Random ideas: Morphosyntax

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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by gach »

Thanks, I'll have to go and look what you've done with Ronc Tyu. I'd also not object to any merging operations.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by clawgrip »

How does it work in Ronc Tyu?

While we're on the topic of topics, I might as well mention a weird thing I have in Himmaswa regarding topic and subject particles.

Topics can be optionally marked with a following particle, keun:

1a. Trah snooh keun draapwiap dey.
kill bird TOP chief forbid
"It is forbidden by the chief to kill birds."

There is also a subject marker tui that performs a similar function for subjects:

1b. Mung tui jart choaguang flet ork.
deer SBJ come always arrive LOC
"Deer always come here."

The topic marker keun evolved from an archaic 3rd person topical pronoun, while the subject marker tui is a still-in-use 3rd person subject pronoun. In most cases, they appear to be syntactically identical, but there is actually a restriction that differentiates them. It originates from the fact that keun no longer has any pronominal function and is fully a phrase-final particle, while tui is in fact a resumptive pronoun rather than a particle, and thus calls for different syntax.

This is evident in cases like this:

Regular sentence with topic particle:
2a. Snooh keun sgeu guangfong twarng ey.
bird TOP sit often be.at veranda
"The birds often sit on the veranda."

Sentence with both a topic and a subject:
2b. Twarng ey keun snooh sgeu bgaiy.
be.at veranda TOP bird sit IMPERF
"There are birds sitting on the veranda."

I can switch the topic marker in 2a to a subject marker:
3a. Snooh tui sgeu guangfong twarng ey.
bird SBJ sit often be.at veranda
"Birds often sit on the veranda."

But I can't do it in 1b:
3b. *Twarng ey tui snooh sgeu bgaiy.
*be.at veranda SBJ bird sit IMPERF
*"There are birds sitting on the veranda."

The reason is because the topic marker keun, as a phrase-final particle, is in fact a bound part of the topic phrase itself, meaning that in a sentence like 2a, the subject of the verb, though in this case understood through context to be identical to the topic, is in fact unexpressed. In a sentence like 1b or 3a, however, the subject marker tui, being a pronoun rather than a phrase-final particle, is not part of the subject; in fact, the expressed subject is syntactically the topic, and tui immediately follows it occupying the subject position of the verb. Therefore, since tui is the subject, no additional subject, as in 3b can appear.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by cedh »

clawgrip wrote:How does it work in Ronc Tyu?
The similarity has not so much to do with topicalization, but rather with idiosyncratic restrictions what a logophoric pronoun can refer to.

Ronc Tyu has two logophoric subject pronouns, dzó (animate) and hto (inanimate). Both are best translated as ‘the same one’, and they can both be used only in subject position within their clause. (There are no logophoric non-subject pronouns; only normal non-logophoric ones.) dzó and hto may refer back (a) to the subject of the same clause if already mentioned, (b) to a participant of a previous coordinated clause, (c) to a participant of the matrix clause if they are themselves used within a subclause, or (d) in complement clauses within a comparative construction only, they may also refer to the subject of a parallel complement clause. The referent of hto must be an inanimate third person subject even in the antecedent clause. The referent of dzó must be animate and will usually be the a third person subject of the antecedent clause too. Occasionally, dzó may refer to an agent-like animate non-subject instead, for instance to the demoted agent of a passivized clause with an inanimate subject, and it may also sometimes refer to speech act participants.

(Sorry, I don't have good examples for all these restrictions and exceptions yet...)


These logophoric pronouns are extensively used in storytelling to connect clauses which describe a sequence of distinct actions by the same agent, often in combination with the conjunction o "and" (which can be omitted though):

Tśi gra do poun dźoc kwò, (o) dzó nyu śun vei kec nic tsou gunggù.
3A.SG climb come.to.3I above SGV\pines ATTR\big, (and) LOG.A see light from fire at SGV\land ATTR\distant
He climbed to the top of a tall pine tree, and he saw the light of a fire in the distance.


Another prominent use for the logophoric pronouns is in describing events whose iconic temporal ordering does not match the grammatical rules for serial verb constructions in Ronc Tyu (e.g. that intransitive verbs must appear before transitive ones), and which cannot therefore be expressed with a canonical SVC:

Blóun xù kónc nròc.
lion shout bite hunter
The lion roars and bites the hunter.

*Blóun kónc xù nròc.
(ungrammatical; intended meaning: The lion bites the hunter and roars)

?Blóun kónc nròc xù.
(can only be read as "The lion bites the hunter and the hunter cries")

Blóun kónc nròc dzó xù.
lion bite hunter LOG.A shout
The lion bites the hunter and roars.


Yet another important function of logophoric pronouns is in relative clauses, which always include an overt pronoun referring to the relativized argument within the relative clause. dzó and hto, however, can't refer back to object arguments, and can thus be used to explicitly refer back to the subject of the matrix clause in order to enable relativization of object arguments represented by a normal 3rd person pronoun.

Fec móc tao bùn tśi dric tśi.
warrior kill man REL.A 3A.SG attack 3A.SG
The warrior₁ killed the man₂ who₂ attacked him₁.

Fec móc tao bùn dzó dric tśi.
warrior kill man REL.A LOG.A attack 3A.SG
The warrior₁ killed the man₂ whom₂ he₁ attacked.


BTW, the Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa cognate sto has evolved into a 3rd person same-subject marker in a switch-reference clause chaining system.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Creyeditor »

Lately I've been thinking a lot about circular syntax, but I guess that only works if you define syntax using dependecies and not constituents and I do not know that much about dependencies. So, I tried to use constituency and two headed phrases to construct a kind of mid-embedding syntax. Two headed phrases in this context have a lexical/semantic and a functional/syntactic head.

[VP [V1 light verb] [NP [N1 lexical noun] [N2 light noun] ] [V2 lexical verb] ]

e.g.

make son person sleep
The son sleeps.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Keenir »

Played with past-future distinctions and toyed with another way of saying its the present tense.
Wasn't sure whether to use "bas" or "das"...so my notes look like "bdas".
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Spoiler:
hamru en bon = I will complete my working.
working DEF I

hamru bdas bon = I will continue my working.

lo = PST

hamru bdas bon lo = I continued my {uncompleted} working.

hamru en bon lo = I have continued&completed my working {present tense}.

gavan = Subordinate (reversal) marker.

hamru en bon lo gavan bdas = I continued & completed my working {past tense}

hamru bdas bon lo gavan en = I continue (to be) working.

so which came first, the additional DEF/INDEF, or the subordinate marker? or might they have arrived together?
...which leads to the question of, was there a place or a time when this was okay:
Spoiler:
hamru bdas bon lo gavan = I continue (to be) working
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by CMunk »

Creyeditor wrote:Lately I've been thinking a lot about circular syntax, but I guess that only works if you define syntax using dependecies and not constituents and I do not know that much about dependencies. So, I tried to use constituency and two headed phrases to construct a kind of mid-embedding syntax. Two headed phrases in this context have a lexical/semantic and a functional/syntactic head.

[VP [V1 light verb] [NP [N1 lexical noun] [N2 light noun] ] [V2 lexical verb] ]

e.g.

make son person sleep
The son sleeps.
It is not so far fetched, i think, to have NPs and VPs with two parts. I think a lot of times this is how articles work in European languages. And the English <do> does a bit of the same for verbs, except it doesn't circle the VP completely.

So for verbs, one part would have very little semantic meaning, but inflect for tense, aspect, mood (like english <do>), and the other part would be the full verb in some infinitive form. To make the parsing of the sentence easier, there might as well be different classes of verbs and the "light verb" would mark that class. So you could have something like "do" for intransitive verbs, "make" or "get" for transitive, "go" for movement, and so on.

Very interesting idea!
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Creyeditor »

Yeah, maybe the light verbs could be class markers for verbs (processes, motion, psyche-verbs,...) and nominal classifiers for light nouns (like for flat things ...), but I kind of also want to have generic nouns like 'animal' or 'person'. Maybe the nominal classifiers and the verb class markers could be phonologically reduced forms of full lexical verbs. Thank you for your ideas, CMunk [:)]
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Odkidstr »

I have a unique copula (I think) in one of my conlangs. It's not very well developed and the conlang is sort of a joke conlang, but I thought it was kind of neat and may even be practical. Well, probably not in a naturalistic sense.

Essentially you have the copula split up into two suffixes:

So (I don't know how to do glosses on this forum, I'll try my best):

braim-bi oĵ geunĉo-pi

book-Cop1 DEF dry-Cop2
The book is dry

bov-bi oĵ é mov-pi
person-Cop1 DEF INDEF boy-Cop2
The person is a boy

bov-pi é oĵ mov-bi
person-Cop2 INDEF DEF boy-Cop1
The boy is a person

So essentially, Copula 1 is -bi, which attaches to the Subject (Predicate?). Copula 2, -pi, attaches to the Predicate Noun/Adjective. I'm probably using the wrong terminology, I don't know it too well, but I think that all makes sense.

Also, the orthography is a mess, so I probably didn't transcribe that all correctly from my notes.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by clawgrip »

Some questions about this:

Are these definitely not, say, nominative and accusative suffixes with a zero copula? These suffixes are not used with regular verbs?

Why does the article come after the first argument, but before the second one? That seems a bit unusual to me. Is there a reason for it.

Speaking of copulas, I think Himmaswa has some unusual things going on with its copulas. Might as well share.

All verbs in the language have inherent aspect, either dynamic, perfect, or stative. There are two morphemes, Image aa(k) and Image jung, which, in an older form of the language, were the stative copula and the perfect copula respectively, but neither of these are used as copulas anymore.

The stative one, aa(k), is used as an emphatic verbal auxiliary with a meaning like "indeed". This form is also often used to answer yes/no questions affirmatively.
e.g.
ImageImageImage
Duool keuong lok?
2 go Q
Are you going?

ImageImage
Aa keuong.
EMPH go
Yes, I am.

It also still survives as a copula (even sometimes a locative copula) in set compounds.

The perfect one, jung, is used to turn stative verbs into perfect verbs.
e.g.
ImageImage
Tui ket.
3 be.red
It is red.

ImageImageImage
Tui jung ket.
3 become red
It has turned red.

The modern copula is, somewhat unusually, actually a compound of the two old copulas, ImageImage aajung, which acts as both a stative and perfect copula, depending on context. I wonder if I should allow for jung aajung as an explicit perfect copula.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Ahzoh »

I had a syntactic notion where the adverb "too much/many" was used with another adverb to give the notion of "too" to the other adverb.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by clawgrip »

Can you give an example?
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Ahzoh »

Well the adverb ʾiyem means "too much" or "too many".

It can be used alone:
He eats ʾiyem = he eats too much
Or with another adverb:
He runs ʾiyem quickly = he runs too [much] quickly
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by clawgrip »

I guess the Himmaswa one is similar, except they are all actually verbs:

ImageImageImageImage
Tui kpeun duidui.
3 eat excessive
He eats too much.

ImageImageImageImageImage
Tui tmooay duich duidui.
3 run quick excessive
He runs too quickly.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Odkidstr »

clawgrip wrote:Some questions about this:

Are these definitely not, say, nominative and accusative suffixes with a zero copula? These suffixes are not used with regular verbs?

Why does the article come after the first argument, but before the second one? That seems a bit unusual to me. Is there a reason for it.
First, please keep in mind, this isn't a serious conlang, kind of a joke/experimental conlang.

Thinking about it, they do sort of serve as Nom-Acc markers, but that is not what they are. They aren't used on verbs, specifically only in the case of a coupla type construction on the nouns/adjectives involved.

The conlang itself isn't Nom-Acc. It is Transitive (or Monster Raving Loony). Nouns aren't marked for Nom-Acc but for Transitive/Intransitive. I've always loved this morphosyntactic alignment, but I realize why it's never used. Sentences (and affixes) are structured by whether a verb is intransitive or transitive (assuming a verb in the sentence). In Transitive sentences, one of the Transitive Nouns comes at the exact beginning of the sentence, the other one at the exact end. Thus, adpositions become postpositions for the first noun, prepositions for the sentence final noun. All other things affecting the noun switch as well, most often reflecting an OV NP order for the first noun, VO for the final noun. Note that's it's truly Transitive alignment as the Subject & Object can be placed in either sentence initial or sentence final position. The only requirement is that in Transitive sentences one comes at the beginning, one at the end.

I should also note that Aspect of a verb is marked on these Transitive nouns.

Word order is mostly free, NP order is mostly typical of VO typology. However, like I said, anything that has a Subject & Object will have one of them at the beginning, one at the end of the sentence. The first noun takes a NP order typical of OV typology (mostly).

A couple example sentences (intransitive vs transitive):

Ĉi-pim pfit-pim
1sg-Intr.Pfv eat-Intr.Pfv
I ate

mov-rov u pufŝi é klu-sum u ẋém-rov
boy-Tr.Pfv DEF give INDEF fish-Dech DEF cat-Tr.Pfv
The boy gave a fish to the cat

Now you may be wondering about the above sentence. Dech stands for the Dechticaetiative (secundative in some places) case. It's existence in natlangs in controversial, but essentially from what I understand it reverses the Acc & Dat roles (so what we'd mark as Acc gets the Dech, and what we'd mark as Dat gets Acc).

Like I said, this is a joke/experimental language. I always liked Transitive alignment, so that's what this conlang has. Nouns have multiple case markings, of which there is the Intransitive & Transitive. Both the Transitive & Intransitive suffixes have Aspect included in them, with a separate set of suffixes for Transitive vs Intransitive. In the Intransitive constructions, the verb also takes the Intransitive-Aspect suffix.

The original goal of this language was to make every sentence rhyme, thus why I have some weird rules in it. However, lack of any sort of poetry, metre, or rhyme skills led to something which doesn't really rhyme. Either way, it's still very undeveloped, but it's a favorite of mine as it's essentially my attempt at taking any feature I like/can think of and making it a conlang.

Edit: I suppose the copula suffixes may reflect the possibility of a zero coupla, but they differ in my opinion as they indicate the position of the noun/adjective rather than affecting the verb, in which case they would be the same suffix as can be seen in the Intransitive & Transitive Aspect suffixes.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Creyeditor »

I have an idea about syntax based on morphosyntactic weight, so that the light consitituents always precede the heavier ones.

Weight hierarchies (from light to heavy):
"nominals/arguments": pronoun > simple noun phrase > simple prepositional phrase/adverbial phrase > complex noun phrase > complex prepositional phrase/adverbial phrase > complement clause
"verbals/predicates": particles (non inflected functional word) > auxiliary verb > full inflected verb > Nonfinite verb > serial verbs

We have to combine these hierarchies to get:

particles (non-inflected functional word) > auxiliary verb > pronoun > full inflected verb > simple noun phrase > simple prepositional phrase/adverbial phrase > Nonfinite verbs > complex noun phrase > complex prepositional phrase/adverbial phrase > complement clause

I thought it might still be a good idea to start with the topic, so here's a few example sentences:

dog-DEF CONT AUX.PST-3SG at night bite-NFIT little girl-DEF
The dog was biting the little girl at night, ...

dog-DEF CONT AUX.PST-3SG 3SG.OBJ at night bite-NFIT
The dog was biting her at night, ...


dog-DEF CONT AUX.PST-3SG girl-DEF bite-NFIT at stormy night
The dog was biting the girl at a stormy night, ...

dog-DEF CONT bite-3SG girl-DEF at night
The dog is biting the girl at night

little girl-DEF PASS PST.AUX-3SG dog-DEF bite-NFIT
As for the little girl, the dog bit her.

1SG AUX.PST-3SG hear-NFIT COMPL 3SG AUX.PST-3SG say-NFIT COMPL 3SG AUX.PST-3SG want-3SG bike
I heard that he said that he wanted a bike.

teacher-DEF AUX.PST-3SG acknowledge-NFIT COMPL CONT AUX.PST 3SG work-NFIT very hard
The teacher acknowledged that he was working very hard.

teacher-DEF AUX.PST-3SG acknowledge-NFIT COMPL CONT AUX.PST 3SG hard work-NFIT
The teacher acknowledged that he was working hard.
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Re: Random Syntax Thread

Post by Shemtov »

A Triliteral language with Austronesian alignment.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by qzorum »

loglorn wrote:Salishan languages can be analyzed as having no nouns, only verbs. There are arguments against it, but i haven't read them.
Honestly I'm not sure why the Salish languages always get singled out as lacking a noun/verb distinction. They definitely have syntactic nouns and verbs, it's just that roots can be cast into any syntactic role, regardless of semantics. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, that's not actually all that unusual (Classical Nahuatl functioned something like that), it's just not usually characterized in the same way as the Salish languages are.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Iyionaku »

qzorum wrote:
loglorn wrote:Salishan languages can be analyzed as having no nouns, only verbs. There are arguments against it, but i haven't read them.
Honestly I'm not sure why the Salish languages always get singled out as lacking a noun/verb distinction. They definitely have syntactic nouns and verbs, it's just that roots can be cast into any syntactic role, regardless of semantics. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, that's not actually all that unusual (Classical Nahuatl functioned something like that), it's just not usually characterized in the same way as the Salish languages are.
My conlang Caelian has quadriliteral roots that can be formed morphologically to represent nouns, verbs, and adjectives; there is nothing special or difficult about it. However, as far as I'm concerned what loglorn means is that there is no structure in the salishan languages that acts like a verb usually does: it "conveys an action (bring, read, walk, run, learn), an occurrence (happen, become), or a state of being (be, exist, stand)" (Wikipedia). I have only seen few glosses from Salishan, but it appears that there are state markers that seem to be morphologically nouns and so describe the action: So instead of saying "The walking man suddenly managed to see a woman he had not seen for years", Salishan would say something like "Man on foot at a beginning eye on top of a woman a castback of finals years ago" or something like that.

However, we all should think honestly about it and to say it after Mark Rosenfelder: If there was a language that has a noun that describes "castback of finals years ago": Why would we translate it that way and not how it is: "had not seen years ago"?

Yet I think as a predicate conveys the "heart" of a sentence, it should, in my opinion, be way easier to create a language consisting just of verbs like proposed before than without nouns. But there is the same: walk-road-SUBL-1SG-PST-IMPF would be translated as a Subject - Predicate - Adverbial sentence in English: "I have been walking down the road" instead of "*roadwalkeddownmyself" or such.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by shimobaatar »

Two very quick ideas based on my misunderstanding of a question Keenir asked in the "(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here" thread.

Possessive adjectives take different forms depending on the presence and/or role of the possessor in the sentence. Superscript numbers signify different words.

I see my¹ book. (The possessor is the agent.)
My² book hit me. (The possessor is the patient.)
My³ book is next to me. (The possessor is the oblique argument.)
I am running with my⁴ book. (The possessor is the experiencer.)
You ate my⁵ book. (The possessor is only involved as the possessor.)

If I ever use this idea, there probably won't be so many distinctions, but those are just possibilities that came to me.

Pronouns are replaced by possessive adjectives if a possessive adjective is present elsewhere in the sentence.

I see a book.
I see the book.
My see my book.

I just wanted to share these; I'm not sure how realistic these ideas are, but I at least found them interesting.
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Re: Random ideas: Morphosyntax

Post by Imralu »

qzorum wrote:Honestly I'm not sure why the Salish languages always get singled out as lacking a noun/verb distinction. They definitely have syntactic nouns and verbs, it's just that roots can be cast into any syntactic role, regardless of semantics. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, that's not actually all that unusual (Classical Nahuatl functioned something like that), it's just not usually characterized in the same way as the Salish languages are.
From what I've read, Classical Nahuatl has unidirectional flexibility, meaning morphological nouns can be freely inflected and used as verbs, but morphological verbs are marked to be used in nouny positions. It's been argued that this is also the case for Salishan and Wakashan languages, but there are also instances where verby-words are used in nouny positions without being marked and the guy who has argued that they only have unidirectional flexibility concedes this point, so it's kind of unsettled. If it does turn out that Salishan and/or Wakashan languages do have bidirectional flexibility, this will probably be unique among natlangs.

There are also other languages, mostly Austronesian and I think also Munda (?) languages, that are argued to be "precategorical", with lexemes not being assigned a role as either nouns or verbs ... but I can't see how this is anything other than extensively applied zero-derivation as the noun meanings and the verb meanings are non-systematically related to each other.
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