(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 gestaltist »

ixals wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:04 In a language that does not have a word for "to have", is the following structure able/likely to turn into the general way to express "to have"?
(example language is also zero copula btw)

táħuc táħuc a ke
house house GEN 1PS
"The house is my house" > "I have a house"

And more difficult things shorten, so that it's basically just a reduplication of the possessed noun:

acá acá ri məŋ a ke
hand hand PL red GEN 1PS
"The hand is/are my red hands" > "I have red hands"
A common strategy without have is to use the Dative or a Locative construction, like in Russian. But I don't see why your way shouldn't work, too. It's pretty cool, actually.
Also, is it likely for a language to have two words for the genitive with one being used only when there is another genitive that will follow?

pəħlí a rim
tree GEN1 fig
"fig tree"

pəħlí cə rim a ke
tree GEN2 fig GEN1 1PS
"my fig tree"
Yes, GEN2 is called an adjectivizer. [;)]
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Post by Pabappa »

If the language is zero copula, would think just a spmple "house-1p" would indicate the required meaning. No need for reduplication unless giving emphasis.

"My hands are red" could then be reanalyzed as "the hands i have are red", adding just 1 morpheme.in most cases the speaker will want to emphasize "red", not the possession, so putting the predicate wherever your language normally does will help with that.

I hope that this was helpful....If you decide to use this setup, please let me know if you have questions, or want to see natlang examples of this arrangement.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by gestaltist »

Pabappa wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:36 If the language is zero copula, would think just a spmple "house-1p" would indicate the required meaning. No need for reduplication unless giving emphasis.
I think the default meaning of "house-1p" would be "I am a house" in a zero copula language. This is at least how it works in the languages I know. Possessive constructions then use Dative or something like that, so: "house 1p-DAT" = "I have a house."
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by ixals »

gestaltist wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:17 A common strategy without have is to use the Dative or a Locative construction, like in Russian. But I don't see why your way shouldn't work, too. It's pretty cool, actually.
The dative or locative case is another option, that's true. I really like the idea as well, because it's a bit different from what I normally do and I'd finally have reduplication in a conlang because I'm generally not that fond of reduplications [:D]
gestaltist wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:17 Yes, GEN2 is called an adjectivizer.
Why would that be an adjectivizer, if you don't mind asking? [O.O]
Pabappa wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:36"My hands are red" could then be reanalyzed as "the hands i have are red", adding just 1 morpheme.in most cases the speaker will want to emphasize "red", not the possession, so putting the predicate wherever your language normally does will help with that.

I hope that this was helpful....If you decide to use this setup, please let me know if you have questions, or want to see natlang examples of this arrangement.
I'm not quite sure if I'm understanding that correctly. But I'd like to see some examples even if I decide to go with it or not! [:P]
gestaltist wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:55
Pabappa wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:36 If the language is zero copula, would think just a spmple "house-1p" would indicate the required meaning. No need for reduplication unless giving emphasis.
I think the default meaning of "house-1p" would be "I am a house" in a zero copula language. This is at least how it works in the languages I know. Possessive constructions then use Dative or something like that, so: "house 1p-DAT" = "I have a house."
That's how Turkish does it at least. "kadınsın" is "you're a woman" and "kadının" would be "your woman". And Turkish's way to express "to have" is also "there is your woman" ("2PL-GEN woman-2PL.POSS there.is"), although I've also seen it translated by "your woman exists". My proposed version would be like that as well with "woman woman GEN 2PS" with the doubled possessed noun acting as a replacement for the missing "exist/there is". Without the reduplication, the meaning would be "your woman" and I'd like to keep the distinction of these nuances.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Shemtov »

My language, Shàt, has biliteral roots and converbs. I want a way for a converb that connects to a verb with a different subject to take the mood-voice-person from a verb that is not the existensial verb. I've come up with two ways of doing this:
1. Empty root. A "Light" or "Vector" verb. A root with no intrinsic meaning that just takes mood-voice person. Thus:
angry-BECAUSE 1P.PST.SING-PASS 3P.PST-laugh
"I became angry because he laughed".
or
2. Base the mood-voice-person verb on the transitivity of the converb. So motion verbs would take "go", other intransitives "stand", transitives "make" and Ditransitives "give. Thus
angry-BECAUSE 1P.PST.SING-PASS\stand 3P.PST-laugh
"I became angry because he laughed".
Which is more naturalistic, or is there another way of going about this?
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by gestaltist »

ixals wrote: 09 Jan 2018 20:56 Why would that be an adjectivizer, if you don't mind asking? [O.O]
Well, OK, this comment was more provocative than it was useful. I think that if you have two GENs, one would likely function as an adjectivizer of some sort. So in fact, I think "tree ADJZ fig" and "tree ADJZ fig GEN 1s" would be more likely than the absolute right-to-left order you proposed. In theory, two GENs are possible but I think if there is more than one, they are more likely to be divided by function (e.g., adjectivization) than by nesting, as you propose. I might be wrong, though.
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Post by Thrice Xandvii »

@Shemtov: Personally, I like Option 2 more, but both systems look likely.
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Post by Keenir »

ixals wrote: 09 Jan 2018 15:04 In a language that does not have a word for "to have", is the following structure able/likely to turn into the general way to express "to have"?
(example language is also zero copula btw)

táħuc táħuc a ke
house house GEN 1PS
"The house is my house" > "I have a house"

And more difficult things shorten, so that it's basically just a reduplication of the possessed noun:

acá acá ri məŋ a ke
hand hand PL red GEN 1PS
"The hand is/are my red hands" > "I have red hands"
Yes, I've seen examples of that in language books discussing IRL languages which don't have "to have" but use other methods.
Also, is it likely for a language to have two words for the genitive with one being used only when there is another genitive that will follow?

pəħlí a rim
tree GEN1 fig
"fig tree"

pəħlí cə rim a ke
tree GEN2 fig GEN1 1PS
"my fig tree"
I can picture that being the case - maybe in olden days, there was only one ever, but it got drafted into two or more uses, so another was added...and it stayed there, even if the original word returned to just being used for its original function.
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by ixals »

gestaltist wrote: 10 Jan 2018 10:44
ixals wrote: 09 Jan 2018 20:56 Why would that be an adjectivizer, if you don't mind asking? [O.O]
Well, OK, this comment was more provocative than it was useful. I think that if you have two GENs, one would likely function as an adjectivizer of some sort. So in fact, I think "tree ADJZ fig" and "tree ADJZ fig GEN 1s" would be more likely than the absolute right-to-left order you proposed. In theory, two GENs are possible but I think if there is more than one, they are more likely to be divided by function (e.g., adjectivization) than by nesting, as you propose. I might be wrong, though.
Ok, your comment felt a little bit cheeky but I didn't want to say anything [:P] I get what you mean, it felt unnatural to me, too, so that's why I wanted to ask in this thread. My reasoning for the idea was that the same word (in this case "a") repeated sounded bad to the speakers, so one would be replaced with another word. The last one to be changed makes more sense though, to be honest. What about the following idea?

At the beginning, there was a preposition marking the possessed noun.

cə acá a kur
POSS hand GEN animal
"animal's hand" > "paw"

cə acá cə a kur a ke
POSS hand POSS GEN animal GEN 1PS
"my paw"

Then "cə a" fuses to "ca" and then changes back to "cə" because they sound similar and saying "cə ... cə" is easier than "cə ... ca" for the speakers. They would also have the tendency to say accidently, let's just assume that? [>:)]

cə acá a kur
POSS hand GEN animal

cə acá cə kur a ke
POSS hand POSS animal GEN 1PS

And finally, the word marking the possession is left out of colloquial speech because the genitive marker is making it obvious that the preceding noun is possessed by the following noun. In longer instances, "cə" is retained to connect everything that still belongs, so that in the end we have this:

acá a kur
hand GEN animal

acá cə kur a ke
hand POSS animal GEN 1PS
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Re: (Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by gestaltist »

ixals wrote: 10 Jan 2018 13:40 cə acá cə a kur a ke
POSS hand POSS GEN animal GEN 1PS
"my paw"
Shouldn't this be "POSS hand GEN POSS animal GEN 1s" instead?
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Post by ixals »

You're right. Ugh, I need to come up with something new again :roll: [:D]
I also noticed just now that the language doesn't have /e/, gdi

cə acá a cə kur a ki
POSS hand GEN POSS animal GEN 1PS

"a cə" fuses to "ac" and the first "cə" is dropped. So in the end it's just an infixed "-c-" for possessed compound nouns, I guess?
Spoiler:
acá a kur > acákur
acá ac kur (a ki) > acáckur (akí)

pəħlí a rim > pəħlárim
pəħlí ac rim (a ki) > pəħlácrim (akí)
acákur / acá<c>kur
paw / <POSS>paw

pəħlárim / pəħlá<c>rim
fig.tree / <POSS>fig.tree
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Post by gestaltist »

If I had this setup, I would probably end up with circumfixes, I think:
cə acá a cə kur a ki > cacáá kkura ki
or something of the sort...

But I liked your idea with an infixed -c-, as well.
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Post by Shemtov »

Thrice Xandvii wrote: 10 Jan 2018 11:27 @Shemtov: Personally, I like Option 2 more, but both systems look likely.
Yeah, I'm leaning toward Option 2 myself, since Shàt has a lot of influence from both the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan langs (especially the former) and I know they use a similar system for their non-infinites, though the Indo-Aryan family's application is much broader and makes finer distinction then what I'm proposing here.
BTW, Is there a Dravidian-Indo-Aryan Sprachbund?
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Post by WeepingElf »

Shemtov wrote: 10 Jan 2018 20:39Yeah, I'm leaning toward Option 2 myself, since Shàt has a lot of influence from both the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan langs (especially the former) and I know they use a similar system for their non-infinites, though the Indo-Aryan family's application is much broader and makes finer distinction then what I'm proposing here.
BTW, Is there a Dravidian-Indo-Aryan Sprachbund?
There is.
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I thought it was often called the South-Asian Sprachbund, but upon googling I found only Indosphere.
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Post by Shemtov »

Creyeditor wrote: 10 Jan 2018 22:16 I thought it was often called the South-Asian Sprachbund, but upon googling I found only Indosphere.
You might be confusing it with the SE Asian Sprachbund, which consists of Sinitic, Austroasiatic, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, Karen, Chamic, Lolo-Burmese and maybe some other Tibeto-Burman branches that I'm Forgetting.
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Post by loglorn »

There is another sprachbund in the Indian subcontinent though. On the other hand I'm unaware of a conventionalized name for it. Indosphere strikes me as a cultural division, so i'm fairly certain it's not the correct term for a linguistic sprachbund.
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Post by Frislander »

I've only ever seen the sprachbund in question referred to as "South-Asian" or "Indian", which is a common term for the region and definitely not to be confused with the SE sprachbund. As far as I can tell "Indosphere" refers to the wider cultural zone of Indic influence (e.g. Thai is in the Indosphere but the SE-Asian Sprachbund not the South-Asian one).
loglorn wrote: 11 Jan 2018 04:37 There is another sprachbund in the Indian subcontinent though. On the other hand I'm unaware of a conventionalized name for it.
Which one would this be?
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Post by loglorn »

Frislander wrote: 11 Jan 2018 13:57 I've only ever seen the sprachbund in question referred to as "South-Asian" or "Indian", which is a common term for the region and definitely not to be confused with the SE sprachbund. As far as I can tell "Indosphere" refers to the wider cultural zone of Indic influence (e.g. Thai is in the Indosphere but the SE-Asian Sprachbund not the South-Asian one).
loglorn wrote: 11 Jan 2018 04:37 There is another sprachbund in the Indian subcontinent though. On the other hand I'm unaware of a conventionalized name for it.
Which one would this be?
I meant another as contrasted with the SE-Asian one.
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Post by WeepingElf »

Yes, there is a South Asian (comprising Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Munda and some Sino-Tibetan languages) and a Southeast Asian (comprising some other Sino-Tibetan, Mon-Khmer, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien and some Austronesian) Sprachbund, and they are very different from each other, even if many languages from both use related scripts.
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