So I've got this to a stage where I'm reasonably happy to talk about it here. The initial seed was to make a Germanic language in which weak verbs were remodelled as strong verbs (rather than the reverse which happened in the irl Germanic languages). The phonology's mostly pretty uninteresting and similar to most other Germanic languages but, obviously, the morphology is the main unusual aspect.
Phonology:
/p t k/ <p t k>
/b d g/ <b d g>
/v ð ʒ ɣ/ <v ð ʒ ɣ>
/f þ s ʃ h/ <f þ s ʃ h>
/w l j/ <w l j>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ŋ>
/ɾ r/ <r rr>
/i i: y y: u u:/ <i ī y ȳ u ū>
/e e: ø ø: o o:/ <e ē ø ø̄ o ō>
/æ æ: a a:/ <æ ǣ a ā>
/eɐ̯ ɒɑ̯/ <ēa ōa>
/ɑɪ̯ æɪ̯ eɪ̯ ɒɪ̯ uɪ̯ yɪ̯/ <āi ǣi ēi ōi ūi ȳi>
/ɑʊ̯ eʊ̯ iʊ̯ ɒʊ̯ øʊ̯/ <āu ēu īu ōu ø̄u>
The phonological history can be sketched as: i, a, and u-mutation, although nasal vowels, j, or w (later v) block mutation; this resulted in some new diphthongs forming; nasals in clusters tend to assimilate to following consonants (and lengthen the preceding, nasalised, vowels, reminiscent of the ingvaeonic nasal spirant law); we have a form of holtzman’s law; w>v but hw>w; there’s lots of loss and reduction of medial syllables (but this generally doesn’t affect inflection too much because of analogy) as well as reduction of consonant clusters to two or three elements (compounds can get up to about five although I imagine most speakers would drop some of the consonants in the middle of the clusters); final short vowels are dropped; we lose j before high front vowels and v & w before rounded ones; and lastly we get some palatalisation of k to tʃ, g to dʒ, and ɣ to j (sk does not palatalise separately so is either preserved unpalatalised or becomes stʃ).
Morphology:
Nouns have three genders (masculine, neuter, feminine), two numbers (singular, plural), and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative). They are divided into 6 declension classes each of which can appear in any of the genders: āssr (derived from a and ō stems), īsr (derived from the i stems), ūrr (derived from the u stems), nōuðr (derived from all the Vn stems), rǣiðō (derived from the r and z stems), and daɣr (derived from the consonant stems).
Adjectives have a single declension paradigm descending from the weak declension (except the feminine which is identical to the nōuðr declension to reduce syncretism). They only distinguish gender in the singular.
The dual pronouns are retained but reinterpreted as a form of clusivity. The first person dual is inclusive, and the plural is exclusive; the second person dual is used iff all referents are present, the second person plural is used if at least one referent is not present. The pronouns (in the nominative) are iʃ (I), vit (we inclusive), vir (we exclusive), þū (thou), jut (you 'inclusive'), jūr (you 'exclusive'), sū (reflexive), ir (he), it (it), sī (she), ijō (they).
The indefinite article is a reduced form of the number ǣinā "one" and has the forms ān, ānt, ānō, ānāur (in m, n, f, pl respectively), the definite articles are þa, þat, þō, þāur. The demonstratives are hir, hit, hānō, hijō "this/these", jānr, jānt, jānō, jānjō "that/those". Having both the *iz and *hiz forms (albeit retained in different senses) is unattested but, well, I liked it.
All weak verbs have been folded into the strong verbs with their class being chosen depending on their tonic vowel. Preterite-present verbs retain their original present tense but with a new past tense using the same ending but with an analogical stem derived from that of the past participle. Reduplication is retained a eCV in class 7 verbs and generalised to all past tense stems; in classes 1-6, the preverb g(e)- is added in the past tense instead of a reduplicated syllable. The dual inflections are retained for the 'inclusive' pronouns. We have two tenses (present and past), and two moods (indicative, and subjunctive/imperative/optative/cohortative) with the expected 1s, 2s, 3s, 3p inflections as well as 1inclusive, 1exclusive & 2inclusive, 2exclusive inflections. There are two participles (one for each tense) as well as two infinitives (with the present infinitive descending from the PGm infinitive, and the past infinitive being formed analogically from the stem of the past participle).
The verbs byvan "to be", gan "to go", dan "to do", viljan "to want", stan "to stand" are suppletive or have other irregularities. A few other verbs have somewhat unpredictable stems (this is particularly true of verbs formed from a vowel-initial root with a vowel-final preverb).
Tables are a bit of a pain but I might post screenshots of the actual tables from my word document later if people want more details.
Sample:
Anyway, here's Babel:
Dʒenses 11:1-9 - Babelas Tyrr
Nu þō hǣilī verdr hehævj ǣinȳn tyŋgȳn and gamǣinȳn srēkō. Als ōusvardr guŋgun þāur lȳðīr, gefyþþun ijō ānt felþ in ſina and þar gwylun.
Ijō gesrø̄kun sir, “kvemāuv, dāuv and þurbakāuv tȳɣlȳnūrr.” Ijō genutun tȳɣlȳnūrr ne stǣinārr and tørv als lēm.
And gesrø̄kun, “kvemāuv, ānō burɣ and ān tyr būvejāuv þessēnr toppr byvēn in þāmm himnǣ sōþess dāuv vit sir ānt namā, jav uŋk verþāuv maɣham frasresrovejanr yvr allȳn þō verd.”
Fyrhet þa DRYHNR niþgekvam þō burɣ and þa tyr þessiʃ hehuvjun þāur mankundīr barnō gebuvejanr.
And þa DRYHNR gesrak “ijō allōnō sind ǣinā folk and ijō allōnō hævand ǣinȳn tyŋgȳn and ijō hævand hit bigjinnanr dan; nedīðr skul ānō dīð þessiʃ hævand ijō bigjinnanr gahaldan.
Niþgaŋgō and er tyŋgȳn umbverrō sōþess ne kūnnīn ijō orhāþþirirr srēkō forstan.”
Þa DRYHNR sresrovej ijō yvr allȳn þō verd þarav and ijō gahehuldun þō burɣ būvejan.
Fyrhet hǣitþ Babel, fyrþess umbgvarr þar þa DRYHNR ællīnr þārōr verdīr tyŋgȳnūrr, and þarav sresrovej þa DRYHNR ijō yvr þō hǣlȳn verd.
Þȳðsk - a Germanic Language without Weak Verbs
Þȳðsk - a Germanic Language without Weak Verbs
Last edited by esoanem on 23 Mar 2018 01:39, edited 1 time in total.
My pronouns are they/them/their
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch
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Re: Þȳðsk - a Germanic Language without Weak Verbs
I would really like to see the GMP (i.e. the sound changes) and maybe a comparison between a verb that is weak in all other Germanic natlangs but strong in your conlang.
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"Thoughts are free."
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Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
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Re: Þȳðsk - a Germanic Language without Weak Verbs
Not sure what GMP stands for, but I can definitely give the sound changes.
The SCA2 annotated code is in the spoiler:
For a weak verb, let's go for wardaną "to ward/guard" with German for comparison
And here's skulaną "shall"
The SCA2 annotated code is in the spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Last edited by esoanem on 23 Mar 2018 01:39, edited 1 time in total.
My pronouns are they/them/their
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch
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- Posts: 5091
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Re: Þȳðsk - a Germanic Language without Weak Verbs
Wow, your Grand Master Plan looks really nice. I like how you dealt with the mutations. I have another question though. To what extend did Thyydhsk (sorry for ASCIIing the name) reduce vowels? And how much of that is reflected in the orthography?
Creyeditor
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
1 2 3 4 4
Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics
"Thoughts are free."
Produce, Analyze, Manipulate
1 2 3 4 4
Ook & Omlűt & Nautli languages & Sperenjas
Papuan languages, Morphophonology, Lexical Semantics
Re: Þȳðsk - a Germanic Language without Weak Verbs
Monophtongs in reduced syllables are reduced to a (a), e (e, i, æ, or y), or o (o, u, or ø), diphthongs reduce their first (syllabic) element but the non-syllabic part is unaffected. This is reflected in the orthography.
In general words can't end in short vowels so long vowels in final open syllables reduce to short vowels, this is not reflected in the orthography. Monosyllables can end in either short or long vowels so do not reduce in length. I don't actually have a minimal pair yet (seeing as open monosyllables are rare and my lexicon is currently only 600 entries long right now) but ja and jǣ (both variants of yes, I'm still working on the exact details of the yes/no response system but will probably have a 3-part system à la German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, French, etc.) are close.
I've also worked out a fuþark (mostly a hybrid between the Norse younger fuþark and the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc but with some conservative forms or unique innovations) for it but am having a hard time working out the best way of posting it here seeing as I can't upload pics here. Using forms available in unicode it's roughly:
This fuþark orthography is less faithful (mostly because the latin orthography is the one I used to derive the language so needs to reflect at least every phonemic distinction), not marking vowel length, the distinction between a & æ, r & rr. v & w, i & j, ʒ & dʒ (ʒ only appears independently at the end of a word so this doesn't lose us much), s & ʃ, o & ø, or d & ð (this is different from Old Norse which merges ð with þ in its fuþark).
If I work out a good way of getting pics up here, I'll post pics from my notebook which should be able to clarify. I can also post the Babel story in the fuþark orthography which I managed to write out with only nine mistakes that I needed to cross out (most of which were me accidentally looking at the wrong verse as I was copying and so mixing verses) so now I feel like I understand better why, even with literate monks, the usual way of copying texts in a scriptorium was with one monk dictating and the other(s) writing it down. It's also been a big enough text that I've now got the fuþark well embedded in my brain and don't need to look up the orthography any more.
(there were also several times I saw good opportunities for bindrunes which I think also helps understand the world of a runic carver)
In general words can't end in short vowels so long vowels in final open syllables reduce to short vowels, this is not reflected in the orthography. Monosyllables can end in either short or long vowels so do not reduce in length. I don't actually have a minimal pair yet (seeing as open monosyllables are rare and my lexicon is currently only 600 entries long right now) but ja and jǣ (both variants of yes, I'm still working on the exact details of the yes/no response system but will probably have a 3-part system à la German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, French, etc.) are close.
I've also worked out a fuþark (mostly a hybrid between the Norse younger fuþark and the Anglo-Saxon fuþorc but with some conservative forms or unique innovations) for it but am having a hard time working out the best way of posting it here seeing as I can't upload pics here. Using forms available in unicode it's roughly:
Spoiler:
If I work out a good way of getting pics up here, I'll post pics from my notebook which should be able to clarify. I can also post the Babel story in the fuþark orthography which I managed to write out with only nine mistakes that I needed to cross out (most of which were me accidentally looking at the wrong verse as I was copying and so mixing verses) so now I feel like I understand better why, even with literate monks, the usual way of copying texts in a scriptorium was with one monk dictating and the other(s) writing it down. It's also been a big enough text that I've now got the fuþark well embedded in my brain and don't need to look up the orthography any more.
(there were also several times I saw good opportunities for bindrunes which I think also helps understand the world of a runic carver)
My pronouns are they/them/their
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch
native | advanced | intermediate | intermediate | basic | lapsed | lapsed | making a bunch