Duban - scratchpad

[Jackk]

OK, this thread is going to be just me writing up whatever I'm working on at the moment with my new language Duban. Criticism (or praise) very much appreciated!

So, first off...

Simple relative clauses

First, Duban is a VSO language:

Noh se pietta bes.
want ipfv child ball
The child wants a ball.

You can suffix -ca onto a verb in Duban to form a participle meaning "verb-ing":

Bod san di; Sow di bodga; Sitton tu diri bodgara!
descend gnomic sun | exist sun descend-ptcp | look imp sun-obl descend-ptcp-obl
The sun sets; There is the setting sun; Look at the setting sun!

See that the participle, like other adjectives, agrees with the noun in number and case:

Ogar do o mir tibuin oirazin mo fuarcain.
ascend 1s mirative tree-p.obl black-p.obl and shine-ptcp-p.obl
I managed to climb the black and shining trees.

So, in the obvious way, we can do this:

Sow di bodgay; Sow piettay nohca se bes; Kere os o qua diri ogarca ken.
exist sun-p.sbj descend-ptcp-p.sbj | exist child-p.sbj want-ptcp ipfv ball | shout 3s pfv at sun-s.obl ascend-ptcp inchoative
There's the setting sun; There are the children who want the ball; She shouted at the sun which had started to rise.

But notice the important thing: the participle is only agreeing with the head noun if it has no verb-like marking. If the participle has an object, direct or indirect, or even if it has aspect marking, it remains too verb-y to take case or number marking. It is only without this marking that the participle behaves as a true adjective.


Now the next type of relative clause - where the object is the head. In Duban we can only relativise subjects; however, this issue is avoided with the suffix -pan, which serves two purposes. First, it marks passive voice on verbs:

Fey zu o mahara; Feiban o maha.
kill 3p pfv ewe-s.obl | kill-psv pfv ewe
They killed the ewe; The ewe was killed.

Its other use is as a counterpart to -ca, forming participles with the passive meaning "verb-ed".

A yuri caduruy emmapani.
cop good-p.sbj story-p.sbj speak-ptcp-p.sbj
Spoken stories are good.

As with -ca, it is used to form realative clauses, and it doesn't inflect for number or case if it has aspect marking or an indirect object:

Sip do o bes nohpan se te piettain.
take 1s pfv ball want ipfv from child-p.obl
I took the ball that the children wanted.


As for constructions such as "the man whose shoes I stole", "the knife with which I cut the bread", well... they will work, I just need to figure out exactly how.

Next up: maybe harder relative clauses, maybe some phonology stuff, maybe a look at how the moods work.

[Davush]

I like how it is VSO but without too much complex morphology. The aesthetic is interesting too, it reminds me of something but I'm not quite sure what. Perhaps give us some IPA to go with the examples?

Also, how would you distinguish two sentences like:

I took the ball that the children broke
I took the broken ball (from the children)

I am not too clear on the use of -pan and -ca, but that might just be me..!

[Jackk]

I like how it is VSO but without too much complex morphology. The aesthetic is interesting too, it reminds me of something but I'm not quite sure what. Perhaps give us some IPA to go with the examples?

I'm glad you like it!

The phonology is influenced by me wanting to avoid digraphs and diacritics; I didn't put IPA on the example because I thought it might distract from the grammar, but I'll start putting phonetics on example from now on, at least until I get a post up on the phonology.

Also, how would you distinguish two sentences like:

I took the ball that the children broke
I took the broken ball (from the children)

I love these examples! At first I thought agreement might fix the ambiguity, but unfortunately the inanimate singular oblique ending is -∅.

However, we are saved by aspect marking:

Sip do o bes pezamban te piettain.
/ˈsip do o ˌbes ˈpe.d͡zamˌban te ˈpjet.tajn/
[ˈsʲɪd.doː ˌbɛs ˈpɛd.zm̩ˌbɑ̃ tə ˈpçɛt.tɑ̃j̃]
(pezan-pan; pietta-in)
take 1s pfv ball break-ptcp.psv from child-p.obl
I took the broken ball from the children.

Here, since pezamban has not aspect marking, the participle is interpreted as an adjective modifying bes. (If instead the object of the sentence were animate, e.g. hivon "feather", we would alos have case marking: hivono pezambana.)

To force a relative clause interpretation, we just need to mark the participle for aspect:

Sip do o bes pezamban o te piettain.
/ˈsip do o ˌbes ˈpe.d͡zamˌban o te ˈpjet.tajn/
[ˈsʲɪd.doː ˌbɛs ˈpɛd.zm̩ˌba.no tə ˈpçɛt.tɑ̃j̃]
(pezan-pan; pietta-in)
take 1s pfv ball break-ptcp.psv pfv from child-p.obl
I took the ball that the children broke.

I am not too clear on the use of -pan and -ca, but that might just be me..!

What details are confusing you? I should try and be as clear as possible.

OK, on to...

Moods

Duban marks its verbs both for aspect and for modality. However, although all verbs must (in most cases) have aspect marking (there are numerous exceptions, of which more later), the default modality marking for declarative statements is null:

Fuar se di.
/ˈfwaɾ se ˈdi/
[ˈfwas.sə ˈdʲi]
shine ipfv sun
The is shining.

The usual position for mood particles is immediately before aspect marking:

Dorac do mir se.
/ˈdo.ɾak do ˈmiɾ se/
[ˈdo.ɾag.do ˈmɪs.sə]
awake 1s mirative ipfv
I'm still awake. (it is surprising that I am currently awake)

Duban has several mood particles: (list subject to revision)

• eppe conditional
• tu imperative
• mir mirative
• roc potential
• un volitional

For now, I'll just talk about the imperative tu. This particle is special in that when it cannot be used in conjunction with the imperfective particle se nor the perfective particle o:

Me tu obe! (*me tu se obe, *me tu o obe)
/ˈme tu ˈobe/
[ˈme tʷo.bə]
go imp apart
Go away!

However, other aspect markers can be used:

Rin tu if!
/ˈɾin tu ˌif/
[ˈrɪn tʷɪf]
sing imp cess
Stop singing!

Note that imperative verbs do not have subjects. If a subject is used, the meaning becomes "I/you/we/.. must X", with a very strong "must", which is a rather familiar construction (i.e. used with friends, children, not with strangers, superiors):

An coye tu corew!
/an ˈko.je tu ˈko.ɾew
[ŋˈko.jə tu ˈko.ɾɛw]
do 2p imp help
You must help!

Thoughts?

Next up: more on the other mood particles

[Jackk]

Phonology

Duban has a relatively small phoneme inventory:
/p b t d k g/
/t͡s/
/m n/
/f s x/
/w ɾ j/

/i u e o a/
___
Romanisation is as IPA except:
-/k/ is <c> before <u o a>, <k> before <i e>
-/kk/ is <ck>
-/kw/ is <qu>
-/ts/ is <z>
-/ɾ/ is <r>
-/j/ is <i> except on word boundaries, where it is <y>; similarly for /w/

Non-geminate unvoiced stops cannot appear intervocalically:
farat "animal-sbj" but farade "animal-obl"

Fricatives are voiced intervocalically:
sof "fly; sovan "throw"
___

There is extensive allophony, as can be seen in this example:

Kede ay roc neuxuo sto horem dova se cus?
/ˈke.de ˌaj ɾok ˈnewk.swo ˌsto ˈxo.ɾem ˌdo.va se ˈcus/
[ˈke.dʲɑj ɾɔk ˈnɛwk.sʷɔs.to ˈxo.ɾɛ̃ ˌdo.və se ˈkʊs]
Do you remember that place where we were happy?

In general, we have vowel reduction, resolving hiatus, and some nasalisation.


The Mirative

In Duban the mirative mood particle mir is used to convey surprise on the part of the speaker: a prototypical example might be:

Engi do mir o!
/ˈen.gi ˈdo miɾ ˌo/
[ˈɛŋ.gʲi ˌdo.miˈɾo]
succeed 1s mir pfv
I did it!

In combination with the imperfective se, it conveys some of the meaning of English "still"

Rin zu mir se.
/ˈɾin t͡su ˈmiɾ se/
[ˈrɪn.t͡su ˈmɪs.sə]
sing 3p mir ipfv
They're still singing.

[DesEsseintes]

Kede ay roc neuxuo sto horem dova se cus?
/ˈke.de ˌaj ɾok ˈnewk.swo ˌsto ˈxo.ɾem ˌdo.va se ˈcus/
[ˈke.dʲɑj ɾɔk ˈnɛwk.sʷɔs.to ˈxo.ɾɛ̃ ˌdo.və se ˈkʊs]

It would seem you left out some orthography details:
/x/ h
/ks/ x

?

Highly enjoyable thread!

[Jackk]

It would seem you left out some orthography details:
/x/ h
/ks/ x

?

Oops, yeah I thought I might miss something. Those are both exactly right!

Highly enjoyable thread!

Thank you! Do let me know if there's anything you'd like me to touch on.

Onwards!

More complicated relative clauses

Duban has a variety of methods for dealing with the problem of relativising arguments of a verb other than the subject and direct object. Perhaps the simplest are places and times. In this case we simply include the word sto "there" or cus "then" between the noun and the relative clause, which is otherwise unmarked:

Sow furu sto an non oso gorom.
/sow ˈfu.ɾu sto ˈan non ˌoso ˈgo.ɾom/
[sɔw ˈfu.ɾus.to ˈan.noˌno.zo ˈgo.ɾɔ̃]
exist hill there do 1du.exc ite play
That's the hill where we used to play.

Fuar se di qua bozed cus fias o pietta os.
/ˈfwaɾ se ˈdi kwa ˈbo.d͡zed kus ˈfjas o ˈpjet.ta ˌos/
[ˈfwas.sə ˈdi.kwa ˈbɔd.zɛt kʊs ˈfja.zo ˈpçɛt.taws]
shine ipfv sun at morning then die pfv child 3s.gen
The sun was shining on the morning when her child died.

I'm still working on what I should do with "the knife I cut the bread with" and "the woman whose money I stole" style situations. Any suggestions?

The Conditional

The conditional particle ebbe's prototypical use is in a hypothetical if-then clause:

Fa du sow maha hue horem do ebbe se.
[fa ˈdu sɔw ˈma.ɣa ʍe ˈxo.ɾɛ̃ ˈdwɛb.bə se]
to 1s.obl exist ewe then happy 1s cnd ipfv
If I had a ewe I would be happy.

It also fills the same role in counterfactual statements, which use the different conjunction ohir:

Fias os o ohir fey do eppe o!
[ˈfça.zo.so ˈo.ɣɪfːɛj ˈdwɛp.pço]
die 3s pfv then kill 1s cnd pfv
If he had died, I'd have killed you!


The conditional can be used with a missing "if-clause", to express polite requests:

Gora ay eppe ken f'acka nox?
[ˈgo.ɾə.ʔɑˈjɛp.pə kɛ̃ ˈfak.kə nɔks]
play 2s cnd inc to sake 1p.exc.gen
Would you play us something? (i.e. Would you start playing music for us?)


Bonus: I've recorded myself saying the Conlangery podcast introduction - here's a link:

Welcome to Conlangery; the podcast about constructed languages and the people who create them.
Horem tu qu’Embaroguoppa; ast emma noz oso fa embaro quoban, mo f’acquomin izen.
happy imp at language-make-act | here speak 1e.p.sbj ite to language make-ptcp.psv and to creator-p.obl 3p.gen
[ˈxo.ɾɛ̃.tu ˈkwɛ̃.ba.ɾoˈgwɔp.pə || asˈtɛm.mə nɔtˈso.zo fa ˈɛ̃.ba.ɾo ˈkwo.bɑ̃ | mo ˈfak.kwo.mi‿ˈni.d͡zɛ̃]

[Jackk]

Stative Verb Morphology

Duban has a subclass of verbs which act slightly differently from regular verbs, known as stative verbs. They often have meanings expressed in English with adjectives, but they also include senses like "know" and "like".

Examples

• para - be liked
• dorac - be awake
• yon - be seen
• noh - want
• gar - know

The main peculiarity stative verbs have is that they cannot occur with the perfective o nor the imperfective se, and instead take zero marking:

Yon te du ra aurtay.
seen from 1s.obl three kitten-p.sbj
I see three kittens.

However, they take other aspect particles as usual:

Gar do ken i amban o te coye.
know 1s.sbj inc 3s.obl do-ptcp.psv pfv from 2p.obl
I realised what you all had done.

[Jackk]

Nouns: Case Marking

Duban has two noun classes: animate and inanimate. The nouns inflect for case - subject vs oblique - and number - singular vs plural.

Regular Animate Nouns

• Singular subject: -∅
• Plural subject: -i
• Singular oblique: -(r)V
• Plural oblique: -in

The ending -(r)V means that we add a vowel echoing the final vowel of the noun, and insert -r- if the word ends with a vowel. For example:

pietta child - pietta; piettay; piettara; piettain
ascom farmer - ascom; ascomi; ascomo; ascomin

Regular Inanimate Nouns

• Singular subject: -(H)e
• Plural subject: -de
• Singular oblique: -∅
• Plural oblique: -∅

-(H)e means we modify the final consonant in the noun, usually by making it geminate, or insert -h- if the noun ends in a vowel.

curoh bell - curohe; curohde; curoh; curoh
furuec mountain - furuecke; furuegde; furuec; furuec
---

There are irregular nouns, which tends to be common words. For example:

wac water - wac; way; waha; wain
neuc place - negue; neide; neuc; neuc

[Jackk]

Personal Pronouns

In Duban, the personal pronouns make more distinctions than regular nouns: they have a distinct genitive form, and dual forms.



An example:

An coin se rest wed bes izen?
\an ˈkojn se ˈɾest wed ˈbes ˌi.t͡sen\
[ŋˈkɔ̃ĩ.sə ˈɾɛs.twɛd ˈbɛs iˌd͡zæ̃]
do 2d.sbj ipfv what with ball 3p.gen
What are you two doing with their ball?


A Conundrum

I was working out how to say "Wake up!". I have the verb dorac be awake, so perhaps one should say

Dorac tu ken!
/ˈdo.ɾak ˌtu ken/
[ˈdo.ɾak ˈtu.kæ̃]
awake imp inc
Wake up!

where we use the imperative mood and the inchoative aspect. For the casual form I'm torn between that and:

Ke tu doracka!
/ˈke tu ˌdo.ɾakˌka/
[ˈke.tu ˌdo.ɾəkˌka]
become imp awake-ptcp
Wake up!

which uses the copula ke become and forms the adjective doracka awake. Which version do you prefer?

For the formal formulation, I'm rather set on this:

Doragane eppe o?
/ˈdo.ɾaˌga.ne ˈep.pe ˌo/
[ˈdo.ɾə.gaˌnʲɛp.pço]
awake-caus-refl cond pfv
Would you please wake up?

Here we express politeness in two ways: through the addition of the causative -an and reflexive -e suffixes, making the request more indirect (make yourself be awake), and through the uses of the conditional particle eppe instead of the imperative tu.

Next up: perhaps more on the copulae, or maybe the other pronouns.

[Jackk]

The Genitive Pronouns

The genitive pronouns in Duban have a few functions - the primary one is as possessive adjectives:

Sip o ascom aurtara cois. (audio)
/ˈsip o ˈa.skom ˈawɾ.ta.ɾa ˈkojs/
[ˈsi.po ˈa.skõˌm‿awtːə.ɾa ˈkɔsʲ]
take pfv farmer cat-dim-obl 2p.gen
The farmer took your kitten.

However, they can also act as nouns - mine, yours, etc. In this role they do not decline for subject or oblique case.

A isa dus - a inzuo conis. (audio)
/a ˈi.sa ˌdus | a ˈin.d͡zwo ˌko.nis/
[ˈaj.zə ˌdʊs | ˈãj̃.d͡zʷo ˈko.nɪs]
cop this 1s.gen | cop those 2d.gen
This one's mine - those are yours.

Onto:

Copulae

Duban has several copulae, each filling different senses (list may be incomplete):

• a identity, classification, attribution
• sow existence, location
• ke become, result
• mac stay, remain, keep
  ...

Copulae pattern in many ways like stative verbs - for example, they do not take imperfective/perfective particles:

Sow piettay qu'ittu maxo. (audio)
/sow ˈpjet.taj ˈkwit.tu ˈmak.so/
[su ˈpçɛt.taj ˈkwɪt.tu ˈmag.zo]
exist child-p at inside house
The children are in the house.

Da mac san tibui gosti ru napsen. (audio)
/da ˈmak san ˈti.bwi ˈgos.ti ɾu ˈnap.sen/
[də ˈmak sã ˈti.bwi ˈgɔs.ti ɾu ˈnap.sn̩]
neg stay gno tree-p green-p through winter
Trees do not stay green in winter.

Both the subject and complement of a copula take the subject case:

Ke zu mir spogeri? (audio)
/ke ˈt͡su miɾ ˈspo.ge.ɾi/
[ke ˈt͡su.mɪɾ ˈspo.gə.ɾi]
become 3p mirative soldier-p
They really became soldiers?

[Jackk]

Copulae - usage notes

Some of the copulae have irregular negative forms. For other verbs, to express the negative we place the particle da before the verb. However, we have:

• a / da ---- be / not be
• sow / dassu ---- there is / there is not

F'acka rew dassu uc ascom obe? (audio)
/ˈfak.ka ˈɾew ˈdas.su uk ˈas.kom ˈo.be/
[ˌfak.kəˈɾɛw ˈdas.sʷuˌk‿as.kɔ̃ˌm‿o.be]
to sake what not.exist one farmer away
Why are there no farmers outside?

The copula mac stay; remain has the normal usage of describing a state staying the same, which extends to participle complements:

Mac zun anga o hulkio fa barogo. (audio)
/ˈmak t͡sun ˈan.ga o ˈxul.kjo fa ˈba.ɾo.go/
[ˈmak t͡sʊˈn‿ã.ᵑgaw ˈhʊl.kço fə ˈba.ɾə.go]
stay 3d.sub do-ptcp pfv insult to lord-s.obl
They kept insulting the lord.

The final copula (not mentioned above) is zar "seem; appear".

Da zar onzuo spoger. (audio)
/da ˈt͡saɾ ˈon.t͡swo ˈspo.geɾ/
[də ˈt͡saɾ ˈɔn.d͡zwo ˈspo.gəɾ]
neg seem person-dst soldier
That guy doesn't seem like a soldier.

It can be used to refer to any sense:

Zar waxa obbe (qua tombe). (audio)
/ˈt͡saɾ ˈwak.sa ˈɔb.be kwa ˈtom.be/
[t͡saɾ ˈwak.sə ˈɔb.bə kwa ˈtɔm.bə]
seem water-prx other (at tongue)
This water tastes strange.

--

Any suggestions for what to cover next? Questions/clarifications?

[Jackk]

The Natural Numbers ℕ

Duban uses a base-12 counting system, and in finger-counting, you touch the thumb to each of the phalanges of the other four fingers. (There is a different system for displaying an amount to someone else on the hands.)

• 1 - uc
• 2 - ne
• 3 - ra
• 4 - mur
• 5 - bon
• 6 - bec
• 7 - gie
• 8 - suor (< *sə muɾ "twice four")
• 9 - fa
• 10 - spon (< *sə bɑŋ "twice five")
• 11 - utte (cf. uc te "one from")
• 12 - foh (cf. fo "hand")
• 13 - foh uc
• 14 - foh ne
• 24 - ne foh
• 100 - suor foh mur
• 143 - utte foh utte
• 144 - rouvoh (< *lɑʊŋ fokʰ "big dozen")
• 1728 - pecquoh (< *peg fokʰ "sand dozen")

Numerals act differently from adjectives as they do not decline for case and come before the noun they modify.

Fa ose sow gie zouvi.
/fa ˈo.se ˌsow gje ˈt͡sow.vi/
[ˌfaw.ze su ˌgʲe ˈt͡sɔw.vi]
to 3s.obl exist seven dog-p
She has seven dogs.

Ordinal numbers (first, second, etc.) are regularly expressed simply by moving the numeral to after the noun and having it agree in case an animacy with its head noun (with the exception of cuon "first", which is indeclinable):

Sip do un o mahara muru.
/ˈsip do ˌun o ˈma.xa.ɾa ˈmu.ɾu/
[ˈsɪp dow.no ˈma.ɣə.ɾa ˈmu.ɾu]
take 1s vol pfv ewe-obl fourth-obl
I'll take the fourth ewe.

Weights and Measures

One system of measuring time is based on the lengths of the day - uc dimu and solar year uc miet:

(All this implies a conculture which is in actuality extremely sparsely developed - so there's not much more information settled than what I'm showing here.)



(by the way, it was complete serendipity that ivioc "a stop/a break" looks related to if cessative aspect! I just now noticed the similarity - but of course now it is actually real )


From this is derived the length system, based on the porca ≈ 1.18 m, which is the length of string for which a pendulum takes exactly one yuxa to complete a half-oscillation.



*Etymology unknown, mostly because I couldn't think of anything I like for ego. Any ideas?

Edit: Correction: in the Time table, where it says "6 bells" it should read "12 bells"

[Jackk]

Voice

Duban has several valency-changing strategies. Covered before is the passive suffix -pan, which becomes -ban after vowels, voiced stops and nasals:

• sip ~ sippan take ~ be taken
• fey ~ feiban kill ~ be killed

Sip o simi mur spar. Sippan o mur sparde.
take pfv man-p 4 spear | take-psv 4 spear-sub
The men took four spears. Four spears were taken.

We can reintroduce the demoted agent with the preposition te "from, of", but this construction is decidedly marked:

Quoban o maxohe dus te ascomo.
make-psv pfv house-sub 1s.gen from farmer-obl
My house was built by a farmer.

Usually to focus the patient we would instead use word order:

Maxo dus quo o ascom.
house 1s.gen make pfv farmer
My house was built by a farmer.
---

I have also mentioned the causative -an and reflexive -e. The reflexive -e (which will cause preceding lone stops and nasals to geminate) marks that one of the oblique arguments is the same as the subject:

Sippe zun o fa maxo barogo.
take-rfl 3d pfv to house lord-obl
They brought themselves to the lord's home.

However, the argument it marks is not necessarily the direct object, in which case the argument may be expressed overtly as well.

Anne do un o bit exac (fa du).
do-rfl 1s vol pfv some wait (to 1s.obl)
I'm going to give myself a bit of time.

Da kette os roc se isuo amban t'ose.
neg hold-rfl 3s pot ipfv that do-ptcp.psv from 1s.obl
She cannot remember what she's done. (lit. she is not able to hold at herself what she's done)

[Jackk]

Quick update - first version of the Duban-English dictionary is done and can be found here. It's woefully incomplete, even missing some words I've already made, and the entries need filling with examples and derivation, but I like it as a start.

[Jackk]

Tomorrow I'm going to do a post on the writing system, but I need sleep, so for now here's a snippet (same quote as in my signature):

[Jackk]

Writing

Duban is written vertically and then left-to-right, having an alphabet with a few ligatures:

Spoiler:

(there are other ligatures for geminate consonants but most of them are not really different from just doubling the glyph.)


A couple of the design principles I was going for were an absence of closed loops, and the repeated motif of a vertical bar on the left.

Another example:

Spoiler:

[Reyzadren]

Vertical conscript going left-right. Yes pls.

Also, I like how Duban manages "verb-ing" and "verb-ed" (first post), as my conlang griuskant. Such a handy feature <3

[Jackk]

Questions

Yes/No Questions

Any statement can be turned into a question with just sentence-final rising intonation:

Hian os o bes. / Hian os o bes?
lose 3s pfv ball
She lost the ball. / Did she lose the ball?

Optionally we can add the tag , teom? (literally sure?) in the same manner as English tag questions:

A os oiraz wed ein, teom?
cop 3s dark with eye-d | sure
He has brown eyes, doesn't he?

To answer "Yes, the thing happened", you repeat the bare verb, and to say "No, the thing did not happen", you can say just Da. or a negated verb:

Fias zu o? Fias. / Da (fias).
die 3s pfv | die
Have they died? Yes (they have). / No (they haven't).

Da yon i roc? Da (yon). / Yon.
neg seen 3s.inan pot | neg
Can't you see it? No (I can't). Yes (I can).

Soon: Wh-questions, etc.

Comparatives

To express the concept of more/less, Duban uses the prepositions cur/po on/under, like so:

A do ba cur are.
cop 1s short on 2s.obl
I am shorter than you.

A furusa deboy po isuo.
cop hill-prx far under that
This hill isn't as far away as that one.

If we make the argument of the preposition zi all, we get a superlative sense:

An do i o fa piettara erada cur zi.
do 1s 3s pfv to child-obl tall-obl on all
I gave it to the tallest child.