Commonthroat: a language that only a dog could probably pronounce

[Khemehekis]

It's common in English and Spanish for a bare noun phrase to serve as an adverb. The question is, should I allow this in Commonthroat. It's also very common for prepositions without objects to be treated like adverbs.

I walked in the house (in as a preposition)
I walked in (in as an adverb)

In Spanish you can't do this, but sometimes you can turn an adverb into a preposition by adding something like de.

voy dentro de la casa
vs
voy adentro

But I think I'm thinking to Indo-European.

In my Kankonian, I have the word ye, which turns the preceding preposition into an adverb:

Zatura baitziten.
monkey climb-PST
The monkey climbed.

Zatura baitziten bahai fega.
monkey climb-PST up tree
The monkey climbed up a tree.

Zatura baitziten bahai ye.
monkey climb-PST up PREP-ADV
The monkey climbed up.

Ye is one of two gland-particles in the language, which change the part of speech of the preceding word, the other gland-particle being we, which turns an adjective into an adverb.

[Visions1]

Hoo doggy, I have my work cut out for me! I meant to ask you to pm it to me, but honestly, I'm here and ready!
I'll print this out and look through it on paper.

Which parts in particular would you want input/help with?

[lurker]

It's common in English and Spanish for a bare noun phrase to serve as an adverb. The question is, should I allow this in Commonthroat. It's also very common for prepositions without objects to be treated like adverbs.

I walked in the house (in as a preposition)
I walked in (in as an adverb)

In Spanish you can't do this, but sometimes you can turn an adverb into a preposition by adding something like de.

voy dentro de la casa
vs
voy adentro

But I think I'm thinking to Indo-European.

In my Kankonian, I have the word ye, which turns the preceding preposition into an adverb:

Zatura baitziten.
monkey climb-PST
The monkey climbed.

Zatura baitziten bahai fega.
monkey climb-PST up tree
The monkey climbed up a tree.

Zatura baitziten bahai ye.
monkey climb-PST up PREP-ADV
The monkey climbed up.

Ye is one of two gland-particles in the language, which change the part of speech of the preceding word, the other gland-particle being we, which turns an adjective into an adverb.

I thought about using that. I think you’ve validated that idea for me. Thanks!

[Khemehekis]

In my Kankonian, I have the word ye, which turns the preceding preposition into an adverb:

Zatura baitziten.
monkey climb-PST
The monkey climbed.

Zatura baitziten bahai fega.
monkey climb-PST up tree
The monkey climbed up a tree.

Zatura baitziten bahai ye.
monkey climb-PST up PREP-ADV
The monkey climbed up.

Ye is one of two gland-particles in the language, which change the part of speech of the preceding word, the other gland-particle being we, which turns an adjective into an adverb.

I thought about using that. I think you’ve validated that idea for me. Thanks!

You're welcome! "Gland-particle" is a term I invented for Kankonian. What part of speech is Commonthroat's equivalent going to be?

[lurker]

In my Kankonian, I have the word ye, which turns the preceding preposition into an adverb:

Zatura baitziten.
monkey climb-PST
The monkey climbed.

Zatura baitziten bahai fega.
monkey climb-PST up tree
The monkey climbed up a tree.

Zatura baitziten bahai ye.
monkey climb-PST up PREP-ADV
The monkey climbed up.

Ye is one of two gland-particles in the language, which change the part of speech of the preceding word, the other gland-particle being we, which turns an adjective into an adverb.

I thought about using that. I think you’ve validated that idea for me. Thanks!

You're welcome! "Gland-particle" is a term I invented for Kankonian. What part of speech is Commonthroat's equivalent going to be?

Not sure. I have a few particles like g to mark possessive phrases and the modal particles. Why did you choose the term gland particle?

[Khemehekis]

Not sure. I have a few particles like g to mark possessive phrases and the modal particles. Why did you choose the term gland particle?

A gland converts chemicals of one substance into another substance (like a hormone or milk). A gland-particle converts word of one POS to words of another POS.

[lurker]

Hoo doggy, I have my work cut out for me! I meant to ask you to pm it to me, but honestly, I'm here and ready!
I'll print this out and look through it on paper.

Which parts in particular would you want input/help with?

Im aiming at people who aren’t necessarily conlangers, so I’d love input on the explanations of linguistics topics, as well as the order in which I present things. I’m trying not to use features before they are explained.

[lurker]

Code: Select all

qF CB rj qHJ
qF   0   CB-0 rj-0 qHJ-0
mere [I] want-A PAS-A need-A
I just want to be necessary.

No new grammar here; I'm just not in a good headspace right now and don't really have another outlet.

[Visions1]

Pal, of all the folks here, you certainly are. Don't let your blindness make you think your voice isn't sweet, your hands aren't crafty, or your heart isn't in the right place. Don't let an ill-designed test define your actual skills - an arbitrary course, poorly reflecting the real skill you have.

And if you want proof, I'm going to bet you've expanded conlanging as a whole through your work so far, and will continue to.

sFsFqn g-l

[lurker]

Pal, of all the folks here, you certainly are. Don't let your blindness make you think your voice isn't sweet, your hands aren't crafty, or your heart isn't in the right place. Don't let an ill-designed test define your actual skills - an arbitrary course, poorly reflecting the real skill you have.

And if you want proof, I'm going to bet you've expanded conlanging as a whole through your work so far, and will continue to.

sFsFqn g-l

Thanks for the encouraging words. L sFDr g rfcqn!

Assuming you were going for "you're my friend", I actually don't have an unambiguous way of saying that yet. You could say just g sFsFl or g sFsFMr "my friend", with your choice of -l or -Mr depending on how strongly you feel about it. The only unambiguous construction I can think of off the top of my head would require you to give yourself a noun, likely also sFsFg using the possessive preposition b, so something like sFsFqn b sFsFl which means something like "you, the friend of me, the friend."

[Visions1]

I was going for "our", but that certainly!

[lurker]

I was going for "our", but that certainly!

Ah, number is pretty ambiguous. I had a quantitative adjective h /short low strong growl/ which simply meant "more than one", sort of like the Mandarin -men used on pronouns to mark plurals, but I'm not really feeling that one anymore. It might mark a paucal number or even turn an indefinite noun into a generic gnomic, so sFsFg would specifically mean a friend or some friend, and h sFsFg would mean friends in general. Right now I'm leaning toward it meaning "a couple" or "a few".

---

In other news, here's a yinrih singing with piano accompaniment.

[lurker]

Jh

/late falling strengthening growl/

Adverb

Thus, just so, in this way (compare Spanish así)

Code: Select all

rnL rpMr Jh rDB
rnL rpMr  Jh   0   rDB-0
not happy thus [I] say-A
I do not say so happily

A phrase used to clarify that something you said should not be taken as approval of or what was described.

[lurker]

qlp

/huff, short falling weakening grunt/

Verb

To risk, to gamble, to chance

Code: Select all

Ln sDb qlpb!
Ln   sD-b  qlp-b
HORT go-NA gamble-NA
Let's go gambling!

[Visions1]

I've looked through the grammar, up until the verb section. Here are my thoughts:

Overview:
The grammar seems easy enough to understand. Note that it assumes a basic amount of lingistic knowledge (such as knowing what persons are).
I have yet to see how the verb section plays out.

Pointers:
- “and one of two volumes, or strengths as they are called here (weak or strong.” I think the strength thing in vowels occurs in Nuosu? Or ballistic syllables in Oto-Manguean.
- What about an adverb that does not modify the entire sentence?
- 15 as "some pup climbed some tree?" Is that just mirative? Too much?
-I think more examples could be given for interogative applications, but it could bog down easy understanding. Maybe put alternative translations as a footnote.
- This advice reg. footnotes could be applied as desired elsewhere.
- Int - sFsFBD - what friend (which friend? any other inq. terms?)
- As pointed out - how do we say “our friend”?
- I didn’t pay attention to the possession chart when I first went through this. Maybe write “there are two ways of saying my friend and your friend on the chart.” (Or don’t because I can be a real bonehead with these sorts of things and accommodating me might just make this clunky.)

Side stuff:
- "As such, words cannot be sung since the melody and rhythm would completely obscure the meaning."
(There are workarounds for this in human languages. I have some ideas…)
- 30 has potential for poetry and literary hooks. The whole language has massive potential for metric poetry, what with its inherent rhythm. But this is enitirely a sidepoint.
- I would personally like to know more about 44. Is it a catchphrase? Folk wisdom? No shirt no shoes no service?

[lurker]

I've looked through the grammar, up until the verb section. Here are my thoughts:

Overview:
The grammar seems easy enough to understand. Note that it assumes a basic amount of lingistic knowledge (such as knowing what persons are).
I have yet to see how the verb section plays out.

Pointers:
- “and one of two volumes, or strengths as they are called here (weak or strong.” I think the strength thing in vowels occurs in Nuosu? Or ballistic syllables in Oto-Manguean.
- What about an adverb that does not modify the entire sentence?
- 15 as "some pup climbed some tree?" Is that just mirative? Too much?
-I think more examples could be given for interogative applications, but it could bog down easy understanding. Maybe put alternative translations as a footnote.
- This advice reg. footnotes could be applied as desired elsewhere.
- Int - sFsFBD - what friend (which friend? any other inq. terms?)
- As pointed out - how do we say “our friend”?
- I didn’t pay attention to the possession chart when I first went through this. Maybe write “there are two ways of saying my friend and your friend on the chart.” (Or don’t because I can be a real bonehead with these sorts of things and accommodating me might just make this clunky.)

Side stuff:
- "As such, words cannot be sung since the melody and rhythm would completely obscure the meaning."
(There are workarounds for this in human languages. I have some ideas…)
- 30 has potential for poetry and literary hooks. The whole language has massive potential for metric poetry, what with its inherent rhythm. But this is enitirely a sidepoint.
- I would personally like to know more about 44. Is it a catchphrase? Folk wisdom? No shirt no shoes no service?

Thanks for the feedback. I do need to flesh out interrogatives.


“You are our friend” may be rendered as


friend-2 of all-1


You can turn an adjective into a noun meaning something that exhibits the quality of the adjective by adding a deictic inflection. So “all of us” is “all” plus a first person suffix. You can also make a simple declarative by using a bare noun or noun phrase, so friend-2 on its own can mean "you are a friend." Combine that with the prepositional phrase of all-1 meaning "of us all", and you can get "you are a friend of us all" or "you are the friend of us all". There's probably a more concise way of saying that. I suppose just thee possessive phrase g sFsFl "my friend" / "our friend" can also double as a simple declarative. Hopefully I'm making sense, I only slept about an hour last night so my brain is foggy.

Is some form of number marking a universal thing? I know Mandarin marks pronouns for number even though number on nouns is optional.

The phrase "Either four legs or two legs" means "something that is equally true of humans and yinrih", meaning flaws or virtues or habits that the two species have in common.


I won’t be able to act on your advice until I get power back at my house. All my notes are on a network drive.

[lurker]

OK, so Just trying to iron out some stuff regarding adjectives and verbs.

- You can form a noun meaning someone or something having the quality of the adjective simply by suffixing the appropriate deictic suffix. jk, little becomes jkg, little one.
- h is a quantitative adjective meaning "more than one, plural". Since it's an adjective, you should be able to add a deictic suffix to it to expresss a noun with the attribute of being more than one. So hl would just mean "we". I think I accidentally invented pronouns. Curses.

[Visions1]

You could make it work on everything but persons. "Meses and youses" sounds funny for us, so it wouldn't be such a weird rule.
Or better yet, just make it a classifier like in Dungan Chinese (basically central Asian Mandarin with only one, yes, only one, classifier) - it can only take nouns, not affixes.

So to say "We [angels] will show them Our Signs in the universe (lit. horizon)" (Quran 41:53 - it says "we" a lot in there, hence why I'm using it):

Code: Select all

h  cdqmrLPq-l      rCFCb-K             g   h  sfcr-Mr P qGKqg
PL sophont-light-1 look-caus.event-DOG POS PL sign-1 in space

You need a word for edge, by the way.

[lurker]

You could make it work on everything but persons. "Meses and youses" sounds funny for us, so it wouldn't be such a weird rule.
Or better yet, just make it a classifier like in Dungan Chinese (basically central Asian Mandarin with only one, yes, only one, classifier) - it can only take nouns, not affixes.

So to say "We [angels] will show them Our Signs in the universe (lit. horizon)" (Quran 41:53 - it says "we" a lot in there, hence why I'm using it):

Code: Select all

h  cdqmrLPq-l      rCFCb-K             g   h  sfcr-Mr P qGKqg
PL sophont-light-1 look-caus.event-DOG POS PL sign-1 in space

You need a word for edge, by the way.

I like "horizon" as a synonym for "universe". Right now the working term for universe in Commonthroat is rjGJDFMr "this great work/this great creation", which continues the use of the -DF augmentative suffix for important religious terms.

"Angel" is covered under "qGhg", "incorporeal spirit", but "light-sophont" might mesh more with what I understand of Islamic angelology.

I may make h a particle rather than an adjective, and make plural marking mandatory when no other quantitative adjective is present. This allows first and second person plurals to be disambiguated. It also lets you say things like

BCl (all of me, every bit of me)
h BCl (all of us, every one of us)

[lurker]

qMPlNg

/huff, long rising strong grunt, early rising weak grunt, short low weak growl/

from qMP (to wash) + -lN (suffix indicating a place characterized by the verb)

Noun
A bathroom, especially a public one

In the wild, when a tree dweller is answering the call of nature, he will look to others around him for reassurance that he is being protected while in this vulnerable position. The other group members will meet his gaze in order to affirm his safety. If the poopetrator doesn't have line of sight to his peers, they'll bark back and forth to one another instead. This vulpithecine instinct has in yinrih developed into an inclination to be chatty while using the restroom. In fact the word prsfGHqMPlNg* literally "bathroom chit-chat" refers to this phenomenon, and covers the same cultural niche as the concept of water cooler talk among humans.

*prsfGHg (chit-chat, chatter, small talk) comes from pr (reciprocal coverb) + sf (to yip), literally "to yip back and forth", yips being the loudest phoneme in most yinrih languages, and thus the most likely sound to carry.