Kôren language

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Kôren language

Post by Omzinesý »

Kôren ['kɒɹɜn]

- A-priori
- kind of Austronesian alignment
- quite small phoneme inventory
- not too much morphology

Contents
Vocabulary: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6012&p=250107#p250110
Verbs: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6012&p=287905#p287905
Nouns: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6012&p=287938#p287938
Pronouns: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6012&p=287939#p287939

Consonant inventory

p t k
s
β ɹ ɣ
n
l

Vowel inventory when stressed:
i u
e o
a ɒ

When unstressed
i -> ɪ, ʊ u ->
e -> ɪ or ɛ, o -> ʊ or ɔ
a -> ɛ, ɒ -> ɔ

So /e/ and /o/ should maybe analysed as /e~ɪ/, /e~ɛ/, /o~ʊ/, and /u~ɔ/.
Last edited by Omzinesý on 26 Jan 2019 12:30, edited 14 times in total.
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

Vocabulary is updating all the time

Nouns:
taski 'a beauty'
serpa 'house'
elo 'man'
eli 'boy'
nosa 'elk'
tevni 'forest'
sotô 'wife'
sipa/ipi 'night'
peski 'dream'
lonbi 'creature'
keska 'village'
segti 'foot'
nuta 'butt'
lonba 'ground'
suti 'a fish'
rila 'sea'
neva 'cat'
sonta 'problem'
none 'area'
erpô 'book'
nebsa 'god'
sesru 'world'
tobni 'son/daughter/one's child'
naksa 'life'
tôta 'king'
osa 'home'
aiso 'spirit/ancestor'
eksa 'power'
gosi 'breath', 'being alive'
ronsa' tail'
bisa 'wave'
toga 'sibling'
pota 'prince/princess/ young lord'



Pronouns:
nos/asu 'I'
ere 'you'
ao '(s)he/they'
sao '(s)he/they' (that is present/visible)
pesa 'we all'
un 'something'
py 'anyone/anything'
tet "reflexive pronoun"
sak 'it' "anaphora for clauses and other abstractions"
tetu 'self' ADV

Verbs:
nag_t 'see'
ron_v 'stand up'
vun_t 'hunt'
pel_k 'kill/die'
pis_k 'go/bring in'
sem_t 'think'
kas_r 'chase'
eg_r 'consider/ponder'
nos_n 'drink'
ov_l 'throw'
n_r 'come out'
lev_l 'burn, smoke'
lep_p 'try to'
k_p causative verb 'make'
pig_p 'quit'
sub_p 'love' (erotic)
seb_t 'care of' 'like'
tig_r 'rule' (manage/lead)
sog_r 'ban'
sit_s 'read'
pab_n 'give'
syn_n 'believe'
nit_n 'know'
nas_b 'sleep'
to_t 'rule' (be king)
s_p 'go'
o_s 'live somewhere'
ses_k 'create'
n_b 'tell'
go_s 'breathe'
t_l 'say'
nola_p 'wake up'
s_l 'eat' (look sylu)
sit_p 'behave'
kig_n 'decide'
pet_k 'destroy'

Statives:
ronbu 'to stand'
sebu 'to have'
tasku 'beautiful'
ru COPULA
urlu 'latest'
pukru 'scary'
ponu 'exist/be there'
melku 'only _'
nyr-konu 'ethernal/ever lasting'
setu 'wise'
usiu 'old'
abu X 'there is...' an introduction particle
gasu 'white'
itu 'small'
nolapu 'be awake'
sylu 'hungry'
oosku 'very'
puksu 'holy'
ogu 'good/beneficial'


Particles:
ri "the complementizer" 'that'
pa 'there'
rôk perfect particle
nasku 'therefore'
ôl genation partticle
ôle 'do not' negation + imperative
see 'but'
riru '-ness, the fact that one is X' quality nominalizer
kolo 'because' "factual"
ree 'for, in order to' "purposive particle"
ga "relative pronoun"
soo 'but instead'
nyr 'always'
iran 'always' (with negative particle ôl iran 'not always')
lau 'if' "counterfactual"
nen 'if' "non-factual"
pe "yes-no question marker"
el 'than" 'comparative'
ene 'now' "continuing action"
les 'when'
sy 'how'
as 'and'
Last edited by Omzinesý on 27 Jun 2019 21:29, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

Noun inflection

A typical noun stem is CVCVC. If a suffix is added, the vowel in the middle-syllable is quite reduced and short.
Definite nouns have their stress on the last syllable while indefinite ones have it on the first syllable. All syllabic affixes count as syllables.

Nouns ending in í~i are usually feminine. -í~-i can also be used as a suffix for deriving feminine entities.
Nouns ending in ê~e are usually masculine. -ê~-e can also be used as a suffix for deriving masculine entities.
Nouns ending in û~u are usually collective. -û~-u can also be used as a suffix for deriving collective entities.
Nouns ending in ô~o are usually collective but they denote to abstract entities. -ô~o can also be used as a suffix deriving abstact words.

Most stems of words meaning animals are collective and a masculine or feminine suffix must be added to derive a singulative.


-------


Possessed forms

Possessed nouns agree the gender of their possessor. Possessive suffixes are always stressed because a noun having them is always definite.
There are three different kinds of "possessive" relations encoded by the suffixes.

Purely possessive relation 'X is Y's own' (Y's house [that Y possesses]'
Meronymic or material relation 'X is a part of the group of Ys' or 'X is made of Y' (window of the house, Y's hand, female author) or (wooden table)
Metonymic relation 'X is near to Y' (Gin Tonic, Y's house [where Y lives])

So there are nine affixes
Possessive: -êl M, -íl, ûl C
Meronymic/material: -ês M, -ís F, û C
Metonymic: -ên, -ín F, -ûn C

The possessor either followes the possessed that is marked by the suffix or the suffic can anaphorically refer to the topic of the clause.
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

There is a lexical class of adjectives

It always ends in a gender marker:

e, i, u

Adjectives are newer derived so the possessed markers take care of most ad hoc dependencies of nouns.
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

I made and described this lang very quickly. So if and when something is said messily, be free to ask and comment.
All comments are, of course, welcomed though you understand everything.
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

Editing the consonant inventory:
p t k kʷ ʔ
β ɹ ɣ w ɦ
m n ŋ ŋʷ
l
s ʃ
z ʒ
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Shemtov »

Omzinesý wrote:Editing the consonant inventory:
p t k kʷ ʔ
β ɹ ɣ w ɦ
m n ŋ ŋʷ
l
s ʃ
z ʒ
Aww, I enjoyed the original, just because of it's minimalism. But you do you. [:D]
Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

Shemtov wrote:
Omzinesý wrote:Editing the consonant inventory:
p t k kʷ ʔ
β ɹ ɣ w ɦ
m n ŋ ŋʷ
l
s ʃ
z ʒ
Aww, I enjoyed the original, just because of it's minimalism. But you do you. [:D]
Yeah, I kind of forgot that minimalism was one of my goals with this language. I think I will go with the old one and maybe use the bigger phonology for a similar project.
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

Renewing the verb morphology:

I'l take off person agreement. The only obligatory grammatical morpheme is the voice/trigger marker. It is an infix left to the last consonant of the stem. Most verb roots are: CVC<>C. Some of the most frequent are just C<>C. Polysyllabic verbs always have the stress on the first syllable.

The voice markers/triggers are:
Agent topic: e
Patient topic: o
Indirect object topic: i
Location/instrument topic: u
Beneficent topic: y [ai]

An aspect marker for frequentative -l- can be added left to the voice marker.

So a typical verb is: CVCV<frequentative><voice>C.

munta pelek nosa.
'A hunter killed an elk.'

nosa pelok munta
'An elk got killed by a hunter.'

tevni peluk munta nosa
'In a forest, a hunter killed an elk.'

Nar Sotô pelyk munta nosa.
'For his wife, a hunter killed an elk.'

pel<>k 'kill'
munta 'hunter'
nosa 'elk'
tevni 'forest'
sotô 'wife'
nar 'his'

Munta pellek nosa.
'The hunter killed many elks.'
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Re: Kôrem language

Post by Omzinesý »

Nouns

Noun stems are usually of the pattern CVC- or CVCC-. (There are some constraints with the CC consonant cluster. I'm not sure of them.)

A vocalic "suffix" is added to the stem. I'm not sure how lexical/grammatical it is.

-o derives proper nouns
-i often derives diminutives
(-u rarely derives nouns because it's the stative suffix)
-a is often used

-e (always stressed) derives indefinite plurals and partitives (English some)

Definite nouns have the stress on the first syllable and thet are written with a capital initial letter
Indefinite nouns have the stress on the last syllable, i.e. the suffix, and they are never written with a capital initial.
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Re: Kôrem language

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Possessed forms

Possessed nouns agree the gender of their possessor. Possessive suffixes are always stressed because a noun having them is always definite.
There are three different kinds of "possessive" relations encoded by the suffixes.

Purely possessive relation 'X is Y's own' (Y's house [that Y possesses]'
Meronymic or material relation 'X is a part of the group of Ys' or 'X is made of Y' (window of the house, Y's hand, female author) or (wooden table)
Metonymic relation 'X is near to Y' (Gin Tonic, Y's house [where Y lives])
The possessed forms keep the semantics explained in the quote.
Their forms will hereafter be:
Possessive: -v
Meronymic/material: -g
Metonymic: -r
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Re: Kôrem language

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Statives

Statives have a binary use in Kôrem.
First: there are lexical statives, which correspond to SAE adjectives. They follow their head.
Second: a stative can be derived from any noun, by replacing the suffix by stative marker -u. Those derived statives form copular clauses.

sôto 'a wife'
-> sôtu 'be a wife ~ be married'

The derived statives can also be used like derived adjectives. I'm not sure of their relationship with the possessed forms though.
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Re: Kôrem language

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Clausal syntax

Syntax is right branching
Modifiers (statives and possessors) of nouns follow their head.
Clausal "word order" is Top V Other arguments

All of the non-topical arguments can be omitted and the cllause works then intransitively.
The topic can also be dropped but it's interpreted anaphorically.
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Re: Kôrem language

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From the translation thread:

Sonta None-tirgar Pesa --- kop erpe gu --- sogor um see --- li sitos em.
sonta-' none-'-tiga-r pesa-' --- k<o>p erp-e gu --- sog<o>r um see --- li sit<o>s um
problem-DEF area-rule-POSS we-DEF --- be.not<PAT> book-PL REL --- ban<PAT> IMPERS but --- NEG read<PAT> IMPERS

'The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but being not read.'
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Re: Kôrem language

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Statives again

There is a class of lexical statives. They end in -u. They correspond to SAE adjectives. They can be as modifiers of nouns and as intransitive predicates (2). They cannot be used as nouns but a noun must be derived for that use (3). Like verbs, statives are stressed on the penultimate syllable.

(1) tasku 'beautiful'
(2) Sao tasku 'she/he is beatiful'
(3) taski 'a beauty'

Copular clauses can be formed by stative suffix -u, which is added to a noun (5). They are also stressed on the penultimate syllable (munáu).

(4) munta 'a hunter'
(5) muntau 'be a hunter'

I'm considering if verbs should be able to take the -u siffix as well. It's meaning could be 'stative perfect' to sit/ be seated vs. to sit down/to seat
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Re: Kôrem language

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Phonology revisited

Consonant inventory

p t k <p t k>
s <s>
β ɹ ɣ <b r g>
l <l>

- Voiced fricatives/approximants appear very rarely word-finally. There are some examples but most of them are grammatical word.
- /s/ is voiceless word-initially and next to a stop, in other environments it's voiced /z/

Vowel inventory when stressed:
i u
e o
a ɒ
ai

Vowel inventory when unstressed:
ɪ, ʊ
ɛ, ɔ
ɛɪ

Stressed /e/ and /o/ can be either [ɪ, ʊ] or [ɛ, ɔ] when not stressed.

Suffixes are usually unstressed and can be described with the unstressed allophones.

*Still not sure of the orthography and phonological description.*


Phonotaxis
Syllables are (C)V(C).

- Two voiced fricatives/affricates cannot appear in line.
#ibra is illegal
Edit: Two vowels can appear in line, but /ai/ is the only diphthongs. Other vowel combinations belong to different syllables.
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Re: Kôrem language

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I in the translation thread wrote:Kôrem (actually it should be Kôrmo, cos it's a name. Maybe I'll change it.)

[kɔ'lo̞ 'me̞ssʊ sɛ'mitʊ 'se̞sɹʊ
'paβɛn 'to̞βnɪ 'me̞lkʊ
'ɹe.ɛpɛɪ ɣa 'sainɪn 'a.o
ɒl 'paβɔn 'inβɛɹnɔ
'so̞ɔ 'paβɪn nɛk'sa mɛɪɹ'ko̞nʊ]

kolo Mess-o sem<i>t-u Sesru,
because god-NAME love<DAT.TOP>STAT world,

pab<e>n Tobni melk-u,
give<AG.TOP> child only.STAT,

ree py, ga syn<i>n ao,
for any, REL believe<DAT.TOP> PRON

ôl pab<o>n Inbern-o
NEG give<PAT.TOP> Hell-NAME

soo pab<i>n naks-a myr-kon-u
but give<DAT.TOP> life-N always-last-STAT

'Because God has loved the world, he gave [his] only child for no one who believes in him is given to Hell but is given an ever-lasting life.'
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Re: Kôrem language

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Tense

The first version on Kôrem didn't have morphological tense. The second version had past vs. non-past tenses and indicative vs. potential moods.

Now I'm going with a future vs. non-future system. Beside them there is a stative perfect, but it is not a real tense, but rather expresses a state that somebody has after doing something. Stative perfects also resist complex argument structures. One can say: "I have murdered" i.e. "I am a murderer" or "He is murdered." but to say 'I murdered him.' the non-future tense is preferred. It's not ungrammatical to make stative perfects with transitive clauses, it's just rare.

The non-future is (surprisingly) the non-marked tense.
pelek ['pe̞lɛk] 'kills/is killing/killed/was killing (agent topic)

The future marker is -i
peleki [pɛ'le̞kɪ] 'will kill'

The stative marker is -u
peleku [pɛ'le̞kʊ] 'is in the state of having killed'
peloku [pɛ'lokʊ] 'is killed'


The future is also used for imperatives.
peleki [pɛ'le̞kɪ] 'kill'


To be honest, I don't know how future vs. non-future systems work in languages that have them. I suppose most clauses have the non-future tense, both in narratives (which have the past in past vs. non-past languages) and in conversations of ongoing time. Future is apparently used for plans like:
"When this lesson ends, I will go to eat something."
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Re: Kôrem language

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.
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Re: Kôrem language

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Inter-clausal syntax

Complement clauses
Complement clauses can be formed with a conjunction/complementizer re (1) or as pseudo-relative clauses with the relative pronoun/complementizer gu.


(1) Paro miten re Aso nasob.
P know COMP A sleep
'Paro knows that Aso is sleeping.'

(2) Paro miten Aso gu nasob.
P know A COMP sleep
'Paro knows that Aso is sleeping.'
Lit. Paro knows about Aso who is sleeping.

Statives cannot have gu (3) but need re (4).

(3) Paro miten Aso rasku
P know A be.beautiful
'Paro knows that Aso is beautiful.'

(4) Paro miten re Aso tasku.
P know COMP A be.beautiful
'Paro knows that Aso is beautiful.'


Relative clauses
Relative clauses are formed with the relative pronoun gu

(5) Tôto, gu tôet lyb Kôrmo , settu se iran
king COMP rule country-POSSED K be.wise NEG always
'The king that rules the Kôrmo county isn't always wise.


Adverbial clauses

Contrafactual clauses are formed with conjunction lau. The main clause has no marker.
(6) Lau Paro semit tee, nosen se kapbi.
CONJ p like tea, drink NEG coffee
'If Paro liked tea, he wouldn't drink coffee.'

Non-factual clauses are formed with conjunction nen. The main clause has no marker.
(7) Nen Paro semit tee, nosen se kapbi.
CONJ P like tee, drink NEG coffee
'If Paro likes tee, he doesn't drink coffee.'

Factual clauses have conjunction kolo. The main clause has no marker.
(8) Kolo Paro semit tee, nosen se kapbi.
CONJ P like tee, drink NEG coffee
'Because Paro likes tee, he doesn't drink coffee.'

When the conjunction nen appears with volitional-agent-topic infix to express purpose.
(9) Paro kiel Erno, nen ngatyt Aso.
P go Erno, CONJ see.VOLAGTOP A
'Paro goes to Erno in order to see Aso.'
Lit. Paro goes to Erno, because he would willingly see Aso.

Temporal conjunctions will come later.
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