Nounal Moods?

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Ainuke
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Nounal Moods?

Post by Ainuke »

(If Nounal is even a word. If it wasn't, it is now.)

Recently, as I'm making up my language, I decided I would have easy ways to make 'this' and 'that', both pronoun and determiners. I then realised "What if I add that to a normal noun?"

(Just for clarity, I used re/are for 'that'. Oje (House) became Ojere (that house).

It looks to me as if I have created a mood for NOUNS. Am I right? Or has this been done before and clearly explained?
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rickardspaghetti
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by rickardspaghetti »

No, those are suffixed determiners. A mood is something entirely different and has nothing whatsoever to do with nouns.

And I think you say "nominal", not "nounal".
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jseamus
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by jseamus »

"Nominal" is a more common term for what you are calling "nounal." As for nominal "moods", what you are describing sounds a lot like demonstratives. Mood is something else entirely, and is has to do with verbs.

You've got a cool idea there. I would like to see how it works out in your lang.
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Ainuke
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by Ainuke »

Thanks much guys! I can´t believe I didn´t notice that myself xD. And I`ve learnt a new word :D
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Wanderer
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by Wanderer »

You're just affixing demonstratives, which some agglutinative Natlangs do too. Examples include Basque and Nuxálk.

Basque simply has a bunch of demonstrative determiners of which some may be affixed/cliticed unto a noun, but may also very be used as a seperate word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_gra ... uantifiers

Nuxálk has a complex system of 'deictic' affixes. It seems to me this system does more than just mark demonstratives with affixes. But it does seem to also fulfill the roll of demonstratives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nux%C3%A1l ... age#Deixis
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by Ossicone »

There is also at least one conlang that affixes demonstratives, determiners and some quantifiers.
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by Ainuke »

Haha Ossicone ;]

I'm a bit miffed about how I will add the definite article into my language. It's every simple, and I don't want to end up having a prefix that sounds like a particle o-o
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Trailsend
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by Trailsend »

Ainuke wrote:I'm a bit miffed about how I will add the definite article into my language. It's every simple, and I don't want to end up having a prefix that sounds like a particle o-o
Sounds like a job for consonant mutation!
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by Nortaneous »

Ainuke wrote:Haha Ossicone ;]

I'm a bit miffed about how I will add the definite article into my language. It's every simple, and I don't want to end up having a prefix that sounds like a particle o-o
You could always make it some sort of clitic. My current conlang somehow ended up using CV clitics for pretty much everything related to nouns.
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eldin raigmore
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Re: Nounal Moods?

Post by eldin raigmore »

jseamus wrote:Mood is something else entirely, and is has to do with verbs.
But these accidents of verbs could be applied to nouns.
"Nominal Aspect" is the count-noun vs mass-or-measure-noun distinction.
"Nominal Tense" occurs in English; there's my wife, my ex-wife, and my fiancee or future wife.
"Nominal Mood" occurs in some languages, I believe. If I cut down a tree I intend to make into a dugout canoe, it's already a potential (irrealis) canoe to me as soon as I decide to cut it down. If I'm hunting and I spot a doe I'm allowed to take, it's already potential venison to me as soon as I decide to try to aim at it. And every newborn child is a potential President.
Similarly, a mirage could be irrealis water.

Degree-of-comparison could also apply to nouns or verbs, just as verbal accidents could apply to adjectives, and some also to adverbs.

Though most nominal and pronominal accidents apply to verbs only through agreement with (one or more of) their participants, there's such a thing as "verbal number". Some languages mark some verbs for pluractionality. A pluractional transitive verb implies either that each of several agents did it to the patient(s), or the agent(s) did it to each of several patients, or the agent did it to the patient at each of several places or at each of several times.

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The O.P.'s notion wasn't mood, but rather locational deixis. Such deixis ordinarily occurs in demonstratives, and definite articles are usually diachronically derived from demonstratives (just as indefinite articles are usually diachronically derived from quantifiers or the number "one").
A three-way division of spatial deixis could be proximal/medial/distal, that is, "near where this conversation is taking place" (this) vs "not so near but not so far" (that) vs "remote from where this conversation is taking place" (yon).
Or, it could be centered on persons; near the speaker vs near the addressee vs near the agent or some other highly salient third person.

In English "this" and "that" (and "yon") are both spatial deixis and temporal deixis. However "here and there (and yonder)" are spatial while "now and then" are temporal.

Person-centered deixis in English is often expressed via possessive pronouns; the one near the speaker is "my" or "our", the one near the addressee is "your", and the one near the salient third party is "his" or "her" or "its" or "their", even though it's understood that none of us actually stands in a possessive, nor any other kind of genitive, relationship with the items referred to.

IMO it makes good sense to have all definite nominals -- maybe even all specific nominals -- marked with such a deixis; that's my plan for Adpihi.

("Specific" means the speaker has a particular one or particular ones in mind that s/he is referring to. "Definite" means specific, plus the speaker believes, with some reason and probably correctly, that the addressee also knows which one(s) the speaker is referring to.)
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