New CBB

Yey! It's a bit the aim. Because to me, Siwa is not just esthetically beautiful, it stands for what I want in my life, and I'm sure it's quite compatible with the desire of many to get closer to nature and other such hippyisms.

In your "Glossing" section, you have ACT for "Active case" and STAT for "Stative case".

Those should be "ACTive voice" and "STATive voice".

"Active" and "Stative" usually apply to verbs, not to nouns and pronouns; they're usually voices instead of cases.

You have them applying to nouns and pronouns, though. Why?

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It looks good!

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

What's the status of 'õ'. Is it an independet phoneme, the only nasal vowel?

I use the word stative and active for the cases of the agentive subject and the unagentive subject or object of a verb because Siwa has a fluid-s alignement. It's in contrast to the nom-acc and erg-abs systems.

It is an independent phoneme that arose from an original *on/*un/*ɨn in earlier forms of Siwa.

So it is a phoneme after all? I'm just wondering because in the first table you write it as an allophone, but later you write it as a phoneme.

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Proto-Hyảlim | Bjarmish

Ón gráti sem jett barn kvéner jag syggji jett lag um deiðan...
[oʊ̯n ˈgɾaːtɪ sɛmː jɛtː baɾn ˈkʰʋɛːnɛɾ jaː ˈsʏd͡ʑːɪ jɛtː laː ʊmː ˈdɛɪ̯an]

Thanks, I'll fix that!

That's not how it's usually done in talking about cases in Split-S or Fluid-S aligned languages.
The class of Active/Stative languages are so named for the voices of their intransitive verbs, not for the cases of their nouns.
The case for an Agent (like the subject of an Active intransitive verb), is typically called "Ergative"; the case for a Patient (and also the subject of a Stative intransitive verb), is typically called "Accusative".

"Nominative" and "Absolutive" are terms usually reserved for a case whose case-marking morpheme is a zero morpheme. That is, the case-ending marking a noun as NOM or ABS is "there is no case-ending". If your Agents (including the subjects of your Active intransitive verbs) happen to be "case-marked" by not having a case-marker, you could reasonably call that case "nominative" instead of "ergative"; OTOH if your Patients (and the subjects of your Stative intransitive verbs) happen to be "case-marked" by not having a case-marker, you could reasonably call that case "absolutive" instead of "accusative".

"Active" might, FAIK and IMO, be a reasonable (though unusual) name for the case that Agents go in; but IMO I don't think "Stative" is a reasonable name for any case.

Nevertheless, it's more important to describe what your conlang actually does, than to use the "correct" terminology to do so.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

It's not my intention to turn this into a debate on terminology, and you're right, Eldin, when you say it's more common among descriptions of active-stative languages to use nom./acc. abs./erg., however, to avoid confusion, Dixon ('94) recommends using different terminology. And he has to be said is one of the leading experts in ergativity. He says this:

"Information on Manipuri comes from Bhat (1988, 1991, ms.) and Bhant and Ningomba (ms.), who in fact use traditional case labels - nominative for -nə [marking the controller of an action], accusative for -bu [marking an animate being affected by an action] and locative for -də [which can mark something indirectly involved in (or secondarily affected by) an action, e.g. goal, source, experiencer, patient, beneficiary, or can mark location], although with explanation that these 'cases' have semantic rather than strictly syntactic use. I consider it best to restrict case labels such as nominative, accusative, absolutive and ergative to languages with syntactically based marking where they indicate syntactic relations, and to use other, semantically based, labels for -nə, -bu and -də in Manipuri."

I'm absolutely open to changing the terminology, since it's one of my weaker points (I have had to invent/assume a lot of stuff).

Just so it's totally clear. Siwa has 2 main case marker;

ZERO-MARKING (nominative/ergative?) = case of conscious agent (active) OR case of patient of telic/conclusive verb (dative)
MARKING (absolutive/accusative?)= case of unconscious agent (stative) OR case of the patient of atelic/inconclusive verb (genitive) OR the genitive


So what would be the best word to describe this system?

The main reason I suggest not using nom./ acc. or abs./ erg. is to avoid any possible confusion with e.g. split ergative languages. If I was reading a gloss using those terms I would most likely assume the language has split ergativity. Perhaps this (used for describing some languages with austronesian alignment): Direct and indirect case.

Zero marking = direct case
Marking = indirect case

That would be my suggestion at least

The issue here is that each morphological case represents two distinct syntactical cases, i.e. they have the same surface form but I consider them to be separate cases.

I think that labeling them together would become extremely confusing.

Okay, I think I get it. How about you combine these? So that direct is the unmarked case and indirect is the marked, and the you have:

Direct (DIR):
1) Case of conscious agent (DIRA = direct agent)
2) Cas of patient of telic/ conclusive verb (DIRP = direct patient)

Indirect (INDIR)
1) Case of uncounscious agent (INDIRA = indirect agent)
2) Case of patient of atelic/inconclusive verb (INDIRP = indirect patient)

This has the advantage of explaining that both instances are similar (morphologically) but different (syntactically)? Now, I probably haven't gotten all the complexities of your system, but it's a suggestion

The adjective section is on its way to being done. Here is the preliminary version. Any comments would be welcome.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7216892/adj.pdf

The full glossing is really helpful.
One thing though, you mark infixes with <> on one line but not the one below. You can use <> on both lines to make it clearer.


You say that most adjectives have adjectival and verbal forms - are there any that don't and if so do you have an example? (Although maybe you have this further down and I haven't gotten to it yet.)

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Ikasmu ati'uki nai uraiur.
Hinai nimuśim naimi nai sasamiur urukani. Śi'ama nai huhumiur na ni'amuśim nai sasamiur.
Pumaki nimuśim śima'a na ami nimuśim ara'a. Hini nihrasum i'aku tumra urukani na nihrasum sanik hraspir.

Here is an updated version of a few of the first sections (3-8). It's 188 pages long but it should get longer once I get to adding more examples.

This covers sounds, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions and postpositions.

Next are verbs, a huge section.

Here it is!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7216892/correction1.pdf

This is excellent.

I think your link may be wrong: I just see the grammar without the verbs.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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I'm still working on the verbs!

Here is a little text that I read quickly. I also changed my voice to see how it'd be to hear someone else speak siwa.

Oni ko katatsġovami rahkanta, heskvau daġe savvu seitototima deįo.
Tįadnamõ onta oįusta sikvubmaikka, nįůgůkkake kimi ảlka vevvi de, tatalįasamõ katta ủhtaketa, ykįake kimi lyra deiko. Unaųine lyra geilhimi ảlkita, ubogįikkahtimõ įu tonkamo gala oda. Rikkiamõ on te sohhohi kemṡie diehhįa dẻ, kataġaispamõ ka hobmiska sahrutta ủki. Oni koasġamõ, ỷrhutįu atįita õutrỉhta kevta duo.


Now I will give you advice should you ever burn your skin.
First you will have to find bright white birch (bark), to wrap around the wound. Then you will have to make a deep cut into a balsam fir from which to collect the resin. The resin will be used as an ointment into the wound, which will then be wrapped tightly with sinew. You will have to open the roll every morning and evening, and you will have to rinse away the layer of dead (skin) with fresh water. Do as this says until the skin scars into new pink skin (lit. newfallen snow skin).

That should be a translation challenge.

And i still can't get over how awesome the orthography is.

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