Ánni

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VaptuantaDoi
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Ánni

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Ánni
This is a conlang that was originally intended to be an IE branch, but ended up being too weird so now it's just a generic a priori click language with floating tones and subtractive morphology (although looking back on it, the PIE to proto-Ánni changes look pretty cool...) This thread may end up being a kind of scratchpad for any random langs I'm working on if I feel like it.

Proto-Ánni
Proto-Ánni had 16 consonants; 8 qualities all with a slender/broad distinction (palatalised vs. velar)

/pʲ pˠ tʲ tˠ kʲ k ʔʲ ʔˠ/ <pi p ti t ci c xi x>
/mʲ mˠ nʲ nˠ ŋʲ ŋ/ <mi m ni n gi g>
/hʲ hˠ/ <hi h>
Earlier */s/ was lost to /tˠ/, which explains what /tˠ/ is doing everywhere.


I guess you could also do it like this
/p t k ʔ/ <p t c x>
/m n ŋ h/ <m n g h>
always +/ˠ/ <> or +/ʲ/ <i>
Which is probably more accurate for late proto Ánni (maybe even with +/ɣ j/ instead)

And five vowels

/i u e o a/ <y u e o a>

All of which carried tone (mostly); one of H, L or HL.

/a˥ a˩ a˥˨/ <á a à>

Syllable structure is on the surface CV(C); however, it's better to analyse this as being C(V)(C). Any sequences of CC or C# gained an epenthetic toneless vowel; after broad consonants /e/ (probably from earlier *[ɤ]) and slender /i/. These are considered the "zero-grade" vowels when they occur in a root (basically just ablaut); otherwise they're just epenthetic (e.g. arising from the infix /-tˠ-/).

Modern Ánni
I won't show any of the sound changes yet, but here's a synchronic look at the modern language.

Ánni has 16 consonants; 8 of these are pulmonic, 2 are ejective and 6 are clicks.

/c k/ <č k>
/ʰc ʰk/ <hč hk>
/t͡s’ k’/ <c' k'>
/ʘʷ ʗ ʗʷ/ <pq tq tqw>
/ŋ͡ʘʷ ŋ͡ʗ ŋ͡ʗʷ/ <mq nq nqw>
/n ɲ ŋ/ <n ň ŋ>
/s/ <s>

I'm using /ʗ/ to represent an alveolar click instead of standard IPA /!/ because I think it looks better. The orthography is kind of quasi-Americanist; it's just a stand-in which may well be replaced with a more conservative one). In the central dialect, /k ʰk k’ ŋ/ are always rounded [kʷ ʰkʷ kʷ’ ŋʷ]; in the southern dialect, /t͡s’ n/ are rounded [t͡sʷ’ nʷ] and /c k/ are voiced [ɟ ɡ]. The clicks are all relatively quiet.

There are six vowels

/i u e ə o a/ <i u e ə o a>

With nine surface tones in stressed syllables and six in unstressed syllables. Underlyingly, Ánni can be analysed with 4 tones; H L HL Ø <á à ạ a>. One of these occurs on any unstressed vowel, and either one of H L HL, or two of H L HL Ø (only some combinations) on a stressed vowel. These double tones may be:
- H+Ø L+Ø HL+Ø, realised as long versions of H L HL (i.e. [aː˥ aː˩ aː˥˨])
- L+H, realised as [a˩˦], which may be either long or short depending on speaker (generally the short form is considered more casual)
- L+HL HL+H, realised as [aː˨˥˧ aː˦˩˧]
The zero (unmarked) tone only occurs on its own in unstressed syllables. In this position it is realised as a mid tone [a˧] if the adjacent vowel closest to the stressed vowel is a contour tone (HL, HL+Ø, L+H, L+HL, HL+H), as [a˧] if it's also unmarked for tone, as [a˨] if it's H(+Ø) and [a˦] if it's L(+Ø).
Stress is generally root-initial, or occasionally on the second vowel of the root.

Nouns
This is by no means finalised, but here's some ideas I had for noun declension. It combines a bit of subtraction, a bit of tone change, a bit of umlaut and a bit of mutation (one of these days I'll make a language that isn't this complicated for a change)

The plural is formed in one of four ways depending on the shape of the verb.

1. For nouns with a plural of the form CVC(V), the singular is formed by the final consonant being deleted and replaced with a Ø-tone being added to the vowel (the vowel will always have one of H L HL as its tone, so this just lengthens the vowel).

/ŋ͡ʗáa ŋ͡ʗáʰk/ <nqáa nqáhk> [ŋ͡ʗaː˥ ŋ͡ʗaʰk˥]
/nêe nêʘʷe/ <nêe nêpqe> [neː˥˨ ne˥˨ʘʷe˧]

When the singular vowel is /ə/, and sometimes when it's /e/, the plural will have /o u/ instead respectively.

/ʗə̀ə ʗòʘʷi/ <tqə̀ə tqòpqi> [ʗəː˩ ʗo˩ʘʷi˦]
/t͡s’ée t͡s’úʰc/ <c'ée c'úhč> [t͡s’e˥ː t͡s’uʰc˥]

2. For nouns with a singular of the form CV, the plural is with the prefix /ce/ (unmarked tone). This also causes a mutation of the root consonant sometimes.

Code: Select all

Sing  Plur
hč    hk
c'    k'
tq    k
tqw   pq
nq    ŋ
nqw   mq
s     č
n     ň
*Any other singular consonants stay the same
/ná cəɲá/ <ná čəňá> [na˥ cə˨na˥]
/ʗʷò cəʘʷò/ <tqwò čəpqò> [ʗʷo˩ cə˦ʘʷo˩]

3. For nouns with a singular CVCVː, both rules apply; the plural is marked with the prefix čə- and restoring the final consonant (sometimes with a toneless vowel too). The same mutation and umlaut rules apply.

/ŋ͡ʗʷáŋèe cəŋ͡ʘʷáŋùt͡s’/ <nqwáŋèe čəmqáŋùc'> [ŋ͡ʗʷa˥ŋeː˩ cə˨ŋ͡ʘʷa˥ŋut͡s’˩]

4. Borrowed nouns take the prefix /ŋ͡ʗʷə–/.

/ŋ͡ʘʷáas ŋ͡ʗʷəŋ͡ʘʷáas/ <mqáas nqwəmwáas> "apple(s)" [ŋ͡ʘʷas˥ː ŋ͡ʗʷə˨ŋ͡ʘʷas˥ː]
/ʗoŋáce ŋ͡ʗʷəʗoŋáce/ <tqoŋáče nqwətqoŋáče> "tomato(es)" [ʗo˨ŋa˥ce˨ ŋ͡ʗʷə˧ʗo˨ŋa˥ce˨]
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DesEsseintes
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Re: Ánni

Post by DesEsseintes »

I really like your stuff. Much reduction is cool beans. [B)]

I especially like the click romanisation strategy Cq, as I use a similar strategy (cC) in my conlang Ch’eweyõw̌e.

Looking forward to more.
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Re: Ánni

Post by Creyeditor »

That's some great morphophonology [:)]
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DV82LECM
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Re: Ánni

Post by DV82LECM »

This is genuinely exceptional and quite adventurous in regards to its phonology. That is a love of mine, oddly enough, and it makes me smile to see your wonderful concepts. The grammar was a slight bit hard to follow, but I love this. Ultimately, I want to know what made you come to this amount of divergence from expectation, you know, in regards to your phonology.
𖥑𖧨𖣫𖦺𖣦𖢋𖤼𖥃𖣔𖣋𖢅𖡹𖡨𖡶𖡦𖡧𖡚𖠨
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Ánni

Post by eldin raigmore »

I agree with the first three responders!
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VaptuantaDoi
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Re: Ánni

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Thanks everyone for the kind words!
DV82LECM wrote: 20 Sep 2021 16:16 This is genuinely exceptional and quite adventurous in regards to its phonology. That is a love of mine, oddly enough, and it makes me smile to see your wonderful concepts. The grammar was a slight bit hard to follow, but I love this. Ultimately, I want to know what made you come to this amount of divergence from expectation, you know, in regards to your phonology.
[:$] If there's anything specific you'd like me to clarify regarding the grammar, feel free to ask!

So the inspiration for this phonology was from this phonology posted by Frislander in the romanisation game. Or at least, the /t̪ˠ~c n̪ˠ~ɲ/ variation, which really caught my eye (it was only a very subtle inspiration). That got me thinking about what else a language with a two-way distinction of secondary articulation could do diachronically. So I started off with a very simple consonant inventory-

/pʲ pˠ tʲ tˠ kʲ k ʔʲ ʔˠ/
/mʲ mˠ nʲ nˠ ŋʲ ŋ/
/hʲ hˠ/

Then I fortitioned all the secondary articulations to /c k/ following oral consonants and /ɲ ŋ/ following nasals.

/pc pk tc tk kc k ʔc ʔk/
/mɲ mŋ nɲ nŋ ŋɲ ŋ/
/hc hk/

This is the part of the process I'm the least happy about, cause it's completely unmotivated and leaves a very unstable consonant inventory. Maybe I should add in a plain series to balance things out (probably wouldn't affect the final phonology that much anyway). Ignoring all that, the notable shifts following this were:
  • /hc hk/ → /ʰc ʰk/, with no further changes
  • /c/ → /ç/ → /s/, leaving /ps ts ks ʔs/. /ts/ → /s/ occurred soon after
  • /tk nŋ/ → /c ɲ/
  • all remaining clusters become coarticulated; /ʔs ʔk/ then immediately became /s’ k’/ → /t͡s’ k’/
  • all clusters with a velar element became clicks; /pk kc mŋ ŋɲ/ → /ʘ ʗ ŋ͡ʘ ŋ͡ʗ/
  • clusters with a labial element shifted it to a labiovelar, then the rounded shifted to the other consonant, then they became clicks /ps mɲ/ → /kʷs ŋʷɲ/ → /ksʷ ŋnʷ/ → /ʗʷ ŋ͡ʗʷ/
  • /ɲ/ → /n/ in clusters only; /nɲ/ → /nn/ then → /n/
Nothing much interesting happened with the vowel qualities. The complex tones arise from the shift of two syllables with two different tones in Old Ánni to one (or 2) syllables with a complex tone, i.e.

CVtone1CVtone2 → CVCtone1+2



And, as per Janko's request, here are the numbers 1-10 (can you tell where I got them from?)

Code: Select all

    Orthog.  Phonemic  Phonetic
1.  hčọn     /ʰcôɲ/    [ʰcoɲ˥˨]
2.  sèéhč    /sèéʰc/   [seːʰc˩˦]
3.  čẹč      /cêc/     [ɟ̥eɟ̥˥˨]
4.  pqạáhk   /ʘʷâáʰk/  [ʘʷaːʰk˦˩˧]
5.  mqé      /ŋ͡ʘʷé/    [ŋ͡ʘʷe˥]
6.  čə̣tqi    /cə̂ʗi/    [ɟ̥ə˥˨ʗi˧]
7.  čə̣ə́n     /cə̂ə́n/    [ɟ̥əːn˦˩˧]
8.  hčòọč    /ʰcòôc/   [ʰcoːɟ̥˨˥˧]
9.  nék'     /nék’/    [nek’˥]
10. nẹek     /nêek/    [neːɡ̊˥˨]
DV82LECM
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Re: Ánni

Post by DV82LECM »

Truth be told, I greatly appreciate the co-articulatory nature of that phase of your language's history. It is like a slightly more aggressive version of Yele Dnye. I presume you insist that such a phase was unstable, and changed rather quickly. Basically, be proud of what you made, and, always remember, naturalism is not prescriptive. If you can create something that makes sense by the descriptive "rules" (linguist-perceived global attestations), then almost anything is fine. Your project is awesome. It looks rather alien.

As for your grammar, there was nothing wrong with it. I just didn't understand some of your notation.
𖥑𖧨𖣫𖦺𖣦𖢋𖤼𖥃𖣔𖣋𖢅𖡹𖡨𖡶𖡦𖡧𖡚𖠨
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All4Ɇn
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Re: Ánni

Post by All4Ɇn »

VaptuantaDoi wrote: 21 Sep 2021 10:21And, as per Janko's request, here are the numbers 1-10 (can you tell where I got them from?)
Looks like directly from English [:D]

Hope to see more with this project
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VaptuantaDoi
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Re: Ánni

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

All4Ɇn wrote: 23 Sep 2021 21:06
VaptuantaDoi wrote: 21 Sep 2021 10:21And, as per Janko's request, here are the numbers 1-10 (can you tell where I got them from?)
Looks like directly from English [:D]
Not quite... it's more obvious with proto Ánni:

hiònit tiuhió tèt pètióh piém tòci tòniá hiotò niéx niécu
/hʲônʲtˠ tʲùhʲó tˠêtˠ pˠêtʲóhˠ pʲémˠ tˠôkʲ tˠônʲá hʲòtˠô nʲéʔˠ nʲékù/
Hope to see more with this project
Me too [xD]
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All4Ɇn
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Re: Ánni

Post by All4Ɇn »

VaptuantaDoi wrote: 24 Sep 2021 09:07 hiònit tiuhió tèt pètióh piém tòci tòniá hiotò niéx niécu
/hʲônʲtˠ tʲùhʲó tˠêtˠ pˠêtʲóhˠ pʲémˠ tˠôkʲ tˠônʲá hʲòtˠô nʲéʔˠ nʲékù/
Hmm it definitely looks Indo-European but I'm not sure if directly from PIE or elsewhere
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Re: Ánni

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Verbs

Well, I promised floating tones so I’d better give them to you. Most of this stuff is inspired by Iau because Iau is cool. Floating tones refer to how verbs roots, unlike other parts of speech, have no inherrent tones of their own, and instead conjugate for aspect and evidentiality by predictably taking tone. Additionally verbs have two productive affixes, a causative and an intransitive marker. Person, number, tense etc. are not marked on verbs.
Verbal roots are generally monosyllabic or bisyllabic, rarely trisyllabic. They always have one stressed syllable to which the floating tone is assigned, and any additional syllables are given Ø tone (see the stuff on tone from the first post). Here's three example verb roots
hči /ˈʰci/ "walk"
ňənqwa /ˈɲəŋ͡ʗʷa/ "give birth"
mquk'usoň /ŋ͡ʘʷuˈk’usoɲ/ "shake, rattle sth."
Aspect

Ánni has a rich variety of aspects; proto Ánni marked these with particles, but eventually these were completely reduced and their tone floated over to the stressed syllable. There are three "primary" aspects; these are punctual, continuous and frequentive, marked respectively with H, HL and L tones. Additionally there are three secondary aspects; telic and atelic shown with Ø and H tones in the second slot of the tone sequence. Verbs may be unmarked for telicity in which case only one "slot" of the two possible tones of the stressed vowel is filled. The sequence *HH, which would represent punctual atelic, does not exist phonologically or morphologically – it's not an allowed tone sequence, and grammatically it's not recognised as a valid combination. There are thus eight aspectual combinations which can occur, like this:

Code: Select all

  Aspect:       Tone:        Usage:

  punct.        H    > 5     short action, generally sudden
  cont.         HL   > 52    long action
  freq.         L    > 1     repeated action, action divided into distinct bits
  punct. tel.   H.Ø  > ː5    short action with a completed goal
  cont. tel.    HL.Ø > ː52   long action with a completed goal
  freq. tel.    L.Ø  > ː1    action repeated until completed, action completely intermittently until completion
  cont. atel.   HL.H > ː413  ongoing action
  freq. atel.   L.H  > ː14   habitual
Marked atelicity also carries a sense of "still ...", suggesting that it is unexpected that the action hasn't been completed. Often the vowels are lengthened and the space between the tones is heightened to emphasise the aspect. Volume-based stress is also more prominent in verbs than in nouns.

Here's an aspectually fully conjugated verb – although I've mostly used past tense for the translations, they could equally be interpreted as present/future/whatever based on context.
hčí – [ʰci˥] "walked suddenly", "suddenly gets up and walks", "will suddenly walk" etc.
hčị – [ʰci˥˨] "walked for a while"
hčì – [ʰci˩] "paced up and down"
hčíi – [ʰciː˥] "walked a short distance to here/there"
hčịi – [ʰciː˥˨] "hiked (to a place)"
hčìi – [ʰciː˩] "walked around (until they found their destination)"
hčịí – [ʰciː˦˩˧] "has still been walking around"
hčìí – [ʰciː˩˦] "still walks around"
Spoiler:
Here's the other two
ñə́nqwa – [ɲə˥ŋ͡ʗʷa˨] "suddenly gave birth"
ñə̣nqwa – [ɲə˥˨ŋ͡ʗʷa˧] "give birth slowly"
ñə̀nqwa – [ɲə˩ŋ͡ʗʷa˦] "had contractions, went into labour"
ñə́ənqwa – [ɲəː˥ŋ͡ʗʷa˨] "gave birth easily"
ñə̣ənqwa – [ɲəː˥˨ŋ͡ʗʷa˧] "gave birth difficultly"
ñə̀ənqwa – [ɲəː˩ŋ͡ʗʷa˦] "was pushing then gave birth"
ñə̣ə́nqwa – [ɲəː˦˩˧ŋ͡ʗʷa˧] "has been giving birth", "is still giving birth"
ñə̀ə́nqwa – [ɲəː˩˦ŋ͡ʗʷa˧] "still gives birth"

mquk'úsoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷu˨k’u˥soɲ˨] "shook it once"
mquk'ụsoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷu˧k’u˥˨soɲ˧] "shook it for a while"
mquk'ùsoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷuk’u˩soɲ˦] "rattled it intermittently"
mquk'úusoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷu˨k’uː˥soɲ˨] "shook it and it made a noise"
mquk'ụusoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷu˧k’uː˥˨soɲ˧] "shook it until it made a noise"
mquk'ùusoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷuk’uː˩soɲ˦] "rattled it until it made a noise"
mquk'ụúsoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷu˧k’uː˦˩˧soɲ˧] "is still shaking it"
mquk'ùúsoň – [ŋ͡ʘʷu˧k’uː˩˦soɲ˧] "is still rattling it"
Productive affixes

There are only two productive prefixes for Ánni verbs, both of which are derivational rather than morphological. There is a causative prefix če- and an reflexive prefix tqò- (not always really a reflexive, more a detransitive marker which often results in reflexive connotations). če- is toneless and follows the assimilation rules outlined before, while tqò- has a low tone. They can be combined in either order.
čehči
CAUS-walk
"Push (a person)"

tqòhči
INTRANS-shake
"Shiver"

četqòhči
CAUS-INTRANS-shake
"Cause to shiver"

tqòčeŋunqwe
INTRANS-CAUS-die
"Bring about your own death"
Pronouns

Thought I might chuck the pronouns in here cause why not. There are three personal pronominal roots:
1sg. tqwọó [ʗʷoː˦˩˧]
2sg. nûu [nuː˥˨]
3sg. sə̀ [sə˩]
These form "regular" plurals like nouns:
1pl. čepqọó [ce˧.ˈʘʷo˦˩˧]
2pl. nêhk [neʰk˥˨]
3pl. čečə̀ [ce˦.ˈcə˩]
Here's a lovely sample sentence to finish off with:
sə̀ tqòčeŋùunqwe
[sə˩ ʗo˩.ce˦.ŋuː˩.ŋ͡ʗʷe˦]
sə̀ tqò-če-ŋu<L+Ø>nqwe
3SG REFL-CAUS-die<FREQ.TEL>
"He was bringing about his own death until he eventually died."

All4Ɇn wrote: 24 Sep 2021 19:41
VaptuantaDoi wrote: 24 Sep 2021 09:07 hiònit tiuhió tèt pètióh piém tòci tòniá hiotò niéx niécu
/hʲônʲtˠ tʲùhʲó tˠêtˠ pˠêtʲóhˠ pʲémˠ tˠôkʲ tˠônʲá hʲòtˠô nʲéʔˠ nʲékù/
Hmm it definitely looks Indo-European but I'm not sure if directly from PIE or elsewhere
They're from (my guess at) pre-PIE; currently I'm planning on Ánni being spoken in Africa which appears to be remotely connected to IE languages.



One possible endonym for this language would be Čepqọó-Mqìíhko "We speak (it)" [ce˧.ʘʷo˦˩˧ ŋ͡ʘʷiː˩˦.ʰko˧], or Čepqọó-Tqòmqìíhko "We speak amongst ourselves" [ce˧.ʘʷo˦˩˧ ʗo˩.ŋ͡ʘʷiː˩˦.ʰko˧]. Ánni is really just a placeholder name.
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Omzinesý
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Re: Ánni

Post by Omzinesý »

VaptuantaDoi wrote: 01 Oct 2021 03:03 [Iau is cool.

Wow, lau is cool.

I think the intansitivizing affix is typologically called the anticausative.

Will you have a more thorough description of the semantics of the aspects? I find those complex aspect systems very interesting but hard.

There is apparently no tense marking. How you deal with something happening before something of one planning to do something in the future?


tqòčeŋunqwe
INTRANS-CAUS-die
"Bring about your own death"

Is this basically a reflexive?
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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VaptuantaDoi
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Re: Ánni

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

Omzinesý wrote: 01 Oct 2021 09:52 Wow, lau is cool.
It sure is – although it's Iau with an I, not lau with an l [:P]
I think the intansitivizing affix is typologically called the anticausative.
That makes sense, thanks!
Will you have a more thorough description of the semantics of the aspects? I find those complex aspect systems very interesting but hard.
I'll definitely try to, but I'm no expert on aspects. I'll need to read up on it first.
There is apparently no tense marking. How you deal with something happening before something of one planning to do something in the future?
Although there's no morphological marking, you could definitely specify tense through adverbs. I'm not sure what you mean by "something happening before something of one planning to do something in the future", could you give me an example of that?
Is this basically a reflexive?
Semantically, yes. Morphologically, not really. The idea is that it would really mean "bring about death" (in general, rather than to a specific person), and the fact that it's the subject's own death is just implied. This kind of semantic shift would be slightly different for different types of verb; if I build up enough momentum I might make a post about the various implications tqò- can have.
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Re: Ánni

Post by teotlxixtli »

Every once in a while I encounter a conlang that shatters my notions of what a conlang can be. This is one such example.

I have yet to learn how to properly pronounce tones (being a monolingual American), so the whole system here and in Iau is a little mind blowing, but I love the clicks here and I like how compact words can be. When a language can express entire English phrases in a single word I just get giddy.
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Omzinesý
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Re: Ánni

Post by Omzinesý »

VaptuantaDoi wrote: 01 Oct 2021 15:07
Omzinesý wrote: 01 Oct 2021 09:52 There is apparently no tense marking. How you deal with something happening before something of one planning to do something in the future?
Although there's no morphological marking, you could definitely specify tense through adverbs. I'm not sure what you mean by "something happening before something of one planning to do something in the future", could you give me an example of that?
My langs, ATM, usually have no absolute tense marking (present, past, future) but relative tense marking (anterior/perfect/retrospectative, posterior/prospective). But, of course, many languages with tenses either do not have a tense to say what you had done before the main story.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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