Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sentence

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baradsonoron
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Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sentence

Post by baradsonoron »

I'm currently constructing a language, and I started with the nouns. It's an alien lang, so none of Greenberg's universals apply. Muhaha.

Nouns take eight numbers (null, singular, dual, trial, quadral, paucal, plural, and collective), eight cases (agent, patient, tertiary, comitative, instrumental, genitive, locative, topical), and definiteness. Through suffixes.

There are 128 forms of any noun, and that's only counting number, case, and definiteness. I haven't even thought about gender, etc.
I figure verbs will be pretty simple, as EVERYTHING is on the nouns.

Explanation of the cases:

Agent (A): the performer of the action. (e.g. I swam)
Patient (P): the reciever of the action. (e.g. I swam to the shore)
Tertiary (Te): something incidental to the action. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore) (I carried the buoy while swimming)
Comitative (C): someone with whom the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore with Jack)
Instrumental (I): something which which the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the the buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers)
Locative (L): the location where the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers in Dubanai)
Genitive (G): something which possesses the action or part of the action. (e.g. I swam Jack's buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers in Dubanai)
Topical: like "As to" in English.

The standard word order in the language is To-A-P-Te-C-I-L-Verb. The genitive goes after the thing being genitivized. Should there be no element to fill a spot, the literary language declines schwa (the word "ə"), while the spoken language omits it.

Verbs are split up into classes which define how you decide the agent, patient, etc. More on that later.

As to manual labor, I carry three rocks to Elam with the bag with a few girls in Kapele.
labor-top-sg-def 1p-ag-sg rock-pat-tri Elam-tert-sg-def girl-comi-pauc Kapele-loc-sg-def carry
Patloguno ku zandapel Elanpaano tlauzx peunkyeno Kapelezono punatla.

Comments, questions, etc. greatly appreciated. I will post more tomorrow.
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by Valosken »

Your understanding of Patient and "tertiary" (never heard that before) is wrong. The phrase "to the shore" is a prepositional phrase marking destination. I have no idea what "tertiary" is, but in your example it's the object/patient. At least, though, making the accusative a way of marking destination would be kinda interesting. Just get that terminology. I don't quite understand.
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baradsonoron
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by baradsonoron »

Well, it's an alien lang so they organise their cases differently.
Valosken
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by Valosken »

baradsonoron wrote:Well, it's an alien lang so they organise their cases differently.
It's a case (no pun) of terminology. No one will understand if you don't use semantics they're familiar with.
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Xing
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by Xing »

baradsonoron wrote:Well, it's an alien lang so they organise their cases differently.
When you describe your cases (or corresponding semantic/syntactic roles) in English, you should use established English terminology. Otherwise, you'd be begging for misunderstanding.

But there is no reason that the verb in your language translated as "swim" could not take a direct object. If that was the case, I would, however, suggest you use another example in English.
baradsonoron
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by baradsonoron »

Well, the shore IS the direct object of the verb "to swim" in Zatlumu (I named it.)
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Shemtov
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by Shemtov »

Xing wrote:
baradsonoron wrote:Well, it's an alien lang so they organise their cases differently.
When you describe your cases (or corresponding semantic/syntactic roles) in English, you should use established English terminology. Otherwise, you'd be begging for misunderstanding.

But there is no reason that the verb in your language translated as "swim" could not take a direct object. If that was the case, I would, however, suggest you use another example in English.
Could we analyze the system he's proposing this way:
His "Patient" is any direct object when there is no indirect or lative object, and all indirect and lative object.
If there is both an indirect/lative object and a direct object that direct object takes his "Tertiary" case.
Or perhaps "patient"=indirect/lative and "tertiary"=direct
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by zelos »

baradsonoron wrote:Well, it's an alien lang so they organise their cases differently.
I hate when people say "It is alien" to justify dumb mistakes they do themselves due to ignorance.
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by Click »

zelos wrote:
baradsonoron wrote:Well, it's an alien lang so they organise their cases differently.
I hate when people say "It is alien" to justify dumb mistakes they do themselves due to ignorance.
[+1], although I won't call a lack of knowledge "dumb".
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by Valosken »

Don't call someone "dumb" simply because they lack certain knowledge. The point of coming here isn't to be called "dumb", but expand your knowledge through scrutiny. Equally; Please listen to our advice. We really do know what we're talking about here.
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by Lao Kou »

baradsonoron wrote:Explanation of the cases:

Agent (A): the performer of the action. (e.g. I swam)
Patient (P): the receiver of the action. (e.g. I swam to the shore)
Tertiary (Te): something incidental to the action. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore) (I carried the buoy while swimming)
Comitative (C): someone with whom the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore with Jack)
Instrumental (I): something which which the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the the buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers)
Locative (L): the location where the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers in Dubanai)
Genitive (G): something which possesses the action or part of the action. (e.g. I swam Jack's buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers in Dubanai)
Topical: like "As to" in English.

As to manual labor, I carry three rocks to Elam with the bag with a few girls in Kapele.
labor-top-sg-def 1p-ag-sg rock-pat-tri Elam-tert-sg-def girl-comi-pauc Kapele-loc-sg-def carry
Patloguno ku zandapel Elanpaano tlauzx peunkyeno Kapelezono punatla.

Verbs are split up into classes which define how you decide the agent, patient, etc. More on that later.
Comments, questions, etc. greatly appreciated. I will post more tomorrow.
I would be interested in seeing more examples run through the grinder of cases as well as the verb classes to see what Zatlumu decides is incidental to the action and how this system shakes out (specifically the P/Te gavotte and how that affects other case choices).

(Is Elam a place or a person? If it's a place, how is carrying rocks to Elam different from swimming a buoy to shore?)

But more to my curiosity:

I flew to Astana. (patient?)
I flew the plane to Astana. (tertiary?)
I flew my mother to Astana. (?) (that old bird [xD] )
I danced the frug.
I danced the frug to the national finals.
I walked a litter of unwanted kittens to the river in a bag.

Are destinations accusative?
If I understand Shemtov correctly, he suggests that some "case-bumping" may be going on. Is that what's happening?
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baradsonoron
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Re: Unnamed Language with Eight Numbers and Interesting Sent

Post by baradsonoron »

Lao Kou wrote:
baradsonoron wrote:Explanation of the cases:

Agent (A): the performer of the action. (e.g. I swam)
Patient (P): the receiver of the action. (e.g. I swam to the shore)
Tertiary (Te): something incidental to the action. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore) (I carried the buoy while swimming)
Comitative (C): someone with whom the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore with Jack)
Instrumental (I): something which which the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the the buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers)
Locative (L): the location where the action is completed. (e.g. I swam the buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers in Dubanai)
Genitive (G): something which possesses the action or part of the action. (e.g. I swam Jack's buoy to the shore with Jack with flippers in Dubanai)
Topical: like "As to" in English.

As to manual labor, I carry three rocks to Elam with the bag with a few girls in Kapele.
labor-top-sg-def 1p-ag-sg rock-pat-tri Elam-tert-sg-def girl-comi-pauc Kapele-loc-sg-def carry
Patloguno ku zandapel Elanpaano tlauzx peunkyeno Kapelezono punatla.

Verbs are split up into classes which define how you decide the agent, patient, etc. More on that later.
Comments, questions, etc. greatly appreciated. I will post more tomorrow.
I would be interested in seeing more examples run through the grinder of cases as well as the verb classes to see what Zatlumu decides is incidental to the action and how this system shakes out (specifically the P/Te gavotte and how that affects other case choices).

(Is Elam a place or a person? If it's a place, how is carrying rocks to Elam different from swimming a buoy to shore?)

But more to my curiosity:

I flew to Astana. (patient?)
I flew the plane to Astana. (tertiary?)
I flew my mother to Astana. (?) (that old bird [xD] )
I danced the frug.
I danced the frug to the national finals.
I walked a litter of unwanted kittens to the river in a bag.

Are destinations accusative?
If I understand Shemtov correctly, he suggests that some "case-bumping" may be going on. Is that what's happening?
Elam is a place. The difference is that "swim" is a motion-verb, which assigns the case rules of "patient" to the destination and "tertiary" to anything incident to the motion (e.g. something being carried), while "to carry" assigns the case rules of "patient" to the thing being carried and "tertiary" to anything incident to the action (e.g. the destination.)
So, to answer your curiosity:
I flew to Astana. (patient?) Yes, patient.
I flew the plane to Astana. (tertiary?) Yes, tertiary.
I flew my mother to Astana. (?) Also tertiary.
I danced the frug. Frug is the patient.
I danced the frug to the national finals. The national finals would be put in the locative.
I(agent) walked a litter of unwanted kittens(tertiary) to the river(patient) in a bag(instrumental).
Compare to:
I(agent) carried a litter of unwanted kittens(patient) to the river(tertiary) in a bag(instrumental).
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