Help With Ideas for My New Conlang

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Odkidstr
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Help With Ideas for My New Conlang

Post by Odkidstr »

Well I haven't been conlanging for awhile and am finally getting back around to it, so I'm a little rusty. I started designing a new language to get myself back into everything and familiar with stuff, which has happened a lot faster than expected. Anyways, plenty of questions. Everything is a work in progress and acutal words and affixes are subject to change, they're more like place holders (well some of them).

I decided to do a Split-Ergative language. Ergative-Absolutive is used in the Past/Perfective, Nominative-Accusative in the Non-Past/Imperfective.

Nom: Unmarked/ø
Acc: -(o)n (if after a V)
Ergative: -fin
Absolutive: -i

Would it make sense to leave the Nom or the Abs unmarked? The example I saw (Georgian?) had the same suffix for Nom/Abs, but I don't understand how you'd differentiate the aspect/tense in the intransitive.

Imperfective seems useful for the past tense, so I was thinking of having a suffix for the verb that indicates the Imperfective in the Past (-if) and a suffix for the Perfective in the Non-Past (-no). Would that make sense within Split-Ergativity as found above?

I have an infinitive particle (sam). However, I was thinking of making it -m for verbs ending in sV syllables. Is that strange? I imagine that perhaps it could have developed from a language with lots of reduplication, deleting final CV syllables that followed the same CV syllable. idk.

So far, verbs don't seem to have anything besides mood and aspect affect them. I was thinking about having them agree in number but not person with the most animate argument. Is it a naturalistic thing to have verbs agree in number and not person with their subject? Is it ever found in any language?

Would /ɪ/and /ɛ/ being allophones of each other realistic?

I'm using a suffix for the Conditional Mood (-áis) on verbs. So, if I had the sentence: I would drink beer if you drank wine, "drink" would receive the conditional marker, but what are my options for "drank"? I hope that makes sense. Obviously a preposition could be used, but I was wondering if something else could be used instead that was a bit cooler.

Seeing as though I have Past/Non-Past tense, I'm wondering how best to indicate something is in the far future versus near future (I eat vs I will eat?). I had been thinking an Irrealis mood would work, but that doesn't seem to exactly match the Future tense as it typically expresses some sort of doubt. I might still include the Irrealis mood (though I don't understand it well), but I want to make sure I have a way to state something "will" happen definitively in the future. The current Irrealis mood is Sái as a particle, but I'm not sure if I want to use it yet.

When using the Locative case, would you still need locative prepositions (in, on, near) or could those somehow be read from context? I'm not too familiar with the Locative, so I'd love any examples of some typical ways it is used.

That's most of my questions. Below in the spoiler is a brief, rough sketch of what I have. I'd be curious to hear what you all think. Thanks for any help you can give.
Spoiler:
Pronouns
1st Sg: Shu
1st Pl: Shuko
2nd Sg: Nes
2nd Pl: Njas
3rd Sg: Ti
3rd Pl: Tsin

Nom: ø
Abs: -i
Erg: -fin
Acc: -(o)n
Dative: -es
Genitive: -ok
Instrumental: pang
Ablative: -hush
Lative: -xum
Sublative: -mu
Locative: -(o)ks
Plural (Nouns): -o

Plural (Verbs): -ki
Infinitive: sam (particle after verb)/-m before sV
Pfv in N-Pst: -no
Ipfv in Pst: -if

Definite article: So

Sample Sentences

So fïth-o chiso-ki kozhnjan-o
DEF man-Pl grab-Pl orange-Pl
The men are grabbing oranges

Shuko ttoth-ki chisom fofon so ipeipe-es-o
1pl.Nom want-Pl give.Inf book.Acc DEF boy-Dat-Pl
We want to give a book to the boys

So fïthaz-fin-o hedh-if-ki jafo-i so ash-mu
DEF woman-Erg-Pl put-Ipfv-Pl apple-Abs DEF table-Sublative
The women were putting apples on the table
Sumelic
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Re: Help With Ideas for My New Conlang

Post by Sumelic »

Odkidstr wrote:Well I haven't been conlanging for awhile and am finally getting back around to it, so I'm a little rusty. I started designing a new language to get myself back into everything and familiar with stuff, which has happened a lot faster than expected. Anyways, plenty of questions. Everything is a work in progress and acutal words and affixes are subject to change, they're more like place holders (well some of them).

I decided to do a Split-Ergative language. Ergative-Absolutive is used in the Past/Perfective, Nominative-Accusative in the Non-Past/Imperfective.

Nom: Unmarked/ø
Acc: -(o)n (if after a V)
Ergative: -fin
Absolutive: -i

Would it make sense to leave the Nom or the Abs unmarked? The example I saw (Georgian?) had the same suffix for Nom/Abs, but I don't understand how you'd differentiate the aspect/tense in the intransitive.
Normally aspect/tense is marked by something else other than noun suffixes. So in the intransitive, you'd be able to tell the tense from a verb affix, a particle or something like that. The idea I have in my mind of "split ergative" based on tense/aspect involves absolutive = nominative since often the way this kind of past-tense situation seems to arise is by change of a past participle (which seem to often have passive senses) to a past tense. E.g. we have Leaf-nom falls" in the present, and "Leaf-nom fallen" as a copular sentence, and then the participle gets reinterpreted as a finite verb. And for transitives, there's something like "Child-nom leaf-acc drop" and "Child-erg leaf-nom dropped". You don't have to do it this way; I just vaguely remember some languages doing something like this.
Imperfective seems useful for the past tense, so I was thinking of having a suffix for the verb that indicates the Imperfective in the Past (-if) and a suffix for the Perfective in the Non-Past (-no). Would that make sense within Split-Ergativity as found above?
There are split-ergative languages that have aspect distinctions in the past tense. In Hindustani, it seems that imperfective past-tense transitive verbs take nominative-accusative alignment. I don't know about perfective in the non-past tense.
I have an infinitive particle (sam). However, I was thinking of making it -m for verbs ending in sV syllables. Is that strange? I imagine that perhaps it could have developed from a language with lots of reduplication, deleting final CV syllables that followed the same CV syllable. idk.
That doesn't seem that strange to me.
So far, verbs don't seem to have anything besides mood and aspect affect them. I was thinking about having them agree in number but not person with the most animate argument. Is it a naturalistic thing to have verbs agree in number and not person with their subject? Is it ever found in any language?
I'm pretty sure there are languages like this. I can't remember any specific example of a language that consistently does this, but for example verbs derived from participles (of the sort I mentioned above) usually agree like participles, in number and gender rather than in person. An example is the Russian past tense.
Would /ɪ/and /ɛ/ being allophones of each other realistic?
Yeah, although I'd think /e/ would also exist as an allophone since it is intermediate between these.
I'm using a suffix for the Conditional Mood (-áis) on verbs. So, if I had the sentence: I would drink beer if you drank wine, "drink" would receive the conditional marker, but what are my options for "drank"? I hope that makes sense. Obviously a preposition could be used, but I was wondering if something else could be used instead that was a bit cooler.
I'm not so familiar with strategies for this, sorry. One thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to use a finite verb.
Odkidstr
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Re: Help With Ideas for My New Conlang

Post by Odkidstr »

Sumelic wrote:
Odkidstr wrote:Well I haven't been conlanging for awhile and am finally getting back around to it, so I'm a little rusty. I started designing a new language to get myself back into everything and familiar with stuff, which has happened a lot faster than expected. Anyways, plenty of questions. Everything is a work in progress and acutal words and affixes are subject to change, they're more like place holders (well some of them).

I decided to do a Split-Ergative language. Ergative-Absolutive is used in the Past/Perfective, Nominative-Accusative in the Non-Past/Imperfective.

Nom: Unmarked/ø
Acc: -(o)n (if after a V)
Ergative: -fin
Absolutive: -i

Would it make sense to leave the Nom or the Abs unmarked? The example I saw (Georgian?) had the same suffix for Nom/Abs, but I don't understand how you'd differentiate the aspect/tense in the intransitive.
Normally aspect/tense is marked by something else other than noun suffixes. So in the intransitive, you'd be able to tell the tense from a verb affix, a particle or something like that. The idea I have in my mind of "split ergative" based on tense/aspect involves absolutive = nominative since often the way this kind of past-tense situation seems to arise is by change of a past participle (which seem to often have passive senses) to a past tense. E.g. we have Leaf-nom falls" in the present, and "Leaf-nom fallen" as a copular sentence, and then the participle gets reinterpreted as a finite verb. And for transitives, there's something like "Child-nom leaf-acc drop" and "Child-erg leaf-nom dropped". You don't have to do it this way; I just vaguely remember some languages doing something like this.
I guess I'm still confused. Essentially, within the Intransitive cases, the language doesn't really care whether you can determine tense (assuming that Nominative/Absolutive are the same)? Most likely in languages that do this, there's probably some sort of marking on the verb that helps clarify tense?


Would /ɪ/and /ɛ/ being allophones of each other realistic?
Yeah, although I'd think /e/ would also exist as an allophone since it is intermediate between these.
Hmm, well that'd be problematic. Thought the way I did it was strange, I might have to change that around a bit. I already have /i e~eɪ̯ a~ɑ~ɔ o~ə u aɪ̯ oɪ̯ ɪ~ɛ/. It'll probably make more sense to just remove the sounds, I was hesitant to add them but I liked some of the words better with those sounds thrown in.
Sumelic
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Posts: 566
Joined: 18 Jun 2013 23:01

Re: Help With Ideas for My New Conlang

Post by Sumelic »

Odkidstr wrote:
Sumelic wrote:
Odkidstr wrote:Well I haven't been conlanging for awhile and am finally getting back around to it, so I'm a little rusty. I started designing a new language to get myself back into everything and familiar with stuff, which has happened a lot faster than expected. Anyways, plenty of questions. Everything is a work in progress and acutal words and affixes are subject to change, they're more like place holders (well some of them).

I decided to do a Split-Ergative language. Ergative-Absolutive is used in the Past/Perfective, Nominative-Accusative in the Non-Past/Imperfective.

Nom: Unmarked/ø
Acc: -(o)n (if after a V)
Ergative: -fin
Absolutive: -i

Would it make sense to leave the Nom or the Abs unmarked? The example I saw (Georgian?) had the same suffix for Nom/Abs, but I don't understand how you'd differentiate the aspect/tense in the intransitive.
Normally aspect/tense is marked by something else other than noun suffixes. So in the intransitive, you'd be able to tell the tense from a verb affix, a particle or something like that. The idea I have in my mind of "split ergative" based on tense/aspect involves absolutive = nominative since often the way this kind of past-tense situation seems to arise is by change of a past participle (which seem to often have passive senses) to a past tense. E.g. we have Leaf-nom falls" in the present, and "Leaf-nom fallen" as a copular sentence, and then the participle gets reinterpreted as a finite verb. And for transitives, there's something like "Child-nom leaf-acc drop" and "Child-erg leaf-nom dropped". You don't have to do it this way; I just vaguely remember some languages doing something like this.
I guess I'm still confused. Essentially, within the Intransitive cases, the language doesn't really care whether you can determine tense (assuming that Nominative/Absolutive are the same)? Most likely in languages that do this, there's probably some sort of marking on the verb that helps clarify tense?
The second--I think normally for intransitives, tense is marked in some other place, not on the noun suffix. (it could be a verb affix, a particle, any of the usual ways languages mark tense)
Would /ɪ/and /ɛ/ being allophones of each other realistic?
Yeah, although I'd think /e/ would also exist as an allophone since it is intermediate between these.
Hmm, well that'd be problematic. Thought the way I did it was strange, I might have to change that around a bit. I already have /i e~eɪ̯ a~ɑ~ɔ o~ə u aɪ̯ oɪ̯ ɪ~ɛ/. It'll probably make more sense to just remove the sounds, I was hesitant to add them but I liked some of the words better with those sounds thrown in.
I don't think it's a problem with that inventory. Lots of patterns of allophony are possible; it might help if you describe how it works. For example, I have [ẽə] and [a] (more or less) as allophones, even though /ɛ/ is a distinct phoneme.
Odkidstr
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Joined: 27 May 2015 20:26

Re: Help With Ideas for My New Conlang

Post by Odkidstr »

Sumelic wrote:
Odkidstr wrote:
Would /ɪ/and /ɛ/ being allophones of each other realistic?
Yeah, although I'd think /e/ would also exist as an allophone since it is intermediate between these.
Hmm, well that'd be problematic. Thought the way I did it was strange, I might have to change that around a bit. I already have /i e~eɪ̯ a~ɑ~ɔ o~ə u aɪ̯ oɪ̯ ɪ~ɛ/. It'll probably make more sense to just remove the sounds, I was hesitant to add them but I liked some of the words better with those sounds thrown in.
I don't think it's a problem with that inventory. Lots of patterns of allophony are possible; it might help if you describe how it works. For example, I have [ẽə] and [a] (more or less) as allophones, even though /ɛ/ is a distinct phoneme.
Well, I'm still working on allophony. I don't know too much about what's realistic or not.

[e] word initially, following fricatives/nasals; [eɪ̯] elsewhere
[a]; [ɑ] after velars; [ɔ] word finally after velars
[ɪ]; [ɛ] directly between fricatives
[o]; [ə] before nasals
Nachtuil
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Re: Help With Ideas for My New Conlang

Post by Nachtuil »

You can always leave allophony till later. Later when you've played around with your language and have a bit of vocabulary. Allophony usually, or at least doesn't need to, be reflected in orthography. If so you can update spelling.

"Seeing as though I have Past/Non-Past tense, I'm wondering how best to indicate something is in the far future versus near future (I eat vs I will eat?)"
You could always add aspects, such as the prospective which can project something further into the future from the non-past tense.
Another strategy is using adverbs with meanings like "not soon, tomorrow, next week, next year, in the next decade"etc. Allegedly Chinese gets along just fine without tenses using adverbs and aspects. I am not expert on Chinese of course, but it is easy to imagine there are strategies for making due. :)
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