Little isolating thing

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mira
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Little isolating thing

Post by mira »

Vague idea:

Mostly isolating a priori engelang with a small vocabulary (possibly expandable later on). Attempting to optimise not so much for quantity of grammar rules, but rather quantity of grammatical "things" required to construct different kinds of sentences, which I know sounds like utter nonsense but it makes sense to me at least... kind of.

Starting simple with a phonology and a romanisation (writing system may come later on):

/p t d k/ <p t d k>
/m n/ <m n>
/f ʃ h/ <f s h>
/w ɹ l j/ <w r l j>
/a e i o u/ <a e i o u>

I know from past experience that if I make it much bigger than this then I can and will forget half of the consonants.

Some phonotactics:

(C)V(C)
Onset is optional only at the start of a word.
Coda can only be one of <m n f s h>.
When a coda is present, /i/ -> /ɪ/ and /u/ -> /ʊ/.
In the coda, /ʃ/ -> /s/.
<wo wu ji> are not permitted.
Stress is always on the first syllable of a word.

And some pronouns cause why not?:

i - n 1SG, adj mine
is - n 1PL.EXCL, adj ours
iso - n 1PL.INCL, adj ours
jo - n 2SG, adj yours
jos - n 2PL, adj yours
de - n 3SG, adj theirs
des - n 3PL, adj theirs

And while I'm on a roll I'll make some words up. It is only now that I'm discovering the power of referencing people in these which is fun.

nuri - n food, v eat
sapi - n person
kuti - n friend, adj friendly/nice
awe - int hello, v greet/introduce
mama - n speech/talking, v speak/say
aki - n cat
mili - n a little, adj small/short
salo - n a lot, adj big/tall

Some grammar:

SVO because I'm feeling uninteresting.
"X is Y" kinda statements omit the verb, or "to be" would be the "default" verb if none is provided.
Tense marker comes after the verb (even if it is not explicitly provided). This is to prevent confusion where the object might also work as an adjective on the subject or an adverb on the verb. For intransitive verbs, the tense marker can be dropped and defaults to past simple for actions and present simple for states, except where context implies something else e.g. if I'm sat next to you eating a sandwich and I say i nuri then I probably don't mean "I ate".

Tense markers:

o - PRE
a - PST
ri - FUT

Append -n for progressive forms where applicable.

Adjectives come after what they are describing.

Sentences:

aki i o mili - my cat is small
des nuri - they ate

Stay tuned for when I realise I've conlanged myself into a corner or something and don't know what to do [;)] /s
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mira
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Joined: 14 May 2016 11:59
Location: Switzerland
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Re: Little isolating thing

Post by mira »

Ok, problem solving time.

Say we have a sentence in some form "A B C o D" where B has both a verb and adjective meaning and C has both a verb and adverb meaning. How do we tell which of B or C is the verb? Because B could be the verb and be described by C, or C could be the verb and B could describe A, so we need some marker to go in between if required. As I'm leaning towards this language being very pro drop, it would be an optional particle and could very well be omitted in this example sentence if the intended meaning can be deduced with context, and I imagine a reader would naturally consider the form where C is the verb first, so the particle would be even easier to drop in that case but may be more important to keep when B is the verb.

It would seem a waste to only use this particle for that one thing though, so I will include definiteness in it. e will be the indefinite, ke the definite, and li/lo will be near and far deixis respectively. As is the theme at this point, the one that would be assumed would be based mostly on context.

miju - n meow, v meow

aki mili Akata ke miju salo
/aki mili akata ke miju ʃalo/
cat small Agatha DEF meow big
"The small cat Agatha does a big meow"
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Omzinesý
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Joined: 27 Aug 2010 08:17
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Re: Little isolating thing

Post by Omzinesý »

mira wrote: 20 Apr 2021 03:52 Vague idea:

Mostly isolating a priori engelang with a small vocabulary (possibly expandable later on). Attempting to optimise not so much for quantity of grammar rules, but rather quantity of grammatical "things" required to construct different kinds of sentences, which I know sounds like utter nonsense but it makes sense to me at least... kind of.

Starting simple with a phonology and a romanisation (writing system may come later on):

/p t d k/ <p t d k>
/m n/ <m n>
/f ʃ h/ <f s h>
/w ɹ l j/ <w r l j>
/a e i o u/ <a e i o u>

I know from past experience that if I make it much bigger than this then I can and will forget half of the consonants.

Some phonotactics:

(C)V(C)
Onset is optional only at the start of a word.
Coda can only be one of <m n f s h>.
When a coda is present, /i/ -> /ɪ/ and /u/ -> /ʊ/.
In the coda, /ʃ/ -> /s/.
<wo wu ji> are not permitted.
Stress is always on the first syllable of a word.

And some pronouns cause why not?:

i - n 1SG, adj mine
is - n 1PL.EXCL, adj ours
iso - n 1PL.INCL, adj ours
jo - n 2SG, adj yours
jos - n 2PL, adj yours
de - n 3SG, adj theirs
des - n 3PL, adj theirs

And while I'm on a roll I'll make some words up. It is only now that I'm discovering the power of referencing people in these which is fun.

nuri - n food, v eat
sapi - n person
kuti - n friend, adj friendly/nice
awe - int hello, v greet/introduce
mama - n speech/talking, v speak/say
aki - n cat
mili - n a little, adj small/short
salo - n a lot, adj big/tall

Some grammar:

SVO because I'm feeling uninteresting.
"X is Y" kinda statements omit the verb, or "to be" would be the "default" verb if none is provided.
Tense marker comes after the verb (even if it is not explicitly provided). This is to prevent confusion where the object might also work as an adjective on the subject or an adverb on the verb. For intransitive verbs, the tense marker can be dropped and defaults to past simple for actions and present simple for states, except where context implies something else e.g. if I'm sat next to you eating a sandwich and I say i nuri then I probably don't mean "I ate".

Tense markers:

o - PRE
a - PST
ri - FUT

Append -n for progressive forms where applicable.

Adjectives come after what they are describing.

Sentences:

aki i o mili - my cat is small
des nuri - they ate

Stay tuned for when I realise I've conlanged myself into a corner or something and don't know what to do [;)] /s
When is the progressive form used?
Which word has the -n morpheme, tense marker or the verb? (Could either have with a bit different meaning?)

How do adjectives differ from nouns and verbs?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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mira
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Re: Little isolating thing

Post by mira »

Omzinesý wrote: 22 Apr 2021 00:37 When is the progressive form used?
I imagine it would most often show up alongside non-present tenses e.g. to create a distinction between aki ke miju a "the cat meowed" and aki ke miju an "the cat was meowing".
Which word has the -n morpheme, tense marker or the verb? (Could either have with a bit different meaning?)
Tense marker would have the suffix. I'm attempting to leave the non-grammatical words untouched by affixes if possible.
How do adjectives differ from nouns and verbs?
In a way, they don't. It's based on position. A word that has both a noun and adjective definition is a noun when at the start of either the subject or object and an adjective anywhere else. As all adjectives/adverbs come after what they describe, if it's put after something then it's describing it, else it just is.
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