (in ribbon)
line
mark (leaves a ~)
opening (in cave, tunnel, etc.)
pit (hole)
point (in space)
ring (torus)
spiral
spot (on giraffe, jaguar)
spot (part of pattern)
stain, spot, mark
stripe (on fabric or wallpaper)
stripe (on tiger, zebra)
tube (thin, flexible)
tube (thicker, flexible)
tube (thin, inflexible)
tube (thicker, inflexible)
circle; round
square
triangle; triangular
cross
star
heart
cube; cubical
sphere; round*
flat
More Form and Pattern (Part V)
Spoiler:
horizontal
vertical
diagonal (in pattern or design)
rectangle; rectangular
rhombus/diamond
trapezoid; trapezoidal
oval
arch
crescent
pentagon; pentagonal
hexagon; hexagonal
octagon; octagonal
cone; conical
pyramid
cylinder; cylindrical
dome; hemispherical
As you'll see, I have pentagon, hexagon, octagon . . . but leave out heptagon, enneagon, decagon, hendecagon, and dodecagon as too uncommon for a core word list. I mean, when was the last time you talked about hendecagons?
Oohoohoo this is very useful - many thanks!

'Twould be fun to think about polyhedrons as well. Truly, a conlang is not complete until one has a word for all manner of DnD dice.

Image
...why does this image include a d120 but not a d100.
Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by Khemehekis »

elemtilas wrote: 31 Aug 2021 23:24 Octagon is useful for stop signs as well as a whole class of rather strange deep sea creatures, known as octagopeds.
Yep, stop signs are a commonly seen octagon. Monticello is also octagonal.

Googling octagopeds turned up nothing -- they must be a Yeolan class of creatures! Are they molluscs?
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by Khemehekis »

kiwikami wrote: 31 Aug 2021 23:58 Oohoohoo this is very useful - many thanks!
You're very welcome!
'Twould be fun to think about polyhedrons as well. Truly, a conlang is not complete until one has a word for all manner of DnD dice.

Image
...why does this image include a d120 but not a d100.
Although I have polygons from triangle to icosagon, and even monogon and digon, plus polygon and n-gon, the only -hedron words I have in Kankonian are the Platonic solids: polyhedron, tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron, and n-hedron. I don't have anything like "enneahedron" or "hendecahedron". But seeing as those dice are real, maybe such -hedron words . . . exist?

(I also have pentagram through dodecagram.)

When I was in junior high, a lady would come to our special ed class to work on language and conversational skills with the students once a week. One time she played Scattergories with us, and brought along an icosahedral die, with letters on the alphabet on different faces. It was then that I learned the word "icosahedron".
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by elemtilas »

Khemehekis wrote: 01 Sep 2021 01:58
kiwikami wrote: 31 Aug 2021 23:58 'Twould be fun to think about polyhedrons as well. Truly, a conlang is not complete until one has a word for all manner of DnD dice.

Image
...why does this image include a d120 but not a d100.
Although I have polygons from triangle to icosagon, and even monogon and digon, plus polygon and n-gon, the only -hedron words I have in Kankonian are the Platonic solids: polyhedron, tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron, and n-hedron. I don't have anything like "enneahedron" or "hendecahedron". But seeing as those dice are real, maybe such -hedron words . . . exist?

(I also have pentagram through dodecagram.)

When I was in junior high, a lady would come to our special ed class to work on language and conversational skills with the students once a week. One time she played Scattergories with us, and brought along an icosahedral die, with letters on the alphabet on different faces. It was then that I learned the word "icosahedron".

Yep, stop signs are a commonly seen octagon. Monticello is also octagonal.

Googling octagopeds turned up nothing -- they must be a Yeolan class of creatures! Are they molluscs?
Indeed! The shallow seas beyond the Eastlands in particular are chock full of such creatures! Speaking of Monticello, octagon houses were actually pretty common in the 19th century, seems especially in the northeast & New England.

As for polyhedra, and sadly shapes in general, I've no idea what they're called in any Denê language. All I know is these things and their various manipulations are basic conceptual math (and that may not even be the right word for what they're doing), even for little kids. Pretty spanky for a race of people who are said to not even be able to count properly!

As for those dice, I stand a-gogglefied. I only knew up to d20, the largest they offered originally. Had never even heard of d30, to say nothing of d60 or d120! And a new term to boot, the disdyakis triacontahedron. Fascinating stuff!
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by Khemehekis »

elemtilas wrote: 01 Sep 2021 18:21
Khemehekis wrote: Googling octagopeds turned up nothing -- they must be a Yeolan class of creatures! Are they molluscs?
Indeed! The shallow seas beyond the Eastlands in particular are chock full of such creatures!
It would be a marine biologist's dream!

On Kankonia, ammonites survived the mass extinction that killed off non-avian dinosaurs, unlike ammonites on Earth, and they are still plentiful today.
Speaking of Monticello, octagon houses were actually pretty common in the 19th century, seems especially in the northeast & New England.
Didn't know that.
As for polyhedra, and sadly shapes in general, I've no idea what they're called in any Denê language. All I know is these things and their various manipulations are basic conceptual math (and that may not even be the right word for what they're doing), even for little kids. Pretty spanky for a race of people who are said to not even be able to count properly!
What do people mean when the say Denê can't count properly? Do they mean their number system is like French (soixante-vingt-quinze for ninety-five and the like)?
As for those dice, I stand a-gogglefied. I only knew up to d20, the largest they offered originally. Had never even heard of d30, to say nothing of d60 or d120! And a new term to boot, the disdyakis triacontahedron. Fascinating stuff!
I searched for what you had to say on D&D earlier. You wrote:
Re D&D, I played it a few times but never very seriously. I concur about the creative fencing in, and I think that, leastways as far as making a world into a game setting goes, largely comes down to a matter of fitting that setting into the broad & already existing framework of a gaming franchise. I personally feel that The World would make for an interesting game setting, but I'd either have to castrate it in order to make it fit the little pigeon holes of the gaming industry & the expectations of gamers used to that kind of game or else come up with an entirely new game mechanics.
As you'll recall in that thread, I have never played D&D, nor similar games like Magic: The Gathering, and got the impression Dungeons & Dragons was "creatively fenced in" from what I had read thereon on conworlding fora. As a result I don't know much about it, and had no idea that D&D players used so many different kinds of dice in the same game.

Just a few minutes ago, I added the Ciladian borrowings kuninas (noun phrase), getinas (verb phrase), kuntivuninas (adjective phrase), and gettivuninas (adverbial phrase) to my Kankonian dictionary, so as you can see I worked on Kankonian today. Do all of you say YAY or NAY to words like "pentahedron", "heptahedron", or "enneahedron" in Kankonian?
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Re: Alál: Some More Stuff

Post by elemtilas »

Khemehekis wrote: 02 Sep 2021 21:58
elemtilas wrote: 01 Sep 2021 18:21
Khemehekis wrote: Googling octagopeds turned up nothing -- they must be a Yeolan class of creatures! Are they molluscs?
Indeed! The shallow seas beyond the Eastlands in particular are chock full of such creatures!
It would be a marine biologist's dream!
Or nightmare, depending. It's not Diznee's little mermaid down there, you know. Most people who live along the coasts don't even like going to the beach. Too many teeth. Too many sadistic whales. Too many creatures are too smart by half.
On Kankonia, ammonites survived the mass extinction that killed off non-avian dinosaurs, unlike ammonites on Earth, and they are still plentiful today.
Nice! I always like the look of ammonites.

What do people mean when the say Denê can't count properly? Do they mean their number system is like French (soixante-vingt-quinze for ninety-five and the like)?
Oh, number bases aren't the problem. Mostly it's that they just don't seem to care about quantities much above a couple hundred. Trade with them is a pain in the backside for most Werrefolk. They don't do accounting and don't even understand the concept of money. They can grasp basic arithmetic well enough, though sometimes they follow different rules. They're a bafflement because for all that their sense of architecture, working with materials, ability to craft, build, grow and design astonishingly large structures, all without any apparent use of blueprints, geometrical equations or even measuring tools is simply second to none. Sense of direction, sense of ubication, senses of allolocation and even senses of broad motions and locations and the ability to comprehend and work with four and perhaps even five dimensional objects is innate.

I'll have to write it out some time, but a geometry lesson that Denê kids of Auntimoany might work on is simply beyond the imagination of any natural philosopher or mathematician among Werrefolk. Their astronomy is also second to none, as they have the ability to sense the various ley lines that crisscross the nearby cosmos.
Re D&D, I played it a few times but never very seriously. I concur about the creative fencing in, and I think that, leastways as far as making a world into a game setting goes, largely comes down to a matter of fitting that setting into the broad & already existing framework of a gaming franchise. I personally feel that The World would make for an interesting game setting, but I'd either have to castrate it in order to make it fit the little pigeon holes of the gaming industry & the expectations of gamers used to that kind of game or else come up with an entirely new game mechanics.
As you'll recall in that thread, I have never played D&D, nor similar games like Magic: The Gathering, and got the impression Dungeons & Dragons was "creatively fenced in" from what I had read thereon on conworlding fora. As a result I don't know much about it, and had no idea that D&D players used so many different kinds of dice in the same game.
Our DM didn't use dice at all that I can recall. He was probably engaging in a much more ad hoc & in momento kind of adventuring. More guided by his intuition & ability to tell the story than by the rigid and cold results of Fortuna's jewels.

I'd argue that such laxer forms of D&D is much less creatively fenced in. I'd imagine that the DM must be constantly vigilant in balancing rules & game system on the one hand against creativity & tendency toward chaos on the other. This was also surely a function of the social group playing the game and the setting in which the players played.

Still, that d120...
Just a few minutes ago, I added the Ciladian borrowings kuninas (noun phrase), getinas (verb phrase), kuntivuninas (adjective phrase), and gettivuninas (adverbial phrase) to my Kankonian dictionary, so as you can see I worked on Kankonian today. Do all of you say YAY or NAY to words like "pentahedron", "heptahedron", or "enneahedron" in Kankonian?
Indeed yea! And also yay!
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Alál: Compound Nouns, Briefly

Post by kiwikami »

I play a frankly ridiculous amount of DnD (currently in three campaigns, which is a rather low number - one pathfinder game and a Call of Cthulhu campaign have been on hold for some time now) and should absolutely give some thought one of these days to how I would derive terms for things like 'critical hit', 'level up', and 'saving throw'.


Edit: Corrected some mistakes with interpunct placement and general formatting.

I need to go back through earlier posts and make some corrections, because I write compound nouns at least three different ways. Seems about time to make a post about them so I have it in writing for easy reference. This one'll be quick - it's a great example of 'looks complicated mostly because I don't explain things well, is actually very regular'. As is most of the language.

Compound Nouns

This is rather straightforward; two nouns may be compounded, in which case they take the form [noun1][link](·)[noun2]. Just as with prepositional phrases, the use of an interpunct here indicates that the first element is cliticized to the second, which is mostly apparent in the stress patterns of compound nouns - they act as one word. As with compound verbs, the interpunct is only present if either or both of the component nouns is complex (e.g. has an infixed component, be it an axis marker, possessive morpheme, or something from the N-declension-triggering set of derivational infixes). Unlike prepositions, the boundary here does not block intervocalic voicing.

Compounds are written in root form in the pattern [ROOT1][lnk](·)[ROOT2]. As examples going forth, we will be looking at MIḳẒ3v·LAS2 'GPU', HRIR̀2vŕ·ṢAH1 'snowman', and LURUK3vr̀·LUK2 'train tracks'.

----------------------

The first noun modifies the second. Morphologically, it has a special form; it takes N-declension with no case marker (i.e. does not decline normally for case but instead has its class (1-3) indicated by vowel quality - (1) standing, (2) resting, (3) pulling). The first noun MIḳẒ3 in MIḳẒ3v·LAS2 means 'paint palette', and it normally would take I3 declension. This gives it the AGT|OBL|PAT forms mıḳíẓ|mıḳàıẓ|mıḳùıẓ. In compounds, it instead indicates that it is Class-3 with a pulling root vowel (ì) and omits the case markers í|àı|ùı, producing mìḳẓ. This becomes mìḳıẓ through root vowel epenthesis (RVE), to avoid an illegal cluster.

Similarly, in HRIR̀2vŕ·ṢAH1 we have HRIR̀2 'snow' which normally takes I2 declension, becoming hırì|hıràı|hrıúr (roots ending in ŕ or r̀ tend to have odd-looking declension patterns, but I swear it's regular). As the first root in a compound, it instead takes N-declension in Class-2 with the standing vowel (ı) and omits its case markers ı|a#ı|ıú. The result is hrır̀, which becomes hrì due to r̀ and then finally hırì due to RVE as pulling vowels cannot be the first vowel in a word. The compound form of HRIR̀2 is thus superficially similar to its agentive form.

Finally, in LURUK3vr̀·LUK2 we have LURUK3 meaning 'train'. As evidenced by the root having a more complex structure than C(C)VC, with the additional elements in uppercase (indicating they are not axis markers, for once), this noun has a derivational infix. These infixes - in this case ru - force the noun into N-declension, since they normally carry case on their own. An infix of the form Cu on a Class-3 noun will use the NU3 pattern r̀.ıu|r̀.u|r̀.àu (as opposed to the otherwise-expected U3 pattern íu|àu|ù). Thus the AGT|OBL|PAT forms of LURUK3 are lùrıuk|lùruk|lùràuk. The compound form maintains the component from Class-3 but omits the case marker from the infix, which instead retains its root vowel (here u) - in this case, the result happens to be identical to the regular oblique form: lùruk. (This syncretism will occur whenever the infix is of the form Cu or Ca, since the pattern of the latter is aı|a|à, but infixes have ıı|aı|àı and thus we do not see this there.)

----------------------

The linking morpheme comes next, and it can take the form v, , or vr̀, where v is the root vowel of the second noun. The choice of these is largely lexical and sometimes arbitrary, but we can roughly define XvY, XvŕY, and Xvr̀Y as 'Y in the manner of X', 'Y for the purpose or benefit of X', and 'Y made of X' respectively, with greater-than-chance consistency.

In MIḳẒ3v·LAS2, the linking morpheme will be a - thus 'something in the manner of a paint palette'. In HRIR̀2vŕ·ṢAH1, it will be á, producing 'something made of snow'. In LURUK3vr̀·LUK2 it will be ù, thus 'something for trains'.

If the first and second roots have the same root vowel, both are simple, and the linking morpheme is v, it is deleted.

----------------------

The second noun declines for case entirely normally. For LAS2 'mind' this is the A2 pattern, laıs|lasa|laús. Although this is a simple noun, MIḳẒ3 is not, so the interpunct does appear. The resulting compound with all three elements is therefore, in the oblique (and citation) form, mìḳıẓa·lasa 'mind in the manner of a paint palette' or 'GPU'.

For ṢAH1 'chief, mayor, town leader' we have the A1 pattern ṣaìh|ṣáh|ṣuah. Both this noun and HRIR̀2 are simple, and so adding the other components produces hırìáṣáh, which would typically be written hırǐaṣáh 'chief made of snow' or 'snowman' (as said much earlier, this orthographic quirk is a relic of some fancy tonal things that stuck around in the writing system - I just liked how it looked and kept it).

Finally for LUK2 'path, road' (a simple noun which happens to come from the same base root as the complex LURUK3 'train', making this compound technically mean 'road for road-machines') we have pattern U2: lıuk|laku|(u)lúk. The resulting compound in the oblique would be lùrukù·laku 'road for trains' or 'train tracks'. In compounds, note that the prefixed component of a prefix-infix case marker (such as (u-)ú) does not delete. The patientive form is therefore lùrukù·ulúk [ˈvɮorʊˌkovɮuk], which is just delightful to say.

----------------------

Rarely, a commonly-used compound noun may take an abbreviation of the form XYVZ, where X and Y are the first and last consonants of the first noun, V is the linking morpheme, and Z is the first consonant of the second noun. The result will take a declension pattern determined by V; for example, if V is ì, the only pattern in which ì is a possibility is I1, thus the abbreviation will decline in pattern I1 (ì|ıá|u#ı).

Such abbreviations tend to spring up in field-specific technical language; computer technicians and programmers would likely refer to GPUs using the novel root MẒAL2, from mìḳıẓ·alasa. It is in Class-2 because the linking morpheme is a, which suggests the case infix a#a and thus the A2 pattern (mẓaıl|mẓala|mẓaúl).

Others arise due to the noun being especially commonplace. For instance, LURUK3vr̀·LUK22may become LKUL3 (lkíul|lukàul|lukùl) 'train tracks (colloquial)'. For some such novel roots constructed from compounds, they become common enough in regular use that they themselves can then be compounded. For instance, lukùlu·ruruk 'splitting device for train tracks' or 'railroad switch'. (The compound form of LKUL3 is superficially identical to its patientive form for nearly the same reason that of HRIR̀2 is identical to its agentive.) It's theoretically possible for the original compound to then fall out of use, leaving echoes only in these lexicalized acronyms, although I haven't coined or found any examples of this yet.

...I don't think 'snowman' would typically be abbreviated to HRAṢ1 but it's the sort of thing one might nickname a snowman, since traditional names are simple nouns. I'd translate Frosty the Snowman as Á·Hráṣ Hırǐaṣáh and get the idea across pretty well.

And of course, there are plenty of compounds that would result in the same abbreviation. And there's no guarantee that abbreviation won't already be a word. One example of this is another computer-related term, mlaruì·rıẓkalà 'OS' (literally 'program for leading'), which abbreviates to MRIR1. The existing root MRIR2 means 'ear', and so the abbreviation for 'operating system' could be parsed as an augmentative form: 'great ear' or 'great listening one'.

----------------------

The only other thing I want to mention here is that possessive/benefactive infixes will be applied to the first noun of a compound...

mìḳıẓa·lasa + îv '4.3' > ıhìḳıẓa·lasa 'his GPU' (note h-epenthesis to break up III cluster)
hırǐaṣáh + atv '1.2' > haırǐa·ṣáh 'the snowman I made for you' (note metathesis and addition of an interpunct now that the first component is complex)
lùrukù·laku + vùŕ '2pl' > umùrrukù·laku 'the train tracks y'all built' (note m-epenthesis to break up UUU cluster)

...while derivational axis markers applying to the entire compound will be applied to the second.

mìḳıẓa·lasa + 'E-' > mìḳıẓa·laasa 'the aforementioned GPU'
hırǐaṣáh + 'R+' > hırǐa·ṣaah 'the snowman-in-the-making' (note addition of an interpunct now that the second component is complex)
lùrukù·laku + ta 'X*+' > lùrukù·lutaaku 'the train tracks heading north'

----------------------

Alright. Coffee time.
Last edited by kiwikami on 02 Dec 2021 09:04, edited 1 time in total.
Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

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Alál: Now Conforming to Cartesian Coordinates!

Post by kiwikami »


Axes Part 3: Y - fore-to-aft, east-to-west
I could say front-to-back but I want to talk about boats, damn it.

Third verse, same as the first. And the second. With this, we go back to ambiguity between cardinal and relative direction.
Edit: After all these years I'm finally correcting the Y-Z axis mix-up. Hurrah. This is gonna take some getting used to, but at least the system corresponds to Cartesian geometry now.

 y* ḷ[z] (ız) fixed in place
In motion verbs (ḷz): Immobile, motion in place [Kírḷız 'He jogs in place'].
In other verbs (ḷz): As above [Hıusḷızı 'It (a fire) burns without spreading']. Otherwise, as usual or meeting some expectation [Kaılḷazí 'He is dead, as expected', Lkıàḷaḷzàx 'He disembarked as usual'].
In nouns (): Variety, kind, type, or subset of a thing [kuatu 'species of fish', ḳmâmu 'scientific field', àı 'style of dance'].
As preposition (ız): Accompanying, holding, carrying with [ız·kazìaha muẓtam 'the teacher with a drum kit']. With contact marker rv, wearing [ızrı·htuìrṭal ḳıhaıám 'the cannibal in a skirt'] or having as a temporary part of oneself [ızrı·ṭıtaıḳı zaìraḳa 'the apprentice with a puncture wound'].

 y+  forwards, fore, eastern
In motion verbs (): Motion in front or to the east of some reference [Rírıḳàı 'It (the sun) is rising in the east'].
In other verbs (): Involving the front of the body [ 'He carries it (a bundle) in both arms'], involving what is visible or immediately apparent [Mar 'He is searching for it in the obvious places'].
In nouns (): Involving the face or front of the body [laasa 'facial expression', kaàx 'long nose', tsıalı 'facial hair']. Immediately apparent or relevant [àẓ 'current goal, target', ruamu 'destination (on trip)']. Involving the east [kaat 'dawn'] (unproductive). Involving the bow or fore area of a ship [lısakı 'foremast'] (semi-productive).
As preposition (): To the front or eastern side of something [·malur mìtal 'the cat in front of the bed'].

 y-  backwards, aft, western
In motion verbs (): Motion behind or to the west of something [Rírkıhaı 'It (the sun) is setting in the west'].
In other verbs (): Involving the back of the body [ 'He carries it (a bundle) on his back', Ḳaıṭ 'He lies on his back']. Obscured or hidden action [Ḷakìrzímá 'He is launching a surprise attack on them']. This usage in most volitional verbs triggers a switch to the extra-volitive.
In nouns (): Involving the back of the body [tah 'scuba tank', ḳutaıù 'backpack', maàr 'dorsal spines (of a fish)']. Unnoticed, obscured, or irrational [haàh 'paranoia', txuàuz 'evidence (of a crime)']. Individual involved in a power-unbalanced relationship [mlutaıru 'academic advisor, tutor', ṭıtaıḳı 'apprentice, personal student'].
As preposition (): To the back or western side of something [·lḳıár ṣama 'the sail aft of the tiller'].
Edit: Yes, this is incomplete - I'm a bit swamped with work but will get to the rest of Y some time this week. In the meantime...
----------

Circular Motion

A brief note on pitch, roll, and yaw. This is actually where Alál's entire verb system originated, in sketches on the whiteboard wall of my college's science center years ago as I puzzled out how one might break some things that boats do down into a functional set of verb affixes. This system is very simplified from what I scribbled out back then, but it works well enough.

The X*, Y*, and Z* axes may be used in combination with the *+ or *- forms of another axis to indicate motion around a particular (literal) axis. For example, yaw is side-to-side motion around the vertical axis, Z. A little arbitrarily, we can say that the gaze of a person moving clockwise around this axis may seem to be moving either rightward or backward - natlangs certainly don't conjugate verbs with a perfect description of 3D space, and Alál is no different. X*+ ('rightward') is chosen here, not due to any mathematical justification but purely due to how the motion might be perceived by a human actor. Z* and X*+ combined in ZCPXYRE order are hkta.

This kind of complex motion is used frequently in nautical (and aviation) contexts, the former being especially culturally significant and thus finding its way into idiom. It does show up in other verbs as well, particularly when the motion is slow, deliberate, or emphasized, in combination with the verbs RIR̀ 'move' and HAṬ 'spin, turn in a circle', and in prepositional constructions where this sort of specificity is relevant.

 Yaw = Z*X*+ hkta | Z*X*- hksù
  ‣ Kıàthakta He slides his gaze slowly over to his right.
  ‣ Hâkaṭhaksùaı hârauṭ They all turn the capstan counterclockwise.

 Pitch = X*Z*+ staka | X*Z*- sthà
  ‣ stakaîhı It (a plane) pitches alarmingly downwards.
  ‣ Razrastahàax I pitch (myself) upwards [idiomatic: 'get out of bed'].

 Roll = Y*X*+ ḷzta | X*Y*- ḷzsù (Recall t͡ɬ{s ʃ} > {t͡s t͡ʃ} - this is reflected in the orthography.)
  ‣ Ḳazıṣıẓtaḳa I am poking holes in a clockwise pattern on a vertical surface.
  ‣ Haıṭaẓsùı sıràuz The wall clock is running counterclockwise.

If clockwise vs. counterclockwise specification is not required, the -+ form is used. This is seen most often in Z*X-+ hkıṭù 'spinning about' or 'moving side-to-side' (depending mostly on aspect, with the latter seen in frequentative or iterative verbs), but stıḳà and ḷzıṭù are both also found.

  ‣ Haṭhakıṭù He is spinning about in circles.
  ‣ *Sıhkı·rıhkıṭùrḳa It (a boat) is beating upwind (tacking periodically in a zig-zag motion).
  ‣ Razìıṣıtıḳàax I can't do a somersault. [The <ṣ> originally having been a <ḷs> cluster.]
  ‣ Rıùrẓıṭù! Do a barrel roll!
  ‣ Tuàmẓıṭùaı. I am winding it (a clock, music box, turn-crank device).

----------

*The entirely accidental but pleasant sound of this particular word [ˌsɛçkɪˌɾɛçkɪ'ʔoɾŋǝ] has led to the vaguely onomatopoetic verb SIHKIRIHK, 'to move in a zig-zag'. I zig-zag (Sazıhkırıhkı), you zig-zag (Sıùhkırıhkı), we all zig-zag (Sulîkıhkırıhkı), may the zig-zagging continue in perpetuity (Sìhkırıhkîḷuı).
Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

:eng: :mrgreen: | :fra: [:)] | ASL [:S] | :deu: [:|] | :tan: [:(] | :nav: [:'(]
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Re: Alál: Now Conforming to Cartesian Coordinates

Post by Khemehekis »

@Kiwikami: Your last update was in November of 2021. I want to see more shiny amazingness in Alál grammar!
♂♥♂♀

Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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Re: Alál: 59 Circumstantials and an Antipassive

Post by kiwikami »

Khemehekis wrote: 19 Jun 2022 11:49 @Kiwikami: Your last update was in November of 2021. I want to see more shiny amazingness in Alál grammar!
Image

...I really do just pop in twice a year to dump grammar on y'all and then vanish for months on end, don't I? [:D] Whoops. In my defense, I should be writing a dissertation. Instead here are some words. Some of the glosses are probably wrong and much may be unclear; I'll will be editing this in pieces over the next few days. Or weeks. Or eventually.

-------------

Alál: The Poo Principle
      or
59 Circumstantials and an Antipassive


A disclaimer: I used to draw a line in my notes between verbs that are "morphologically (in)transitive" - i.e. agree for one/two arguments - and "syntactically (in)transitive", i.e. are actually mono/divalent. (Likely not the best way to describe this; in my defense, I'm a phoneticist.) This is because morphologically (in)transitive verbs do have restrictions on the number of required arguments (one or two), but technically, most verbs in Alál (the exception being non-volitive intransitives) have the potential to be maximally trivalent, able to take one agent-, patient-, and oblique-case argument each. This is independent of their person marking, which can only agree for one or two of these. Nowadays, when I use the words "transitive" and "intransitive" in reference to Alál verbs, I specifically mean verbs whose person-marking agrees for two and one arguments, respectively. The level of valency / total number of arguments, agreed-with or otherwise, will be referenced where it's relevant.

The actual semantic roles of those arguments depend on:
 - Whether the verb agrees for one or two arguments (i.e. is "intransitive" or "transitive")
 - Whether the verb is volitional or non-volitional
 - Whether the verb has an incorporated axis marker
 - Whether I've had coffee this morning
 - Probably the number of times a butterfly in Thailand flapped its wings last Tuesday

This is about seven years worth of shenanigans I have known but not tried to write down before. Bear with me.

Image
(or a semanticist, or a morphologist)

---

Intransitive
Intransitive verbs are indicated by a person-marker that agrees with a single argument. Most verb roots appear in only a transitive or intransitive form by default, with exceptions; these exceptions, while generally semantically related, aren't predictably derivable (e.g. intransitive kaıtı 'he gives off light' vs. transitive kataı 'he watches it', or intransitive zílı 'it (a river) flows' vs. transitive zılà 'it (ice, etc.) caused him to slip').

The person markers are az(v), ul(v), vù, ıv (í), and ì, for the first exclusive, first inclusive, second, third definite, and "fourth" (third indefinite) respectively. As usual, v represents the word's root vowel; the third definite marker has an irregular í form if the root vowel is ı.

Our intransitive verb example, with person agreement underlined, will be:

Sıu. He is afraid.

This verb is non-volitional. As mentioned before, Alál is Split-S along lexical volition; the subjects of lexically non-volitional intransitive verbs take the patientive (P) case, while those of lexically volitional ones take the agentive (A). There are methods of changing volition on verbs, but we won't talk about that here. The person agreement here thus refers specifically to that P, which we can add overtly if we like (or not, hurrah for pro-drop):

Sıuxı kaúh. The man.P is afraid.

I like to line up how the person markers map onto the actual arguments. The marker ıu points to our subject, which is the lone P-marked argument.

The morpheme: ıu
Points to an argument marked as: P
With the semantic role of: (p)atient

Thus:
 ıu
 P
 p

I want to make this very clear: P here does not mean the semantic patient. It means specifically an argument that if overt must be in the patientive case. Lower-case p references the semantic role of patient. For now, those are the same thing; this will not always be the case. Could I have called these cases ergative-absolutive to avoid confusion? Yes probably, split-ergativity aside. But I did not, for I am a fool.

---

Intransitive + Oblique

We can add another argument here. One might imagine every verb having an unmarked, floating amorphous oblique-case argument just waiting to be referenced and thus brought into existence. This may added overtly via a noun in the oblique case without making any morphological change to the verb. By default this argument will have a benefactive meaning. For reference, argument order is usually VOPA. Or, you know, VOS.

Sıuxı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P is afraid for the student.O.

Again we can line up markers to arguments, but the oblique has no morphemes on the verb referencing it at all:
 ıu
 P O
 p b(enefactive)

Why do I consider this an argument and not an adjunct? Good question. The short answer is because it interacts with voice. We'll get there.

If the verb fulfills either of these criteria…
 (1) Is a verb with an incorporated axis-of-motion marker
 (2) Is marked for tense (via an axis-of-time marker)
...then the oblique argument must instead be the element referenced by that marker.

For example, take the past tense marker . All axis markers, including tense, may be expressed periphrastically as prepositional phrases, where the object (in the oblique case) is some element that the direction of motion or time is relative to:

·Sıuxı ḷáa. He is afraid before the battle.

However, these can be incorporated directly into the verb with no overt oblique argument. This is a pretty typical use of axis markers, as described in my last few posts here. In that case, the element that the direction or time is relative to is some context-sensitive reference point, generally the speaker at the time and place of speaking. For , we thus we get a pretty typical past-tense reading:

Sıuxı kaúh. He was afraid ("is afraid before now").

But if you re-add the oblique argument, it takes its place as the reference point again:

Sıuxı ḷáa. He is afraid before the battle.O.

Now ḷáa isn't the oblique argument of a preposition anymore; it's the oblique argument of a verb. The mapping of person-marker to argument remains the same – it points to a subject, which here is P – but now there is also an axis marker pointing to the O. I'll use x here to refer to any semantic role that isn't an agent, patient, or benefactive, since they all function the same here and are introduced via axis.
 ıu lı
 P O
 p x

What if you have an incorporated axis marker (e.g. tense) and still want a benefactive? No problem! The benefactive acts like all other axis markers and has a prepositional equivalent: xa. (Sort of. We'll get to what's up with xa later.)

Xa·Sıuxlıı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P was afraid for the student.O.

And yes, you could incorporated that xa where you would any other axis. The following are thus equivalent.

Sıuxı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P is afraid for the student.O.
Sıuxxaı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P is afraid for the student.O.

This is also useful if you want to talk about an unspecified beneficiary:

Sıuxxaı kaúh. The man.P is afraid for someone.

Axis markers can and do stack, in a fixed order. The rightmost marker will point to the oblique.

Sıuxlıxaı kaúh. The man.P was afraid for someone.
Sıuxlıxaı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P was afraid for the student.O.
           *The man.P was afraid before the student.O.

Specifying the reference points for other axis markers must be done by popping them out into their prepositional forms, using the usual multi-prepositional-phrase constructions:

Sıuxı muîṭamah lı·s láa kaúh. The man.P is afraid for the student.O before the battle.O.
Lı·rà láa Sıuxı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P is afraid for the student.O before the battle.O.

So, to recap: Intransitives agree for a single argument, marked as either A or P. Adding an oblique-marked argument O usually forces a benefactive, but if there's an axis marker on the verb, the oblique argument will instead be the reference point for the motion or time described by that marker. Got it? Cool. Glad one of us does.

---

Intransitive + Volition

Recall that this verb is non-volitional. Volitional intransitives will consider the single argument as an agent rather than a patient, and thus put it in the agentive case. We may use Ṭıuhaı 'he shouts' as our intransitive volitional example. Same person maker, but now the argument its pointing to is both the semantic agent and in the agentive case.

Ṭıuhaı kaıh. 'The man.A shouts'
  ıu
  A
  a

Now. The oblique here behaves exactly as expected... for incorporated axis markers.

Ṭıuhḷáa kaıh. The man.A shouts before the battle.O.
  ıu
  A O
  a x

However. The specific case of the benefactive in this situation is slightly different:
?Ṭıuhaı kası kaıh. The man.A shouts for the child.O.

This is dispreferred. Why? Well, the short and slightly inaccurate version is that when it comes to assigning case to nouns in the context of a verb's arguments, Alál tries to fill slots in the order A>P>O. If there's already a P, the next one up is an O. But if there's only an A, it doesn't matter that the word is semantically a benefactive, it wants to fill that P slot. And so instead we get what I've called the P-benefactive, where the benefactive argument is granted patientive-case marking, and moved to the phrase-final position:

Ṭıuhaı kaıh kıús. The man.A shouts for the child.P.
  ıu
  A P
  a b

Phrase-final position is historically rather volition-heavy and carries a kind of implication that the beneficiary requested the event to happen. (E.g. The man shouts on the behest of the child.) If that connotation is not desired, the benefactive can still preposition-ify as normal:

Ṭıuhaı xa·s kası kaıh. The man.A shouts for the child.O.

But you can't get around this by using the incorporated benefactive axis marker xa. Or, at the very least, it sounds quite odd:

???Ṭıuhxakası kaıh. The man.A shouts for the child.O.

Why? Well... so... just table that for now. We'll get there, I promise.

---

Transitive

As with "intransitives", these can have as many as three arguments; the verb, however, must agree in person with exactly two of them. These are a bit simpler than intransitives, at least in the active voice. There is a big chart of all the transitive person markers, which are merged; a single marker references both subject and object. For now, only worry about the marker a/ı/u - third person subject, third person singular object. (Yes, only object plurality is marked here, we'll get into that later.)

Our example transitive verb will be Kataı 'He watches it'. Transitive verbs don't care one whit about volition. For your average transitive, the subject if overt shows up in the agentive case and the object in the patientive, and their semantic roles match. Thus, the structure is this:

Kataı ḷaúr kaıh. The man watches the battle.
   a
  A P
  a p

Note that I arrange the A and P agreement this way (A-P) in the structure despite the order of their overt arguments being P-A (that is, there's verb-object-subject word order). This is because, as so many things are, of voice. We'll get there.

Just as with non-volitive intransitives, we can add that floating oblique for a default benefactive:

Kataı mlîaaru ḷaúr kaıh. The man.A watches the battle.P for his general.O.
   a
  A P O
  a p b

Or we can specify the referent of the rightmost axis marker, including tense:

Kathmaḳuùala ḷaúr kaıh. The man.A watches the battle.P before the false victory.O
   a  lı
  A P O
  a p x

Great. So that's done.

---

Transitive + Inverse

Where things get... let's charitably say "interesting"... is in Alál's three distinctly-marked voices: active, inverse, and causative. The active is unmarked and is the default. The inverse is marked via a circumfix, one of í-ıka, í-(a)k, vì-(a)t, or vì-ıta, depending on the verb's lexical volition. Don't worry about that for now.

Put simply: The inverse will swap the semantic roles of the first two arguments with "first two" determined by their positioning relative to the marking on the verb. (Why yes, this did first arise all those years ago in the Navajo Language Academy when I learned about the yi-bi alternation, how did you guess?) That is, this structure, the standard transitive:
  A P
  a p

Becomes this:
  A P
  p a

Case marking is not swapped. The agentive-marked argument is now the semantic patient:

Kataı ḷaúr kaıh. The man.A watches the battle.P. [Active voice, volitive verb, VPA word order]
Íkatık kauh ḷaí. The battle.A is watched by the man.P. [Inverse voice, volitive verb, VPA word order]
   a
  A P
  p a

So why have this voice? It's not a passive, it doesn't reduce valency. It does serve several purposes in discourse; first, it ascribes a bit more agency to the thing being watched, which due to the VOS word order is now in that, as mentioned above, historically volitional phrase-final position. Second, while there are a couple of relative-clause-like constructions, the most common by far uses an attributive verb. The noun modified by such a verb must be acting as its subject. Thus, we can produce the following, using the active and inverse voices:

Hıuṭaḳa kaús katáaı. The man who is watching him laughs.
Hıuṭaḳa kaús íkatáık. The man who is being watched (by him) laughs.

That is, there is no direct equivalent to 'The man whom he is watching laughs'.

What is particularly important here, however, is this isn't an A-P swap; this is a first two arguments swap. This means the inverse functions just fine in the intransitive - if you add an oblique argument onto that.

---

Intransitive + Inverse

Recall that intransitive verbs can take an oblique-marked argument, the default benefactive, without any over marking on the verb. If you apply the inverse voice to an intransitive verb, it yoinks that implied oblique into existence and swaps it with the only overtly marked argument. Thus, let's take a look at the inverse of old intransitive friend:

Sıuxı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P is afraid for the student.O.
 a
 P O
 p b

sıuxıt kaha muîṭamàh. The student.P is feared for by the man.O.
 a
 P O
 b p

Voila! A circumstantial voice! This is what all this has been leading to!

✧・゚: * jazz hands * :・゚✧

What type of circumstantial, exactly, will depend entirely on whether there is an axis marker, and if so, which. Technically, since there are 57 spatio-temporal axis markers and two oddballs, there are... arguably that many circumstantials. But that just sounds silly.

For non-volitional intransitives, when there is no axis marker and the argument is the default benefactive, we have a patientive-case benefactive and an oblique-case patient/experiencer/performer of the action as seen above. When there is an axis marker, the reference point for the axis becomes the subject (patientive case if involitive, agentive case if volitive), and the former subject becomes oblique:

Hıuṭlıḳa ḷáa kaıh. 'The man.A laughs before the battle.O'
 ıu lı
 A O
 a x

Íhıuṭlıḳak kaha ḷaí. 'The battle.A is laughed before by the man.O'
 ıu lı
 A O
 x a

This, in combination with attributive verbs, allows such lovely constructions as:
ḷáa íhıuṭúlıḳak the battle before which there was laughter

And with the highly-productive nominalization of verbs, we can get quite creative:
íhıuṭlıraḳak that which was predicated by laughter
íhıuṭùḳ·ruuḷak the machine which stops laughter (through the use of which one stops laughing)
uìhıuṭut·saḳıta the place in which one laughs uncontrollably
 ...and so on

Now, remember, this inversion applies strictly to the first two arguments; we can get interesting results in verbs with multiple incorporated axes, which… alright, look, in my notes I call it the Poo Principle, I am a grown adult, that's just how it is. Have some motion verbs to illustrate. (Don't worry about the vowels, they're doing their own thing):

 Ḷîḳa. He falls.
 Ḷîḳà. He falls backwards (relative to his starting point).
 Ḷîḳà lakı. He falls back to/behind the tree.O.
 Ǐḷıḳàt lıúk. The tree.P is fallen behind.
Now add in an incorporated benefactive. Remember, only the rightmost O can ever actually be specified by an overt oblique-case argument:
 Ḷîḳtıxaaı. He falls backwards, for something.
  í tì xa
  P O O
  p o b
The inverse swaps the first two, effectively popping the semantic patient out of existence.
The second O, here a benefactive, is left alone and stays in the oblique case.
 Ǐḷıḳtìxaàk. It is fallen behind, for something.
  í tì xa
  P O O
  o p b
This means, even if you were to have two overt arguments, the semantic patient would never appear; this is the Poo Principle:
 Ǐḷıḳtìxaàk ḳamàa lıúk. The tree.P is fallen behind, for science.O.
  í tì xa
  P O O
  o p b

And again we can look at attributive and nominalized forms of this for fun:
muîṭamah uìsıuxúlıxaıt the student who was feared for
muîṭamah uìsıuxúlıxaıt kaha the student who was feared for, by the man
An oblique noun providing a new reference point for incorporated axes works just fine in attributive verbs – not so much in nominalized ones. Nominalized verbs can take no arguments.
uìsıuxmaıt the feared-for one
 *uìsıuxmaıt kaha the feared-for (by the man) one

---

Circumstantial Transitives

The next question, then, is whether it is possible to promote an oblique argument to subject position in a transitive verb. That'd be useful, wouldn't it, given how important this oblique-promotion is for those relative clause constructions. But the inverse clearly cannot do this alone, since the existence of both an A and a P argument necessitates that those be swapped. Swapping A and O directly is a plain and simple impossibility, according to the Poo Principle.

Alright. So.

You may recall that volitional intransitives (i.e. those whose single argument is A) really don't like having a default benefactive in the oblique. In fact, they aren't fans of anything involving xa, except when explicitly used as a preposition. Remember:
Ṭıuhaı xa·s kası kaıh. The man.A shouts for the child.O.
 ...but...
???Ṭıuhxaaı kası kaıh. The man.A shouts for the child.O.

(The inverse voice works just fine on the P-benefactive, for the record, wonky word order and all:)
Ṭıuhaı kaıh kıús. The man.A shouts for the child.P.
  ıu
  A P
  a b
Íṭıuhık kıs kaúh. The child.A is shouted for by the man.P.
  ıu
  A P
  b a

The reason that an intransitive verb whose only argument must be an A-marked semantic agent doesn't like xa is because I lied. Xa doesn't actually point to the benefactive. It points to the next semantic role in sequence.

Earlier on, in explanation for why the P-benefactive happens, I said this: "The short and slightly inaccurate version is that when it comes to assigning case to nouns in the context of a verb's arguments, Alál tries to fill slots in the order A>P>O. If there's already a P, the next one up is an O. But if there's only an A, it doesn't matter that the word is semantically a benefactive, it wants to fill that P slot."

It's time for the longer and more accurate version: Alál does like the order A>P>O when it comes to case marking, and that explanation was true - historically. But entirely separately from case, when it comes to semantic roles, it likes the order causer>agent>patient>oblique (well, benefactive>other.oblique). I call this capo. The "default oblique", or really anything introduced by xa, is in fact just the next not-yet-marked role in that sequence. The P-benefactive is actually a separate, historical benefactive construction based on that phrase-final volition-heavy position, which is used for volitive intransitive verbs because the usual default or xa method of introducting a benefactive there... would actually introduce a semantic patient.

Non-volitive intransitive, marked argument is p, default oblique adds next in capo order: o (b).
Sıuxı muîṭamah kaúh. The man.P is afraid for the student.O.
  ıu
  P O
  p b
Volitive intransitive, marked argument is a, default oblique adds next in capo order: p.
 *Hıuṭlıḳa muîṭamah kaıh. *The man.A laughs the student.O.
  ıu
  A O
  a p

This doesn't make sense for morphologically intransitive volitive verbs. They've only got one argument, it's not a patient, that p has no business being there! There are other ways of going about reflexives and reciprocals if that's what you're aiming for! Thus, this does not happen. If you want a benefactive in a volitive intransitive verb, you have to make use of that old historical oddity - that the "reason" or "purpose" or "beneficiary" or "instigating force" of an event can appear in patientive case in the phrase-final position.

Recall, though, that most verb stems are either intransitive or transitive, and it is very rare to have one appear as both. (Even when they do, they don't normally share volition, aspect, etc.) So, and hear me out: What if you took a transitive verb, but gave it intransitive person-marking, popping out the P argument and reintroducing it as that xa-marked p oblique?

Well that sounds like a very strange way of going about an...

...

Antipassive Voice? Apparently?

In simple terms, the antipassive is formed by incorporation of the axis marker xa into a transitive verb stem conjugated as if intransitive. This demotes the object to an oblique. It occurs for exactly two reasons: as a means of indicating general (transitive) actions an entity takes regardless of target (I yearn. For what? I don't know, I just yearn.) and in conjunction with inversion to allow for transitive circumstantial constructions.

Step one: Take a transitive verb, regardless of volition.
Step two: Conjugate it as if it was (a volitional) intransitive (subject = agent).
Step three: Reintroduce the removed patient using xa, since p is next in capo order now.
Step four: Add whatever axes you like.
Step five: Invert. If you want.

There is one other small note which is that when this construction is used, incorporated xa becomes . This isn't so much a means of dealing with ambiguity so much as a quirk that comes from interactions with the conclusive aspect à, which shows up a lot in these kinds of verbs, but it's a useful marker to tell at a glance when this antipassive-ish thing is happening.

To illustrate, we'll do this with Kataı 'he watches it'. While KAT is one of the verb roots that does also have a normal intransitive form, that form is explicitly non-volitive, so there's no ambiguity.
  a
 A P
 a p

The intransitive third person here would be *Kaıtaı. This on its own is ungrammatical.
 aı
 A
 a

Kaıtxàaı. He watches [things]. Adding xa re-adds the thing(s) that is/are watched, floating amorphously about. If we wanted, we could add an overt oblique argument specify what it is. This is does have some widespread use, as a means of avoiding specifying anything - including definiteness and plurality, both of which the person-agreement otherwise indicates - about the object of an action. "It eats some [unspecified] thing" is Rıẓàx, but I would translate the title of the second Welcome to Night Vale novel, It Devours, as Rîẓxaax.
 aı xà
 A O
 a p

If we were to invert this now, we'd get Íkaıtxàık. It/he is watched [by unspecified things]. This is grammatically technically fine, if rare, and does the same thing as above - allowing one to specify that a thing has something done to it while eliminating all information including definiteness and number from the agent. Often used to describe actions that happened spontaneously or on their own, or in cases where the (agentive-case-marked) semantic patient had some influence on their fate. Íkxıùtàk - he was killed, vs. Íkxıutxàak - he got himself killed.
 aı xà
 A O
 p a

But now, let's add another axis marker. Recall that these can stack, and in a fixed order (ZCPXYRExz, for the record - that's xa there second-to-last). Now with the addition of we already have an o, but xa still adds p because that slot still isn't filled. The rightmost points to the overt oblique argument, if there is one - but the leftmost is what will swap with a when inverted. Kaıtxàaı. He watched [things].
 aı lı xà
 A O O
 a o  p

And... invert. Íkaıtlıxàık. It/he has something watching something else before it.
 aı lı xà
 A O O
 o a  p

Let's add some overt arguments to clear that up:
Katlıaı mamu zuaz kaıh. The man.A watches the sea.P before the storm.O (started).
Íkaıtlıxàık záz mıum. The storm.A had the sea.O being watched before it (started).

Sutràax makàr ḳîuúl. He(.A) buried his horse.P near the grave.O.
Ísutràak makàr ḳîuıul. His horse.A was buried near the grave.O.
Ísıutràxàak ḳîualu mkíra. The grave.A has his horse.O buried near it.

So, doesn't this mean there's no way to reintroduce the agent? Once it swapped with that first oblique, the transitive verb's original subject was lost to the middle O of the POO, never to return. Ah, but you see, semantic agents, like secret agents, tend to appear where you least expect them. And rather like corn, they have a remarkable tendency to come through poo relatively unscathed. (I am a grown adult, I swear it.)

After all, the agent is a pretty volition-heavy position. And we have a perfectly well-historically-established construction to deal with that.

So, behold, the P-agent:

Íkaıtlıxàık záz mıum kaúh. The storm.A had the sea.O being watched before it (started) by the man.P.
Sıutràxàax makàr ḳîuúl htumàl. The grave.A has his horse.O buried under it by the mortician.P.

Welcome to the Möbius Frankenpassive, where the agent if overt is in the patientive case, the patient in the oblique, and the oblique in the agentive. I love and hate it in equal measure, and it's probably not how natural language works. Uncertain. See comment from Bones above. No matter - it's fun and kinda neat.

Have some nice phrases using that relative clause construction:
Suthàax lakı amìzzaí. - My friend.A buried him under the tree.
Ísuthàak lakı amìzzaí. - My friend.A was buried by him under the tree.
lakı ísıutûhaxàak amǐzzaa - the tree under which my friend.O was buried
lakı ísıutûhaxàak amìzzaúr - the tree under which my friend.P buried (something)

And some nominalized verbs:
íríẓurxà·haıàk - the fog in which things are devoured
ílaíkáraxà·ruàk - the contraption from which people are hanged
ìrıumutxà·saàt - the place where things are (naturally, over time) destroyed
íhmaılahxà·maàk - the person who thinks (in whose eyes) things are conquered
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Wait a second, said no one. If xa is being used to mean p, we can introduce a benefactive using a prepositional phrase, but how do we promote a benefactive to subject position in a transitive verb?

I don't think you can. I don't really want to allow stacking multiple instances of xa. Unless I figure out a solution, transitive benefactives are just a little defective, and don't have a circumstantial form. Or. Well. There's this thing with za introducing a kind of benefactive outside of causative constructions, but that...

Sut(xa)àx akìzlaṭa ahùḳa amìzzaí. - My friend buried the bird for my sibling.
Sutzaàx akìzlaṭa ahùḳa amìzzaí. - My friend buried the bird, as instructed by my sibling.
Ísut(xa)àk akìzlaṭa amìzzaúr híka. - The bird was buried for my sibling by my friend.
Ísıutzaxàak hàk akìzlaıṭ amìzzaúr. - My sibling had the bird buried for them by my friend.
  ıu za xà
  A C O
  b a p
akìzlaṭa ísıutúzaxàak - my sibling for whom something was buried
ísıutúzaxà·maàk - the person for whom something was buried

Oh, that works. That works nicely. I like that. We'll unpack that later. When we deal with the...

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Causative

Nah, I'm going to go make coffee. [:D] See you all in either two days or six months, there is no in-between!

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Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

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DesEsseintes
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Joined: 31 Mar 2013 13:16

Re: Alál: 59 Circumstantials and an Antipassive

Post by DesEsseintes »

You make me want to conlang again.
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