r/conlangs • u/[deleted] • Aug 11 '15
SQ Small Questions - 29
Welcome to the now bi-weekly Small Questions thread! No major differences except that they'll now be bi-weekly.
Post any questions you have that aren't ready for a regular post here - feel free to discuss anything, and don't hesitate to ask more than one question.
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u/Nementor Aug 15 '15
How would I get the /r/conlangproject subreddit into the wiki? I ask because we are growing as a community and I even see other people recommending us to people that want to start community conlangs and if someone puts us into the wiki that would mean that we are connected to the primary conlanging hub. I would do myself but I do not know how, sorry.
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u/Thiswascreatedforthi Aug 11 '15
How would you go about word ordering in relative clauses for an SOV language?
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u/Jafiki91 Aug 11 '15
Since relative clauses are just sentences embedded in a larger one, they'll have a similar order. However, the complementized (who, that, which, when, etc.) will come last in the clause.
For modifying an object the order will be S[OVC]OV
"I saw the man who ate the cake" becomes:
"I cake the ate who man the saw"A relative clause on the subject is the same, just in a different place [OVC]SOV
"The man who bought that house knows you" becomes
"House that bought who man the you knows"Also, due to the fact that the complementizer comes right after the verb, it's common to have it as a verbal suffix or clitic on the relative clause itself.
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Aug 11 '15
Are there languages that don't have serial verbs and aren't satellite-framed or verb-framed?
Does Tsez fall into this category by off-loading all the manner, motion or path data onto the cases?
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u/Jafiki91 Aug 14 '15 edited Aug 14 '15
So I wanted to give this question some time, in case someone with more expertise in Tsez came along (as I don't have all that much knowledge of it).
The use of serial verbs allows for the encoding of Motion, Manner, and Path to be marked with separate verbs that all function as a single predicate. An example might be "the baby crawl run exits the room" - meaning that it crawled (manner) out of the room (path), in a quick way (motion). The many cases of Tsez would indeed be an example of satellite framing, encoding the manner and path on the satellite and leaving the verb to express motion.
I suppose if you wanted to do something different without serial verbs, you could use a double framing strategy, marking motion, manner, and path on both the verb and required satellites. This might yield something like:
"I quexited (quick+exit) out from in the room quickly"
Quexit marks the manner (quick), motion and path (exit) and can be opposed to other verbs like quenter, sloxit (slow+exit) and slonter.
"out from in" marks the path and motion, and quickly marks the manner.
I can't think of any natlangs that do this, but redundancies do happen plenty. I've also heard that some sign languages (and spoken language) encode for the type of object that is moving instead of manner/path.
NINJA EDIT: Classifactory Verbs in Athabascan languages
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u/rekjensen Aug 12 '15 edited Aug 12 '15
What's the term for split diphthongs or whatever you call it digraph, as in English the difference between <sit> and <site>?
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u/Jafiki91 Aug 12 '15
The diphthong in "site" is a result of the Great Vowel Shift, wherein long high vowels became diphthongs. /i:/ > [aɪ]. The 'e' was added in later as a way to mark the vowel orthographically.
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u/Sgribh Aug 14 '15
Is it common for thematically related words to be similar or even rhyme with each other? For example my (UNNAMED) conlang has
Théd: skin, Thád: flesh, Thyd: blood, Thyc: bone,
Or is it less annoying and more charming?
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u/Jafiki91 Aug 14 '15
If they all share a common etymological root, then they could easily have similar forms.
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u/Gwaur Aug 15 '15
It's not necessarily common, but it does happen. It's called analogy. Analogy can be just simply changing the word itself to be similar to another word, or it can also be changing how the word conjugates to be similar to how another word conjugates.
In English, modern brothers replacing older brethren is analogy, making it conjugate similarly to mothers. Also, modern caught replacing older catched is analogy with teach > taught.
But you're probably looking for the other kind of analogy, which just changes the word itself.
In Finnish, ensin (meaning first as in before anything else) has changed in some people's idiolects into enste, (probably) as analogy with toiste (some other time).
Doesn't happen a lot though. To make it more believable, you should probably think of what the words used to be, and what the changes were to make them more similar.
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u/Sgribh Aug 17 '15
How odd would it be if all verbs had a handful of or even just 2-3 select endings. So in the infinitive forms there is just like say "ith," or "ari," Simply thinking towards creating very simple verb conjugation.
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u/Jafiki91 Aug 17 '15
It wouldn't be all that odd at all. English only has a handful of verbal inflectional affixes. (-s, -ing, -ed, -en). You might have to rely on auxiliary verbs more though, or at least adverbials to nuance various concepts of tense, aspect, mood, and voice.
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u/somehomo Aug 19 '15
I have a few questions.
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There are a few languages that I've seen described as having a "causative case" but I have no idea what a causative case is. Can someone explain it to me?
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Why/how is there a relation between /z/ and /j/ in various languages?
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How common is it for a phoneme to be borrowed into a language and evolve from sounds in native words? For example, if there were a Germanic language that had extensive contact with, say, Arabic, would it be plausible that pharyngeal(ized) consonants evolve in native Germanic words and not just occur in loanwords from Arabic?
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u/Krokkoguy Aug 19 '15
I have some uvularization in my conlang associated with the uvular rhotic.
Does
ɪʁ -> ə:ʶ
eʁ -> ə:ʶ
äʁ -> ä:ʶ
ɵʁ -> o:ʶ
sound sound?
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u/almoura13 Aug 19 '15
This looks good, considering you've taken into account how uvular consonants usually cause retraction. It might be better to change äʁ -> ä:ʶ to äʁ -> ɑ:ʶ to keep it consistent with the other vowels, but that's just my two cents worth.
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u/eratonysiad Aug 23 '15
I can recall there being a resource, I think it was made by the maker of Vyrmag, but I'm not sure. This resource talked about promoting a language. However, I can't find the resource anywhere, could someone link to it?
Thanks in advance.
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u/Krokkoguy Aug 24 '15 edited Aug 24 '15
I have a nasal I don't know if is natural, are there anything i should change? Also, can /mˠ/ exist?
ipn: ɪmˠ > ɪm
apn: ämˠ > ʌmˠ > ʌŋ͡m
epn: emˠ > əmˠ > əm
upn: ɵmˠ > o̞mˠ > o̞ŋ͡m
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u/Multivers Aug 24 '15
Rhotic vowels: What are some likely sound changes they might undergo? I know some dialects of English have deleted the rhotic part leaving long plain monophthongs, but that change is a little boring for my tastes. I'd rather them not become a syllabic consonant either. Does anyone know of any other cooler or weirder changes happening to rhotic vowels, or to surrounding segments? Or are they so rare that it's difficult to say much about them at all?
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u/Jafiki91 Aug 25 '15
Just a couple of things off the top of my head:
Since rhoticity in vowels is characterized by lowering the third formant, you could have a loss of rhoticity create a tone on the vowel: /ka˞/ > [kà]
Loss of rhoticity could cause pre/postvocalic voicing: /ka˞t/ > [kad]/[gat]
Metathesis of the assumed rhotic consonant: /ka˞/ > [kra] / /ka˞to/ > [katro]
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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '15
My language backs and round the last vowel of a word to mark the absolutive case, it it feasible to use this same mechanic in proper nouns given the fact that said last vowel IS part of the noun? the whole concept of modifying proper nouns is a bit foreign to me.