Pazmat mk.II (NP: Roadmap for future posts)

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tezcatlip0ca
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Syllabification and Stress)

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

I have a question about the romanization.

The retroflex sibilants are transliterated ch jh ṣ ż. Why the inconsistency? If, like you said in the "What did you accomplish today" thread, they are written in the native script as variants of the palatals, then why don’t you transliterate them all as digraphs ch jh sh zh?

Also, since the grammar is being reworked constantly, is this the current state of the nominal system?
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Chagen
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Syllabification and Stress)

Post by Chagen »

The inconsistent romanization is simply because I like Sanskrit, which uses <ṣ> for the same phoneme as Pazmat. In addition, <jh> is the romanization for a very rare sound in Sanskrit, but I like it nonetheless. <ch> is simply to remain consistent with <jh>.

Second, yes, that is correct! From a quick lookover all of those forms are correct.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Syllabification and Stress)

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

How do consonant and -eqh stems decline now? I can’t quite figure it out...

Also, what exactly is the cutoff age at which you can no longer refer to a man as a wurfō instead of a qiḥ, or to a woman as a cṛsū instead of a jiman? As far as I can tell, the words for ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ in your languages are very influential: in Pazmat their endings define the gender of names and of demonyms in -ez-, and in Sunbyaku they serve as short male/female morphemes for compound words. Would it be correct to assume that ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ are the default category, and ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are subcategories with a secondary connotation of maturity?
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Syllabification and Stress)

Post by Chagen »

How do consonant and -eqh stems decline now? I can’t quite figure it out...
They are second declension. I have put these nouns on hold right now. I haven't even made any new ones so they are basically irrelevant right now. I should get to work on rebuilding them, but I feel there might be enough nouns already.
Also, what exactly is the cutoff age at which you can no longer refer to a man as a wurfō instead of a qiḥ, or to a woman as a cṛsū instead of a jiman? As far as I can tell, the words for ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ in your languages are very influential: in Pazmat their endings define the gender of names and of demonyms in -ez-, and in Sunbyaku they serve as short male/female morphemes for compound words. Would it be correct to assume that ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ are the default category, and ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are subcategories with a secondary connotation of maturity?
It isn't actually defined by a cutoff age; instead, one is called a wurfō or cṛsū when they live with their parents. When they become of age--which is supposed to happen at 16 years old but sometimes is delayed (traditionally, they would continue to live near the family property, but were supposed to act independent and move into a small one-bedroom house)--they become a qiḥ or jīman. The younger terms however, are common as affectionate or insulting (depending on the context) terms.

For your second question: yes (sort of). qiḥ and jīman don't connote just maturity but a very specific sense of becoming independent.

This is also subject to change of course--I really need to expand on Paz culture more--but these should be the basics.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Syllabification and Stress)

Post by Chagen »

Minor Tweaks: Phonology, Reduplication Changes, and More

Another post of minor tweaks I've been working on. Here we go:

Pazmat's phonology is mostly regular, but there are a few tricky aspects to it. First of all, geminate /j/ is pronounced as a palatal fricative; the voiceless [ç] is preferred in the standard Eastern dialect, but the Western dialect often uses the voiced [ʝ]. However, the frication is very weak; oftentimes it sounds more like a slightly-raised approximant. In addition, this pronunciation is common for any /j/ before /i/, even in consonant clusters; nēccavyī "I prepared, got ready" is pronounced roughly [neː.tɕːa.vʝi].

The trickiest part of Pazmat's phonology, however, is undoubtedly is its two rhotics, the normal consonant <r> and the syllabic consonant <ṛ>. To start with the syllabic: it is always pronounced as a syllabic alveolar trill. The normal consonant, <r>, however, always has a retroflex pronounciation; inter-vocally, it is an approximant [ɻ], but after a consonant, it's a true retroflex trill [ɽ]. This causes heavy retroflexion of the dental consonants /t d n θ ð/ (but NOT /s z/), turning them into [ʈ ɖ ɳ θ̠ ð̠] (note that the non-silibant fricatives are true retroflexes, not merely retracted; they sound like /ʂ ʐ/ but non-silibant, almost). Note that the <r> does NOT drop or assimilate into the consonant; doing such is one of the biggest signs of the Western dialect, to the point where fiction uses it to mark characters as uneducated Western bumpkins. In romanization, this is shown with a dot underneath the consonant; cf:

ātrā "the gift" [aː.ʈɽaː] (Western: āṭā [aː.ʈaː]
ṣōdrā "the Shodara*" [ʂoː.ɖɽaː] (Western ṣōḍā [ʂoːɖaː]
wṛthrītā "having been beautiful" [wr̩.θ̠ɽiː.taː] (Western wṛṭhītā [wr̩.θ̠iː.taː]
muddhro "the magic" [mu.ð̠ːɽo] (Western muḍḍho [mu.ð̠ːo])
ranrau "and therefore..." [ɹaɳ.ɽau̯] (Western raṇō [ɹa.ɳɔː]

*:Demon in traditional Paz mysticism which sucks the life force out of people who don't have enough sex/masturbate enough (yes, seriously)

Outside of this, Paz phonology should be rather easy to grasp.

Reduplication Alterations:

Reduplication works a little differently now. In reality, this change alters ONLY vowel-initial roots. We'll need to go back to Proto-Pasuu for this. As I have already stated, PP and Pazmat both ban vowel hiatus. Any such hiatus occurring was blocked by an epenthetic /j/. In Proto-Pasuu, this /j/ wasn't an actual phoneme; it was when PP *pj became Pazmat /j/ that it gained phonemic status. The only exception is when the two vowels were the same syllabic but different grades; then the syllabic expansion rules would take place (put simply: *ṝṛC > *arṛC > arraC, while *ṛṛC > *ṝC > arC)

However, now I have added one exception to this rule: if the vowels were both short, and the same vowel, they simply fell together as a long vowel, which then went through the various changes of Pazmat like normal. This did not occur in any other situation: a long vowel and short vowel, even if the same quality, remained separate. Reduplication only shows, at least right now, in three situations: the Potential formed from a reduplicated syllable with a long grade, a tiny number of adjectives formed from reduplication, usually with intensive or resultive force (kaxak- "broken" from xak- "to cripple, damage", mimidh- "inquisitive, curious" from midh- "to ask", etc.), and in the new optative-conditional mood which I haven't actually described yet.

The potential is irrelevant to this change since it uses a long grade in the reduplication syllable; thus, "I can go" is still īyeyī (e-) and "I can make for myself" is still annadī (ṇd-; remember the syllabic expansion rules?). The adjective formation is barely relevant, but the optative IS highly important. The specifics will come later, but for now, it's formed with basic-grade reduplication and -am-. Thus, mamatamī "I would speak", babadhamū "s/he would maim", etc. However, for vowel initial roots, the two basic grades "collide" and form one single long grade. Thus, "I would go" is NOT *eyeyamī but īyamī, and "I would make for myself" is andamī. Interestingly enough, this doesn't appear very often outside of this formation, mostly from analogy. For instance, the root thi- "see" should form the pluperfect thauruna "I had seen" (thi+iru+na) but does not; it's thiyiruna. The one exception to this is the optative of irregular verbs ending in -a, such as gna- "grieve", nga- "(of a celestial body) be out", and śra- "do": ngagnēmī "I would grive", ngangēmī "(the sun/moon) would be out", and śaśrēmī "I would do".

The second "change" isn't really a change, because it's always been there, really, and I've just never really mentioned it. Causative and Passive verbs reduplicate internally. The original root is kept the same, and the formant -ay- or -ib- reduplicates. For instance, to get the optative of nūcay- "to speed up (s.thing else)", you take the -ay- and reduplicate it. Since it is technically "vowel-initial", the reduplication ends up as -ēy- (not *-ayay-) and then you proceed like normal: nūcēyamī "I would speed (s.thing) up". Likewise for the passive: tor- "to hit" > torib- "to be hit" > toraubamī "I would be hit". Of course, the potential is different: the causative and passive potentials are -ēyay- and -awib-, respectively: nūcēyayī "I can speed (s.thing) up" and torawibī "I can be hit".

//////////////////////


Next post, I will go over the conditional, and how to form conditional sentences.

Also, I just realized the very large amount of morphophonology in this language. It's nowhere near some real-life polylangs, of course, but you have to keep a pretty large amount of (thankfully almost completely regular) rules to correctly produce Pazmat (such as breaking vowel hiatus, turning /j/ into /ş/ before consonants, the syllabic expansion rules--with vowel alterations depending on the preceding consonant--, the reduplication rules, ablaut...)
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Diminutives)

Post by Chagen »

The Diminutive

This is a small post on a feature which has existed for a while but I've just now fully fleshed out. The Diminutive in Pazmat is a productive method with can be applied to just about any noun. While it can be used as an ad hoc way of denoting a miniature/little version of a noun, many diminutives have taken on special meanings, sometimes distant from the original. It also is important for mass nouns. The diminutive is formed differently for each word class, though all but the -er and -ir stems use the same suffix. The diminutive is always either an athematic or a 3rd declension n-syllabic:

Athematics take monolong grade; the result is an n-syllabic:

yed "sword" > yīdan "dagger, short sword"
jad "ocean, sea" > jēdan "little sea, lake"
qiḥ "man" > qūḥan "wimp, bottom man in a gay relationship, gay guy in general (slang, VERY offensive--basically equal to "faggot")

Ablauting suffix nouns put the suffix in the weakest grade and then suffix -as. The new noun is an athematic, and does lengthen in the indefinite:

wurfarā "boy" > wufrasā "little boy, young boy (used to affectionately refer to a son or younger male relative)"
frētharā "river" > frēthrasā "brook, stream"
danśtanā "countryside" > danśtnasā "park (> little countryside), rural area"
nējharā "Sun, star of a solar system" > nējhrasā "lightbulb, lamp, torch"
zrēyanā "friend" > zrēṣnasā "causal acquaintance"
bādharā "war, intense fight" > bādhrasā "skirmish, minor battle in a war"
dumarā "fire (especially an uncontrolled one)" > dumrasā "ember, controlled fire"
rāyanā "ambition, desire" > rāṣnasā "desire (for one particular thing), lust"

-Er and -ir stems keep the length on the -er suffix. Then they turn the new noun into an n-syllabic--because of this, the -er suffix is always -īr-:

cṛsirū "girl" > cṛsīran "little girl, young girl"
vēgirū "book" > vēgīran "small book, novella, pamphlet"
jhṛmirū "army, military" > jhṛmīran "militia, guerrilla fighters"
tamīr "refrigerator" > tamīran "ice chest, cooler"
kodirū "hill, hilly terrain" > kodīran "little hill, knoll"

3rd declension nouns, be they syllabic or vocalic, place the suffix in overlong grade and suffix -as, becoming athematics like the ablauting suffix nouns:

murā "dumbass, idiot" > muroyasā "useless idiot, weak bastard"
eskar "gathering" > eskārasā "clump, haphazard collection"
vṛdhī "law" > vṛdhayasā "suggestion, (in traditional Paz law) a law which incurs only indentured servitude or a fine for breaking it (as opposed to incarceration)

////////////

The diminutive, as the above examples show, obviously denote a smaller sense of the main noun, or affection as well. However, for a few nouns, the diminutive has a special use.

Pazmat possesses a few mass nouns notable by being grammatically singular despite having a plural meaning. A good example is kodarā, which means "waves" (from kod- "to undulate"), referring generally to waves on the surface of water. It has no indefinite at all and no definite plural, and is grammatically singular:

zvitā kodrāya, jadāva, yēyayū
wind-DEF.SG.NOM waves-DEF.SG-ACC sea-DEF.SG-LOC be-CAUS-AOR-3S
Wind causes the waves on the sea

You cannot count kodarā. So how do you say "two waves" or "five waves"? You use the diminutive, kodrasā. Suddenly, you can count waves now:

kādayarāva, kodrēs līrevyū
dip.fingers.into.water-PTCPL.PRES.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC wave-DIMIN.INDEF.SG.NOM bob-PERF-3S
When I dipped my fingers (into the water) a wave bobbed up and down

Frustratingly enough, kodrasā also has the literal diminutive meaning of "little wave" or "ripple". kodrasīva nasīva could mean either "in the five waves" or "in the five ripples". Which meaning is intended depends on context.

Names may also be made diminutive, either to denote friendly/familial affection like a nickname or to insult someone in a patronizing way. It also can be added to adjectives when describing someone playfully/patronizingly, best translated as "mister/miss X":

Śṛdirū: Ḥoy, Kūrayasā! Vētṛtāmi sens, guqat mētvūya awivyaśva!
INTERJ NAME look.at-PTCPL.PST.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-INSTR happy for.a.long.time talk-INFIN-ACC NEG-PERF-1P.INC
Hey, Kurayasā! Glad to see you, we haven't talked for a long time! (lit. "with having seen you, I'm happy...")

Kūrasī: Ṣṛdirū! Jhāye "Kūrayasā"-mi ṣvathīs'!
NAME 1S.DAT NAME-INSTR call-IMP.NEG.SG
Śrdiru! Don't call me "Kurayasa"!

Śṛdirū: Cnā, Bājrīyasā...
INTERJ angry-DIMIN-DEF.SG
Jeez, Miss Bitchy...

*Kūrasī is speaking with with a very northern accent here: pronouncing "Śṛdirū" as "Ṣṛdirū" (northerners merge palato-alveolars into retroflexes), and "swathīsa" as "ṣvathīs'" (<v> is a very faint approximant and also retroflexed /s/) . Also, while this isn't shown, her /a e i o u aj ej oy au eu/ are [ɑ ɪ e o u yː eː eː oː øː].

Some names are Diminutives at their root, such as Zvūtasan, a male name meaning "Little Wind". These can still take an affectionate diminutive, effectively being a double diminutive: Zvūtasan > Zvūtānasā.

Finally, dimuntives are normal nouns and may thus take derivation as usual:

dumarā "fire" > dumrasā "ember" > dumrēs- "smoldering"

rāyanā "ambition, desire" > rāṣnasā "desire (for one particular thing), lust" > rāṣnēs- "lustful, greedy"

cṛsirū "girl" > cṛsīran "little girl, young girl" > cṛsīrān- "adorable"
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Comparison, Reworked -ir/er stems)

Post by Chagen »

Comparison of Adjectives and Revised -er and -ir Nouns

Hello all. I have not posted for a very long time, and I am quite sorry about that. School, depression, suicidal ideation, and fucking all my classes scrambled my brain. But as the finals come and the Christmas vacation looms closer, I'm getting the conlanging bug again. The result has been the addition of new grammar rules and systems. But perhaps more importantly, the long conlanging has made me come into Pazmat with a fresh mind. I have tweaked and altered a ton of little bits of the system--replacing affixes, completely reworking the -er and -ir stems (the latter in particular are almost unrecognizeable from before), and more. Some changes are large, others are tiny (such as a miniscule reworking of the number system). Even such staples as the phonotactics are undergoing very slight changes (nothing major; indeed these changes mostly clarify unstated rules that already existed). Many of these changes will be detailed in a later post. As for now, comparison!

Comparison of Adjectives

For a long while, Pazmat has not had a way to compare adjectives. I could not find a system that suited me, so I pushed it off. As the language grew more and more fleshed out, however, this gaping hole became more and more painfully noticeable. Nevertheless, I avoided tackling it. However, two days I was looking at the post on participles to refresh my memory and look over the system, and I all of a sudden got an idea. Within an hour I had the comparative system down.

What gave me the idea were the passive participles for root adjectives. These have the special meaning of "becoming X" (jag- "strong" > jagrīt- "becoming strong"). It does not take a large leap to go from "becoming strong" to "becoming stronger". And in an instant, I decided to make -īt- the comparative suffix. The rest came quickly.

Unlike the traditional X-Xer-Xest system seen in many Indo-European languages, Pazmat has five degrees of comparison. Outside of the Positive, the Comparative and Superlative have the usual meanings: superiority compared to something else and absolute superiority. Then we have the Inferiorative, which means "less X than Y". The Sublative means "least X". Finally, the Equative means "As X as Y". The endings are:

Comparative: -īt-
Superlative: -allīt-
Inferiorative: -as-
Sublative: -allas-
Equative: -ith-

The -all- in the Superlative and Sublative comes from the adjectival root all- which means "absolute, utter", and is the source of the very common adverb allu. The -as- of the Inferiorative and Sublative comes from the diminuitive suffix. These suffixes are added onto the end of the adjective, but first the adjective must undergo some slight alterations:

-Athematic adjectives do not do anything, directly suffixing: kār- "sharp" > kārīt- "sharper"

--ī adjectives (including roots with -ī) exchange the -ī- for -aw- and suffix: juqrī- "painful" > juqrawīt- "more painful"

-Adjectives formed from 3rd-declension nouns do not change, like athematics: muroy- "foolish/stupid" > muroyīt- "more foolish/stupid"

-All other adjectives lengthen the adjectival suffix and then add the comparative suffixes: ayam- "impatient" > ayēmīt- "more impatient"

These behave like normal adjectives. When directly modifying a noun they agree with it: yedāva kārallītāva "with the sharpest sword"; kūvāv wurfarāsam vṛkawitharāsam "(there are) no boy as bold here"; anpusayat pēvallasasayat "for the least funny old man".

Of course, the main purpose is to compare. Comparisons are done with the dative, and the adjective appears in its bare form, unless it is directly agreeing with a noun: Nāśśerā Śṛdirūt wṛthawīt "Naśśera is prettier than Śṛdiru"; korāsam kārithāsam kūye ṣundōtṛ nūdhayam "there is no blade as sharp as this one in a hundred cities"; jhā Tanterāt jagasā "I am not as strong as Tantera", etc.

When used as adverbs, simply inflect them in the dative as indefinite singular athematics: kārīthīm śṛgū "she writes more strikingly (> "sharply")".

These comparative adjectives can form participles. In conjunction with the various roles participles can take, this can allow for some concise sentences...and some very long words. They do not lengthen:

Jhā ṇpasarāva, dhāvyī na dāvāv frethrāva źīvevyī.
1S.NOM old-INFER-PTCPL.PRES.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC rejoice.PERF-1S=SUB DEM-LOC river-DEF.SG-LOC swim-PERF-1S
When I was not so old, I loved to to swim in that very river.

Jagallasayyaśāmi, zokarīm kostrāyovyū
strong-SUBLAT-PTCPL.FUT.PASS-ATHEM-DEF-INSTR quit-PTCPL.PRES.ACT-DAT decide-PERF-3S
About to lose all of his strength, he decided to quit
(Lit. "With being about to become the least strong, he decided to quit")

Fun Fact: The Pazmat root for "decide", kostro-, literally means "think-grab"

Kṛnāye ātacithásamāva, kṛnāt idderāṣ, jhāye matarāva na wo źāthrā sīnsrāya āttūṣ yū, yājovyī.
2S.DAT wealthy-EQUA-PTCPL.FUT.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC 2S.GEN meaning-DEF.SG-LOC 1S.DAT speak-PTCPL.PRES.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC=SUB money-DEF.SG-NOM only happiness-DEF.SG-ACC give.INFIN-ACC NEG.AOR-3S understand-PERF-1S
After becoming as wealthy as you, I realized what you had meant when you told me that money alone does not bring happiness

Participles derived from verbs can also take comparative markers. In these cases, the markers often indicate comparison (no alteration of the participle marker): marjhṛtītā "(I) worked more"; śrayaras- "working less". However, they often refer to the intensity of an action, in which case they are in the instrumental for overall intensity, or the locative for duration: marjhṛtītāmi "(I) worked a lot" (I was working intensely); marjhṛtītāva "I worked a lot" (I was working for a long time; the intensity was irrelevant). The translation will depend on context; the comparative might mean "really hard", "a ton", "for a long time", etc, while the superlative might be "[verb] as hard as possible" or "the hardest/strongest/fastest/etc."

Note that in this usage, the participle must agree with the subject of its action, even if it is unstated. "I will fight as hard as I can" (which use the superlative) is sepaśamallītāmi, whereas "the veteran (anpusasī) will fight as hard as they can" is sepaśamallītasṛna.


This concludes the section on comparison.

//////////////

A Minor Note on Adverbs:

I have decided that using adjectives adverbially can now use the instrumental as opposed to the dative. The idea is thus: "I ran with quick(ness)" > "I ran quickly". This is the preferred method for the Eastern prestige dialect; and note that the ending used here is the pronominal -am. In the Western dialect, it's common to use the locative instead (e.g for "I drunkenly stumbled", easterners say kajīram dhananvyī; westerners say kajīrav dhananvyī), and it's one of the most salient traits of a "western bumpkin" in popular media, much like how in American media "ain't" and droppin' the -ng on ya' gerunds marks a country southerner.

The use of the privative/ablocative clarifies that you are not doing the action in the manner of the adverb. To better clarify than that horrid sentence: kajīram mēdhavyū is "He was driving drunk", whereas kajīrasi mēdhavyū is "He was driving, but not drunkenly. This can be used to rebuff someone's statement, and another adjective (uninflected) clarifies what really happened:

Tanterā: Ṣṛdirū mētavyū'n pravṛś kajīrav madhiruf'! Vanīm?! Dā'tha!
("Ṣṛdiru said you was drivin' drunk last night! Seriously?! Don't do that!")

Kararā: M-mu, kajīrasa...dhānēmallas? Van'. Dṛk kajerā yī.
("W-well, not drunk...a teeny bit tipsy? sure. But I'm not an alcoholic.")

Regardless of this change, the adverbial usage of the dative lives on in fossilized adverbs and other constructions. Also, this change applies to comparitive adjectives: vṛkawītam "very boldly", nucītasi "not very quickly", etc.

Redesigned -ir and -er Stem Nouns

The -ir and -er stem nouns have undergone major changes; in the former's case, the affix -ir now never actually appears in the words of the class, though they will retain their name as a historical relic. These two noun classes now use a new set of endings: they are called the 2nd Declension, but are directly derived from the 3rd declension endings; they are effectively the same except for the loss of final phonemes in a few endings. They can be viewed as a bizarre offshoot of the 3rd declension. The endings are:

ACC: -ṣ
DAT: -t
LOC: -m
GEN: -ba
INSTR: -na
ABLOC: -sa
PRIV: -si

Note: Do not confuse the -t and -m endings with the same endings in the pronomial inflection. Here, they indicate Dative and Locative respectively, and derive from the 3rd declensions endings for the same cases of -at and -am. In the pronomial endings, -t is for the Genitive and comes from the 1st Declension -tṛ; -m is for the Instrumental and comes from the same declension's -mi; the actual pronomial Dative and Locative endings are -ye and -v, from the 1st declension -yīm and -va.

I'll start with the -ir stems. They are relatively easy to learn. In the indefinite, they behave like -er stems, as before, having the affix -ū-, though now they have the second-declension endings; the indefinite plural is slightly trickier: it uses the historical -vo plural collective-turned-plural marker, but only in the cases past the genitive (and the nominative) does this show up as -vo. In the three cases before (ACC/DAT/LOC), the -v- has assimilated to the ending, geminating it. In the definite, these nouns act like ablauting suffix nouns, where the historical stress always falls on the definite article, which is -ā- like the ablauting suffix nouns. Because of this, they have the distinctive affix of -erā- in the definite singular. Yup: in an intense twist of irony, the -ir- stems not only don't have -ir- anywhere in their declension, but have, of all things, -er, which the -er stems themselves do not have! Moving on, the plural suffixes -ī to the -er suffix like an athematic.

To demonstrate, here is the noun madherā in all of its forms. madherā comes from madh- "to lead", and means "driver" (madh- can also mean "to drive").

INDEF.SG: madhū madhūṣ madhūt madhūm madhūba madhūna madhūsa madhūsi
INDEF.PL: madhūvo madhūṣṣo madhūtto madhūmmo madhūbavo madhūnavo madhūsavo madhūsivo

DEF.SG: madherā madherāṣ madherāt madherām madherāba madherāna madherāsa madherāsi
DEF.PL: madherī madherīṣ madherīt madherīm madherība madherīna madherīsa madherīsi

The standard method of deriving adjectives from these nouns is lengthening the affix to -īr- (one of the few times -īr- ever shows up in these nouns) and leaving it at that: madhīr- "of or relating to drivers or driving; automotive". Diminutives are similar to -er stems, with lengthening of the suffix to -īr-, but -as- is suffixed like the ablauting suffix nouns and athematics.

Some more examples of -īr- stem nouns; they often denotes either actors, or one who creates something related to the action:

kajerā "heavy drinker, alcoholic" (kaj- "to drink"; kajīr- "extremely drunk/inebriated"; kajīras "someone with a drinking problem, who isn't a full-blown alcoholic")
nucerā "stimulant" (nuc- "quick, fast"; nucīr- "stimulating, exciting"; nucīras- "'pick-me-up' (sl.)")
varterā "cow" (vṛt- "milk, extract"; vartīr- "bovine")

-īr- stems also have the merit of being a somewhat common way of deriving nouns from causative roots; in these cases, they almost always form agent nouns, compared to the athematics and -e stem nouns which form action nouns:

nuc- "quick" > nūcay- "accelerate" > nūcayerā "accelerator, gas pedal, throttle" (nūcēṣrasī "acceleration")
di- "be unneeded" > daway- "make obsolete/useless/unnecessary (irreg. formation) > dawayerā "the newest model/product in a line" (lit. "that which makes (the previous model) obsolete"); cf. dawēṣrasī "obsolescence; outdated-ness"
triṣ- "hot" > trūṣay- "make hot, heat up, raise the stakes" > trūṣayerā "heater, challenger"

The -īr- stems have gained their current forms after many centuries of change. Originally they were much different; they used the 3rd-declension endings directly, for instance, meaning that, e.g, "for the driver" was madherāyat; in addition, they truly acted like ablauting suffix nouns, giving them definite nominatives of madhīro (sg.) and madhīre (pl.) (this is why they gained the name "-īr- stems". However, they contracted their endings a few hundred years ago, causing the DAT and LOC endings to drop their vowels; the GEN and ACC endings lose of final phonemes is unexplained, however. The former could have come from making it better resemble the INSTR, ABLOC, and PRIV endings, but then one would expect the same thing in the 3rd-declension nouns. The latter may be analogy from the pronomial endings, but those endings have barely influenced anything, the same is not found in the 3rd declension nouns, and the more likely pronomial influence would have just been taking the whole set or taking the dative and locative endings to prevent any confusion between the two classes. Regardless soon afterwords the anomalous definite nominative endings were brought in line. These innovations then spread to the related -er stems.

-er stems are much like this and don't actually have many changes besides taking on the new endings and now using -urrū- for the definite plural: vagirūt "for the text", vagurrūt "for the texts".

I am utterly incapable of deciding if the plural morpheme should be -errū-, -arrū-, or -urrū-. The second nearly won but this language has enough <a>, and a preponderance of <a> is already the job of the -ar stems. In the end, I want to use the -er stems more, as they are pathetically under-represented despite being one of the first classes ever made for the language. I just never jived with their appearance and phonetics.

Adjectives are now formed from -er stems with ūr- (vagūr- "textual").

Still undecided on all of this. These nouns are going to be the death of me. But it's good enough for now.

I am seriously debating getting rid of ALL -er stem nouns outside of names and just making everything -ir stems. But that's a pretty drastic idea, don't you think? I like the -urrū- of the -er stems but otherwise they drive me insane.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Comparison, Reworked -ir/er stems)

Post by loglorn »

I have to say this is impressive. I really like how much creativity you put into how morphemes interact and what happens to the semantics, are there are usually a naughty bunch of them per word. It's mostly quite interesting and non-obvious.

Also, one simply can't dislike this gloss: strong-SUBLAT-PTCPL.FUT.PASS-ATHEM-DEF-INSTR. Many pretty, Much morphemes.
Kṛnāye ātacithásamāva, kṛnāt idderāṣ, jhāye matarāva na wo źāthrā sīnsrāya āttūṣ yū, yājovyī.
2S.DAT wealthy-EQUA-PTCPL.FUT.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC 2S.GEN meaning-DEF.SG-LOC 1S.DAT speak-PTCPL.PRES.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC=SUB money-DEF.SG-NOM only happiness-DEF.SG-ACC give.INFIN-ACC NEG.AOR-3S understand-PERF-1S
After becoming as wealthy as you, I realized what you had meant when you told me that money alone does not bring happiness
You being able to translate this shows how you've accomplished waaay more than i have in language complexity. It's rather awesome actually.

Sorry for not having much more content than "OMG it's awesome"
Diachronic Conlanging is the path to happiness, given time. [;)]

Gigxkpoyan Languages: CHÍFJAEŚÍ RETLA TLAPTHUV DÄLDLEN CJUŚËKNJU ṢATT

Other langs: Søsøzatli Kamëzet
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Diminutives)

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Chagen wrote:The Diminutive

This is a small post [...]
I see what you did there... [:)]
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Comparison, Reworked -ir/er stems)

Post by Chagen »

loglorn wrote:I have to say this is impressive. I really like how much creativity you put into how morphemes interact and what happens to the semantics, are there are usually a naughty bunch of them per word. It's mostly quite interesting and non-obvious.
Yes, that is one of the most fun things about Pazmat. I love how it has a ton of morphemes and many of them can be combined for interesting and unique connotations and semantics. It's very fun to come up with these combinations; for instance, how participle and comparative endings can combine to pack tons of meaning in a small space.
Also, one simply can't dislike this gloss: strong-SUBLAT-PTCPL.FUT.PASS-ATHEM-DEF-INSTR. Many pretty, Much morphemes.
What's even more impressive is that it's not a clusterfuck of consonants and awkwardly shoved together morphemes! I like that Pazmat's morphemes flow into each other so well.
Kṛnāye ātacithásamāva, kṛnāt idderāṣ, jhāye matarāva na wo źāthrā sīnsrāya āttūṣ yū, yājovyī.
2S.DAT wealthy-EQUA-PTCPL.FUT.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC 2S.GEN meaning-DEF.SG-LOC 1S.DAT speak-PTCPL.PRES.ACT-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC=SUB money-DEF.SG-NOM only happiness-DEF.SG-ACC give.INFIN-ACC NEG.AOR-3S understand-PERF-1S
After becoming as wealthy as you, I realized what you had meant when you told me that money alone does not bring happiness
You being able to translate this shows how you've accomplished waaay more than i have in language complexity. It's rather awesome actually.
Yes, sometimes I forget just how far Pazmat has come. My main difficulties are maintaining the lexicon, really. There are so many words Pazmat needs and I don't really keep a dictionary--in my hiatus I've forgotten many words...
Sorry for not having much more content than "OMG it's awesome"
No worries! While endless praise can stifle someone, hearing praise is still great to hear.

Thrice: Haha, I didn't even notice that!
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Roadmap for future posts)

Post by Chagen »

The Current State of Pazmat

This is not, mostly, a post on new things in Pazmat. Instead, it's a reminder by me that this language still exists, and that I am still working on it.

I stopped working on Pazmat extensively over half a year ago. There are various reasons for this, such as simply growing tired of the language (not bored--I still love Pazmat dearly, but I worked on pretty much nothing but it for nearly two years. I had grown as a conlanger and wished to explore other ideas, such as infixes and heavy morphophonology in Kirroŋa. I started working on writing more and tried to enjoy more things like video games, anime, etc.

However, one major reason, I think, is how much of a complete and utter mess this topic is. Half of the statements in this topic are invalidated by later posts. There are also many which were said once, promptly forgotten, and utterly ignored. For instance, in one post here I said that the Present Desiderative was changed to -ar (so matarī "I want to speak"). I forgot about this completely until I reread the thread several months after this was written--I was still using the old marker of -ara like nothing had changed. I had said that I would revive the -eqh and consonant stems--this never happened. Other elements have always bugged me, yet remain unchanged. This topic is a mess.

No more.

I am going through Pazmat right now and renovating things. I am not wholesale throwing stuff out, but more "touching up" things--a replaced suffix here, a slightly altered nominal paradigm there, and so on. I am going to detail these changes starting with the nouns and phonology ablaut in a series of posts, and afterwards I will continue working on things left abandoned, such as the Conditional (if I can find my notes on it...) and the overall syntax for conditional statements and the new Potential.

I would honestly prefer to make a new thread here for this, but I'm not sure if the mods would like this. Regardless, expect a new post...soon. I am working on a story right now, I want to eventually return to Kirroŋa, and I should also get a basic Haeku Rath grammar down. I have a lot of stuff to deal with, so please be a little patient.

However, there are a minority of new things that I want to talk about. Namely, the 2nd-conjugation 2S suffix is now , and not -ot. Thus, kṇsō "you die". This sounds nice, and fits with the other singular suffixes for this conjugation being long vowels: kṇsī "I die", kṇsū "he/she/it dies". This is not the only suffix that will change (though I am trying to remain conservative).

Also, <ṃ> does not exist as a phoneme anymore, I cannot get it to work right and it sounds ugly next to most sounds...well, perhaps I will not get rid of it, but I will limit its appearances to appearing word-finally or next to labial consonants.

I want to create some rules for when labial consonants force syllabics to expand to uC, or just make it root-dependent, but I can't come up with anything that satisfies me. I have an idea to make it umlaut-based; they expand to uC or aC depending on what vowel follows the ablauting root, but who knows. I should just make them invariably do it, but I like things like vṛdh- > vardh- too much. Besides that, I also am thinking of making a new Vr class alongside the ar-roots and er-roots. If I were crazy I'd do it for EVERY Vr-root but that's a little much. In all honesty this probably wont happen--I don't want to introduce any new vowels to Pazmat, and making any new Vr-roots use existed vowels clutters the system too much. We already have things like /i/ and /u/ both ablauting to /u:/ in the Overlong conjugation.

Pazmat will gain one or two new phonemes with these changes. They will all be consonants. Also, the orthography will change very slightly, as in the diphthongs are now written differently (and are now written consistently for that matter). The only exception is <eu> which is now <ō>, as that phoneme was kind of rare anyway (so "you begin to defend" is now wōsubbō).

I should stress that Pazmat after these changes is still going to be 90% the same language (and that's pushing it, it's really more like 95% the same). It will look the same. Its nouns will still have eight cases with two numbers and definiteness states. Its verbs are still based off of ablauting the root, suffixing special markers, and then adding personal endings, along with six participles and infinitives (though I am definitely going to change some of the infinitive and participle endings).

With that said, it's funny how different Pazmat is from its influences, yet how similar it also is. It was designed as my experiment with Proto-Indo-European style ablaut, with an aesthetic inspired by Sanskrit mostly with some very minor Arabic influence (namely /q/). In the end...Pazmat looks nothing like Sanskrit or Arabic. The orthography shares a great deal of commonality with Sanskrit, but the end result is entirely its own thing. In grammar, Pazmat adheres much more closely to its PIE influence, with its large case inventory, use of ablauting suffixes, and so on, but even then with suffixed articles, no dual, and a preference for agglutinative morphology, it carves its own niche. I am definitely glad that it has ended up like this--I love Sanskrit, but making a straight-up clone would have been quite boring. In addition, this already heavy-distance means I can introduce some more slight Sanskrit influence at my leisure, without coming off as a complete rip-off.

One such example of this is that I am thinking of having <w> become <v> when it comes from an <au> diphthong breaking before a vowel. Therefore, nāvubbī "I am beginning to guard", from nau-ubb-ī and thāvina "I am seeing". Original cases of /w/ do not experience this: śtēwatha "she seethes in anger", from śtēw-a-tha. This would be a sort of fortition. However, /w/ in all cases would also become /v/ before resonants (except for /w/ and /v/); before other consonants (and the two previous exceptions) it merges with the following consonant. This is why the word "seething anger, internal rage" is śtōtū: the word is underlyingly śtēw-t-ū > śtēwtū, and as said before, /ew/ > /o:/, thus stōtū.

See you all later. By the end of the week I should have a post on ablaut and nouns.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Roadmap for future posts)

Post by Chagen »

Hey y'all. I ain't dead. Holy crackers!

Yeah, depression and shit tore a hole right through me. Pazmat will never die though. I swear it will not. However, in my long absence there are a few things I want to change and tweak. I'm always changing and tweaking Pazmat! Keeping it the same beautiful language it always was, is, and will be, however, is a more tricky thing. This is not a big detailed post on the changes. It's more an overview on changes I have already made or want to make but am not sure on.

One of the most difficult things about changing Pazmat is keeping it naturalistic. It's tempting to pile n morphological categories and morphemes until the entire language suffocates under its complexity. Not that complexity is a bad thing--but Pazmat has a very clear aesthetic going on, in that it's Sanskrit mixed with dashes of PIE and Arabic and turned into this strange beast unlike all three yet clearly derived from them. Well, I'm rambling.

Phonology:

--Pazmat's lone /x/ now has a companion /ɣ/. It is spelled <gh>, meaning that /bh/ is the only <Ch> Sanskrit...-tism(?) that doesn't exist in the language yet. Probably never will, since I can't imagine a phoneme that it would be useful for. As of now it exists in exactly one root: nagh- "to weave", giving us the words nēgharā "tailor, seamstress, weaver" and ṣūnnaghā "spider", derived from a combination of that root and the Long grade of ṣerg- "white"--"the one who weaves white (webs)"

--I apparently made some rules about <au> becoming <ō> before non-rhotic approximants. I don't remember these until I saw them in a search a few minutes ago. But it kinda makes sense. However, I think I can whip up some nicer rules in a jiffy here:

au + yC > ōşC
au + wC > āvuC

au + yV > ōyV
au + wV > āvC

ay + yC > ayīC
ay +wC > ayūC

ay + yV > ayyV
ay+ wV > ayūC

(<ey> acts the same way as <ay>, just swap the <a>'s for <e>'s, duh)

I'm not even sure how common these situations are. I literally cannot think of an instance where *auwC would even happen...then again, in-universe, Pazmat's
...that's not pretty. Needs work. Oh well. NEXT.

--I've always wanted some form of Schwebeablaut in Pazmat somewhere (i.e situations where a Cṛ- Long grade is CrV-, not the usual CVr-), but I don't know where to put it. I don't want it to be randomly decided per root both because I'm lazy and because Pazmat abhors random irregularity (codified irregularity on the other hand...). However, I've been thinking of allowing non-rhotic approximant-final roots such as, say, maw- or kṛy- into the language. In that case, it only makes sense that, say, kṛy-'s long grade could be krīy-! But it could b kary-...well, the latter does provide some troubles. I think. Assuming the root means "to sway", is krīyṛtha or karyṛtha better for "it is swaying"? krīyṛvyū or karyṛvyū "it (has) swayed"?

Nominals:

--I apparently added a Proximative in -(y)os: Kaddza, karos ṣūnnaghā yē! "Holy fuck there's a spider next to you!" I don't remember doing this, but I like it. It also provides another alternative for "like" along GEN+dū so that neyṣrāyos or neyṣrātṛ dū are "like a serpent". And it can serve as an alternate comitative alongside the Locative, so that "I came with (my) brother" is either of radisāyos īyevyī or radisāva īyevyī. Fun!

Oh and I guess it's also useful for participles? Perhaps it can have a meaning of "along with doing X, I also blahblahblah":

tōkosāya būntayorāyos nama avrisāya noydhuvyī
"I tended to my garden, and fed my cat as well"

But time will tell. It's probably staying though. NO MORE CASES GODDAMMIT. Other more complex forms of Locatives will be handled with...something. I'm thinking locative demonstratives, an idea I fleshed out years ago and then lost the papers to completely. Fun! Humorously enough, one of them was sub- but didn't mean "below", rather something else, and I only realized the similarity to the Latin preposition like literally right this instant. Derp.

--Something has to be done about second-declension nouns but holy fuck if I know what. Thinking about them makes my brain hurt. NEXT.

Verbals:

--The post-consonantal second person singular is now , not -ot. Fits well with 1S and 3S , doesn't it? I actually love -Vt morphemes (damn you Indo-European languages for killing the sexy PIE Ablative!), but idk, I just wasn't feeling -ot.

--The person endings will be getting a minor tweak. Mostly tidying up. They're going to remain very similar, calm your butts.

--I've been thinking of giving Pazmat a sort of stem system, split into three basic kinds of stems:

Base stems are the raw citation form of the verbal root, from which everything else is derived.

Verbal stems are stems derived from the raw root. They act as verbs, and can take deverbals. The only such stems right now are the causative -ay- and passive -ib-.

Deverbal stems are only used to make derbals such as gerunds, participles, and infinitives. They are overwhelmingly modal stems, such as the Desiderative -urayy-. which allows formations such as: sav- "visit" > savurayy- "wanting to visit" > savurayyṛt- "having wanted to visit..."

Stems are always derived in the base order of Base > Verbal > Deverbal. Therefore, causative + desiderative is always -ayurayy- and NOT *-urayyay-: būrstayurayyṛtāmi "having wanted to make (her) feel..."

As I said up above, I can't get too wild with this. So there probably will not be terribly too many stems. There will definitely be a Desiderative one, though, as well as a few other modal deverbal stems.

--Holy fuck I need to finish conditionals.

////////

I can't think of much else, but I really want to just let everyone know I'M NOT DEAD. That is all, really.
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Roadmap for future posts)

Post by Lambuzhao »

I really want to just let everyone know I'M NOT DEAD. That is all, really.
That's A LOT, dear Chagen! Great you hear from you again! :mrgreen:
… holy fuck…
Holy fuck, indeed. [>:)]
I'm thinking locative demonstratives, an idea I fleshed out years ago and then lost the papers to completely. Fun!
I hate that kind of «fun», but I've been there, and I can surely sympathize. [:S] Glad to see you are taking this (and a lot more behind the scenes) in stride. Just keep on keepin' on, Chacha! [;)]
NO MORE CASES GODDAMMIT.
UR a brave one, Chagen. [O.O]
Yeah, depression and shit tore a hole right through me. Pazmat will never die though. I swear it will not.
If conlanging can be the gossamer thread which leads you out of the Kleinbottle-Conch of Depression's manxsome hug, may Pazmat never die, and may it take you along for the sempiternal ride! I believe in conlangs qua therapy. It's the order and beauty we find in it that saves us, when our lives go kablewwy.
:wat:
Holy Crackers!
Quite. Holy Ritz-Bitz, even!!! [:P]
Well, I'm rambling.
2000s response: Get down with yer bad self!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbkF-15ObM

1990s response: Reelin' with the feeling; don't stop! continue!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Mr_uHJPUlO8

1970s response: Ramble On!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmIuTI4wRg


Whatever my answer, glad U crossed the Delta and made it back to us!

[:D]
~LAM
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Jhā ṇpasarāva, dhāvyī na dāvāv frethrāva źīvevyī.
[+1]

And I loved to swim in that river, which is glossopoeia, even when I was not too younger, as well. [;)]
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Roadmap for future posts)

Post by kiwikami »

Welcome back, Chagen! [:D] Punch depression in the face.
Glad to see Pazmat in play again - love a good proximative.
Edit: Substituted a string instrument for a French interjection.

:eng: :mrgreen: | :fra: [:)] | ASL [:S] | :deu: [:|] | :tan: [:(] | :nav: [:'(]
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Roadmap for future posts)

Post by Chagen »

Holy shit! I am not dead!

I recently re-entered college. Rather than learn I decided to mess around conlanging in class. Don't worry, I actually still mostly pay attention, but college makes me want to conlang. I dunno why.

Of course, I returned to my old flame of Pazmat. It's wild how much of this language still is drilled into my head. Nonetheless, some things have changed--some things have been added. There is an optative-conditional now, and some other cool stuff. Yet somehow there is still no proper indirect question system. Whoops. We'll get to that. This post is just getting the old engine started, and mostly rambling about random adverbs and stuff that don't...really fit anywhere else.

tāvamā

This isn't even an adverb, Chagen!

tov- is a completely normal verbal root in Pazmat which means "to come before" or "to precede". Notably, it takes what you'd expect to be the direct object in the dative--this is actually quite common in Pazmat for verbs which denote less material actions like feeling/emotions and happenings:

zṛtīyīm mubbosā matāsīm tovū
baby-PL-DAT babble-AOR.INFIN-DEF talk-AOR.INFIN.OBL.DEF-DAT come.before-AOR.3S
For babies, babbling comes before talking.

Note the new infinitive marker -osā there. More on that later. Pazmat not only has that but perfect and future infinitives as well!

However, it often defies literal translation: something such as ja tāvivyū?! literally means "What has come before (this)!?" but really means "what happened?!". On the derivational front: tov- has graciously given Pazmat several key words:

tāvarā "the past" > tāvram- "anterior, past, ancient, etc." > tāvrēmusī "past tense"
tāvī- "previous" > tāvayīm "behind"
tāvaparsā "grandfather" (parsā "father")
tāvabṛnjā "grandmother" (bṛnjā "mother")
tāvay- "to require" (that is, make something come before something else") > tāvēṣrasī "requirement" (c.f the pass.ptcple tāvaṣrīt "required":
tāvamā

That last one is actually what most of this post is about. tāvamā, an ablauting suffix noun, is one of those lovely words every language needs that's basically untranslatable directly. At best, it means something like "what has come before". However, actually translating it as this is very very rare. For instance, with midh- "answer" and other such verbs, it really means "what (had) happened:

Sunā lēghayītā. Tāvamāyīm midhariruna, dara narasīyā wēzṛtāmi..ūṣrāsit.
store-DEF ruined-ATHEM-DEF.SG what.came.before-DEF.SG-DAT ask-DESI-PLUPERF-1S but owner-DEF.SG leave-PERF.ACT.PTCPL-DEF.SG-INSTR nothing-DEF.SG-PRIV
The store was a wreck.I had wanted to ask what had happened, but given that the owner had (already) left...I got nothin'.

Likewise, check this very well known Pazmat phrase:

Tāvamā tovū. Ama jadhītaśamī aśśe ḥɾsū
what.came.before-DEF.SG precede-AOR-3S now good-COMP-FUT.ACT.PTCPLE-DEF.PL 1PL.INCL.DAT be.necessary-AOR-3S
What has happened has happened. Now, we must be better next time.
(lit. "What has come before precedes (us). Now, being better in the future in regards to us(incl.) is necessary.")

This construction: a non-finite verbal phrase acting as the subject of hṛs- "be necessary/needed", is the main way Pazmat expresses obligations. In other words "You must go to the store and buy oranges" in Pazmat is literally "Going to the store and buying oranges is necessary in regards to you." Like a lot of the European languages that inspired Pazmat, this kind of impersonal verb construction is common for verbs about necessity or emotion: "I hate you!" in Pazmat is in fact "You are destestable in regards to me":karā jhīm gattō!. More elaborately, "you eat apples often" is completely different in Pazmat: "eating apples is common in regards to you" akarīya buntorā krīm soccū

...except this is actually far more likely to express itself as an infinitive phrase; that is, "your eating of apples is common" (infinitives in Pazmat cannot have a subject--the subject instead owns them as a genitive): akarīya buntosā krat soccū. This is because the "present" infinitive is more a tenseless aorist one. More details in future posts.


In the dative tāvamāyīm it often means "about that", "taking (that/what just happened) into account", etc. (i.e "regarding what has come before")" In casual speech, this is shortened to tāvmāyīm/tāvmāyī or even tāmmī. Most commonly, in the instrumental tāvamāmi or genitive tāvamātṛ (the meaning seems to be basically identical), it serves as effectively Pazmat's equivalent to "therefore", "thus", "as a result of which", "because of this", "given (all) that", "due to this/that", etc:

Vṛśakūrā struwṛtha; tāvamātṛ pezīyīm nāqqā lusuyyū
NAME-DEF.SG grieve-IMPERF-3S what.came.before-DEF.SG-GEN person-PL-DAT none-DEF.SG disturb-FUT-3S
Vṛśakura is grieving; therefore no man shall disturb (her).

Notable in this sentence is Pazmat's pretty weird way of saying "no X"--that is, by saying "regarding X, none [verb]", in this case "regarding people, none shall disturb". This isn't poetic: it's just how it does things. To say something such as "No cars passed through here", Pazmat literally says "regarding cars' having passed through here, there were none": dāvāv bārravāsīm iśtrīṣṣtṛ, nāqqā. You can see how literally translating the Pazmat starts getting...nonsensical.

Also now you can see what the past infinitive is: L,-avos. The unusual declension will be explained later, as usual.


In casual speech, this is often shortened to tāvmāt'/tāvmām' or even tāmmā'/tā'. It is most often encountered in resultative clauses such as "so X...that", using either a comparative or superlative depending on the intended level of emphasis:

tṛẓallītāmi tāmmā repāya ayasāya dīgrīṣṣtṛ boyntuvyī...
hungry-SUPERLATIVE-ATHEM-DEF.SG-INSTR resultive box-DEF.SG-ACC whole-ATHEM-DEF.SG-ACC cookie-DEF.PL-GEN eat-PERF-1S
I was so hungry that I ate an entire box of cookies.../I was super hungry, so I ate an entire box of cookies...
(lit. "With being the hungriest, as a result of which I ate an entire box of cookies")

I'm debating if this the only way to make this kind of clause. It feels a little "hacky".

nedēravyī tā' nedasruppāya stroyī
sleep-DESI-PERF-1S thus sleep-medicine-DEF.SG-ACC grab-AOR-1S
I wanted to sleep, so I took some sleep aids

idda/jamā/etc.

idda Is a word meaning "how". It is used almost exclusively when asking about feelings, such as in X-DAT idda burstō? "how do you feel about X"/"what you think X?"/"thoughts on X?". Likewise: idda iśtrā? "how is the car?". The other main usage is with an adjective to express "how is (it/him/whatever) so X?", which weirdly enough uses the adjective in the proximative: idda ḥodhāyos?! "How can you be so calm?!". Add a comparative for more fun! idda jimēn wṛthayītāyos "How can a woman be so beautiful?!" karā idda dṇballītāyos kaśś'allu?! "How the fuck can you be so goddamn annoying?!"

You can probably guess where this is going. Yup, since verbal participles are adjectives, they can take full advantage of this:
Radīsāya jagallītāya ūkānāyīm vayam tārratāmi, idda karā jhaye viksorāyos? Vṛkayītāva, kiwo murā ikonīyī? zerā jhaṣ kersāsya yū--ayśtommū krāyanāmi krat amasāya vyāsayayyī
brother-DEF.SG-ACC strong-SUPERLATIVE-ATHEM-DEF.SG-ACC unconsciousness-DEF.SG-DAT righ.before beat-PST.ACT.PTCPL-ATHEM-DEF.SG-INSTR how 2S.NOM 1S-DAT approach-PRES.ACT.PTCPL-ATHEM-DEF.SG-PROX bold-COMP-ATHEM-DEF.SG-LOC or.only idiot-INDEF.SG senseless-INDEF.SG whichever 1S-ACC concern-AOR.INFIN-ACC NEG.VERB-AOR-3S may.it.happen blood-DEF.SG-INSTR 2S-GEN floor-DEF.SG-ACC coat-FUT-1S
Given that I've just beaten your much stronger brother into unconsciousness, how can you approach me? Are you recklessly bold--or are you simply a senseless fool? I care not which one--I shall coat this floor in your blood all the same
(lit. "With (me) having just beaten (your) strongest brother towards unconsciousness, how can you approach me? Are you excessively at being-bold-ness, or (are you) only a senseless idiot? Which (of those two) does not concern me--regardless I shall coat this floor using your blood")

Things of note here:
1. The first sentence of this ("Radīsāya jagallītāya ūkānāyīm vayam tārratāmi, idda karā jhaye viksorāyos?") only uses non-finite verb forms. Neat!

2: The word for "unconsciousness", ūkānā, is a combination of the negative verb root i- (the overlong form ū- is common here, though inexplicable compared to other verbal compounds) and kon- "think". Thus it means "not-think-ness". Interestingly enough the word for "senseless" later down the line, ikonī, is the exact same verbal roots, yet use completely different ablaut grades.

3: "Are you recklessly bold" is actually just "are you at being-bold-ness" or something. The comparative added to vṛkī "bold" is why I added the "recklessly" there.

4: ayśtommū is used here to mean "all the same", though "regardless" and "no matter what" are also good choices. What it actually is is ośt- "to happen" in the optative (which you will learn about later), thus meaning basically "may it come to be". You can sorta see how this could mean "regardless". It's actually a elided version and the full "correct" version would be ayśtomosū but that's not important right now.

5: vyāsay- "coat/cover" is the causative of vyas- "coat,cover (intrans.)". However, it's used as a normal verb, not as a typical causative. Its object is not the thing covering something else (as it would be if it were literally and syntactically "make s.thing cover s.thing.else") but the thing being covered (as "cover" itself acts in English.) This is relatively common for causative verbs that are just intransatives of transitive verbs, as well as causatives that have a specialized/specific meaning as opposed to just "make s.thing verb", as lēśay- "put under the case/guard of" from laś- "protect, watch over".


But this doesn't provide a way to say "how" in the sense "by what means", which is where jamā comes in. That's not "how", but Pazmat's version of "what". It's an athematic adjective/noun and possesses a full declension paradigm; however, it does NOT agree with its noun even in case: qiḥā jamā "what man", yōchamāva jamā "in what cold bath", cṛsūrēvat jamā "for which girl", etc.

I think I have finally come up with a scheme for the -ū stems I don't find unfitting for whatever reason. Thank god. Only took me six damn years!

The reason is that the other cases have specialized uses. First of all, though, the full paradigm; obviously an indefinite "what" is nonsensical (except maybe as "which", but that is an entirely separate word you will see later), so there's only a definite form, and the declension is highly irregular, though it most closely resembles the pronominal one:

Image

That anamolous -ū- there is from some kind of syllabic m ṃ that disappeared in Pazmat while the others (ṛ ṇ) remained. I want Pazmat to have once had ṃ but lost it resulting in lots of weird verbal roots and stuff. The best part is even if this doesn't conform to the future typical reflexes of Old Pazmat ṃ I can just say it's irregular and be done with it!

The accusative and dative are pretty much how you'd expect: jamāṣ śrēyavyō? "you did what?" kādhamā jūye vettū? "for whom does this chair exist for? (really: "whom is this chair for")", though the dative also has the meaning of "why" (jūye śtēwafe, pērīyā? "why do you seethe with anger, my love?"). The locative means "where": jūvam wurfōya separorōya zṛśśarśī? "where may I find a boy willing to fight?". The instrumental means "how" when referring to the means by which someone did something: jāmi pētanāya garḥṛvyō? "how did you kill that singer?"

The genitive is NOT used to mean "whose"--that is the domain of its derived possessive adjective jamī-, which invariably inflects as an athematic adjective: śṛdrā jamīyā? "whose drum is this?" Thus, the genitive is almost exclusively to mean "whence" or "from where" (remember, the Genitive in Pazmat has an ablative use as well: wurfrīṣṣ danśtanātṛ artṛvyaṣṣi "these boys have come from the countryside"): jātṛ wufrīṣṣ ṛtaṣṣi? "from where are these boys coming?", and admittedly, it can mean "why" (after all, a dative "for what/whom" and genitive "from what" can both reasonably be read as "why") jātṛ kūvāye dēmmosō? "why do you find him lamentable?" There is a slight shade of meaning, though---jūye has more emphasis on what emotional reason someone is doing something, jātṛ on what actual event prompted their actions. But vulgar speakers use both mostly interchangeably.

This is actually the exact opposite of how the other pronouns work. Genitive forms such as jhat "my" and krat "your" are used for possession (e.g iśtrā krat "your car")--the associated possessive adjectives (in this case, jhī- and krī-) in fact are never used like this except in stiff/formal/poetic speech (and even then, like jamī- they are invariably athematic and even irregular: yedāmi jhīyāmi "with my blade", though a better translation given the poetic overtones is "with this blade of mine" or "with my own blade"*). They are instead used to answer/ask questions: xīsrā krīyā? "is this your zither?".

*: you know, I may change it so that using the possessive adjectives with nouns in modern Pazmat carries this reflexive meaning.

Admittedly, the genitive of the pronouns does have an ablative meaning as well:

ātamā krat woḥīm jhat vettū; tāvamāmi źaske
wealth-DEF.SG 2S.GEN only 2S.GEN exist-AOR-3D because.of.this know.ones.place-IMPER
your wealth exists only because of me--thus, know your place


parāmi, purat, etc.

Time to learn how to be nice!

parā is an athematic noun from par- "to be grateful for", and thus literally means graciousness or gratefulness. In the instrumental parāmi it thus serves as "please" (lit. "with graciousness"): parāmi akrīya buntawī "please don't eat the applies, you two". As you'd expect, in casual speech this is pammī and if you want to sound like a four-year-old for some reason then you have pāpā ("pwetty pwease"). That is synonymous with the feminine of Sanskrit word for "wicked", a fact I find deeply hilarious.

Note that you can also use the adjective pērī "grateful" as an adverb to mean "thank you": pērīyam ṛtō "thank you for coming". Still, one can use par- itself with an infinitive phrase: artavāsya krat parī (this is literally "I am thankful for your having come (here)"

purat is the Pazmat word for "sorry". This is according to my adverbs sheet on my computer. I don't know what it comes from, but I can assume it's some kind of dative derived from a hypothetical verb pur- "apologize", but then again, why not just be a verb: purī "I apologize/I am sorry"?

"hello", "goodbye", "good night", "good morning" are optative forms of mostly defective verbs. You will learn about the optative later, but they are jādhomosū/jāmmū, dāromosō/dārros, burrīm naydomosō/burray, ja'naydomosō/janay.



is...something (particle? post-position? Yeah, postposition) with a similative sense. With the genitive, it means "like" or similar words in English: jinbōtṛ dū ośtau! "stop acting like a child!". As always, verbal participles can totally take advantage of this: Āśtayaśamarā, svaususātṛ dū mētafe "Āśtayaśamara, you are speaking as if you have been drugged". In casual speech, the genitive marker and are slurred together. Thankfully, pazmat has like, four genitive endings so it's not too difficult to remember:

wurfarātṛ dū > wurfarātaddū "like the boy"
cṛsūrōvas dū > cṛsūrōvaddū "like the girl"
krat dū > kraddū "like you"

Whether or not you want to consider this an actual case suffix or not is your prerogative.

Finally, with the word kūvā "this" as kūddū you get "like this": kūddū zrōrāya sṛgō? "you write your name like this?". Even when English would use "like that", Pazmat still uses kūddū.

Impersonal Verbs/Derived adjectival verbs of emotion

Like many European languages, Pazmat often expresses verbs of emotion in an impersonal sense: that is, "X is Y in regards to Z" for "Y X's Z". Such verbs include:

gatt- "it is detestable" > "hate/disgust"
ḥṛs- "it is necessary" (basically Pazmat's version of "must")
dur- "it is inevitable" (often used as a poetic sort of future)
vajj- "it is likeable" > "like"
pruṣ- "it is acceptable" (basically, "may/might", though the future potential is often used for that purpose too)

Note that these verbs may take any argument:

jhaye vējjavyū
1S.DAT be.likeable-PERF-3S.
I liked him
(lit. "He was likeable in regards to me")

They may also take participles or infinitives:

kṇsūrēvam radīsātṛ stṛwosā krat jhaye gattū
death-DEF.SG-LOC brother-DEF.SG-GEN grieve-AOR.INFIN 2S.GEN 1S.DAT be.detestable-AOR.3S
That you grieve over your brother's death like so disgusts me.

But of extra special note is the formant L,-os, which can be attached to any adjective (ANY adjective, including participles) to form a verb meaning "find [object] annoying". Thus from wṛthī- "beautiful" we get wṛthayos- "find to be beautiful". This can be a tricky thing to translate, as often what English would say as "She is beautiful to me" is expressed in Pamat as "I find her beautiful": dāvāṣ wṛthayosī. This emphasizes that you find her beautiful. As such, it might better be translated, at times, as "Well, I (happen to) find her beautiful" or "I myself think that she is beautiful".

As a verb, these derived verbs can take adjectives or infinitives, or even other formants: jēdhosarī, dara... "I want to find (him) beautiful, but...", jhaṣ vānāsaye! "(then) make me admire (her)!"

That last one showcases that sometimes these verbs have specialized meanings: vānos- (von- "perfect") literally means "find s.one to be perfect" but really means "admire, respect, idolize".

Even participles may take this. These have the elaborated meaning of..."find s.one to be [verb]'ing": cṛsūrōṣu varśrāva patārāsovyī "I found that girl to be singing in the night".

...and these STILL may take participles on their own, leading to wonderfully compact instrumental absolutes:

Vṛśapatásmarāya kādhamāva bādhoysāsṛtāmi nucallītam ḥīsarāyīm śinnuvyī
NAME-ACC chair-DEF.SG-LOC hit-PST.PASS.PTCPL-FIND.VERB-PST.ACT.PTCPL-DEF.SG-INSTR fast-SUPERLATIVE-ADV house-DEF.SF-DAT carry-PERF-1S
Having found that Vṛśapataśamara had been wounded in his chair, I carried him to my house as fast as possible

One must appreciate or be terrified of (or both) the sheer amount of inflexion done to bodh- "wound" in this. It possibly borders on unnaturalistic:

1: turn bodh- into a past passive participle by lengthening it and suffixing -us, forming bādhus- "having been wounded"

2: lengthen the particple suffix itself and suffix -os to make bādhoysos- "find s.one to have been wounded"

3: lengthen THAT verbal suffix and suffix -ṛt- to it to make it a past active participle, forming bādhoysāsṛt- "having found someone to have been wounded"

4: make it into an instrumental absolute by suffixing the definite singular article -ā- and then the instrumental case marker -mi-, finally producing bādhoysāsṛtāmi "with having found s.one to have been wounded. Whew!


Of course, comparatives enjoy this function as well: Sensarataseṣu tokkaytosī... "I find Sensaratasī a little too boisterous..."

Other various adverbs/etc.

Here's a few other words, mostly adverbs, some interjections, all of which are so simple that there's no need to give each one a detailed overview:

jawa "today"
tūwa "yesterday"
ūvra "all day (long), constantly (often to an annoying extent)
addra "tomorrow"
awur "not ever"/"there's no way"
tagīm "soon"
dara "but"
ec (refers to the previous thing having been said--it's an indefinite pronoun, so īcmi "with that having been said"/"given what has just been said"
wasa "yet"
naśva "finally"
ki "or"
kiwo "or only" (< ki + woḥīm "only")

//////////

Whew!

I don't know exactly what order I will continue but I do want to go over a few things:

-what changes I have made to Pazmat morphology and phonology

-a new overview of pazmat's tightened-up verbal system, including improper roots (that is, ones which don't fit the standard schema

-an overview of Pazmat's native script--I have no artistic talent to make it, but I do want to go over what features it does have (it's...got a lot of issues to put it mildly)

-finally going over the optative-conditional
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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Chagen
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Re: Pazmat mk.II (NP: Roadmap for future posts)

Post by Chagen »

The Translative Case

Four years ago, a single post on this forum shows that I planned a translative case for Pazmat at the same time I added the proximative. I completely forgot about it until yesterday whereupon I happened on it completely by chance while searching my past posts for a completely different topic. I can't find my notes, so all I have to go on is that the ending was -(y)aru and the meaning was...something vague and odd.

Thinking about it a bit more, I've added this case to Pazmat. It however now has quite the unusual use. It's definitely one its more esoteric cases.

//////////

The translative's original use was contrasted with the instrumental: it was used to describe motion throughout something, but the more important use was for instruments that aren't literal objects one could hold or immaterial things, which was originally the instrumental's sole domain. Thus, it corresponded to English phrases like "I came via train", "He walked on a dirt path", and so forth. The ending was -(y)aru, and notably, it was usually added to the indefinite of a noun. This confusing use does definitely mirror the english translations sometimes like "via train", but the actual reason is that the "indefinite" of Pazmat is actually less indefinite and more indifferent to definitiness. This is why Pazmat does not have a specific indefinite article to go along with its definite article suffix. Nouns distinguish "indifferent to definiteness" and "definite", and since definiteness is mostly binary, and one side of that binary was mandatory, the other one naturally gained a sense of indefiniteness. Use of the definite with the translative has a very specific sense of "via this/that specific X" (as opposed to some other thing). Yes, definiteness in general is defined as "this/that specific thing", but it's much stronger in Pazmat and sounds like you're contrasting the thing to something else. It is also indifferent to number a lot of the time.

But the instrumental soon gained ground, and the translative became more specific and focused. What happened was that it remained in fossilized phrases such as studūyaru qoghrītā naśva "through burden we become blessed", myths and other ancient stories, and the like. As such, it took on a sense of formality, and therefore came to mean more "thanks to X" or "with thanks to X"--a sort of formal way to thank someone or something for whatever is going on or has happened. Finally, this use occurred so often with inferiors addressing their social/cultural superiors, that it became effectively a vocative case, and this is the meaning it has now. In modern Pazmat, the translative is thus used for:

-motion throughout something (braqāyaru voystuvyū "he walked through the door ; Bṛnjā jinbrīyya ḥesrāyaru drījevyū "The mother chased the kids all throughout the house")

-as a formal replacement for the instrumental; often this should be translated equally formally in English (wo busaru trējeyyamaru sṛcāya bītēyavyī "only via exhausting work have I completed this project")

-As a way of saying thanks to someone or something, especially if they are the reason for something having happened/gone well/etc. (Studaśamerāyaru nṛẓī āśtavāsya yū! "Thanks to Studaśamerā nothing bad happened!" ; can be used sarcastically too, as in dhanaṣṣrāyaru krat būsamāyīm toyquvyaśva, murītasā! "thanks to your clumsiness we lost the job, you stupid fuck!")

-As a vocative for one's superiors, pretty much (subāyaru, mam subaśrusā otimū? "professor, when must this homework be turned in?" ; drūxamāyaru, jmi sarjṛvyē? "why are you crying, my dear beloved?)

Not much else to say. Funnily enough, my original plan for the translative yesterday was more akin to the rare cases of Finnish: a case that had fallen out of common usage. Instead it's now a regular case with some unusual uses.

Also, the ending is often clipped to -ru. Have fun pronouncing stuff like korūrēru "throughout the slice"! (for the record, it's [koɻuːɻeːɻu])
Nūdenku waga honji ma naku honyasi ne ika-ika ichamase!
female-appearance=despite boy-voice=PAT hold boy-youth=TOP very be.cute-3PL
Honyasi zō honyasi ma naidasu.
boy-youth=AGT boy-youth=PAT love.romantically-3S
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