What did you accomplish today? [2011–2019]

[zyma]

How Taksheyut derived adjectives and then makes them into verbs:

Code: Select all

Verb    ->    Adjective    ->    Verb
ḻon           kō-ḻon             ūkōḻon
foot          foot-above         become prideful, full of oneself

qas           bā-qas             ūbāqas
lie           high-lying         become superior, better

Looks cool. Sorry for these probably dumb questions, but what does the verb "foot" mean? Is it "to walk", but derived from an earlier body part noun? Also, if "ḻon" is "foot", wouldn't "kō-ḻon" be "above-foot", not "foot-above"? Finally, does "qas" mean "lie/lying" as in "to be positioned horizontally" or as in "to not tell the truth"?

[Ahzoh]

How Taksheyut derived adjectives and then makes them into verbs:

Code: Select all

Verb    ->    Adjective    ->    Verb
ḻon           kō-ḻon             ūkōḻon
foot          foot-above         become prideful, full of oneself

qas           bā-qas             ūbāqas
lie           high-lying         become superior, better

Looks cool. Sorry for these probably dumb questions, but what does the verb "foot" mean? Is it "to walk", but derived from an earlier body part noun? Also, if "ḻon" is "foot", wouldn't "kō-ḻon" be "above-foot", not "foot-above"? Finally, does "qas" mean "lie/lying" as in "to be positioned horizontally" or as in "to not tell the truth"?

Oh... no, "foot" in this case is a noun. Yes, it would be "above-foot", but that doesn't make nearly as much sense as "foot-above". The whole phrase is idiomatic anyways, being that people full of themselves have their foot above them, much like people with heads in their ass.

"Lie" in this sense means positioning horizontally. It is conceptually opposite to Semitic "shapil" meaning "to become humbled", derived from "low" and "lie".
I'm not very good at making adjectives derived from verb + adjective...

[gach]

I haven't been able to do too much conlanging recently but I have come up with some more fleshed out notes for the word order in Kišta sentences.

The basic word order is TOP FOC V, i.e. the most topical constituent comes first, the verb last, and the information focus tends to immediately precede the verb. In practice this means that most sentences will follow the SOV word order. In addition, focalised subjects and objects receive special case marking with the focus case -n. Topical subjects are in the unmarked nominative and topical objects in either nominative (when they are less animate than the subject) or the accusative -š (when they are equally or more animate than the subject). Here are a couple of simple examples showing the variation:

Linne kuuha-n kesi.
girl cuckoo-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"The girlTOP heard a cuckooFOC."

Kuukka line-n kesi.
cuckoo girl-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"The cuckooTOP was heard by a/the girlFOC."

Line-š ńaara-n kesi.
girl-ACC boy-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"The girlTOP was heard by a/the boyFOC."

It's also possible for words to follow the verb and this place is used for a contrastive focus, as in

Ńaarra kesi-s=ton saasa-n.
boy hear-PRF.SG3=but crow-FOC
"But the boyTOP heard a crowFOC." (for example as a contrast to the first example sentence)

Interrogation doesn't usually involve any fronting and the constituents marked as interrogative stay at their usual places. There is, however, a polar question clitic -n(E) that attaches to nouns and forces them to be moved to the start of the sentence. A similar optionally used fronting clitic -kO exists for contrastive focus.

Linne čuu-n kesi?
girl what-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"What did the girl hear?"

Linne kuuha-n kessi-me?
girl cuckoo-FOC hear-INTER.PRF.SG3
"Did the girl hear the cuckoo?"

Kuuha-n=na linne kesi?
cuckoo-FOC=Q girl hear.PRF.SG3
"Was it a cuckoo that the girl heard?"

Finally, it's also possible to construct external topics by clefting. These are rather separate from the core sentence and always precede all other fronting, such as that induced by the contrastive focus clitic -kO,

Naa-čč-i muni-ŋŋa, ŋüü-n=kö ojo-tiš kessi-te-s-tin.
[other-PL-LAT say-INST]EXT.TOP INDEF-FOC=CONST.FOC forest-ABL hear-NEG-PRF-PL3
"As for the othersEXT.TOP, they heard nothing from the forest."
lit. "Speaking for the others ..."

[Ahzoh]

I have everything prepared to begin the big diachrony...

[qwed117]

I have everything prepared to begin the big diachrony...

I'm doing some diachrony. And it's awful, but I've learnt some things that I hope will help you.
1. Be Brave
2. Try for unusual yet ordinary; you saw Ni'ónotíín
3. Try to avoid Germanic influence; you'll get a lot of flack for it.

[Ahzoh]

I have everything prepared to begin the big diachrony...

I'm doing some diachrony. And it's awful, but I've learnt some things that I hope will help you.
1. Be Brave
2. Try for unusual yet ordinary; you saw Ni'ónotíín
3. Try to avoid Germanic influence; you'll get a lot of flack for it.

I have lots of unusual sound changes. I go for Semitic influences... this is a triconsonantal root system, after all.

[Sḿtuval]

Speaking of diachrony, I've been doing a little work on Abeupodian. Mostly I just sound changed a few words though, still nothing substantial cause it's like that one project you keep putting of even if you think it'll turn out good. Here's a (short) sample sentence in Abeupodian (top) and Kauzasian (bottom).

mirigên deuŋ ymua
eat-IND.PROG.PRS DEF-person-NOM.SG garlic-ACC.SG

mirin pum eŋŋag sa
eat-IND.PROG.NPST garlic-ABS.SG person-ERG.SG DEF.SG

The person is eating garlic.

[zyma]

Oh... no, "foot" in this case is a noun. Yes, it would be "above-foot", but that doesn't make nearly as much sense as "foot-above". The whole phrase is idiomatic anyways, being that people full of themselves have their foot above them, much like people with heads in their ass.

"Lie" in this sense means positioning horizontally. It is conceptually opposite to Semitic "shapil" meaning "to become humbled", derived from "low" and "lie".

Oh, cool; thanks for the explanations!

Spoiler:

I haven't been able to do too much conlanging recently but I have come up with some more fleshed out notes for the word order in Kišta sentences.

The basic word order is TOP FOC V, i.e. the most topical constituent comes first, the verb last, and the information focus tends to immediately precede the verb. In practice this means that most sentences will follow the SOV word order. In addition, focalised subjects and objects receive special case marking with the focus case -n. Topical subjects are in the unmarked nominative and topical objects in either nominative (when they are less animate than the subject) or the accusative -š (when they are equally or more animate than the subject). Here are a couple of simple examples showing the variation:

Linne kuuha-n kesi.
girl cuckoo-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"The girlTOP heard a cuckooFOC."

Kuukka line-n kesi.
cuckoo girl-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"The cuckooTOP was heard by a/the girlFOC."

Line-š ńaara-n kesi.
girl-ACC boy-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"The girlTOP was heard by a/the boyFOC."

It's also possible for words to follow the verb and this place is used for a contrastive focus, as in

Ńaarra kesi-s=ton saasa-n.
boy hear-PRF.SG3=but crow-FOC
"But the boyTOP heard a crowFOC." (for example as a contrast to the first example sentence)

Interrogation doesn't usually involve any fronting and the constituents marked as interrogative stay at their usual places. There is, however, a polar question clitic -n(E) that attaches to nouns and forces them to be moved to the start of the sentence. A similar optionally used fronting clitic -kO exists for contrastive focus.

Linne čuu-n kesi?
girl what-FOC hear.PRF.SG3
"What did the girl hear?"

Linne kuuha-n kessi-me?
girl cuckoo-FOC hear-INTER.PRF.SG3
"Did the girl hear the cuckoo?"

Kuuha-n=na linne kesi?
cuckoo-FOC=Q girl hear.PRF.SG3
"Was it a cuckoo that the girl heard?"

Finally, it's also possible to construct external topics by clefting. These are rather separate from the core sentence and always precede all other fronting, such as that induced by the contrastive focus clitic -kO,

Naa-čč-i muni-ŋŋa, ŋüü-n=kö ojo-tiš kessi-te-s-tin.
[other-PL-LAT say-INST]EXT.TOP INDEF-FOC=CONST.FOC forest-ABL hear-NEG-PRF-PL3
"As for the othersEXT.TOP, they heard nothing from the forest."
lit. "Speaking for the others ..."

This is really impressive! I'm sorry to hear you haven't been able to do much conlanging lately, but thank you for sharing this with us! The aesthetic of the language seems very nice as well.

Speaking of diachrony, I've been doing a little work on Abeupodian. Mostly I just sound changed a few words though, still nothing substantial cause it's like that one project you keep putting of even if you think it'll turn out good. Here's a (short) sample sentence in Abeupodian (top) and Kauzasian (bottom).

mirigên deuŋ ymua
eat-IND.PROG.PST DEF-person-NOM.SG garlic-ACC.SG

mirin pum eŋŋag sa
eat-IND.PROG.NPST garlic-ABS.SG person-ERG.SG DEF.SG

The person is eating garlic.

Ah, I know the feeling you described about putting off something even if you think it's going to be good; that's not a fun feeling to have. Anyway, I love these two examples here! If you don't mind my asking, what accounts for the difference in tense between the two languages?

[Sḿtuval]

In Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky the future was marked with the adverb pelti later (Kauzasian does this as well with the descendant of pelti) but in the branch Abeupodian's in, the future's marked using inflection. The endings are derived in part from pelti (most future suffixes end in /p/).

[zyma]

In Proto-Ydtobogȧntiaky the future was marked with the adverb pelti later (Kauzasian does this as well with the descendant of pelti) but in the branch Abeupodian's in, the future's marked using inflection. The endings are derived in part from pelti (most future suffixes end in /p/).

Well, I'm probably missing something, but I was referring to the fact that the Abeupodian verb is glossed as "past", while the Kauzasian verb is glossed as "nonpast" in the translations of "The person is eating garlic".

[Sḿtuval]

I meant to put PRS I'll change it now.

[zyma]

I meant to put PRS I'll change it now.

Oh, gotcha, sorry for the confusion.

[Ketumak]

I've had a surprisingly productive afternoon, considering I'm tired after a late night.

I've posted again on my conlang blog, the first post that isn't just site news, that actually contains conworld content.

Behind the scenes, I've uploaded a widget that enables me to change the font on my chosen theme to one that includes IPA characters. I've also uploaded a widget that creates sticky category posts, so the headlines about a topic will always appear at the top of its archive page.

I couldn't have done these last two though without the help of the Wordpress developer community. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, so many thanks to them.

[loglorn]

I found out that, depending on the placement of the adverb, 'The big tribe goes' and 'The tribe goes ahead' are not distinguished.

Pel kfuji pi
Go-IPFV tribe ???

Pi can be either an adjective modifying 'kfuji' or an adverb.

Depending on the adverb placement again (which is free), 'Many girls went' and 'The woman went ahead' are also indistinguishable.

Pe pi phfir

It can be interpreted either as an adverb (ahead), or as a quantifier modifying phfir. Phfir normally means 'woman', but when modified by the quantifier 'pi' it comes to mean girl ('pi' is the quantifier for children).

The wonders one can do with 'pi'. I bet Retla speakers came with a lot of puns, due to the high rate of homophony (for the 433 distinct meanings, there are only 297 distinct word forms).

[gach]

I bet in such a case the choice of word order will actually take a big role in ordinary speech in distinguishing between the possible meanings. Of course, the multiple readings should still stay possible making the puns available for the speakers wishing to invoke them.

[loglorn]

I bet in such a case the choice of word order will actually take a big role in ordinary speech in distinguishing between the possible meanings. Of course, the multiple readings should still stay possible making the puns available for the speakers wishing to invoke them.

Yes, there's always an option that could convey both, and an option that can mean only one thing. The ambiguous one will probably be assumed to mean what can't be expressed in the unambiguous option.

[zyma]

@loglorn: That's pretty cool! Have fun coming up with puns.

---

There's a lot of stuff I've been working on/thinking about lately, but I wouldn't really say I've accomplished much in terms of conlanging (or conworlding, or con-anything), which I personally find unfortunate.

One thing I guess I did "accomplish" earlier today would be coming up with at least one way to form noun-noun compounds in Project Ypsilon:

hkagin + ddaesenəs → hkagi- + ddaesenəs → hkagiddaesenəs
("person" + "ligament" → "the ligament that binds people together; language, communication, society")

ddaesenəs + ǧezuq → ddaesenə- + ǧezuq → ddaesenəǧezuq
("ligament" + "ocean" → "the ocean that acts as a ligament; strait, canal")

[Lao Kou]

All grades finished and sent!

Good-bye my little Roseanne Roseannadannas!

And I am outta the office, cha-cha!

[Lambuzhao]

@The Kou

Roseanna Roseannadannas!

OMG. I still recall the "Roseanna Roseannadanna banana cake!
Good times.

grades are finished and sent!

Laissez les bontemps rouler!

[Sḿtuval]

I did this:



It's a speed limit sign using Kauzasian numerals. It reads 48 (actually reads 40 but it's base 12). The sign is used in Ythnandosia, and a similar sign will probably be used in Vadosia if not the exact same one.

The unit for speed is based off the distance units I posted a page or two ago in this thread. The closest unit to a kilometer is a sinyvetun/ťinyvetân (abbr. "nt"), so I used that specific unit. Since days, hours, and minutes are divided into multiples of twelve, I decided to keep those units.

1 nt is about 2.16 km, so 1 nt/h is about 2.16 km/h. So the speed on the sign (48 nt/h) is equal to about 103.61 km/h (about 64.38 mph). This is the usual speed limit on the parts of major highways that run through urban areas, but rural sections of that same type of highway can have speed limits of up to 60 nt/h, which is about 129.51 km/h (about 80.47 mph).