An attempt at a lang with trigger alignment and pluractionality

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brblues
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An attempt at a lang with trigger alignment and pluractionality

Post by brblues »

I always start a conlang with just a handful ideas, usually including one or two I myself find a bit wacky, that I want to try out, and build them from there then; for this conlang, it was the combination of two grammatical concepts I find fascinating on their own and wanted to see combined, namely Austronesian trigger-alignment and pluractionality.

The wacky idea here was to not only have no plural marking for nouns, but also include pronouns here; furthermore, the pronouns should be identical to proximal, medial and distal demonstrative adjectives (1st, 2nd and 3rd person respectively, of course).

Plurality is, however, marked on the verb by reduplication of the verb root – but that refers to only the primary argument, which is where the Austronesian voice alternations come into play!

That is because in this lang (I don’t know if that’s also the case with actual Austronesian trigger alignment or I’ve misunderstood, but I like it in any case), the grammatical “subject” / primary argument can be not only an agent, subject or patient as in NOM-ACC or ERG-ABS languages, but also be a locative or instrumental/circumstantial argument, depending on the voice used.

I hope the fact that only this so-called "direct" argument can be pluralised (as well as relativised) will result in some interesting grammatical situations, in addition to the pragmatic implications of such an alignment (with a “privileged” or “focussed” argument).

But first things first; as I was too lazy to come up with a phonology, I asked for help and Isfendil was so kind as to provide me with a phonology!


Phonology

m n
b p t d k g q
*p’ *t’ *k’
s~z x~ɣ ħ
w̥ʰ w r j

a, e, o
aː, eː, oː
All diphthongs allowed.
CV[C]

All syllables must begin in a consonant. Glottal stops are not phonemic consonants so words can't begin with them.
Gemination happens with all consonants, but voiced geminates devoice, and voiceless geminates become ejective.
Fricatives will assimilate to the voicing of adjacent consonants, with the voiceless phoneme being the underlying phoneme in all other environments. /q/ does not follow normal stop rules, it just geminates normally; same with /ħ/ for fricative voice rules.
Khemehekis
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Re: An attempt at a lang with trigger alignment and pluractionality

Post by Khemehekis »

Cool -- I can't wait to see the grammar!
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Salmoneus
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Re: An attempt at a lang with trigger alignment and pluractionality

Post by Salmoneus »

brblues wrote: 18 Mar 2020 19:29
The wacky idea here was to not only have no plural marking for nouns, but also include pronouns here
That's not wacky, that's perfectly ordinary. Well, WALS says its actually very rare, but certainly it's not unrealistic. [for some reason, almost all WALS' examples are in the Americas]
; furthermore, the pronouns should be identical to proximal, medial and distal demonstrative adjectives (1st, 2nd and 3rd person respectively, of course).
That's very common in conlangs, but it's probably unrealistic for a real language.
Plurality is, however, marked on the verb by reduplication of the verb root – but that refers to only the primary argument, which is where the Austronesian voice alternations come into play!
FWIW, this is usually the other way around, IIRC: pluractionality of a transitive usually implies plurality of an object before plurality of a subject.

Moreover, I don't think you really have pluractionality: I think you have nominal plurality. If the marking on the verb only and regularly shows the number of the subject, then it's not pluractionality, it's just the verb agreeing with its subject (even if number is not marked overtly on the noun).

That doesn't mean you shouldn't do this, of course.
That is because in this lang (I don’t know if that’s also the case with actual Austronesian trigger alignment or I’ve misunderstood, but I like it in any case), the grammatical “subject” / primary argument can be not only an agent, subject or patient as in NOM-ACC or ERG-ABS languages, but also be a locative or instrumental/circumstantial argument, depending on the voice used.
Yes, that's basically right. Whether the 'primary argument' is or is not a genuine 'subject', and whether what is used is or is not a genuine 'voice' is all rather subject to debate, and different people use different terms, but basically, yes.

I would suggest it's better not to think about an 'austronesian trigger alignment', though, and more about 'austronesian alignments'. Austronesian alignments are basically characterised by the presence and frequent use of symmetrical voices (or whatever we call them), and typically by having the 'passive' be the default 'voice'. They can be divided into "Indonesian" alignments, where there are only two symmetrical 'voices' (though there may also be a genuine, valency-reducing passive as well) and "Philippine" alignments, where there are more. The former are derived from the latter, and may retain traces in the form of verbal derivative affixes and the like. Philippine alignments often have four 'voices', though iirc some have five (and some do have three).
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gestaltist
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Re: An attempt at a lang with trigger alignment and pluractionality

Post by gestaltist »

Good luck with the project! I agree with Sal that what you're describing doesn't really sound like pluractionality - but marking subject number on the verb only is perfectly OK of course.
brblues wrote: 18 Mar 2020 19:29 a, e, o
aː, eː, oː
All diphthongs allowed.
It isn't all diphthongs, surely? Or is your plan to distinguish /a̯e/ and /ae̯/ to give one example?
brblues
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Re: An attempt at a lang with trigger alignment and pluractionality

Post by brblues »

Thanks for your comments and encouragement! I will reply to more involved issue first.
Salmoneus wrote: 19 Mar 2020 00:57
FWIW, this is usually the other way around, IIRC: pluractionality of a transitive usually implies plurality of an object before plurality of a subject.

Moreover, I don't think you really have pluractionality: I think you have nominal plurality. If the marking on the verb only and regularly shows the number of the subject, then it's not pluractionality, it's just the verb agreeing with its subject (even if number is not marked overtly on the noun).

That doesn't mean you shouldn't do this, of course.
Yeah I was even aware that the general rule for pluractionality is that it applies in a kind of ergative manner, i.e. relates to what would be the absolutive in an ergative language. Part of what I wanted to do though was to have it apply to the grammatical / syntactic subject, so that in a transitive clause you can choose whether to pluralise (or relativise) the direct object or the agent, by using a plural verb form with the patient voice and agent voice, respectively. Broadening this, it would also apply to the syntactic subjects of clauses in the instrumental or locative voice, i.e. what would otherwise be an oblique argument. Does this make sense?

I have also been thinking about all this in generan and these two "oblique" voices in particular, and feel like pluralising the obliques would probably not be all that useful, and I could then have the plural form of the verb refer to the actual action (doing something repeatedly/habitually or something the like); another possibility I had in mind was to have this take on the meaning of doing something thoroughly, with all one's power or, in the case of a locative, "all over" the said place. It might be an interesting assymetry, but then the four voices would be kind of split, not that that's necessarily bad.
brblues
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Re: An attempt at a lang with trigger alignment and pluractionality

Post by brblues »

Salmoneus wrote: 19 Mar 2020 00:57
brblues wrote: 18 Mar 2020 19:29
The wacky idea here was to not only have no plural marking for nouns, but also include pronouns here
That's not wacky, that's perfectly ordinary. Well, WALS says its actually very rare, but certainly it's not unrealistic. [for some reason, almost all WALS' examples are in the Americas]
; furthermore, the pronouns should be identical to proximal, medial and distal demonstrative adjectives (1st, 2nd and 3rd person respectively, of course).
That's very common in conlangs, but it's probably unrealistic for a real language.
Do I understand this correctly that using the same pronoun forms for SG and PL would be considered naturalistic (in combination with number marking on the verb at least some of the time), while the conflation with demonstratives would be unrealistic?
gestaltist wrote: 19 Mar 2020 08:35
brblues wrote: 18 Mar 2020 19:29 a, e, o
aː, eː, oː
All diphthongs allowed.
It isn't all diphthongs, surely? Or is your plan to distinguish /a̯e/ and /ae̯/ to give one example?
To be honest I hadn't given this all that much thought, as I didn't make the phonology myself. For such cases I would just have a simple rule such as that all diphthongs should be falling (so /ae̯/ instead of /a̯e/, and /eo̯/ instead of /e̯o/, etc.).
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