Hand-held Conlanging Guide (WIP)

[eldin raigmore]

Since I suggested this and have come back to the board and conlanging in general, Would anyone be opposed to me consolodating this into a PDF?

I'd like that, quite the contrary of opposing it.

[Jarhead]

I see your PDF suggestion and raise it a LaTeX suggestion.
But whereas I wouldn't mind helping with the PDF I'd be in trouble if you asked me to cure the LaTeX.

[xijlwya]

I see your PDF suggestion and raise it a LaTeX suggestion.
But whereas I wouldn't mind helping with the PDF I'd be in trouble if you asked me to cure the LaTeX.

I'm in for the LaTeX. Give me a day :D

Edit: Done.

[Jarhead]

YES! You da man bro.

[Micamo]

As good a direction as any, I guess. Give me a few hours to meditate and I'll have a post up.

Looks like "a few hours" turned into "a little over 4 months." The reason I didn't do it immediately is because, well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized "noun morphology" is too complex to do in a single post, and I needed some time to think about how to break it down. Then I sorta just forgot I promised to do it! Sorry guys. Let's begin the long-awaited series on noun morphology with:

Number

Alright, all inflectional morphology in a language can be described with the answers to three questions:

What distinctions are expressed, if any?
How are these distinctions marked?
Is the marking optional, obligatory, or impossible?

Number morphology is no different. Note that the answers to these questions might be different based on both the word being inflected and interactions with other inflections: For example, it's possible for there to be different number distinctions for items in the nominative case from items in the accusative case, and most words in English are marked by the plural suffix -s but a few words use vowel mutations instead. Don't be afraid to be creative and add irregularities!

We'll go through the possibilities for nominal number morphology in order. For now, we'll ignore pronouns as they deserve separate treatment. We'll also deal exclusively with "ordinary" number, as other possibilities like distributives and associatives I believe should be talked about as separate categories, possibly beyond the scope of this guide (Also because I'm not familiar with any languages that use associative number).

What distinctions are expressed?

There are five principle categories of number that are possible in human languages:

Singular, only one.
Dual, two.
Trial, three. Trial number never occurs on normal nouns, only on pronouns, so we'll ignore it for now.
Paucal, or "a few." Exactly what counts as "a few " depends on the language that uses it: Some languages use paucal as "2 or 3", others use it to mean "between three and seven." A small number of languages have more than one paucal; In this case these should be called "lesser" and "greater" paucals. I've never encountered a language with more than two types of paucal number.
Plural, which is basically the "everything else" category. Everything too large to fit into a smaller category goes here.


These categories can be merged however you like. With all of this in mind, there are three basic systems that appear on normal nouns:

Singular/Plural
Singular/Dual/Plural
Singular/Paucal/Plural

It's recommended a beginner stick to these. If you're feeling courageous, here are a few ideas for weirder systems:

Paucal/Plural - The "paucal" number represents any number from 1 to whatever, and plural represents anything bigger than that. Essentially, we just merge the singular/dual/paucal together.

Lesser paucal/Greater paucal/Plural - Like the above, but with more nuance. "Lesser paucal" might be 1 or 2, with "greater paucal" being 3, 4, or 5, and plural as 6 and above.

Dual/Nondual - The dual number is "two" and the nondual is "either 1 or more than 2." Note this type of system isn't attested for an entire noun system, only for special nouns that naturally come in pairs; Hands, legs, eyes, etc.

How are these distinctions marked?

The options for marking number are much the same for marking other categories. There are two important factors here: Method, and zero marking. Here's a list of possible methods for number to be marked:

Affixes (Prefixes and suffixes, basically. Suffixes are about 4 times more common than prefixes. Infixes and circumfixes are conceivable, but much rarer.)
Clitics or particles. (Note to self: Write a guide on cliticization!)
Reduplication (Repeating either a part or a whole of the word. girl -> gigirl or girlgirl)
Mutation (English goose -> geese, or mouse -> mice. Consonant mutations are also possible, as in the Celtic languages. Note to self: Write up a mutation guide at some point, as it's complicated and pervasive enough to need a separate guide.)
Tone changes (A few languages use tone only for inflections)
Metathesis (The rearranging of sounds, like cavalry -> calvary. Though possible, metathesis is very rarely used for inflection.)

Or any combination you can think of. A plural suffix might use a tone shift AND a prefix, or the dual and plural numbers might use different marking methods altogether.

The second factor is zero marking. Basically, the "zero" form is the least-marked form, the "default" version of the noun. Sometimes a stem can't occur in unmarked form, and sometimes the decision between which form is "unmarked" is quite arbitrary. There are basically four patterns found in the zero-marking of number, from most to least common.

1. The smallest number is the unmarked form.
2. Both numbers are marked. If the marking is obligatory (see below) then they can't appear in unmarked form.
3. The largest number is the unmarked form.
4. Each noun has an "inherent" number that is its unmarked form, and it's marked when the number differs from the inherent number.

Is this marking optional, obligatory, or impossible?

Once again, this applies to basically everything we'll be talking about, morphology-wise.

Optional marking means that the word can be read either way is the marking isn't present, but has to be read a certain way if it is. See: Plurality marking in Japanese. Just "Kodomo" by itself can be "Child" or "Children" but "Kodomo-tachi" has to be "children."

Obligatory marking means the word has to be read in a certain way regardless of whether the marking is present. See: Plurality marking in English.

Impossible marking means the word can't be marked one way or the other. If you need to be more specific you have to use some other information channel aside from morphology. See: Plurality marking in Mandarin Chinese.



Alright, did I miss anything? Anything I should clarify or expand upon? I'm in the process of writing a guide for either gender or case next; Haven't decided which one I'm posting first. Hopefully the next one won't take 4 months.

[Thrice Xandvii]

Adjacent Vowel Constraint - _VC*1V_ (_aC*1e_ forbids "pake" but not "pinake")

I am attempting to parse through this whole Phonotactics section and make sense of all the symbols... and just when I thought I had it, I ran into the above statement.

How is it that the second example isn't prevented by that rule? It is still the two vowels mentioned seperated by only one consonant. Why does the additional syllable on the front end make it okay?

[Micamo]

Ah, that's just a typo I never caught. That second example should be "panike". I've edited the post to reflect this. Please let me know if you run into any more troubles!

[Thrice Xandvii]

Ah, that's just a typo I never caught. That second example should be "panike". I've edited the post to reflect this. Please let me know if you run into any more troubles!

*whew*

Here I thought *I* was just being really thick since no one else had pointed out an issue there. :)

Thanks for the guide posts here, they have helped me a lot!

[nzk13]

Necromancy, ahoy! I'd prefer you next write on case than gender, because I have more case-related difficulties.

[DesEsseintes]

I read this guide a while back and found it really helpful. If you ever decide to continue with this, Micamo, I for one would be very interested. Your guides are a treasure trove of ideas.

[Micamo]

Hopefully the next one won't take 4 months.

WHOOPS

[xijlwya]

Hopefully the next one won't take 4 months.

WHOOPS

Note to self: Never write such possible promises again.

[Thrice Xandvii]

Hopefully the next one won't take 4 months.

WHOOPS

Just stumbled across this thread again... and thought this was amusing.

Good news is that it hasn't taken 4 months... but rather much longer than that.

[Micamo]

I have an idea on how to present case, but I'm not sure whether I should put it here or make it a separate thread, as it's a tad more advanced than I intended this guide to be, and I don't think I could simplify it without losing the coolest parts.

[Ossicone]

I'd say stick it here and just label it as 'advanced.'

[DesEsseintes]

I'd say stick it here and just label it as 'advanced.'

[clawgrip]

Thanks for the phonotactics thing. I was always somewhat intimidated by how truly complex the best descriptions were.

However:

Native words should almost always have 0 violations: The situations where it's acceptable for native words to have violations is beyond the scope of this guide.

Even if this isn't part of the guide, I'd be interested in knowing when a native word could have a violation.

I realize I'm way late here, but the English word "yeah" (as well as various other interjections) violates English phonotactic rules, since /æ/ is not otherwise allowed to end a word.

[Salmoneus]

"Yeah" has /{/ for you? You mean it's "Ya"? Interesting - I couldn't do that, it would be against the phonotactic rules.
[For me, it's /jE:/ (/jE@/), rhymes with 'air'. Alternatively, I also say 'ja', /jA/, don't know if that's an alternative pronunciation or a different word]

But yeah. Phonotactic constraints are primarily about proper sentences. Things that bypass sentences may have different phonotactics, different phonemes, compulsory gestures, etc - the umms, the ahhs, the yes and the no, the heys and ows and fuck yous and in a minutes and so on. Also onomatopoeic words and words to express feelings may sometimes be phonologically odd, and 'baby words'. Loanwords.

Also some languages may have registers with very different phonotactics/phonologies - if, say, a language has massive borrowing for its educated speech, it may not obey the rules of ordinary speech (eg the way that some dialects of English mimic French in much of their 'arty' vocabulary). And anytime there's been diglossia and some words remain, they may violat ethe general rules (eg if women speak differently from men, but then abandon that dialect and speak the same as men, but some words for 'feminine issues' are retained from the old female register, they may violate the rules of the language they're now in).

[clawgrip]

"Yeah" has /{/ for you? You mean it's "Ya"? Interesting - I couldn't do that, it would be against the phonotactic rules.
[For me, it's /jE:/ (/jE@/), rhymes with 'air'. Alternatively, I also say 'ja', /jA/, don't know if that's an alternative pronunciation or a different word]

But yeah. Phonotactic constraints are primarily about proper sentences. Things that bypass sentences may have different phonotactics, different phonemes, compulsory gestures, etc - the umms, the ahhs, the yes and the no, the heys and ows and fuck yous and in a minutes and so on. Also onomatopoeic words and words to express feelings may sometimes be phonologically odd, and 'baby words'. Loanwords.

Also some languages may have registers with very different phonotactics/phonologies - if, say, a language has massive borrowing for its educated speech, it may not obey the rules of ordinary speech (eg the way that some dialects of English mimic French in much of their 'arty' vocabulary). And anytime there's been diglossia and some words remain, they may violat ethe general rules (eg if women speak differently from men, but then abandon that dialect and speak the same as men, but some words for 'feminine issues' are retained from the old female register, they may violate the rules of the language they're now in).

I have the trap vowel in "yeah".

[Thrice Xandvii]

"Yeah" has /{/ for you? You mean it's "Ya"? Interesting - I couldn't do that, it would be against the phonotactic rules.
[For me, it's /jE:/ (/jE@/), rhymes with 'air'. Alternatively, I also say 'ja', /jA/, don't know if that's an alternative pronunciation or a different word]

Rhymes with "air" you say? Apparently you have a non-rhotic dialect of English. For me, "air" sounds the same as the beginning of "arrow." As for "yeah"? I think it would be /jæ/ for me as well.