#conlinguistics

[agmaschwa]

Go check out the Conlang Census of 2021! We're collecting some awesome data. I'll temporarily make it the link in my bio. https://forms.gle/i6oMabKsr9fyZEMw7 #conlangs #conlanging #conlanger #conlinguistics #constructedlanguage #language #nguh https://www.instagram.com/agmaschwa/p/CX2ojsTrSOR/?utm_medium=tumblr

[languagesofgalhaf]

One thing I’ve been working on lately is to figure out how the Kasshi themselves analyze their language, as opposed to how it would be analyzed in the Western tradition.  I’ve figured out their equivalents of parts of speech.  They recognize six major parts (I’m not sure of the native names yet)

Nominals (nouns, adjectives, pronouns)

Verbs

Auxiliaries

Gender-markers

Attachers (clitics)

Unchanging words (uninflected words, i.e., prepositions, conjunctions, etc.)

Auxilaries in Kasshian are suffixed to verbs, which is why they’re classified as a separate class, rather than being seen as a type of verb.  Gender-markers are prefixes in Classical Kasshian, but in some related languages are free-standing words that go in front of noun phrases.

Inflections are referred to by a term meaning literally “changes”.

Nominals are further subdivided into three subtypes

Independent nominals

Agreeing nominals

Pronouns

Independent nominals are nominals with a fixed gender, while agreeing nominals are nominals without a gender of their own, that is, adjectives plus certain body parts whose gender “agrees with” their possessor.  For example, the word for “head” has no fixed gender, being, for example, gender I (female sentient) if you’re referring to a woman’s head, gender II (male sentient) for a man’s head, gender IV (domestic animals and other animals associated with people) for, e.g., a cat’s head, and so on.  Including metaphorical uses, it can therefore be any gender.  On the other hand, the word for “arm” is always gender VI no matter whose arm you’re talking about, and is thus an independent nominal.

The “Pronoun” subclass is only for free pronouns, and does not include the clitic forms, which are included in the Attacher category.

[logodaidalos]

Morphology -- Verbs (III) [Person Agreement II]

Having gone through with the basics of morphosyntax and did some preliminary work on person agreement with the absolutive singular, we've come to the point where we can express some rudimentary concepts. It doesn't take too much thought to come to the conclusion that that's basically practically useless!

For this we need to introduce something other than the singular absolutive, of course, and that necessitates at the very least the rest of the absolutive and agreement with the ergative.

As for grammatical number, in addition to English's singular and plural, Trollian also has a dual, representing exactly two instances.

As for the absolutive, the morphemes are:

Dual

First person: <-sa->

Second/third person: <-da->

Plural

First person: <-ʐa->

Second/third person: <-ma->

The second and third persons dual and plural are marked with the same morpheme. If we want to disambiguate, we'll have to introduce some information outside the verb.

As for the ergative, I tentatively propose the following singular-plural morpheme pairs:

First person: <-s-/-v->

Second person: <-k-/-i->

Third person close: <-n->

Third person far: <-r->

It distinguishes only the singular from the plural (anything twofold is plural in the ergative), but doesn't distinguish number in the third person.

A bit of toying with the new morphemes gives verbs such as <ʂriʐa> "you (pl) eat us" and <krazda> (from *krasda) "I see the two of you/them".

—Nexvs

[logodaidalos]

Morphology -- Verbs (II) [Negation I]

It's all good to know who did what and to whom, but one very important element of language is to distinguish events that happen from those that do not. For this we introduce polarity, basically the category of "yes/no". English deals with this primarily by sticking "not" somewhere into the sentence, and some languages have truly baroque ways of expressing the same concept. In the spirit of Trollian we introduce some verb inflections to handle just that.

The first, and the only covered here, would be the general negator of the verb. For this I propose <-ɲ-> which would come in some phonetically "easiest" place in the verb, but in general pretty free to move around. As the palatal nasal is a bit messy in word-final and pre-consonantal position, the negative morpheme could also optionally acquire an anaptyctic <-a> as a bit of phonological grease so to say.

This would give some verb forms such as <k'anaɲa> "s/he doesn't shout". Oddly familiar, hey! Just transcribe it as English would and get somebody's name *cough cough*.

That aside, the morpheme doesn't seem to be causing any significant issues.

—Nexvs

[tarheelinguist]

Word of the Day

Fĵalal

[ˈf͡ʃɑl.ɑl]

noun root. 1: col. air; 2: sgv./plv. a wind or winds

One of the few onomatopoeic words in common usage the final VC syllable is often reduplicated and the word is used to actually recreate the sound of blowing breeze.

[tarheelinguist]

Orthography and Some Allophonic Variation of Idîskor Mūhb

The real purpose of this post is to get a resource up to explain the slightly odd orthography, so I can start putting up some words, but first, here are a few phonological rules:

/k/ ⟶ [g] / #___

/k/ ⟶ [g] / V___V

/k/ ⟶ [k] / ___#

/ʀ/ ⟶ [χ] / ___#

/ʀ/ ⟶ [ə̯] / ___ʀ

<tr> ⟶ [t͡χ]

And now...Orthography (*ahem*)

The alphabet in order:

P  p  〜  pad  [p] F  f  〜  fir  [f] Π î  〜  îkh  [ɪ] M  m  〜  mūr  [m]   â  〜  âŋū  [æ~a] Qu  qu  〜  quis  [w] R  r  〜  rîd  [(ʀ=ʁ)~χ] I  i  〜  it  [i] Ii  ii  〜  itna  [iː] K  k  〜  keic  [k~g] J  j  〜  jât  [ʒ] Ĵ  ĵ  〜  ĵunt  [ʃ] D  d  〜  dakh  [d̪] Ei  ei  〜  ei  [a͡ɪ~j] Îî  îî  〜  eikhna  [aːɪ] T  t  〜  tēr  [t̪] H  h  〜 haca  [h] A  a  〜  al  [ɑ] S  s  〜  sîîc  [s] O  o  〜  ol  [o] Ŋ ŋ  〜  ŋîl  [ɲ] N  n  〜  nein  [n] E  e  〜  el  [ɛ] B  b  〜  būhrj  [b] Ū ū  〜  ūs  [u] V  v  〜  vaur  [v] L  l  〜  les  [l] C  c  〜  cēn  [ʧ] Ē  ē  〜  ēl  [e] Kh  kh  〜  khi  [x] Ūh  ūh  〜  ūhl  [ʊ] Au  au  〜  auf  [a͡ʊ]

Any posted vocabulary will, of course be accompanied by IPA transcription. Hope this is helpful!

* Note on Graphology. There is in fact a script that I am developing, but this is just the Latin orthography.

¡Îĵîmir! Seimūhn~

[solipsistful]

i have the urge to talk about my conlangs

or at least the latest one and its speakers

:(

- Ace