SBäk e Dlor

[Omzinesý]

What reduplication could mean?

Nouns
- something like N
This is a good source for semantic chage ('a pipe' could be 'a vein-like', 'a father-in-law' could be 'a father-like' ...)
- collective nouns
('a village' could be 'houses', 'an army' could be 'soldiers' ...)
- diminutive
- augmentative

Verbs
I think they have quite much derivation already
- There could be something aspectual, like imperfective/iterative of very telic verbs like 'to kill'.

Statives and adjectives
- 'very A'
- 'A-ish'

There could be "affixal reduplication"

C1V1-C1V1C2
C1V1C2-V1C2

or repetition of the whole world
C1V1C2 C1V1C2

The first case has only one stress while in the second case both words have their stresses

[Omzinesý]

The diminutive could be: C1i-. /i/ has high formants and is often associated with smallness and women.

näm 'a gift'
-> nïnam 'a small gift'

róodl 'fire'
-> ríroodl 'a flame'

pu 'you'
-> pipu 'you dear'

kôm 'a husband ~ a wife'
-> kîkom 'a lover'

There could also be something akin to Grassman's law with the uvular and palatal affricates, if I decided to have them.

There could still be /q/ and /c/.
They realize as affricates before vowels.
Word-finally they are stops. See that /k/ is a glottal word-finally.

Let's say the root is <kram> [q͡χam].
Its diminutive could be
kriram ['q͡χɪ.ʁam]
or
rikram ['ʁɪ.q͡χam].

[Omzinesý]

Dlor is becoming one of my favorites among my langs.
It's morphologically simple enough for me to concentrate on semantics and lexicon. It's possible that I'm already further with its lexicon than that of any other of my langs.

[Omzinesý]

The phonology is still a bit boring. In the end, I didn't take the prestopped consonants.

There could still be /q/ and /c/.
They realize as affricates before vowels.
Word-finally they are stops. See that /k/ is a glottal word-finally.

The affricates could have a historical complementary distribution. Both developed from *k.

*k -> c͡ç / [+ATR word]
*k -> q͡χ / [,-ATR word]

Historically ATR was a stronger feature than today. After mergers of vowels, the two affricates became phonemic.

*g was devoiced to k later.

Problems:
- I'd like the affricates alternative with /j/ and /ʁ/. (There can be only one affricate per word.) The history above would presuppose alternation with /k/.
- /k/ that would stem from *g has allophone /ʔ/ word-finally. It must be a new development after the devoicing. But then there should have been a period with all [c], [k], and [q] appearing word-finally, such a rush hour.

Ideas to resolve the problem?
So, the diachrony above does not prevent the syncronic phonology happening but it does not lead to the alternations. All of them have to happen afterwards.

[Omzinesý]

Pronouns can also be used as possessive pronouns in the adjective position. They must always be preceded by the definite article s-.

stlee nup 'my room'
skâ nup 'your room'
ssa nup 'his/her/their room'
skâm nup 'our room'

[Omzinesý]

Relative clauses start with the same conjunction as complement clauses (English that, Spanish que).

There is no resumptive pronoun in the relative clause. If the antecedent is not a subject or an object of the relative clause, it is forced to be by an applicative. That's the only use for the applicative I have found up thisfar.

My current problem is how to tell the subject and the object apart. Because the word order is VSO, one cannot see which one is dropped.

Tlee look smon mo kjar kâ.
sg1 meet DEF.man CONJ know sg2
'I met the man that you know.' ~ 'I met the man that knows you.'

Maybe something like Swedis vad vs. vad som, that is, something extra if the antecedent is the subject.

Maybe the frequent s-prefix could also be used here s-mo.
But s-mo could also mean 'the one who', i.e. be a kind of an actor nominalizer.
They could nicely be alike.

But how about object nominalizations?

[Omzinesý]

I'm still considering Dlor pro-drop.

Maybe there could be object drop of definite anaphoric objects, (1).

(1)
Nas tlee.
eat sg1
'I am eating it.'

To express an indefinite object 'something', a derived noun must be used as the object, (2).

(2)
Nas tlee nás.
eat sg1 eating/food
'I am eating [something].'

But then there should be an action nominalization of every word.
All of them cannot be formed with tones.

Dlor is still getting more morphology.

[Omzinesý]

Kor lém mô ...
cause what COMP
'What causes that ...'
'why'

Seem lém la ...
intend what CONJ.NREAL
'[He] intends what when ...'
'why, for what'

I think Creyeditor has a similar idea. It's possible that I copied it, or maybe not.

[Omzinesý]

I think I could test this idea viewtopic.php?p=327072#p327072 in Dlor.

Dlor voices are formed adding a preposition before the verb.

by-write 'writer' (the one by whome something is written)
in-write 'writing place'

I have never seen such derivation but maybe it could be natural.

(Khemehekis will analyse my type again xD )

[Omzinesý]

Maybe the instrumental prefixes could be added to nouns as suffixes to derive nouns.

ku-läm 'to eat hair' (whatever that means)
läm-ku 'beard' (hair+mouth)

That would need maro morphological processes cos Dlor does not allow consonant clusters.
Or maybe they could still be prefixes but have some suprasegmental differences.

külam vs. kuläm (accent placement)
külam vs. kúlam (accent type)

Edit: Mithun's article on lexical affixes https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... l_Typology is interesting.

[Omzinesý]

Numbers

kjee 'one'
lee 'two'
mi 'tree'
ba 'four'
ju 'five'
ri 'six'
nue 'seven'
lua 'eight'
kjua 'nine'
ua 'ten'

bokjee 'eleven'
bolee 'twelve'
bomi 'thirteen'
boba 'fourteen'
boju 'fifteen'
bori 'sixteen'
bonue 'seventeen'
bolua 'eighteen'
bokjua 'nineteen'

bo- is the prefix for 'hand(s)'. It also codes -teen.

The proclitic numbers never have accents.
If they are accented they must follow the noun and get suffix -n. Then they are verbs rather than adjectives.

lee mon 'two men'
mon re leen 'two men' lit. 'men that are two'

Bigger numbers always follow their head.

[Omzinesý]

kü-lam 'to eat hair' (whatever that means)
ku-läm 'beard' (hair+mouth)

I decided this is the best solution. They though cannot be called "instrumental prefixes" anymore because the unstressed versions are not instrumental.

[Omzinesý]

I could test the ergative idea that I have been using in my speedlangs. This could be an interesting idea.

Intransitive clauses are VS.

Transitive clauses are either SVO or VO by S.

Tlee kool mas
i build house
'I built a house.'

Kool mas na tlee
built house BY i
'I built a house.'

It is also possible to antipassivize the verb by positioning the preposition before the verb.

Nakool tlee.
'I build.'

Nakool also means 'builder'.

[Omzinesý]

Dlor adjectives are a closed small class. Most adjectival meanings are expressed with a static verb. But it's boring always to use the relative marker ra. Maybe s- could relativize static verbs. They don't form middle voice anyways so s- is free.

[Omzinesý]

Maybe prepositions could sometimes derive deniminal verbs too.

Ba tëel ma tlee.
be letter with sg1
'I have a letter.'

Mä-teel tlee
have-letter sg1
'I have a letter.'

Mäteel has its accent on the first syllable while ma tëel 'with a letter' has its accent on the second word.

As said before, prepositions form applicatives or nominalizations, when added to verb stems.

Mämateel could mean 'penpal' i.e. one with whom you have letters.

[Omzinesý]

The fun thing in Dlor are denominal verbs where the derivational affix is one of the normal deverbal affixes.

Prepositions could also do

(1)
lwi s-mas
inside DEF-house
'inside the house'

(2)
lwimas 'to be inside (the) house'

Fonologically, the only difference is that in (1) the stress lies on the second syllable mas while in (2) the stress lies on the first syllable lu.

Direction prefixes can be used similarly.

jo-nas
ARRIVE-eat
'to come to eat'

be-nas
LEAVE-eat
'to eat and go'

jomas 'to come to (the) house'
bemas 'to leave (the) house'

They can also be combined.

jolwimas
'to arrive and then be inside (the) house' i.e. 'to come in to the house'

I just don't know which order the prefixes should have, the order they usually have or the order derivations are done.'

Edit: Actually, there could just be a preposition 'from' that can also derive verbs 'to come from N'.

[Omzinesý]

On the directional prefixes

1) When the verb is a motion verb, say, 'to run', they mean 'to arrive running' and 'to leave running'. They thus make the verb telic while the original verb is atelic 'to be running'.
2) When the verb is not a motion verb, say, to 'to sing', they mean 'arrive and then sing' and 'to sing and then leave'.

Both of them are kind of deictic, as well. You cannot say 'I went to NY and sang there' with those prefixes. The location must be the deictic center. I think, you could topicalize NY and make it the deictic center.

NY, lújotlas tlee.
'NY, I came there and sang.'


I think, the directionals don't have to be derivational suffixes. Prepositions can derive verbs.

lûrud 'town'
lûlurud 'to be in the town'

So, 'to come to the town' can simply be jôlulurud 'arrive and then be in the town'.

Maybe the directionals could be derive verbs in some special instrances.

bêlurud 'to come from the town' i.e. 'to be originally from the town'

[Omzinesý]

Applicatives

Applicatives are formed by adding the preposition of the NP that is to be promoted before the verb.

Néeb tlee lu s-lûrud.
live SG1 in DEF-town
'I live in the town.'

Lú-neeb s-lûrud na tlee.
APPL-live DEF-town ERG SG1


Use

Applicatives are hardly ever used in 'normal' sentences. Their main uses are 1) topicalizations (and formally similar constructions) and 2) relative clauses.

1) Topicalizations (and formally similar constructions)

Only subjects and objects can be left-dislocated. So, other arguments must be promoted to objects (or absolutives).

Ki mín lú-neeb ka.
which place APPL-live SG2
'Where do you live?'

S-lûrud lú-neeb tlee.
DEF-town APPL-live SG1
'The town as for I live there.'


2) Only the abslolutive argument can be relativized.

s-lûrud ra lú-neeb na tlee.
DEF-town REL APPL-live ERG SG1
'the town where I live'

The ergative argument must be also promoted. The antipassive is a kind of applicative.

s-mon ra ná-leeb lu s-lûrud
DEF-man REL INTIP-live in DEF-town
'the man who lives in the town'


See, that an ergative subject can (and nearly always is) be topicalized without applicative/antipassive, but to relativize it you need applicative/antipassive.


Nominalizations

Adding a preposition as a prefix of a verb stem also works as a nominalization.

Náleeb 'inhabitant' ~ 'one who lives' <= léeb 'to live'
Lúrud 'town' ~ 'place where people live near' <= rúd 'to live nearby'

Formally applicatives and oriented nominalizations do not differ. One could ask if applicatives are actually nonfinite because they don't appear in standard main clauses and are alike with nominalizations. They do however inflect like verbs, while nominalizations inflect like nouns, and the clauses have the same argument marking as other finite clauses.

[Omzinesý]

The venitive prefix jo- could actually be added to nouns expressing 'there is'.

Jomas 'There is a house.' ~ 'There are houses.'

The problem is just how to add adjectives to the verby phrase. Does anybody know how polysynthetic languages do that?

[Omzinesý]

Ba is a preposition meaning (more or less) 'as'.

[bä'mɔn]
ba mon
'as a man'

It can also be prefixed to the noun forming a verb 'to be an N'.

['bä.mɔn]
bamon
'to be a man'