Yay or Nay? [2011–2018]

[holbuzvala]

So I have a paradigm of verbal agreement for subjects and objects, which agrees in 'harmony' (what vowels are in the noun) and noun class (n1= human males; n2=human females; etc). For instance:

Sarah kelekej sakezaga
Sarah kelekej sa-ke-zaga
SARAH MAN n2.'A harmony'.sub-n1.'E harmony'.obj-SEE
Sarah sees man
(Sarah, being a human female and a name with only 'a's in it, takes the 'sa' subject marker; while kelekej being a human male and having letters from the 'e' harmony takes the 'ke' object marker)

However, I think it would be fun if verbs could absorb nouns directly, in a polysynthetic sort of way:

Sarahkelekejzaga
Sarah-kelekej-zaga
SARAH-MAN-SEE
Sarah sees the man

But then how to treat phrases where the subj and obj are modified? E.g. Sarah sees the tall man

Originally:
Sarah kelekej kedešej sakezaga
Sarah kelekej ke-dešej sa-ke-zaga
SARAH MAN n1.'E harmony'.sub-TALL n2.'A harmony'.sub-n1.'E harmony'.obj-SEE
Sara sees the tall man

'Polysynthetic':
Sarahkelekejzaga kedešej
Sarah-kelekej-zaga ke-dešej
SARAH-MAN-SEE n1.'E harmony'.sub-TALL
"Sarah sees the man, he is tall"
Sarah sees the tall man

However, as adjectives funtion more or less as verbs, then to say The man is tall it could be:

Kelekej ke-dešej
OR
Kelekejdešej


So it boils down to these questions:

1. Yay or Nay: Should the verbs be able to absorb nouns?
2. Yay or Nay: If 1 is Yay, should this paradigm coexist with the use of the subj and obj markers on the verb for sentences with "unmodified" (no adjectives, for example) nouns?
3. Open ended: If 1 and 2 are both Yay, what might you suggest for the difference between "Sarah kelekej sakezaga" and "Sarahkelekejzaga"? Aspect? Evidentiality? Other suggestions welcome. (verbs currently unmarked except for whether an action is done with conscious volition: hear vs listen)

P.S. If you wanted to say "The man sees Sarah" it would be "Sarah kelekej ke-sa-zaga" (simply swapping the subj and obj markers, as whatever is closest to the verb is the noun with the most proto-object properties)

[Frislander]

Firstly, kudos for going for polypersonalism, polysynthesis and verby adjectives! They're so cool I don't understand why they aren't more popular.

My first question though is: are you going for naturalism? Because if you are I have to say you're not really going the right way here.

Firstly the harmony thing. Vowel harmony is a morphophonological process which happens at the word-level: certain affixes within the word may be immune to harmony for historical reasons, or it may be completely through-going, but it really does not extend beyond the immediate boundaries of the word.

Secondly, noun-incorporation is so much of a thing I want it more in conlangs. However, the incorporation of transitive-subjects into the verb has not been found so far in any language with incorporation. Additionally, more animate nouns, and especiallt humans, as well as nouns prominent in the discourse, are highly unlikely to be incorporated, so your second example is highly unnatural. Also note that while it is common to drop agreement markers referring to the incorporated noun, but this is by no means a given.

So to answer question 1, yay, but there ought to be restrictions on which nouns can be incorporated. For question 2, if I understand you correctly, is definitely a yay: of course bare nouns should be able to coexist with polypersonal markers if they're otherwise obligatory.

As for question 3, noun-incorporation doesn't really affect much in the way of TAM: it's main use is to do with discourse prominence and how that is managed. For more on this and all I've said in the previous paragraphs, see Marianne Mithun's seminal work on the subject, The Evolution of Noun Incorporation.

[Creyeditor]

Firstly, kudos for going for polypersonalism, polysynthesis and verby adjectives! They're so cool I don't understand why they aren't more popular.

My first question though is: are you going for naturalism? Because if you are I have to say you're not really going the right way here.

Firstly the harmony thing. Vowel harmony is a morphophonological process which happens at the word-level: certain affixes within the word may be immune to harmony for historical reasons, or it may be completely through-going, but it really does not extend beyond the immediate boundaries of the word.

Actually some West African languages have been argued to have ATR harmony across word boundaries. I would have to look up which ones, but they have really interesting patterns

1. Yay, but the object as Frislander mentioned.
2. Noun Incorporation should block object agreement.
3. Incorporated and non-incorporated forms should differ in the (semantic) specificity/definiteness of the noun phrase.

[holbuzvala]

3. Incorporated and non-incorporated forms should differ in the (semantic) specificity/definiteness of the noun phrase.

So you think the difference ought to be something like:

Sarah sa-kelekej-zaga
Sarah sees a man

Sarah kelekej sa-ke-zaga
Sarah sees the man

[holbuzvala]

My first question though is: are you going for naturalism? Because if you are I have to say you're not really going the right way here.

Firstly the harmony thing. Vowel harmony is a morphophonological process which happens at the word-level: certain affixes within the word may be immune to harmony for historical reasons, or it may be completely through-going, but it really does not extend beyond the immediate boundaries of the word.

I had an inkling that the agreement of vowel types in the oun with the verbal suffixes might have been unnatural. I am indeed aiming for naturalism, but I also want a system where there's lots of agreement and free word order because I like to know who's doing what. Can you think of anything else other than agreement of the noun classes on the verb to help differentiate who's doing what, especially in situations where both the subj and obj of a transitive verb are of the same noun class?

Secondly, noun-incorporation is so much of a thing I want it more in conlangs. However, the incorporation of transitive-subjects into the verb has not been found so far in any language with incorporation. Additionally, more animate nouns, and especiallt humans, as well as nouns prominent in the discourse, are highly unlikely to be incorporated, so your second example is highly unnatural. Also note that while it is common to drop agreement markers referring to the incorporated noun, but this is by no means a given.

So to answer question 1, yay, but there ought to be restrictions on which nouns can be incorporated

Interesting! Well, I'm happy to keep it more natural by having only the object(s) incorporated. Are indirect objects usually incorporated too?

Do you think there should be a hierarchy of which sorts of nouns can be incorporated? My noun classes are (currently) as follows:
male humans; female humans; animate things; inanimate things; intangible and abstract things and materials; places; and things that occur in bunches (like fingers or grapes). If I were to posit a hypothetical hierarchy, it would be that incorporated object are things one would expect to be objects, i.e. things without volition. OR, the object is incorporated always when it belongs to a noun class 'lower' on the hierarchy than the subject noun.

For question 2, if I understand you correctly, is definitely a yay: of course bare nouns should be able to coexist with polypersonal markers if they're otherwise obligatory.

What I meant by my question 2 was that for sentences when the nouns are unmodified by adjectives, should the double incorporation be obligatory? But that point is moot now if I won't have any transitive subjects incorporated into the verb.

As for question 3, noun-incorporation doesn't really affect much in the way of TAM: it's main use is to do with discourse prominence and how that is managed. For more on this and all I've said in the previous paragraphs, see Marianne Mithun's seminal work on the subject, The Evolution of Noun Incorporation.

I shall have a read. What does TAM stand for?

[MrKrov]

Tense Aspect Mood.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tense–aspect–mood

[Frislander]

My first question though is: are you going for naturalism? Because if you are I have to say you're not really going the right way here.

Firstly the harmony thing. Vowel harmony is a morphophonological process which happens at the word-level: certain affixes within the word may be immune to harmony for historical reasons, or it may be completely through-going, but it really does not extend beyond the immediate boundaries of the word.

I had an inkling that the agreement of vowel types in the oun with the verbal suffixes might have been unnatural. I am indeed aiming for naturalism, but I also want a system where there's lots of agreement and free word order because I like to know who's doing what. Can you think of anything else other than agreement of the noun classes on the verb to help differentiate who's doing what, especially in situations where both the subj and obj of a transitive verb are of the same noun class?

Algonquian-style Obviation

I will actually admit, I once did something similar to what you are proposing in one of my noob-langs, only this time it was the subject noun agreeing in harmony with the verb and the non-subject nouns taking the opposite harmony.

Secondly, noun-incorporation is so much of a thing I want it more in conlangs. However, the incorporation of transitive-subjects into the verb has not been found so far in any language with incorporation. Additionally, more animate nouns, and especiallt humans, as well as nouns prominent in the discourse, are highly unlikely to be incorporated, so your second example is highly unnatural. Also note that while it is common to drop agreement markers referring to the incorporated noun, but this is by no means a given.

So to answer question 1, yay, but there ought to be restrictions on which nouns can be incorporated

Interesting! Well, I'm happy to keep it more natural by having only the object(s) incorporated. Are indirect objects usually incorporated too?

Well given that what are normally called "indirect objects" are typically animate, then no. However, sometimes languages do allow incorporation of instrumentals and locatives. Of course if you're going for the full polypersonal thing but you want to restrict your verb marking to two arguments, then the more natural thing is to have the verb agree with the indirect object rather than the direct object (since you care more about typically animate things than inanimate), while the direct object could either take some kind of oblique marking or be incorporated.

Do you think there should be a hierarchy of which sorts of nouns can be incorporated? My noun classes are (currently) as follows:
male humans; female humans; animate things; inanimate things; intangible and abstract things and materials; places; and things that occur in bunches (like fingers or grapes). If I were to posit a hypothetical hierarchy, it would be that incorporated object are things one would expect to be objects, i.e. things without volition. OR, the object is incorporated always when it belongs to a noun class 'lower' on the hierarchy than the subject noun.

With NI the hierarchy is most definitely animate>inanimate, meaning that inanimate nouns are likely to be incorporated, animates comparatively rarely. There's also a definite human>non-human hierarchy within the animates, where non-humans may be incorporated sometimes (see the last two examples on page 17 (862) of the linked-to PDF) while humans are incorporated hardly ever.

[Creyeditor]

3. Incorporated and non-incorporated forms should differ in the (semantic) specificity/definiteness of the noun phrase.

So you think the difference ought to be something like:

Sarah sa-kelekej-zaga
Sarah sees a man

Sarah kelekej sa-ke-zaga
Sarah sees the man

Yes

[Egerius]

Buonavallese revisited: Should I raise pretonic /e o/ to /i u/? Prefixes would be affected, too (de- > di-), but only if the vowel follows a consonant (so not: ex > es- > is-; maybe only in the literary language, dunno).

[DesEsseintes]

Buonavallese revisited: Should I raise pretonic /e o/ to /i u/? Prefixes would be affected, too (de- > di-), but only if the vowel follows a consonant (so not: ex > es- > is-; maybe only in the literary language, dunno).

Yes. Especially if the Latin prefix ob- is still live and kicking and you get forms in ub-/uC-.

---

My own question:

I haven't been using glottal stops much yet in my speedlang Ullxānt’axt. The language has ejectives romanised using p’ t’ k’ etc. and I was originally planning on using ’ for the glottal stop. Now I'm tempted to go all Nahuatl here and use h for the glottal stop. The glottal stop occurs intervocalically and in coda.

Yea or Nay?

[Creyeditor]

Buonavallese revisited: Should I raise pretonic /e o/ to /i u/? Prefixes would be affected, too (de- > di-), but only if the vowel follows a consonant (so not: ex > es- > is-; maybe only in the literary language, dunno).

Yes. Especially if the Latin prefix ob- is still live and kicking and you get forms in ub-/uC-.

---

My own question:

I haven't been using glottal stops much yet in my speedlang Ullxānt’axt. The language has ejectives romanised using p’ t’ k’ etc. and I was originally planning on using ’ for the glottal stop. Now I'm tempted to go all Nahuatl here and use h for the glottal stop. The glottal stop occurs intervocalically and in coda.

Yea or Nay?

Jain
Use <h> for the glottal stop, but make it an allophone of all ejectives, so that the place distinction is neutralized, i.e:

{p' t' k' } > ʔ /V_{#,V} only if the preceding vowel is unstressed

[DesEsseintes]

I haven't been using glottal stops much yet in my speedlang Ullxānt’axt. The language has ejectives romanised using p’ t’ k’ etc. and I was originally planning on using ’ for the glottal stop. Now I'm tempted to go all Nahuatl here and use h for the glottal stop. The glottal stop occurs intervocalically and in coda.

Yea or Nay?

Jain
Use <h> for the glottal stop, but make it an allophone of all ejectives, so that the place distinction is neutralized, i.e:

{p' t' k' } > ʔ /V_{#,V} only if the preceding vowel is unstressed

Hmm, that's quite an extreme idea though I must say I kinda like it. I'll think about it. Thanks.

Regardless, I'm using h for sure!

Btw what on Earth is 'jain'? Ja and nein rolled into one?

[Creyeditor]

I haven't been using glottal stops much yet in my speedlang Ullxānt’axt. The language has ejectives romanised using p’ t’ k’ etc. and I was originally planning on using ’ for the glottal stop. Now I'm tempted to go all Nahuatl here and use h for the glottal stop. The glottal stop occurs intervocalically and in coda.

Yea or Nay?

Jain
Use <h> for the glottal stop, but make it an allophone of all ejectives, so that the place distinction is neutralized, i.e:

{p' t' k' } > ʔ /V_{#,V} only if the preceding vowel is unstressed

Hmm, that's quite an extreme idea though I must say I kinda like it. I'll think about it. Thanks.

Regardless, I'm using h for sure!

Btw what on Earth is 'jain'? Ja and nein rolled into one?

You got it. It's used in German for the typical 'yes, but ...' answer

[Egerius]

Buonavallese revisited: Should I raise pretonic /e o/ to /i u/? Prefixes would be affected, too (de- > di-), but only if the vowel follows a consonant (so not: ex > es- > is-; maybe only in the literary language, dunno).

Yes. Especially if the Latin prefix ob- is still live and kicking and you get forms in ub-/uC-.

... ^ What you suggest is exactly the one thing that should not happen.

[qwed117]

Buonavallese revisited: Should I raise pretonic /e o/ to /i u/? Prefixes would be affected, too (de- > di-), but only if the vowel follows a consonant (so not: ex > es- > is-; maybe only in the literary language, dunno).

Yes. Especially if the Latin prefix ob- is still live and kicking and you get forms in ub-/uC-.

... ^ What you suggest is exactly the one thing that should not happen.

Des is a child lost in the Americas.

Now that I'm basically exclusively a romlanger, I should probably expands my repertoire beyond Šrd-inia. One question, Eastern, or Western?

[gestaltist]

I haven't been using glottal stops much yet in my speedlang Ullxānt’axt. The language has ejectives romanised using p’ t’ k’ etc. and I was originally planning on using ’ for the glottal stop. Now I'm tempted to go all Nahuatl here and use h for the glottal stop. The glottal stop occurs intervocalically and in coda.

Yea or Nay?

Jain
Use <h> for the glottal stop, but make it an allophone of all ejectives, so that the place distinction is neutralized, i.e:

{p' t' k' } > ʔ /V_{#,V} only if the preceding vowel is unstressed

Hmm, that's quite an extreme idea though I must say I kinda like it. I'll think about it. Thanks.

Regardless, I'm using h for sure!

Btw what on Earth is 'jain'? Ja and nein rolled into one?

I like Crey's idea... But if you have h for the glottal stop, what about romanizing the ejectives with <h> also? ph th kh

[Creyeditor]

Buonavallese revisited: Should I raise pretonic /e o/ to /i u/? Prefixes would be affected, too (de- > di-), but only if the vowel follows a consonant (so not: ex > es- > is-; maybe only in the literary language, dunno).

Yes. Especially if the Latin prefix ob- is still live and kicking and you get forms in ub-/uC-.

... ^ What you suggest is exactly the one thing that should not happen.

Des is a child lost in the Americas.

Now that I'm basically exclusively a romlanger, I should probably expands my repertoire beyond Šrd-inia. One question, Eastern, or Western?

Eastern

[Frislander]

I haven't been using glottal stops much yet in my speedlang Ullxānt’axt. The language has ejectives romanised using p’ t’ k’ etc. and I was originally planning on using ’ for the glottal stop. Now I'm tempted to go all Nahuatl here and use h for the glottal stop. The glottal stop occurs intervocalically and in coda.

Yea or Nay?

Jain
Use <h> for the glottal stop, but make it an allophone of all ejectives, so that the place distinction is neutralized, i.e:

{p' t' k' } > ʔ /V_{#,V} only if the preceding vowel is unstressed

Hmm, that's quite an extreme idea though I must say I kinda like it. I'll think about it. Thanks.

Regardless, I'm using h for sure!

Btw what on Earth is 'jain'? Ja and nein rolled into one?

I like Crey's idea... But if you have h for the glottal stop, what about romanizing the ejectives with <h> also? ph th kh

Don't expect any Zulu or Xhosa speakers to thank you for that.

[gestaltist]

Don't expect any Zulu or Xhosa speakers to thank you for that.

They're unlikely to venture into the conworld this is for, so I think we're good. ;) I'm more worried about Des's opinion than how South African natives feel about that.

[Egerius]

Des is a child lost in the Americas.

Now that I'm basically exclusively a romlanger, I should probably expands my repertoire beyond Šrd-inia. One question, Eastern, or Western?

Eastern

I support this decision. Conquer Istanbul Constantinople!