(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]

[loglorn]

The feminine form of algum (some), alguma in Portuguese is also three syllables long. I feel like the general american has a tendency to overestimate the difficulty of producing "long" words, which i usually perceive as having normal length.

So four syllables for the shortest possible genitive plural masculine or feminine adjective is fine? Cool, I can leave my declension tables as-is then (especially considering the actual current form is three syllables, not four).

Also, the guy I know who said "no words should be more than three syllables long" is from Quebec. I think words with more than three syllables are cool, they should just have a lot of grammatical information in them...

Worst case scenario you get verbose. Take a look at Lao Kou's Géarthnuns (hope i'm spelling it right), it is incredibly verbose, but still naturalistic and well crafted.

[HoskhMatriarch]

The feminine form of algum (some), alguma in Portuguese is also three syllables long. I feel like the general american has a tendency to overestimate the difficulty of producing "long" words, which i usually perceive as having normal length.

So four syllables for the shortest possible genitive plural masculine or feminine adjective is fine? Cool, I can leave my declension tables as-is then (especially considering the actual current form is three syllables, not four).

Also, the guy I know who said "no words should be more than three syllables long" is from Quebec. I think words with more than three syllables are cool, they should just have a lot of grammatical information in them...

Worst case scenario you get verbose. Take a look at Lao Kou's Géarthnuns (hope i'm spelling it right), it is incredibly verbose, but still naturalistic and well crafted.

As long as it's naturalistic to have three-syllable (historically four) determiners, I'm fine with that. Most of the adjectives and determiners are two syllables, but that's also true for most synthetic languages like Latin and German.

[Thrice Xandvii]

If I have a rule that breaks up repeated consonants (perhaps geminates in the past, perhaps due to affixation, etc.) like this:

C₁C₁→ C₁[+voice]C₁

Do you suppose it's possible for there to be some slight deviation in the case of affricates in which something like this would happen instead:

/ʦʦ/ → /ʣʦ/ /dʦ/?

[Keenir]

If I have a rule that breaks up repeated consonants (perhaps geminates in the past, perhaps due to affixation, etc.) like this:

C₁C₁→ C₁[+voice]C₁

Do you suppose it's possible for there to be some slight deviation in the case of affricates in which something like this would happen instead:

/ʦʦ/ → /ʣʦ/ /dʦ/?

Sounds plausible to my ear...maybe the deviation happens because of / alongside the presence of a vowel or whatever helps break the repeated consonants...only instead of, say, /ʦeʦ/ or /deʦ/, it manifests simply as /dʦ/ (the vowel is ephemeral and quickly erodes away in most situations?)

[loglorn]

If I have a rule that breaks up repeated consonants (perhaps geminates in the past, perhaps due to affixation, etc.) like this:

C₁C₁→ C₁[+voice]C₁

Do you suppose it's possible for there to be some slight deviation in the case of affricates in which something like this would happen instead:

/ʦʦ/ → /ʣʦ/ /dʦ/?

You can say said vowel was a non-front /a/, which blocked palatalization and then proceeded to disappear.

[DesEsseintes]

If I have a rule that breaks up repeated consonants (perhaps geminates in the past, perhaps due to affixation, etc.) like this:

C₁C₁→ C₁[+voice]C₁

Do you suppose it's possible for there to be some slight deviation in the case of affricates in which something like this would happen instead:

/ʦʦ/ → /ʣʦ/ /dʦ/?

Perfectly natural. You don't even need an explanation. Affricate → stop before another affricate (or before C).

[Lao Kou]

Worst case scenario you get verbose. Take a look at Lao Kou's Géarthnuns (hope i'm spelling it right),

You are -- well done

it is incredibly verbose, but still naturalistic and well crafted.

Wow, thank you for that, loglorn. That made my day.

While I shudder to think of Géarthnuns as a "worst case scenario" , it is rather verbose. As a native speaker of (in particular, American) English, I have, at certain points along the way, felt the occasional (aesthetic) tug to make things tighter and more concise à l'américaine, and, well, the Géarthçins were simply having none of that. Guess they really like the sound of their own voices and/or are not big fans of American pith.

"Well crafted" is a de gustibus thing, so thank you for the kind words, and frankly, I marvel at seeing "Géarthnuns" and "naturalistic" together in the same affirmative sentence.

I feel like the general american has a tendency to overestimate the difficulty of producing "long" words, which i usually perceive as having normal length.

I think words with more than three syllables are cool, they should just have a lot of grammatical information in them...

"grammatical" (4) isn't exactly chockablock full of grammatical information (well, we know it's an adjective)

nor is "information" (4)

what about "discriminatory" (6) (again, we know it's an adj, but so?)

or "resuscitation" (5)?

I suspect what you're balking at is a simple word like "red" taking on a raftload of extra syllables if it inflects for, say, "masculine dative plural". Fair enough, but plenty of Russian attributive adjectives seem to me multisyllabic mouthfuls, and not all langs aspire to read like McDonald's paper placemat ad copy. Whatever direction you choose to take your lang in, I wouldn't necessarily lay syllable count at the door of naturalism (though spoken or conversational forms may take shortcuts from their "fuller" forms and then congeal over time -- but then again, maybe not). Let go, be free.

[Odkidstr]

I've got a question about my Passive construction that I have in Odki. I've been stuck on this for months and haven't figured out what I want to do yet.

A basic transitive construction in Odki:

poRpipa ig-Rod kom<kog>kido
fish:Acc M-1sg[Nom] eat<Pfv.Pst>
I ate a fish.

Where ø is used below, it isn't part of the sentence; rather, it is there to demonstrate a dropped argument.

A basic passive:

poRpipa ø komkogkido
fish:Acc PAS eat<Pfv.Pst>
The fish was eaten.

As can be seen, to form a passive, one drops the Nominative argument in Odki. You can't have a verb with only an Acc argument in Odki, so the meaning isn't ambiguous. The "promoted" argument is left in the Acc.

Now the problem comes when I want to add back in the original subject in the passive. I still haven't figured out how I want to do that and that's where I could use some help. I won't mark the verb for it. Below are multiple glosses with my solutions to the problem. I could use some advice on how to handle this, preferably simply. It doesn't have to be naturalistic, but it'd be great if it was.

pita ig-Rod-ko poRpi kom<kog>kido
by M-1sg-Acc fish[Nom] eat<Pfv.Pst>
A fish was eaten by me.

In the above, the deleted argument is placed after the preposition "by" and placed in the Acc (most nouns are in the Nom following prepositions in Odki, so this is odd). The promoted argument is actually promoted here to the Nom unlike in the basic passive.

pita ig-Rod poRpipa kom<kog>kido
by M-1sg fish:Acc eat<Pfv.Pst>
A fish was eaten by me.

In the above, "fish" is left in the Acc as in the passive construction. igRod follows the unmarked Nom form that other nouns take after prepositions. And there is still a lack of any Nominative argument, meaning that for this construction to be valid, it'd have to be read in the Passive voice.

[loglorn]

I've got a question about my Passive construction that I have in Odki. I've been stuck on this for months and haven't figured out what I want to do yet.

A basic transitive construction in Odki:

poRpipa ig-Rod kom<kog>kido
fish:Acc M-1sg[Nom] eat<Pfv.Pst>
I ate a fish.

Where ø is used below, it isn't part of the sentence; rather, it is there to demonstrate a dropped argument.

A basic passive:

poRpipa ø komkogkido
fish:Acc PAS eat<Pfv.Pst>
The fish was eaten.

As can be seen, to form a passive, one drops the Nominative argument in Odki. You can't have a verb with only an Acc argument in Odki, so the meaning isn't ambiguous. The "promoted" argument is left in the Acc.

Now the problem comes when I want to add back in the original subject in the passive. I still haven't figured out how I want to do that and that's where I could use some help. I won't mark the verb for it. Below are multiple glosses with my solutions to the problem. I could use some advice on how to handle this, preferably simply. It doesn't have to be naturalistic, but it'd be great if it was.

pita ig-Rod-ko poRpi kom<kog>kido
by M-1sg-Acc fish[Nom] eat<Pfv.Pst>
A fish was eaten by me.

In the above, the deleted argument is placed after the preposition "by" and placed in the Acc (most nouns are in the Nom following prepositions in Odki, so this is odd). The promoted argument is actually promoted here to the Nom unlike in the basic passive.

pita ig-Rod poRpipa kom<kog>kido
by M-1sg fish:Acc eat<Pfv.Pst>
A fish was eaten by me.

In the above, "fish" is left in the Acc as in the passive construction. igRod follows the unmarked Nom form that other nouns take after prepositions. And there is still a lack of any Nominative argument, meaning that for this construction to be valid, it'd have to be read in the Passive voice.

Does Odki have an instrumental case or something of the sort?

M-1sg-INS poRpipa ø komkogkido

Is something like that possible?

[Odkidstr]

Does Odki have an instrumental case or something of the sort?

M-1sg-INS poRpipa ø komkogkido

Is something like that possible?

No, Odki only has Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive, & Vocative cases. "pita" (by) could perhaps attach to the noun itself instead of being a preposition.

[HoskhMatriarch]

I've got a question about my Passive construction that I have in Odki. I've been stuck on this for months and haven't figured out what I want to do yet.

A basic transitive construction in Odki:

poRpipa ig-Rod kom<kog>kido
fish:Acc M-1sg[Nom] eat<Pfv.Pst>
I ate a fish.

Where ø is used below, it isn't part of the sentence; rather, it is there to demonstrate a dropped argument.

A basic passive:

poRpipa ø komkogkido
fish:Acc PAS eat<Pfv.Pst>
The fish was eaten.

As can be seen, to form a passive, one drops the Nominative argument in Odki. You can't have a verb with only an Acc argument in Odki, so the meaning isn't ambiguous. The "promoted" argument is left in the Acc.

Now the problem comes when I want to add back in the original subject in the passive. I still haven't figured out how I want to do that and that's where I could use some help. I won't mark the verb for it. Below are multiple glosses with my solutions to the problem. I could use some advice on how to handle this, preferably simply. It doesn't have to be naturalistic, but it'd be great if it was.

pita ig-Rod-ko poRpi kom<kog>kido
by M-1sg-Acc fish[Nom] eat<Pfv.Pst>
A fish was eaten by me.

In the above, the deleted argument is placed after the preposition "by" and placed in the Acc (most nouns are in the Nom following prepositions in Odki, so this is odd). The promoted argument is actually promoted here to the Nom unlike in the basic passive.

pita ig-Rod poRpipa kom<kog>kido
by M-1sg fish:Acc eat<Pfv.Pst>
A fish was eaten by me.

In the above, "fish" is left in the Acc as in the passive construction. igRod follows the unmarked Nom form that other nouns take after prepositions. And there is still a lack of any Nominative argument, meaning that for this construction to be valid, it'd have to be read in the Passive voice.

Does Odki have an instrumental case or something of the sort?

M-1sg-INS poRpipa ø komkogkido

Is something like that possible?

Why is the subject of a passive in accusative case? That's almost active-stative. I guess you could have active alignment on passives only, but I've never heard of such a thing.

But yes, you can re-add the subject with instrumental case, or ablative, or an adposition meaning "from", or a lot of other things. An adposition meaning by/next to for it is really not that common.

[Odkidstr]

Why is the subject of a passive in accusative case? That's almost active-stative. I guess you could have active alignment on passives only, but I've never heard of such a thing.

But yes, you can re-add the subject with instrumental case, or ablative, or an adposition meaning "from", or a lot of other things. An adposition meaning by/next to for it is really not that common.

Finnish does something similar with the subject remaining in the Acc from my understanding. However, when I learned about that originally, I didn't realize that they mark the verb for the passive, at least from what I could tell. Verb marking for the passive won't work for me in Odki as it would mess up how I want the language to look.

Also, as can be seen, I misunderstood the Finnish example originally, and I could still be misunderstanding it. I got it from Describing Morphosyntax by Thomas Payne. There was an example of how Finnish handled passives.

Apparently what I'm referencing is called a "non-promotional passive" and the Agent can not be expressed. It occurs only sometimes in Finnish, while Finnish also has a more protoytypical passive with the Patient promoted to the Nom & Agent to an Oblique role.

[loglorn]

You don't need to change anything as i see it. The construction you showed looks exactly like what one would expect if an indefinite subject pronoun drifted into passive marking, i.e. someone sees the cat -> the cat is seen (which is not far-fetched by any means i can gather).

My reasoning when asking about instrumentals was that reintroducing the subject as an oblique seemed the most fitting, because the language might still, in some deep syntactical level, interpret the phrase as having the two core arguments already.

Another solution is having the passive with a reintroduced subject originate from a wholly different place. Or you can just say your language doesn't allow reintroduction, i'm sure there's ANADEW to that.

[druneragarsh]

Why is the subject of a passive in accusative case? That's almost active-stative. I guess you could have active alignment on passives only, but I've never heard of such a thing.

But yes, you can re-add the subject with instrumental case, or ablative, or an adposition meaning "from", or a lot of other things. An adposition meaning by/next to for it is really not that common.

Finnish does something similar with the subject remaining in the Acc from my understanding. However, when I learned about that originally, I didn't realize that they mark the verb for the passive, at least from what I could tell. Verb marking for the passive won't work for me in Odki as it would mess up how I want the language to look.

Also, as can be seen, I misunderstood the Finnish example originally, and I could still be misunderstanding it. I got it from Describing Morphosyntax by Thomas Payne. There was an example of how Finnish handled passives.

Apparently what I'm referencing is called a "non-promotional passive" and the Agent can not be expressed. It occurs only sometimes in Finnish, while Finnish also has a more protoytypical passive with the Patient promoted to the Nom & Agent to an Oblique role.

No, Finnish very much does not have a prototypical passive of the "the house was painted by Jim" sort. There is a sort-of calqued equivalent found exclusively in (translated) legalese, but mostly the functions of such a passive are performed by OVS sentences. What would you like to know about the Finnish passive?

In Finnish, the Acc has merged with the Genitive mostly. Actually, the Finnish Accusative is a bit of a mess in general, using the Gen Sg and Nom Pl when emphasizing a perfective aspect, and the Partitive when emphasizing an imperfective aspect.

For "fourth person" sentences, it's confusing:

Spoiler:

nä-i-n sinu-t
see-IPF-1s thou-ACC

sinu-t näh-tiin
thou-ACC see-PASS.IPF

nä-i-n kirja-n
see-IPF-1s book-ACC

kirja näh-tiin
book.NOM see-PASS.IPF

nä-i-n kirja-t
see-IPF-1s book-PL

kirja-t näh-tiin
book-PL see-PASS.IPF

Not to be confused with the intransitive version of the verbs:
rikkoa - to break (something)
rikkoutua - to break, to be broken
näyttää - to show (something)
näyttäytyä - to show oneself

riko-i-n lasi-n
break-IPF-1S glass-ACC
I broke the glass

lasi rikkoutu-i
glass be.broken-IPF
the glass broke

[Odkidstr]

You don't need to change anything as i see it. The construction you showed looks exactly like what one would expect if an indefinite subject pronoun drifted into passive marking, i.e. someone sees the cat -> the cat is seen (which is not far-fetched by any means i can gather).

My reasoning when asking about instrumentals was that reintroducing the subject as an oblique seemed the most fitting, because the language might still, in some deep syntactical level, interpret the phrase as having the two core arguments already.

Another solution is having the passive with a reintroduced subject originate from a wholly different place. Or you can just say your language doesn't allow reintroduction, i'm sure there's ANADEW to that.

So are you talking about my first or second example? The first was placing the reintroduced subject after the preposition "by" and in the Acc, with the Patient being promoted to Nom. Whereas the second example was the reverse cases on the nouns (Nom on the 1sg & Acc on Fish).

No, Finnish very much does not have a prototypical passive of the "the house was painted by Jim" sort. There is a sort-of calqued equivalent found exclusively in (translated) legalese, but mostly the functions of such a passive are performed by OVS sentences. What would you like to know about the Finnish passive?

In Finnish, the Acc has merged with the Genitive mostly. Actually, the Finnish Accusative is a bit of a mess in general, using the Gen Sg and Nom Pl when emphasizing a perfective aspect, and the Partitive when emphasizing an imperfective aspect.

I'm just quoting from Describing Morphosyntax, which is only a paragraph or two long on it.

[HoskhMatriarch]

OK, how can I make the nominative and accusative masculine adjective endings make sense? I'm thinking I should just change the nominative masculine ending to -e by analogy with all the nouns that have their accusative in -i and nominative in -e, but the thing is, half the time (maybe more than half) it isn't actually merged with the accusative. Maybe it could just change to -e in the situations where it is merged with the accusative? That probably makes sense, and I'm probably doing that, unless there's some reason it's unlikely (none of the other adjectives are split like that, which might make it unlikely). For example, you would have:

Ro:
Rö - nominative
Röi - accusative

But

Zjönn:
Zjönne - nominative
Zjönni - accusative

Those derive from the forms roji, rojiji, zjonniji, zjonnijiji. The last one might actually be subject to haplology before anything could affect it. I just want things to be naturalistic. This is the last part of the language I have to get done to make it work. So, if I didn't use any masculine nouns, I could write stuff.

[Shemtov]

Can a language have a non-masculine/feminine gender system, but have masculine and feminine pronouns, outside of that other system? Like, for example, have animate/inanimate genders on non-pronouns, but distinguish masculine,feminine and inanimate on pronouns?
Also, do any natlangs have the case marker fused with the definite marker?

[loglorn]

Can a language have a non-masculine/feminine gender system, but have masculine and feminine pronouns, outside of that other system? Like, for example, have animate/inanimate genders on non-pronouns, but distinguish masculine,feminine and inanimate on pronouns?

Yes.

You don't need to change anything as i see it. The construction you showed looks exactly like what one would expect if an indefinite subject pronoun drifted into passive marking, i.e. someone sees the cat -> the cat is seen (which is not far-fetched by any means i can gather).

My reasoning when asking about instrumentals was that reintroducing the subject as an oblique seemed the most fitting, because the language might still, in some deep syntactical level, interpret the phrase as having the two core arguments already.

Another solution is having the passive with a reintroduced subject originate from a wholly different place. Or you can just say your language doesn't allow reintroduction, i'm sure there's ANADEW to that.

So are you talking about my first or second example? The first was placing the reintroduced subject after the preposition "by" and in the Acc, with the Patient being promoted to Nom. Whereas the second example was the reverse cases on the nouns (Nom on the 1sg & Acc on Fish).

Do by 1sg-NOM fish-ACC PAS VERB. Is what makes more sense to me. Maybe using 'with' would also work, depending on language specific 'with' semantics.

[Odkidstr]

Do by 1sg-NOM fish-ACC PAS VERB. Is what makes more sense to me. Maybe using 'with' would also work, depending on language specific 'with' semantics.

Okay, awesome, thanks. That's how I had originally devised it in my grammar, but the other way was floating around in my mind too. Now I've lost my excuse for not finishing the grammar.

No more procrastination!

Also, do any natlangs have the case marker fused with the definite marker?

Doesn't German do that? Sounds like a cool thing to do anyways.

[HoskhMatriarch]

Do by 1sg-NOM fish-ACC PAS VERB. Is what makes more sense to me. Maybe using 'with' would also work, depending on language specific 'with' semantics.

Okay, awesome, thanks. That's how I had originally devised it in my grammar, but the other way was floating around in my mind too. Now I've lost my excuse for not finishing the grammar.

No more procrastination!

Also, do any natlangs have the case marker fused with the definite marker?

Doesn't German do that? Sounds like a cool thing to do anyways.

Icelandic

OK, how can I make the nominative and accusative masculine adjective endings make sense? I'm thinking I should just change the nominative masculine ending to -e by analogy with all the nouns that have their accusative in -i and nominative in -e, but the thing is, half the time (maybe more than half) it isn't actually merged with the accusative. Maybe it could just change to -e in the situations where it is merged with the accusative? That probably makes sense, and I'm probably doing that, unless there's some reason it's unlikely (none of the other adjectives are split like that, which might make it unlikely). For example, you would have:

Ro:
Rö - nominative
Röi - accusative

But

Zjönn:
Zjönne - nominative
Zjönni - accusative

Those derive from the forms roji, rojiji, zjonniji, zjonnijiji. The last one might actually be subject to haplology before anything could affect it. I just want things to be naturalistic. This is the last part of the language I have to get done to make it work. So, if I didn't use any masculine nouns, I could write stuff.

I'm still wondering about this...