So i've had an idea for a language i'm calling Crazylang. Crazylang will be the weirdest conlang i can possibly create, i will aim for an entirely unattested, unnaturalistic grammar.
My ideas so far,
Some sort of direct-inverse split person-species hierarchy based off volition.
OSV word order.
20 verb inflections?? Maybe, tense, aspect, evidentiality, mood, polarity, voice, transitivity, finite-nonfinite, participles, intensive/nonintensive, person, number, direction,
causativity, mirativity, structure(As in whole or broken), noise, and noticeability.
Crazylang will use some split version of a direct-inverse person hierarchy alignment. Maybe i'll somehow split it with an Austronesian alignment or a direct-inerse power hierarchy alignment.
Verbs will conjugated/marked for tense, aspect, mood, polarity, voice, finite-nonfinite, intensive/nonintensive, and direction.
Nouns will be declined/marked for case, person, number, size, causativity,and structure.
No embedded or dependent clauses.
And i have some ideas.
No color terms except light/dark. (Inspired by Pirahã)
No numbers. (Once again, inspired by Pirahã)
No adjectives, instead using verbs or nouns.
Either a huge(150+) sound inventory, or a small one with lots of weird allophones.
A sentence limit, where no more than two verbs or nouns can appear in a phrase.
How about making it tonal, and lots of Janus words - words that mean their own opposite?
"Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it."
I marvel that the hardest parts of my life (fear, mistakes, guilt, sin, doubt, failure) are of man, while what I crave most (rest, hope, love, peace, forgiveness) are of God.
Kehgrehdid wrote: ↑01 Mar 2018 02:38
How about making it tonal, and lots of Janus words - words that mean their own opposite?
I'm not sure about tone, it's already hard enough for me to pronounce, and tones aren't exactly uncommon. But having lot's of Janus words is a great idea! I'll be using a lot of them. I might have a sort of noun class system that's used to distinguish them, where class 1 is the nouns first meaning and is mostly assumed, and class 2 is the noun's second meaning and is mostly marked.
Since the purpose here seems to be the exploration of crazy grammar, why make the phonology so difficult? Surely that obfuscates things, making it harder for somebody (including the author) to use the language for any purpose.
Just my tuppence-worth, and I've no right at all to offer any kind of critique in my first post on these forums. Your grammatical ideas sound interesting and well-worth developing, but for me the 'switch off' is that the language will probably be unpronounceable and ugly.
Scytheria wrote: ↑01 Mar 2018 06:02
Since the purpose here seems to be the exploration of crazy grammar, why make the phonology so difficult? Surely that obfuscates things, making it harder for somebody (including the author) to use the language for any purpose.
The whole language is meant to be difficult.
Scytheria wrote: ↑01 Mar 2018 06:02
Just my tuppence-worth, and I've no right at all to offer any kind of critique in my first post on these forums.
Of course you have the right!
Scytheria wrote: ↑01 Mar 2018 06:02
Your grammatical ideas sound interesting and well-worth developing, but for me the 'switch off' is that the language will probably be unpronounceable and ugly.
Maybe that's one of my goals for the lang? I wanted it to have rare phonemes, and i'll likely make up for the perceived "Ugliness" by utilizing the rarer consonants less.
Phonology Inventory
I have reduced the inventory, and will make up for it with even more craziness in other places.
/m n ŋ/ m n ng
/p b t d k g ʔ/ p b t d k g
/s z ʃ/ s z sh
/w f ɹ j h/ vh f r j h
/ʋ/ v
/ʟ̝/ ll
/l/ l
/i y ɯ u/ i ü ö u
/e ø o/ e ø o
/ɛ/ ë
/a ɑ/ ä a
/˧ ˧˥ ˧˩ ˧˩˧/ o ȍ-ò ő-ó oı
The double acute and double grave accents are used on characters already using accents. Phonotactics
The syllable structure is (C)V(N), where C is any obstruent or liquid consonant, V is any vowel, and N is any coronal. Words cannot start with two consonants, but can end in double coronals.
Stress
Stress is placed on the first syllable of a word. Vowel Lengthening
If a word ends in a vowel, and the preceding word has the same vowel. The vowel is lengthened and the two words act as one.
Tone
Crazylang has lexical tone for nouns, adjectives, numerals, and demonstratives. And grammatical tone for verbs, adverbs, and articles.