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

[Arayaz]

Likewise/henceforth, assuming diachronics to be a requirement for good conlanging is just silly, especially if one's conlang is tied to a conworld that doesn't need to adhere to the logic of the real world. I'd be quite insulted if someone said my conlang looks like a natlang tbh.

I never said it was a requirement for a good conlang ─ just that it helps to make something more naturalistic.

[Imralu]

I think he ─ and I, for what it's worth ─ are using the same vowel we use in "consonant." I'm not trying to defend condescending prescriptivism, which it may very well be, but I find the latter pronunciation more natural.

As I said, the issue I really took was the way he expressed it, but of course, everyone has their own idiosyncracies of how they interact with people and it's hard to know the true intention without knowing the person. I'm not condemning him; I'm just saying it rubbed me up the wrong way.

But as for the actual pronunciation though, that seems incredibly weird to me. Does your dialect reduce vowels to /e/ instead of schwa? Or does it lack the alternation between reduced vowels in unstressed syllables and for some reason realise <a> as /e/?

[VaptuantaDoi]

Not that English spelling and pronunciation have a great correspondence, but the pronunciation with /e/ doesn't even make sense looking at broader patterns in the language. The only instances of stressed <a> saying /e/ that I can think of are "any" and "many". (Curious if anyone has any more. If you have /er/ for things like "care", I'm not counting that.)

Th/e/nk.

[Arayaz]

But as for the actual pronunciation though, that seems incredibly weird to me. Does your dialect reduce vowels to /e/ instead of schwa? Or does it lack the alternation between reduced vowels in unstressed syllables and for some reason realise <a> as /e/?

In unstressed syllables, I have /ə/ and /ɪ̈/; my consonAnt vowel is the latter.

[Omzinesý]

c) a system with more than two genders (whether sex-based or not) in which several genders have phonologically collapsed.

The Scandinavian system of a neuter and a common gender could actually be a simple solution.

Basically, the highly animate entities belong to one gender and the less animate entities belong to either one.

[Imralu]

Not that English spelling and pronunciation have a great correspondence, but the pronunciation with /e/ doesn't even make sense looking at broader patterns in the language. The only instances of stressed <a> saying /e/ that I can think of are "any" and "many". (Curious if anyone has any more. If you have /er/ for things like "care", I'm not counting that.)

Th/e/nk.

I meant more widespread, something found in RP and GenAm. What dialect is that though? I've seen it given with /eɪ/ in the area around New York?

But as for the actual pronunciation though, that seems incredibly weird to me. Does your dialect reduce vowels to /e/ instead of schwa? Or does it lack the alternation between reduced vowels in unstressed syllables and for some reason realise <a> as /e/?

In unstressed syllables, I have /ə/ and /ɪ̈/; my consonAnt vowel is the latter.

But ... it becomes a stressed syllable in consonantal. I'm still not sure how the pronunciation in an unstressed syllable would affect the pronunciation in a stressed syllable unless your dialect lacks that alternation.

[Dormouse559]

But as for the actual pronunciation though, that seems incredibly weird to me. Does your dialect reduce vowels to /e/ instead of schwa? Or does it lack the alternation between reduced vowels in unstressed syllables and for some reason realise <a> as /e/?

In unstressed syllables, I have /ə/ and /ɪ̈/; my consonAnt vowel is the latter.

But ... it becomes a stressed syllable in consonantal. I'm still not sure how the pronunciation in an unstressed syllable would affect the pronunciation in a stressed syllable unless your dialect lacks that alternation.

I’m like Arayaz in using something similar to the reduced vowel in “consonantal.” I rhyme it with “continental,” so that’s something like /ɪ/.

[VaptuantaDoi]

Th/e/nk.

I meant more widespread, something found in RP and GenAm. What dialect is that though? I've seen it given with /eɪ/ in the area around New York?

Australian. And with no other crossover between /e/ and /æ/ (actually there *is* one example in the opposite direction; h/æ/llo). Both are widespread here, I didn't even realise they were non-standard pronunciations until fairly recently.

[Arayaz]

But as for the actual pronunciation though, that seems incredibly weird to me. Does your dialect reduce vowels to /e/ instead of schwa? Or does it lack the alternation between reduced vowels in unstressed syllables and for some reason realise <a> as /e/?

In unstressed syllables, I have /ə/ and /ɪ̈/; my consonAnt vowel is the latter.

But ... it becomes a stressed syllable in consonantal. I'm still not sure how the pronunciation in an unstressed syllable would affect the pronunciation in a stressed syllable unless your dialect lacks that alternation.

Analogy.

[Salmoneus]

Not that English spelling and pronunciation have a great correspondence, but the pronunciation with /e/ doesn't even make sense looking at broader patterns in the language. The only instances of stressed <a> saying /e/ that I can think of are "any" and "many". (Curious if anyone has any more. If you have /er/ for things like "care", I'm not counting that.)

Th/e/nk.

I meant more widespread, something found in RP and GenAm. What dialect is that though? I've seen it given with /eɪ/ in the area around New York?

Pre-nasal raising (which can sometimes be even higher before /N/) is a feature of most US dialects, to differing extents and in different ways (often with breaking). It's part of the ongoing transdialectical chaos of repeatedly splitting and unsplittin /{/ seen in UK, US and Aus dialects (and probably others).

But as for the actual pronunciation though, that seems incredibly weird to me. Does your dialect reduce vowels to /e/ instead of schwa? Or does it lack the alternation between reduced vowels in unstressed syllables and for some reason realise <a> as /e/?

In unstressed syllables, I have /ə/ and /ɪ̈/; my consonAnt vowel is the latter.

But ... it becomes a stressed syllable in consonantal. I'm still not sure how the pronunciation in an unstressed syllable would affect the pronunciation in a stressed syllable unless your dialect lacks that alternation.

The default, when stress shifts, is for the vowel to remain the same; alternations have to be learnt. Since 'consonantal' is a rare word, many of us never fully learned the 'correct' random alternation, so keep the same vowel, or as close as possible. For me at least that's a choice between /E/ and /V/, and I guess the unrounded version feels more neutral, and more in line with the spelling (exact vowel qualities for graphemes are obviously variable, but other than next to /w/ it's rare for <a>, <e> or <i> to ever be a rounded vowel).

Also, I think there's probably analogy going on. There's a lot of words in /Entl/ (parental, continental, mental, etc), but I can't off hand think of any with /{ntl/, except 'mantle', which is neither common nor spelled the same way. [I'm sure there must be some other scientific words with it, of course]

So for me, my instinct is /E/. When I say it it sounds wrong, and I understand the diachronic and orthographic case for /{/, but it just sounds really unnatural and wrong.

Fortunately, it's a word I never have to say...

[lurker]

Am I using epistemic modality right here?
Commonthroat verbs are supposed to inflect for epistemic modality. So far I have 3 forms defined

The authoritative, ending in a null morpheme -∅ is the default form. It indicates the speaker is reasonably confident the statement is true.

The nonauthoritative, ending in -b [short low weak whine], which is supposed to indicate a bit of a hedge on the part of the speaker regarding whether the statement is true. There are modals that narrow the scope of the suffix, and it can be used to indicate a polite request, a wish or desire, a yes/no question, and probably more.

The mirative is form I'm the least sure about. It ends in -sfsf [yip, short high strong whine, yip, short high strong whine]. It is supposed to indicate that the speaker is surprised by the event described. To me that sort of meshes with epistemic modality. It has to do with the speaker's understanding of the event, but it doesn't necessarily involve the truth of the event which is why I'm unsure it belongs here.

I'm also thinking of adding a dogmatic form (suffix TBD), which is used when the truth of the statement is emphasized. It's used when insisting that something happened, when making legal pronouncements, etc.

As an example, here's the verb rgJ [chuff, early rising weak growl] meaning "stab"

Authoritative
sfc-p rgJ-∅ khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-∅ guy-3.INDEF
That child stabbed a guy.

Nonauthoritative
sfc-p rgJ-b khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-NONAUTH guy-3.INDEF
I think that child stabbed a guy.
That child seems to have stabbed a guy.
That child may have stabbed a guy.
etc.

Polite imperative/jussive, uses the nonauthoritative verb suffix with the imperative modal.
G sfc-qn rgJ-b khqkh-p
must child-2 stab-NONAUTH guy-3.DIST
Hey kid, could you go stab that guy, please.

Mirative (perhaps the most appropriate mood for the event described here)
sfc-p rgJ-sfsf khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-MIR guy-3.INDEF
holy crap that kid just stabbed a guy!

Dogmatic
sfc-p rgJ-??? khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-DOG guy-3.INDEF
That child did stab a guy.
I swear that child stabbed a guy.
etc.

Does this all fit together?

[Creyeditor]

I think your general system makes sense but it might be a bit more than pure epistemic modality. Here are three things that caught my eye:
1) Your epistemic categories do not really map neatly onto the categories that people usually use to analyzed epistemic modals. The usual distinction is between necessity (It must be true.) and possibility (It can be true.), sometimes adding a distinction between weak and strong into the mix. Maybe your authorative maps onto epistemic neccessity and your non-authorative maps onto epistimic possibility, but from your text it looks like there is more to it.
2) Your epistemic modality seems to sometimes mix with deontic modality, which is very naturalistic for a human language. You iclude polite requests, wishes, desires, and legal pronouncements. If they are considered modality at all, I would call them deontic modality.
3) Mirativity is a thing of its own or included under evidentiality. I think it nicely fits with the legal pronouncements, which could also be analyzed as verum focus.

I general, I think the system looks nice but I would put it under a more general heading 'modality'.

[Omzinesý]

Am I using epistemic modality right here?
Commonthroat verbs are supposed to inflect for epistemic modality. So far I have 3 forms defined

The authoritative, ending in a null morpheme -∅ is the default form. It indicates the speaker is reasonably confident the statement is true.

The nonauthoritative, ending in -b [short low weak whine], which is supposed to indicate a bit of a hedge on the part of the speaker regarding whether the statement is true. There are modals that narrow the scope of the suffix, and it can be used to indicate a polite request, a wish or desire, a yes/no question, and probably more.

The mirative is form I'm the least sure about. It ends in -sfsf [yip, short high strong whine, yip, short high strong whine]. It is supposed to indicate that the speaker is surprised by the event described. To me that sort of meshes with epistemic modality. It has to do with the speaker's understanding of the event, but it doesn't necessarily involve the truth of the event which is why I'm unsure it belongs here.

I'm also thinking of adding a dogmatic form (suffix TBD), which is used when the truth of the statement is emphasized. It's used when insisting that something happened, when making legal pronouncements, etc.

As an example, here's the verb rgJ [chuff, early rising weak growl] meaning "stab"

Authoritative
sfc-p rgJ-∅ khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-∅ guy-3.INDEF
That child stabbed a guy.

Nonauthoritative
sfc-p rgJ-b khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-NONAUTH guy-3.INDEF
I think that child stabbed a guy.
That child seems to have stabbed a guy.
That child may have stabbed a guy.
etc.

Polite imperative/jussive, uses the nonauthoritative verb suffix with the imperative modal.
G sfc-qn rgJ-b khqkh-p
must child-2 stab-NONAUTH guy-3.DIST
Hey kid, could you go stab that guy, please.

Mirative (perhaps the most appropriate mood for the event described here)
sfc-p rgJ-sfsf khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-MIR guy-3.INDEF
holy crap that kid just stabbed a guy!

Dogmatic
sfc-p rgJ-??? khqkh-g
child-3.DIST stab-DOG guy-3.INDEF
That child did stab a guy.
I swear that child stabbed a guy.
etc.

Does this all fit together?

I think the proper terms should be "certain" and "uncertain". At least some grammars speak about certainty markers.

There are many epistemic categories that are not called epistemic modality, like evidentiality, fact, egophoricity, mirativity (Personally I think the category of modality should be either broadened or made more narrow.) I think "epistemic categories" is the term that is used for everything like those.

[lurker]

I think the proper terms should be "certain" and "uncertain". At least some grammars speak about certainty markers.

There are many epistemic categories that are not called epistemic modality, like evidentiality, fact, egophoricity, mirativity (Personally I think the category of modality should be either broadened or made more narrow.) I think "epistemic categories" is the term that is used for everything like those.

If you're referring to "authoritative" and "nonauthoritative", I'd rather keep them, as they're an allusion to DNS resource requests.

I might have to work egophoricity into Commonthroat somehow, especially concerning intentionality. My original rule was to require the authoritative form when the subject is in first person, but I may have it so its marked as nonauthoritative if the action as unintentional. Rather like the "accidental passive" construction in Spanish "se me rompio", "it broke on me", etc.

[lurker]

I think your general system makes sense but it might be a bit more than pure epistemic modality. Here are three things that caught my eye:
1) Your epistemic categories do not really map neatly onto the categories that people usually use to analyzed epistemic modals. The usual distinction is between necessity (It must be true.) and possibility (It can be true.), sometimes adding a distinction between weak and strong into the mix. Maybe your authorative maps onto epistemic neccessity and your non-authorative maps onto epistimic possibility, but from your text it looks like there is more to it.
2) Your epistemic modality seems to sometimes mix with deontic modality, which is very naturalistic for a human language. You iclude polite requests, wishes, desires, and legal pronouncements. If they are considered modality at all, I would call them deontic modality.
3) Mirativity is a thing of its own or included under evidentiality. I think it nicely fits with the legal pronouncements, which could also be analyzed as verum focus.

I general, I think the system looks nice but I would put it under a more general heading 'modality'.

Looks like I have more research to do. I was under the impression that epistemic modality was just about how confident the speaker is in the truth of the statement. But as long as the system fits together I'm happy, regardless if it's strictly indicating epistemic modality or not.

In particular I've already fallen in love with the dogmatic suffix. I've mapped out some pretty useful features:

It's used when insisting something happened: "I DO wash my hands after using the restroom."

When the speaker is making a promise: "I'll be home before dinner."

When making a threat: "You WILL regret this."

When the statement is made true by its very utterance, as when proclaiming a law (I think there's a word for this already but I can't remember): "A strict curfew shall be imposed in the affected area until 7:30 tomorrow morning."

When making axiomatic statements (the prototypical use of the suffix): "All human beings are born free and equal."

My original plan for the authoritative vs nonauthoritative distinction was, if you said something in the nonauthoritative form which turns out to be untrue, your are considered to be mistaken. If you said something in the authoritative form which turns out not to be true, you are considered to have lied.

[Arayaz]

I'm trying to translate a piece of my writing into Ruykkarraber, and I'm stuck, but not because of any complicated constructions, no. I'm stuck on how to derive a word for "or." Like, where does it come from? What's a basic root that could turn into it? I feel like some of my Ruykkarraber roots are a bit too non-basic themselves already ("friend," "heart," "to keep," "stable," "indentation"). So how could I get a word for "or"?

[Keenir]

I'm trying to translate a piece of my writing into Ruykkarraber, and I'm stuck, but not because of any complicated constructions, no. I'm stuck on how to derive a word for "or." Like, where does it come from? What's a basic root that could turn into it? I feel like some of my Ruykkarraber roots are a bit too non-basic themselves already ("friend," "heart," "to keep," "stable," "indentation"). So how could I get a word for "or"?

Tiny question - why does it need to come from a basic root? (or from a root, full stop)

Maybe from a word for one of these: knife, cut, divide (which, if memory serves, are the sort of words that also give rise to "chose" and the like - and its a short distance from chose to or, right?)

[Arayaz]

I have a problem with regard to Ruykkarraber being weird and not behaving as I intended when I originally set out its nice, peaceful four-case system and then I destroyed it by doing EVERYTHING with these goddamned AUXILIARIES that NOMINALIZE VERBS and now CASE STACKING could be a thing or INFIXES on lexicalized phrases that have incorporated objects and REANALYSIS would be SO helpful and I'm breaking down HELP

So, as some quick background: Ruykkarraber has four cases (I-IV or 1-4, depending on my mood). Case 1 is unmarked. They are used as follows:

In a regular clause:
Subject-1 Object-2 Verb

In a nominalized clause:
Ergative-3 Absolutive-4 Verb

As you can see, no indication other than the case switch nominalizes the verb.

So here's the problem. A lot of auxiliaries etc. exist where a nominalized clause or VP serve as an argument in the sentence. This isn't much of a problem, because the verb can take a case suffix:

Subject-1 Ergative-3 Absolutive-4 Verb-2 Aux

When these stack, it can get a bit complicated, but in the end it is still coherent (maybe):

noun-1 noun-2 verb
noun-1 {noun-4 verb}-2 verb *crucially the -2 is outside of the nominalized phrase
noun-1 { {noun-4 verb}-4 verb}-2 verb
noun-1 { { {noun-4 verb}-4 verb}-4 verb}-2 verb

et cetera / ad infinitum.

So then I decided to create some words from smooshed-down VPs. Like the word for "can" could be "have the ability to." Due to some other uses of the cases, we use case III for the VP object. This gives us "person-1 {wood-4 cut}-3 ability-2-have" for "The person can cut wood." At this point, ability-2-have has been squished into one word. So far so good.

Then... uh... what if I put an auxiliary on that?

Let's go with an E3A4 auxiliary ─ one that nominalizes the entire clause and puts it as the subject of a verb. We'll have to find the ergative argument ─ that's person-1 above. Switch the case to 3, easy peasy. Then the absolutive...

um....

The absolutive argument there, historically, is { {wood-4 cut}-3 ability-2}. However, the ability-2 part is now part of a verb.

I feel like there are two options here:

1. The auxiliary system (which I've suggested hasn't been around forever, at least not to this extent) arose after the word for "can" got made. The issue here is that it can't have done that because it is one of those auxiliaries. So:
2. It gets reinterpreted as just being a normal auxiliary with a slightly rare nominalization pattern. There is another auxiliary, the imperfective, that also has this nominalization pattern, but for a different reason. This'd work, but I (probably wrongly) find it a bit odd that people would just forget that the auxiliary's object doesn't end there. Idk, this feels like a fine solution actually. Lol, did I just figure out my problem while asking the question? Might as well post it anyway because smarter people will offer good insights.
3. The word for "can" has irregular forms for when its internal object takes other cases. This would be extended to other verbs formed in the same way. Basically, this is people using not only ability-2 have but also ability-3 have and ability-4 have. This would be how it works at first, but is this a common enough construction to survive a relatively weird pattern? I'd especially doubt that other words formed in the same way would keep this, since their objects ─ if they have them ─ in this case the nominalized phrase ─ stay in case 3 constantly and they change form for it instead. At that point, it might be simpler to think of them as separate words.

*sigh* I feel like a parent with a teenager child. I don't think Ruykkarraber is in my control anymore.

[Khemehekis]

*sigh* I feel like a parent with a teenager child. I don't think Ruykkarraber is in my control anymore.

This whole problem reminds me of an issue writers have: "I don't think my characters are in my control anymore".

Here's something posted by a girl on another board about writing:

Okay, so, this book I'm reading--Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel--says that any time the character gets away from the author, it's a sign of shoddy writing, an incompetent author.

I FULLY disagree. Everyone I know who writes has had the experience at least once that their character does or says things that FIT, but weren't intended. To me, a good writer doesn't force the character, sie tricks or goads or bribes the character if sie really wants a certain thing to happen...to me, it's an amazing accomplishment when characters are so dimensional and real that they have a life of their own to the extent that they change what we're doing. That...is beyond awesome. But this book claims it's awful.

Incidentally, I agree with almost everything else in the book that I've read so far (I'm almost done with all chapters on writing, just the revision and publishing chapters remain), and I recommend it, even to people who've written extensively (as I have). :)

And something posted by a boy in the same thread:

My characters evolve very organically as the story progresses. My character development process can be summed up as: Hm, I need a character; this one will be female, her name's Jill, and [insert one or two vague personal details, e.g. only child, orphaned at a young age, graduated suma cum laude]. Then the character pretty much writes hirself as the story progresses.

More than once my characters have revolted against me, and my stories have ended up completely different than what I set out to write. By way of example, I sat down to write a typical knight-in-shining-armor-slays-the-dragon-and-saves-the-damsel-in-distress-and-they-got-married-and-lived-happily-ever-after story for my creative writing class; unfortunately, the knight had other ideas and ended up striking a deal with the dragon where he'd give up the damsel to the knight in exchange for free reign over the knight's king's enemy's territories, a bargain the damsel (who was the knight's king's enemy's niece, and her wedding to the knight was supposed to end the centuries-old feud) didn't take kindly to - she lured him to bed and then, once he was asleep, she killed him with his own sword.

It ended up being a darn good story, it just wasn't at all what I sat down to write - all because that knight had ideas of his own!

Interestingly, Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel says "This is just a suggestion; different writers do it differently" on most topics, but the book is very firm on letting one's characters be out of one's control being A Bad Thing. Why can't this be the subject of different perspectives, much like the other aspects of a novel (heavy description vs. light on the description, said-bookisms vs. sticking with "said"/"asked"/"replied", etc.)?

Personally, I would say that this is not only a good thing, but a very good thing, as the writer has accomplished the task of Pygmalion: bringing the character to life. I agree with both the girl's and the boy's "out of your control = good" ethos on this matter. (Heh heh, Arayaz mentioned parents' teen-age chldren getting out of their control. As Bob Dylan said: "Your sons and your daughters are beyonf your control" about the Boomers rebelling against their Greatest parents. The Greatest Generation really did succeed, with the help of Dr. Spock, at creating independent-minded kids, many of whom had great ideas. I can't understand for the life of my why they abandoned these ideas.) Just as out-of-their-parents'-control Boomer youth stood on their own two feet, out-of-the-author's-control characters stand on their own two feet.

As a matter of fact, many writers (including those who create teen movies, in particular) could use some more of this character realization, as they rely heavily on stock characters:

Spoiler:

a jock who's just like all those other movie and TV jocks, a shy nerd who's more or less the same as all the other movie and TV nerds, a blonde Alpha Chick who's just like all the other movie and TV Alpha Chicks, a gothic outcast who doesn't who anything new with Goth. In fact, the social dynamics of much teen fiction today still reflects the high school world of the Gen-X teen era!

With so many stock characters, a character who isn't even one-dimensional is quite the accomplishment, so a character who is three-dimensional and has been brought to life is even more amazing!

As for me, I've never truly had a character come to life to the point that they get out of my control. Although I created many interesting characters in my rock musical The Bittersweet Generation, I still managed to get them all to do exactly what I wanted them to do. Ig my play were a puppet show, you'd be able to see Khemehekis' hand. One guy who reviewed my play on the Fourth Turning board said it seems I "treat [my] characters as line-delivery systems", so maybe I could use some more character independence, like the knight, dragon, and damsel created by the boy quoted above. (Then, of course, The Bittersweet Generation may have had a radically different ending, and I really like the climax and ending I came up with.)

Similar to individual characters are concultures, something all worldbuilders who write fiction know. So the thousand-dollar question: Have any of your concultures developed (naturally and organically) in ways that strayed from your original intentions with them, even though you didn't want them to? (And I actually have a thread on a similar question in conlanging: What you expected vs. what you got.)

[Salmoneus]

It is extremely creepy to make us stalk people from somewhere else who don't know us, and whom we don't know. Did you ask them before taking their words and reposting them elsewhere on the internet without any context? It's disturbing thinking you may be doing the same thing to us. Is it even legal, given that their posts are copyright and you're not really commenting on them or using them educationally (what's your free use exception here?) and there is no public interest exemption here

I also don't really understand the motivation, since we don't know these people, so using them as illustrations to demonstrate an already well-known point (that could have been illustrated with more well-known examples, if really necessary) seems weird to me, no offence.