Knox Scratchpad

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Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

This is a placeholder text for my primary conlang. As usual I work on a primary for couple years before a series of sketches til the next primary one. Here's hoping to me keeping the primary this round. More for developments than to document existing data.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Keeping in line with the preference for headmarking, elevation is being moved onto verbs as opposed to demonstratives. I figure 2 slots+, prefixal, between initial pronominal prefixes and the verb.
The directional slot is to be filled by ɭa- & wa-, hither and thither. Compare full verbs -ʈu- and -pu-. Across is mu-, not even with an implied source.
Elevation is to be the categories of above, same level and below. The actual morphemes are all to be added.
I dunno, if direction or elevation should come first, or if they should be (semi-)fusional. I think there was somehow a third category I can't remember and am concerned with trying to not just rip off Nimboran.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 14 Mar 2023 07:13, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Just codifying phonological bits.

/p t̪ t ʈ c k/
/m n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ/
/r ɻ/
/l̪ l ɭ ʎ/
/w j/

/i u/
/a/

Syllable structure is CV(C).
When possible ŋ is the default epenthetic consonant to fulfill the initial C requirement and i is the default epenthetic vowel.
No length contrasts, consonants or vowels. Any doubling simply shortens.
List of permitted clusters tomorrow.

A lil boring, but I didn't want a trade off of places of articulation vs more manners/whatever for things like flaps.

Probable romanization on a good keyboard or handwritten
<p ṯ t ṭ t̰ k>
<m ṉ n ṇ n̰ ŋ>
<r ṛ>
<ḻ l ḷ l̰>

<i u>
<a>
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 26 Feb 2024 05:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

More syllable structure:
Any single consonant can fill an onset not in a cluster, mutatis mutandis a coda.

Valid consonant clusters are limited to
*a homoganic nasal and plosive, in either order tho plosive-nasal only occurs across morpheme boundaries
*a bilabial stop and a velar stop, matching in nasality
*a rhotic or apical lateral followed by a bilabial or velar stop
*anything generated by reduplication

Nonvalid clusters are repaired by progressive assimilation:
*a coronal plosive after a bilabial plosive turns velar
*any plosive after a coronal or velar gets deleted
*a rhotic or lateral fortifies to its corresponding plosive after a plosive
*mutatis mutandis for nasals
*a rhotic or lateral delete after a rhotic or lateral
*everything deletes after a glide

There's really no situations where vowel clusters could arise (yet), so I guess epenthetic ŋ wins a use.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Znex »

Ooh very Pama-Nyungan vibes so far! I can't wait to see what Knox words and grammar look like [:D]
:eng: : [tick] | :grc: : [:|] | :chn: :isr: :wls: : [:S] | :deu: :ell: :rus: : [:x]
Conlangs: Hawntow, Yorkish, misc.
she/her
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

There's good inspiration in Non-Pama-Nyungan, yes, but what's slipped in beyond broad typological resemblances has yet to show.
A good sampling of words is in the last Lexember, albeit a few may already be outdated.
Grammar is heavily head-marking and ever more so (elevation on demonstratives heading to the verb as the latest example). I'm currently in a big revamp, redoing lotsa morphemes in form and shape and meaning. The categories and positions of them will probably stay put.

I'm feeling like innovating decent cardinal directions next.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Revision:
-The restraint against morphemes not having onsets only applies word-initially
-identical vowels can cluster
-consonants which would delete from clusters simply become identical
-allow noncoronal stops to cluster freely; coronals can cluster with assimilation

I should finda new place for the old stuff.

The big idea is inflected adpositions. I figure it's better since I no longer need bother with case agreement on every floating member of a noun phrase and it's an extra spot for gender to do it's job. So possessor agreement it is.
Comitative-Temporal -kami is one case making the leap.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 13 Mar 2023 21:08, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Ignoring old syllable shapes for now

Nouns:
Each one bears a gender prefix and if appropriate a possessor prefix.
Template CL-(POSS-)root

ma-yapa M-man
ɻa-paytu ANIM-dog
ma-yapa ɻa-mata-paytu the dude's dog

Compounds of nouns and nouns are left-branching, taking only the head's gender prefix.

yu-paytu-ral̪u TOOL-dog-house "dog house"

Compounds of nouns and adjectives seem right-branching, but think of it as zero-derivation of a noun qualifying an adjective (the resulting compounds acting as adjectives AND/OR nouns)

-piɻak adj. good
-yawunpiɻak adj. pretty ("face-good")
~ ma-yawunpiɻak n. handsome man
~ n̪a-yawunpiɻak n. beautiful babe

Coincidentally this is the only occurrence of simply changing the gender affix to get a different gendered noun of the same root

Derivational affixes deriving different nouns from nouns all involve suffixes, be it N-? "pair of nouns", N-? "other noun", N-maw "kin dyad", etc. These never change gender.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 28 Jan 2024 07:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Dem noun classes:

Pervasive marking of noun classes on many targets is key, cuz agreement in general is totes Knox Adjacent. This allows the scrambling for topics and focus.
Nouns, adjectives, determiners, pronouns, verb agreement and adposition marking all take prefixing. Thus far the marking is rather regular with tweaks to come.
Class marking is limited to 3rd persons. Taking the singulars here, 9 classes. (Number ain't germane to the system, at least as agreement goes.)

ma- masculine
n̪a- feminine
ɻa- animal
yi- arboreal (was yiri- for so long. Hail monosyllabization of -yirik ("tree")
ti- body parts, food
wa- water, liquids
pa- places
yu- tools
wi- abstract, miscellaneous

A classifier l̪iri for wheeled vehicles may occur as a proclitic to "tool" nominals. May also be a prounoun by itself or a proclitic to a "tool" pronoun. Repetition in a clause is neither obligatory or usual. American car culture is a cancer, but acknowledged.

I just couldn't make the shape-based system work for inanimates, sorry.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 28 Jan 2024 07:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

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Interrogatives

Polar questions are formed by adding enclitic ʈa to the end of a non-imperative clause. The particle attaches to the last constituent exclusively.

To answer, a two-term system is used.
Positive answers micam
Negative answers yal̪aka
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

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Miratives and exclamatives to be expressed by the same particle. tuŋu perhaps. "Morphosyntax" isn't giving me much to go on how to tie this into thetic constructions in general.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 28 Jan 2024 07:29, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

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Alright. Buffed up color terms and derivatives:

I believe it qualifies for an 8-term system: BLACK, WHITE, RED, GREEN, YELLOW, BLUE, GREY, BROWN. Also a brightness overlap built into a few terms.

Purely brightness terms:
-yakayut̪ani adj. dark; dim, ("night-much")
see also -ɻiŋcayu adj. darkened from wetness (like a spot clothing that got damp ("water-dark")
-yawikcut̪ani adj. bright ("light-much)

-cayu adj. black (dull)
-wuturu adj. black (shiny)
-caki adj. white (dull)
-kinkat adj. white (shiny)
-makaʈa adj. red; pink; orange
-t̪at̪ar adj. green
-puwawal̪ adj. iridescent green
-yili adj. yellow
-(ŋ)an̪t̪ap adj. yellow-green
a rare root that's vowel-initial and hence ŋ as epenthetic where appropriate. Also the only root that straddles two otherwise distinct colors
-tiyuk adj. grey
-pawpawa adj. blue; purple; violet; indigo
root probable to change
-(ŋ)aŋkata adj. brown

-(ŋ)amparkalar adj. blond-haired

Derivatives like
ɻa-wuturuwuturu n. American crow (corvus brachyrhynchus) ("shiny.black-shiny.black")
-mularkiwuturu adj. charred black by lightning; high in elevation ("lightning-black")
-kampalcaki adj. bleached by the sun ("sun-white")
-kampalmakaʈa adj. sunburned ("sun-red")
ɻa-kumumakaʈa n.robin (turdus migratorius) ("belly-red")
ɻa-makaʈamakaʈa n. northern cardinal (cardinalis cardinalis) ("red-red")
ɻa-ʈaɳupawpawa n. eastern bluebird (sialia sialis) ("back-blue")
-cikaŋkata adj. brown-eyed (as example of lack of epenthesis ("eye-brown")
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 26 Feb 2024 01:24, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

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Verbal number marking for nonapplicatives

There's three relevant prefix slots for core argument marking: An outermost ergative person/gender marker (for transitive verbs), an absolutive person/gender marker and lastly a marker encoding number of both ergative and absolutive.

Code: Select all

Intransitive
ABS Sg -∅-
ABS Du -nan-
AbS PL -ni-

Transitive
       Erg Sg Erg Du Erg Pl
ABS Sg -ŋ-    -rurku- -m-
ABS Du -ŋan-  -ca-    -l̪an-
ABS Pl -ŋi-   -ya-    -t-
EG.
kuŋ-[ʈ]a-t-nari-ca
1.Erg-3ANIM.ABS-Erg>ABS.PL-hit-PST
We hit them critters.

I assume the number marker is the result of a badly eroded agreement system repaired with new person markers in front, egative singulars I imagine are the result of simplification of *ŋ-nV clusters, and -l̪an is a remodeled *-lun after the independent numeral -mal̪an.

Really hope the table shows up for you as well as me.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 26 Jun 2023 08:06, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

I like this language. Especially the colour terms and number-only agreement.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Thanks.

So, personal pronouns:

There's a clusivity distinction, the inclusive being unrelated in shape to 1st or 2nd persons.
The 1st and 2nd make case distinctions when verb prefixes.
For 3rd person arguments, see the above post about noun classes as verb prefixes are identical to them.

Code: Select all

Absolutive
INCL raŋki-
1ST  ka-
2ND  ŋi-
...

Ergative
INCL raŋki-
1st kuŋ-
2nd ŋuŋ-

Possessive (Inalienable)
INCL raŋki-
1st ki-
2nd ŋi-
Spare you a table, alienables are just inalienables with an extra -ta-. See earlier example ma-yapa ɻa-mata-paytu "the man's dog"

Independent pronouns are derived from only the absolutive prefixes added to dedicated stems: -wiʈa (singular), -mal̪an (dual), -mini (plural). The first two also happen to be numerals...
raŋki- of course doesn't occur as a singular.

Plural possessives are still up in the air. I may just reuse the stems as suffixes to the possessor, or equally likely to the possessee:
ma-yapa ɻa-mata-mini-paytu OR
ma-yapa ɻa-mata-paytu-mini "the men's dog".
Unsure, diachronic paths to ponder, to be decided later.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 28 Jan 2024 07:27, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

So,

Incohoative verbs by suffix -yu to nouns/adjectives
Factive verbs by suffix -ŋki to nouns/adjectives

Incipient verbs by suffix -nita
Cessative verbs by suffix -rapa
Distributive verbs by reduplication [ROOT]l[ROOT]
Frequentive/iterative verbs by reduplication [ROOT]m[ROOT]
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

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Cardinal directions at last.
Due the ridge-and-valley importance locally, the compass is aligned to a more northeast-southwest ... alignment.

Northeast pa-yiŋki
Southeast pa-yayara
Southwest pa-malik
Northwest pa-cacun

For more in-between directions, you'd have to use a circumlocution like "Between northeast, (between) northwest, that way", i.e. north. No fixed formulas, not sorry.

Adverbal suffix of toward direction is -mi
payiŋkimi "northeast-wards"
Adverbial suffix of location is -ta
pacacunta "in the northwest"
Adverbial suffix of origin suffix is -ʈam
payayaraʈam "having come from a southeastern path"
The directional nouns don't occur with the equivalent adpositions.

Adjectival suffixes:
-man for being direction-bound
-l̪u located in a directional term
-yan for originating in a directional term.

The derived adjectives are prime candidates for verbalizers:
-yiŋkimancu- "go northeast"
-malikki- "send southwest"

The adverbial suffixes can be remnants of a proper dependent-marking system.
‐--‐-----------------------------------------
So, other frames of reference:
Sagittal, i.e. front vs back, but not transverse, i.e. left vs right
Nouns ti-yawun "face; front", ti-ʈaɳu "back"
Adpositions -yawunpu "in front of", -ʈaɳupu "behind"

Left.hand & right.hand nouns exist, just aren't used as directions. ti-yamiɻa "LH" & ti-maɲatu "RH"

"Path of the sun (transparent, no cross axis)" might be incorporated as an axis, but doubtful.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 26 Feb 2024 02:21, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by VaptuantaDoi »

I still really like this language, especially the non-SAE-ness of its semantics. I'd be interested in seeing some more on verb morphology; is there any chance we could have a peek at a slot template?
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Very loosely:
Ergative-Absolutive-Number-Valence.lowering-Applicative-adverbials-Incorporated.noun-ROOT-Derivational.aspect-elevation-direction-associated.motion-tense.or.illocution-mood

Verbs need more work and progress is glacial, but basically everything not elevation or direction or associated motion exists in a boring & tentative form. Ex: tense categories are picked out but lack satisfying declensions. There's an antipassive t̪a-, but I don't know the exact range of use.
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Re: Knox Scratchpad

Post by Knox Adjacent »

Came up with basic conjugation classes manifesting in tense and the imperative. Primarily it relates to which past suffix is used and the presence of stem alternation in vowel stems. Present and future use the same stem.
The imperative is -kV with harmony to the past vowel stems.

Regular oral consonant stems just use -ca and -ta and -ani and -ku
Regular nasal consonant stems add -ɲa and -[homologous stop plus]a and -ani and -ŋu

Code: Select all

Vowel stem verbs (.V plus suffix)
PST Present FUT IMP
.a-ya .a-ra .a-ni .a-ka
.i-ya .a-ra .a-ni .i-ki
.i-ya .i-ra .i-ŋani .i-ki
.u-ya .u-ra .u-ŋani .u-ku
.i-ya .u-ra .u-ŋani .i-ki

.a-ca .a-ra .a-ni a-ka
.i-ca .a-ra .a-ni .i-ki
.i-ca .i-ra .i-ŋani .i-ki
.u-ca .u-ra .u-ŋani .u-ku
.i-ca .u-ra .u-ŋani .i-ki
The stem-vowel replacement I explain as probably being a remnant of an earlier past suffix.

There'll be a couple irregular consonant stems for like 3 verbs ("exist", "do", maybe "come" and "go").

I now have to retroactively implement this.
Last edited by Knox Adjacent on 13 Jan 2024 03:14, edited 1 time in total.
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