(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

I still think you didn't quite understand what I asked. I just hoped somebody come up with an out-of-the-box solution to my unsolvable problem. (It happens surprisingly often.)
But thank you anyway.

The borderline between what is derivational and what is using 'the same word' is very fluid between theories. I really meant that all verbs in the language form those unaccusative intransitive - transitive pairs.

But I realized it is not gonna work because some verbs must form unergative intransitive - transitive pairs. (They don't have the word order problem.)

The current idea is just to go with prephrastic causatives and some lexical ones.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Omzinesý »

tokibuni wrote: 01 Dec 2022 20:38 Do you think something like "enough" would work well, then? The turtle loves rain. A bird doesn't love rain enough.
Spoiler:

o löm nnukvu tula isa. jät nusifa o löm pamv isa.

GNO love NOM-DEF turtle rain || NEG NOM-bird GNO love enough rain
Lit: The turtle loves rain. A bird doesn’t love rain enough.
Edit: The more I think about it, the more it just makes sense to go with what was suggested. Probably just "equally", so: "The turtle loves rain. A bird doesn't love rain equally."
Every language shares the semantic space into different parts with its lexemes. Why wouldn't 'enough' be used in that context too.

I can imagine contects where the two senses of 'enough' are distinct. 'A sleeps. B doesn't sleep enough.' In the example, B can sleep enough although not as much as A, but in this contrastive construction it's evident that B doesn't sleep enough to beat A. It is not hard to imagine the road of semantic change for 'enough' to gain that sense too.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ahzoh »

If a language lacks grammatical case but marks gender and verbs agree in gender and number with the subject noun, is it still considered a zero-marking language?

I wish to know because according to this Zero-marking languages tend to be verb medial which I don't want, so it is a part of my decision whether I want my language to keep its cases or not.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

Ahzoh wrote: 06 Dec 2022 22:12 If a language lacks grammatical case but marks gender and verbs agree in gender and number with the subject noun, is it still considered a zero-marking language?
No, it's head marking. Loads of head-marking languages are non-verb-medial.
Also, the correlation is far from perfect.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

I would worry less about definitions, and more about processes.

If it's true that languages "considered to be zero-marking" are strongly verb-medial, it isn't because they're considered zero-marking - so whether yours is 'considered' zero-marking doesn't matter. If it's true (and I assume it is to some degree), it's because of the underlying processes. So ask yourself whether those processes apply to your language, and to what degree.

The idea is presumably that SVO order helps make roles clear when not overtly marked - it lets you tell S from O (while still allowing some movement rule for emphasis), and it also lets you tell S from 'a modifier of O that precedes it' (and vice versa).

So the question should not be 'is this considered zero-marked?', but rather 'to what extent can ambiguities of head and dependent emerge?' - the more ambiguities, the more likely to be SVO.

Your language is obviously not zero-marked, because it explicitly marks case (just on the verb, rather than the noun). It's just head-marking. But that doesn't really answer your question.

First, to what extent can ambiguities still arise as to what is and isn't the subject? If your verb marking is (using sg., pl.):
feminine: -e, -
masculine: -, -
neuter: -, -

...then officially your language is head-marking, but in practice lots of ambiguity will still emerge! [both in the ideal, and even more so in practice due to the low acoustic redundancy of that marker]

On the other hand, if your marking is (using sg., pc., pl., coll.):
feminine I: -e, -eka, ekata, -oz
feminine II: -ilora, -kun, -iltash, -omuz
feminine III: [etc etc]

...then ambiguity will arise much less often!

Second, to what extent can ambiguities arise in noun phrase structure? If adjectives don't agree with their head nouns, if there are scads of noun-noun phrases, if adjectives look like nouns, if there's no explicit possession markers, if movement for emphasis is possible within noun phrases... then ambiguity will arise a lot. On the other hand, if nouns can't modify nouns, adjectives all bear obvious derivational affixes, possessors always occur within clear adpositional phrases, and element order within a noun phrase is rigidly fixed, then ambiguity is much less likely.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by tokibuni »

I'm working on my causatives and remain a little confused. In particular, I had an idea for a purposive type causative, but I'm unsure if it actually makes sense.

Aside from some lexical causatives, Kuima uses (tentatively, at least) the -ju suffix. I've included some examples in the spoiler below for intransative and transative verbs.
Spoiler:

Intransative > Transative

The man made his dog take a walk.
is fifaju nnukvu llinko wawa flifal
PFV walk-CAUS NOM-DEF man dog GEN-3SG

Transative > Ditransative

She made herself take care of the injured bird.
is zamuju nufal mol fal vu sifa bimit
PFV nurse-CAUS NOM-3SG REFL(head) REFL(3SG) DEF bird hurt
Purpose Clauses & Ditransative Causative

Now when it comes to ditransative verbs, rather than use the -ju suffix, I want to create a purposive type causative. My idea specifically is to use the passive in the subordinate clause. I'm not sure if that is illogical or not (it seems to work to me, but I'm not great at linguistics). My purpose clause itself uses the future and potential mood. If anything is wrong with that, please let me know. POT=Potential mood (also conditional in Kuima).

He read a book to his daughter.
is nuv nufal wun twunzar flifal
PFV read NOM-3SG book DAT-daughter GEN-3SG

He read a book to his daughter in order to help her sleep.
is nuv nufal wun twunzar flifal folv dotu ut wö nufal
PFV read NOM-3SG book DAT-daughter GEN-3SG so.that IMPFV-FUT COND.POT sleep NOM-3SG
Lit: He read a book to his daughter so that she would sleep.

His wife forced him to read a book to his daughter.
is lluk nuttipo flifal fal folv dotu ut numva nuwun twunzar flifal
PFV force NOM-wife GEN-3SG 3SG so.that IMPFV-FUT COND.POT read.PASS NOM-book DAT-daughter GEN-3SG
Lit: His wife forced him so that a book would/could be read to his daughter

Without the passive, it'd probably be rendered:

is lluk nuttipo flifal fal folv dotu ut nuv wun twunzar flifal
PFV force NOM-wife GEN-3SG 3SG so.that IMPFV-FUT COND.POT read book DAT-daughter GEN-3SG
Lit: His wife forced him so that [he] would read a book to his daughter
ara vu buni nnovki malasobuni - The moon is bright at night
- Kuima
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

The purposive part looks alright to me, but your second example for the ju-causative is missing a verb, IINM (at least in the gloss).
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Sequor »

Salmoneus wrote: 06 Dec 2022 23:55If it's true that languages "considered to be zero-marking" are strongly verb-medial, it isn't because they're considered zero-marking - so whether yours is 'considered' zero-marking doesn't matter. If it's true (and I assume it is to some degree), it's because of the underlying processes. So ask yourself whether those processes apply to your language, and to what degree.

The idea is presumably that SVO order helps make roles clear when not overtly marked - it lets you tell S from O (while still allowing some movement rule for emphasis), and it also lets you tell S from 'a modifier of O that precedes it' (and vice versa).

So the question should not be 'is this considered zero-marked?', but rather 'to what extent can ambiguities of head and dependent emerge?' - the more ambiguities, the more likely to be SVO.
I've wondered before whether languages with zero-marking (or something close to it) are attested with VSO or SOV order where the ambiguity is kept down by making the arguments mandatory with pronouns...
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by loglorn »

Sequor wrote: 07 Dec 2022 17:46 I've wondered before whether languages with zero-marking (or something close to it) are attested with VSO or SOV order where the ambiguity is kept down by making the arguments mandatory with pronouns...
What do you mean by making the arguments mandatory with pronouns?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Sequor »

loglorn wrote: 08 Dec 2022 03:51
Sequor wrote: 07 Dec 2022 17:46 I've wondered before whether languages with zero-marking (or something close to it) are attested with VSO or SOV order where the ambiguity is kept down by making the arguments mandatory with pronouns...
What do you mean by making the arguments mandatory with pronouns?
Basically like English. Non-pro-drop ("anti-drop"? what's the antonym?). That is, a subject must always appear for a verb, whether it's a noun phrase or a pronoun.

Much of the ambiguity is that if the language is VSO, and is pro-drop for subjects, then "[verb] [noun]" (or "[verb] [pronoun]") could be VS or VO, ambiguously. But if S has to always appear at least as a pronoun, then "[verb] [noun]" (or for that matter "[verb] [pronoun]") could only be VS.

laugh 2SG ('You laugh.')
laugh 2SG 3PL ('You laugh at them.')

Then, if you want to express "VO" while demoting the subject, you could use a passive construction, with an auxiliary verb or a dummy subject pronoun or a particle or something, or even a passive conjugation in the verb.

be laughed 3PL ('They are laughed at.')

But for some reason, as Salmoneus said, natural languages with zero-marking for syntactic roles tend to be SVO, and to allow some degree of pro-drop. Classical Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Ju|'hoan...

EDIT: Actually, WALS classifies Pirahã as having zero-marking as its overall typology, and looking at some example sentences it appears that it might be SOV and non-pro-drop for subjects? I should read more, but it looks like a promising example of what I was saying.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by loglorn »

I think modern welsh does just what you want for VSO. And its just non-pro-drop, yes.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by KaiTheHomoSapien »

Do you ever find yourself mispronouncing your own conlang? For me, sometimes this is due to influence from another conlang. When I'm in Arculese mode, I'm inclined to see <g> and think /x/ or /ç/ and I have to remind myself when working with a Lihmelinyan word, that <g> is just /g/ in that language.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

KaiTheHomoSapien wrote: 22 Dec 2022 20:53 Do you ever find yourself mispronouncing your own conlang?
I frequently use the wrong rhotic.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by WeepingElf »

eldin raigmore wrote: 25 Dec 2022 01:31
KaiTheHomoSapien wrote: 22 Dec 2022 20:53 Do you ever find yourself mispronouncing your own conlang?
I frequently use the wrong rhotic.
So do I ;)
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by lsd »

the problem with 3SDeductiveLanguage(1Sound=1Sense=1Sign) is that a bad pronunciation is like one word for another...
fortunately conlangs are often voiceless languages...

when I reread snippets on marginalia, I sometimes come across nonsense inscriptions, related to one sign for another, that I can more or less correct, depending on the length of the construction...
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ahzoh »

Is it possible to have it so fricatives voice before other voiced obstruents but not before sonorants?

I'm also wondering if only voiceless coronal fricatives could voice intervocalically (but peripheral fricatives do not voice intervocalically)
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

Yes, definitely. One possible explanation for this is that voiced obstruents involve an active glottal gesture whereas voicing in sonorants is somehow passive. Maybe Polish does it?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Salmoneus »

Arguably, English is an example. Voiceless /s/ and /f/ can easily precede sonorants, but they cannot precede voiced consonants. There are probably historical examples of voicing assimilation to prevent this, although (given distribution of fricatives) I think they'd have to arise from syncope and I can't think of any examples off hand. But for most speakers the rule remains synchronically, since loanwords with, for instance, /sb/ undergo voicing assimilation for most speakers. [eg 'masdar', 'casbah', etc generally have /z/ rather than /s/, whereas 'Asmara' usually has /s/ (though admittedly it doesn't always)]
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Post by Hugh_Capet »

I've mentioned this topic once before, but for those who don't know I've been endeavoring to create a language for the Windan tribe of Avari from Tolkien's legendarium. My progress has been slow but not entirely wasted. Yet I've reached a snag in that I'm not sure how to resolve a specific consonant cluster.

It originates in the primitive word *kʰadmā, meaning "seat." I have some aspects of its development figured out, such as the aspirate becoming a voiceless stop (in-keeping with the real-life example of an initial asperate becoming a voiced stop in Proto-Germanic). However, I don't know what to do with the cluster -dm-, as there's no apparent equivalent in Proto-Germanic that I'm aware of. Would the -d- devoice and the -m- remain unchanged, or would some manner of metathesis occur, making the cluster -md-? Given the apparent switch of -dn- to -nd- elsewhere in Primitive Elvish, it seems plausible that such could happen here, but I thought it best to ask here rather than guess.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

How unusual is it, cross-linguistically, to have syllable weight determine stress, but having no phonemic long vowels?
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