(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]

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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Frislander »

ixals wrote:I have created the following mood distinction in verbs and I am not sure how to call it:

"She (definitely) does it" vs. "She probably does it"
"She'll (definitely) do that/She's going to do that" vs. "She'll probably do that"
"She (definitely) did that" vs. "She probably did that"

I would simply call the first one indicative but I am not sure about the second one? It could be everything like renarrative/inferential, dubitative. It's basically about certainty vs. uncertainty. In the future it resembles English's will/going-to but in the past it's more about what a person knows "I saw her go to the store" vs "Apparently she went to the store".
Well from the three examples given I might have said indicative/potential (or dubitative), but from that last sentence you seem to have evidentiality in the past tense, and I'm not sure how that lines up with either the present or the future meanings.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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ixals wrote:I have created the following mood distinction in verbs and I am not sure how to call it:

"She (definitely) does it" vs. "She probably does it"
"She'll (definitely) do that/She's going to do that" vs. "She'll probably do that"
"She (definitely) did that" vs. "She probably did that"
These all look like episemic modality to me. I would call them
Indicative present vs. potential present
Indicative future vs. potential future
Indicative past vs. potential past

Another possible would be to talk about strong and weak epistemic modality. I think if you do not distinguish different kinds of evidence for the past, it's still okay to call it modality.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Creyeditor wrote:
ixals wrote:I have created the following mood distinction in verbs and I am not sure how to call it:

"She (definitely) does it" vs. "She probably does it"
"She'll (definitely) do that/She's going to do that" vs. "She'll probably do that"
"She (definitely) did that" vs. "She probably did that"
These all look like epistemic modality to me. I would call them
Indicative present vs. potential present
Indicative future vs. potential future
Indicative past vs. potential past

Another possible would be to talk about strong and weak epistemic modality. I think if you do not distinguish different kinds of evidence for the past, it's still okay to call it modality.
They might indeed all be epistemic modality.
"Epistemic modality" is about how sure the speaker is that the statement in their utterance is true.
I would call the "probably" mode "aleatoric". Or maybe "stochastic".
If the speaker wanted or needed to emphasize that the remark were more likely than not, perhaps "positive aleatoric mood/mode/modality" might be distinguished from any "negative aleatoric m/m/m" that might also exist in the language.
TTBOMK no-one else has published the phrase "aleatoric mode" in print in a linguistics book or article. That's still what I'd call it.
You may approve; or you may want to eschew innovative terminology for now (btw if you construct many and varied languages you're probably going to eventually want to invent some new terms); or you may have better luck than I've had finding a term synonymous with "aleatoric mode" somewhere in the literature.

The "definitely" mode, if "definitely" means "certainly" or "surely", I'd just call "strong epistemic modality".

There's another kind of modality called "alethic modality" which has to do with what necessarily is so (maybe that's called "necessative mode"?) vs what is possibly so (but maybe isn't) (that's called "problematic mode") vs what just happens to be so in fact, though it could have been otherwise (the unmarked, "assertoric" value of alethic mode).
"Alethic" modality/mode/mood is not quite the same as "epistemic" m/m/m.
For one thing, epistemic m/m/m is related to evidentiality, if evidentiality exists in your language; (epistemic mood answers the question "just how sure is the speaker about this"? while evidentiality answers the question "and just how can the speaker be that sure?").
AFAICR I've never heard that "alethic" m/m/m is related to evidentiality (or mirativity or validationality, though FAIK maybe it is related to one or more of them).

"Probably" is stronger than "possibly", while OTOH "definitely" is weaker than "necessarily".
If you said "she necessarily did that" you would mean "she had no other choice"; if you say "she will necessarily do that" you mean "she won't have any other alternative".
That's saying more than "I'm quite quite certain she did that" or "I'm very sure she will do that".

If you said "she will possibly do that" you would mean "she might do that" or "she could do that". If you say "she possibly did that" you mean "she might have done that" or "she could have done that".
That's saying less than "I'd bet that's what she did" or "my money's on her doing that in the future".

To me, Creyeditor's "potential" m/m/m is a value of "alethic" modality; synonymous with what I've seen called "problematic". I'd say your "probably" statements are stronger than merely "potential".
But I have no ready example of a natlang that has both "potential" and "(positive) aleatoric" moods, and consistently distinguishes between the two.

So you might not want your conlang to be quite so nicely precise as all that, either.
Edit: Among the differences is the matter of doubt.
In your "definitely" statements the speaker is expressing a lack of doubt, or, at least, not expressing any doubt. So the are in a realis mood,
like the indicative, as Creyeditor says.
In your "probably" statements the speaker is expressing some doubt, or rather, belief short of total belief. So they are in a dubitative or irrealis mood.

BTW Did you know:
"Might" and "may" are etymologically related to "mighty" and "main".
Our use of it as a modal auxiliary comes from statements originally meaning that the agent had the necessary strength to perform the verb phrase.

"Can" and "could" are etymologically related to "cunning" and "ken" and "know".
Our use of it as a modal auxiliary comes from statements originally meaning that the agent had the necessary skill and/or knowledge to perform the verb phrase.

Or, at least, so I have been told, and so I believe.
I find that hella interesting, if it's true!
Last edited by eldin raigmore on 18 Aug 2017 14:45, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by holbuzvala »

What are some fun/interesting meanings that word order can convey? (Provided that word order is nominally free).

I know two examples offhand that are interesting:

1. Definiteness (Russian)
Spoiler:
sabaka laet
dog.NOM.S bark.PRES.IMPF
The dog is barking

laet sabaka
bark.PRES.IMPF dog.NOM.S
A dog is barking
2. Disambiguation of Obviative Possessums (Mi'gmaq)
Spoiler:
Sa'n apajignmuatl Pie'lal ugti'l
Sa'n apaj-ignm-uat-l Pie'l-al ug-ti'-l
john return-give-3>3'AN-OBV peter-OBV his-dog-OBV
John gives Peter his dog (Peter's dog)

Sa'n apajignmuatl ugti'l Pie'lal
Sa'n apaj-ignm-uat-l ug-ti'-l Pie'l-al
john return-give-3>3'AN-OBV his-dog-OBV peter-OBV
John gives Peter his dog (John's dog)

But what else might word order be used to determine?
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Post by Creyeditor »

The Topic-Focus distinction, the difference between questions and indefinite pronouns as an object (German: Was willst du? vs. Du willst was. (What want you vs. you want what) and I guess many more.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

I am working on a language with a distinction between active and stative verbs and it has a fluid-S alignment. The difference between the verbs is that active verbs are conjugated, while stative verbs are treated analytically. I figured, this in a way would mark volition, since stative verbs are things they cannot control or do passively (such as a trait or sleeping) so having a separate case to mark the agent or patient would not really be necessary. What are your thoughts?
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LinguoFranco wrote:I am working on a language with a distinction between active and stative verbs and it has a fluid-S alignment. The difference between the verbs is that active verbs are conjugated, while stative verbs are treated analytically. I figured, this in a way would mark volition, since stative verbs are things they cannot control or do passively (such as a trait or sleeping) so having a separate case to mark the agent or patient would not really be necessary. What are your thoughts?
Doesn't seem too unreasonable to me, although you could use case marking to mark volition while having dynamic verbs conjugate synthetically and stative verbs treated analytically.

I wonder how that might arise? It's been postulated that PIE derives from a language in which only animate nouns have a distinct agentive form, so in an earlier stage of your language something similar might occur, i.e. inanimate nouns are marked as the patient regardless and animate nouns are marked as the agent when a subject/agent but as a patient when they're an object. Since inanimate nouns don't often perform actions voluntary, we might expect that stative verbs appear predominantly in the third person with dynamic verbs appearing in other person when performed by "I" or "you". Eventually stative verbs just drop their conjugation entirely. Eventually, the patient form of animate nouns comes to mark volition when performing a dynamic verb. So something like:

Code: Select all

  I-NOM run-1s vs.   I-NOM sleep-1s
You-NOM run-2s vs. You-NOM sleep-2s
 He-NOM run-3s vs.  He-NOM sleep-3s
 It-ACC run-3s vs.  It-ACC sleep-3s

>>

  I-NOM run-1s vs.   I-NOM sleep-3s
You-NOM run-2s vs. You-NOM sleep-3s
 He-NOM run-3s vs.  He-NOM sleep-3s
 It-ACC run-3s vs.  It-ACC sleep-3s

>>

  I-NOM run-1s vs.   I-ACC sleep-3s
You-NOM run-2s vs. You-ACC sleep-3s
 He-NOM run-3s vs.  He-ACC sleep-3s
 It-ACC run-3s vs.  It-ACC sleep-3s

>>

  I-NOM run-1s vs.   I-ACC run-1s vs.   I-ACC sleep-3s
You-NOM run-2s vs. You-ACC run-2s vs. You-ACC sleep-3s
 He-NOM run-3s vs.  He-ACC run-3s vs.  He-ACC sleep-3s
            It-ACC run-3s         vs.  It-ACC sleep-3s

Which step by step doesn't seem wholly out of the question.
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Post by LinguoFranco »

What are some ways I can make polysynthetic languages more interesting. I think the premise of them sound extremely interesting, but it seems like I'll just be gluing several affixes together, and I like trying to come up with different ways of marking things in a language, either with affixes, syntax, particles, etc.
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Post by sangi39 »

LinguoFranco wrote:What are some ways I can make polysynthetic languages more interesting. I think the premise of them sound extremely interesting, but it seems like I'll just be gluing several affixes together, and I like trying to come up with different ways of marking things in a language, either with affixes, syntax, particles, etc.
Well there's the use of null morphemes, which means that you end up with pretty short words that actually carry a fair amount of meaning, and you could go down the fusional route and have various affixes affect each other by means of stress shifts, vowel alternations, consonant cluster allophony, and in Navajo, IIRC, some affixes appear in different "slots" depending on what other affixes are already there, like you might normally expect subject-tense-mood, but then the third person singular might occur between tense and mood. Then there are languages like Georgian which are an utter mess when you start looking at them [:P] Subject marking is either done by means of prefixes, suffixes are circumfixes and which series of person marking appears is dependent on things like transitivity, tense, aspect and verb class.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by holbuzvala »

Would it be weird/super unnatural to have only voiced fricatives in a phonetic inventory (alongside voiced/unvoiced pairs for the stops)?
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Post by Taurenzine »

Question: I looked up the definition of copula... Wouldn't the only copula be the verb 'to be' or are there others?
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Post by Taurenzine »

holbuzvala wrote:Would it be weird/super unnatural to have only voiced fricatives in a phonetic inventory (alongside voiced/unvoiced pairs for the stops)?
I would say that it's fine, but I'm no veteran so wait for more opinions or look into other natural languages to see how common or uncommon it is.
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Post by Iyionaku »

holbuzvala wrote:Would it be weird/super unnatural to have only voiced fricatives in a phonetic inventory (alongside voiced/unvoiced pairs for the stops)?
Well there is language universal 769 that states:
The Universals Archive wrote:The number of voiceless primary fricatives is highly likely to be greater than the number of voiced ones.
As well as universal 770:
The Universals Archive wrote:IF there is a voiced primary fricative, THEN there is also the corresponding unvoiced primary fricative.

However, the website also states some counterexamples, including famous languages like Igbo, Vietnamese or Georgian.
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Post by DesEsseintes »

holbuzvala wrote:Would it be weird/super unnatural to have only voiced fricatives in a phonetic inventory (alongside voiced/unvoiced pairs for the stops)?
From the Wikipedia article on fricatives:
About 15 percent of the world's languages, however, have unpaired voiced fricatives, i.e. a voiced fricative without a voiceless counterpart. Two-thirds of these, or 10 percent of all languages, have unpaired voiced fricatives but no voicing contrast between any fricative pair.

If you plan on having no voiceless fricatives, I think having no sibilants is the best option. Having said that, some languages have /t͡s z/ but no /s/, for example Guajajara*.

Xokleng has /ð/ as its only true fricative (not counting /h/).

holbuzvala, why don't you show us what you're thinking so far in terms of this inventory, and we can take it from there? [:)]

*Am I the only one to think the name of this language sounds like an evil Hispanophone arch-wizard cackling?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by shimobaatar »

Taurenzine wrote:Question: I looked up the definition of copula... Wouldn't the only copula be the verb 'to be' or are there others?
"to be" is English's copula, yes, or at least its main one. I think I've seen verbs like "to become" also described as copulae, and I believe there are some verbs which can sometimes act as copulae, but do not exclusively function that way.

Actually, see here and here.

As for other languages, some don't have a copula, while others have multiple "main" ones (like Spanish's "ser" vs. "estar").

DesEsseintes wrote: If you plan on having no voiceless fricatives, I think having no sibilants is the best option. Having said that, some languages have /t͡s z/ but no /s/, for example Guajajara*.

[…]

*Am I the only one to think the name of this language sounds like an evil Hispanophone arch-wizard cackling?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Creyeditor »

Taurenzine wrote:Question: I looked up the definition of copula... Wouldn't the only copula be the verb 'to be' or are there others?
So there is a book about copulas and the conclusion of the introduction is that there is no unifiying definition of copula. I would count (based on some typological work) every word that allows predication of words, that otherwise cannot occur in a predication without special marking.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Taurenzine wrote:Question: I looked up the definition of copula... Wouldn't the only copula be the verb 'to be' or are there others?
(What previous responders said, and:)

Read chapters 117 through 120 of WALS.info.

http://wals.info/chapter/117 Predicative Possession
http://wals.info/chapter/118 Predicative Adjectives
http://wals.info/chapter/119 Nominal and Locational Predication
http://wals.info/chapter/120 Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals
Edit: Not necessarily in order!
I think chapter 118 is probably the first one you can apply to your current conlang needs (based on other posts in other fora on this bboard).
Chapter 118 is about "adjectives" as "verbs" (among other things).
Also look at the corresponding Features maps.

All four of those chapters are by Leon Stassen.

The WALS.info database includes lists of references. You might follow some of them, if you're really interested.

Have fun!
Edit: A copula doesn't have to be a verb or a "zero".
Stassen didn't include it as one of his values; but in at least three of his examples in chapter 119, the copula is a pronoun.
I caught one of the Irish examples, and two of the Kapampangan examples.
Or at least I think so.
Edit:
Spoiler:
Do you suppose it could depend on what your definition of "is" is?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Taurenzine wrote:Is there a point in having a pronouns for "it" in my language if I have a demonstrative pronoun that means "the thing"? like, I don't need it right?
Plenty of natural languages do something just like that (if I am not mistaken!).
OTOH plenty of them have both a neuter singular 3rd-person pronoun and also a singular demonstrative pronoun.
I think what you decide to do depends on what your design goals are.
Maybe either way would be just fine for your conlang. Or maybe "economy of vocabulary" is one of your design-goals, so you want to pick just one. We don't know yet because we don't know what your conlang's design-goals are. (BTW you can have different goals for different conlangs, if you have more than one conlang.)
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Post by jimydog000 »

Noob question, but what is the grammatical construction in: "your running to the store was helpful" and "my going home is one of a journey"? ...I think it is dative case.
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Post by Iyionaku »

jimydog000 wrote:Noob question, but what is the grammatical construction in: "your running to the store was helpful" and "my going home is one of a journey"? ...I think it is dative case.
Nope. A dative case marks the indirect object of a sentence, i.e. recipient or benefactor of an action. This structure is called action nominal. The World Atlas of Language Structures has more information for it. Syntactically, it's nothing different than a subject (i.e. nominative case).
By the way, that question is by no means noobish and frankly spoken, I am not sure if I understand this construction entirely.
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