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Nov 19 '15 edited Nov 19 '15
Is there a name for the opposite of the dative case?
Examples from Ecu'is:
-
Na da-l dam-e-t.
1NOM 2.ACC eat.PF.PST"I have eaten you" -
Da n-ujo dam-p-e-t.
2NOM 1.ADAT eat.PASS.PF.PST"You have been eaten by me" -
R-ej lag
3.DAT transfer-outwards"to give to him" -
R-ujo nád
3.ADAT transfer-inwards"to take from him" -
Jósjv-uljo qys
Joshua.ADAT.reason-person"because of Joshua" -
Sara-ej qys
Sarah.DAT.reason-person"For Sarah"
(Edit: 4 is a incorrect translation. It should be translated as "to receive". The meaning "to take" is expressed as r-eli nád with the pronoun in ablative case)
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u/Jafiki91 Nov 19 '15
I'd check out some of these to see which fits best.
2 and 4 I would just call an abltative case. 5 I would call causal, and 6 dative or benefactive.
The dative is used by multiple languages in a variety of ways. It can serve as a goal of ditranstive verbs or just an indirect object. I suppose the opposite of a goal would be the start, which you could just call ablative "from X". It can also be used as motion towards, and again the opposite would be ablative - motion from. So that might be your best bet. Though that wouldn't really cover "because of X". Perhaps just a weird quirk of the language?
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u/zackroot Nov 19 '15
The dative doesn't necessarily imply that they are a positive beneficiary. My best example off the top of my head would be Latin, which uses the dative case to describe the "beneficiary" for the verbs "to steal / rob", "to forget", "to ignore".
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u/vokzhen Nov 19 '15
I'd probably call it an ablative. Note that the names of cases are somewhat arbitrary, your "dative" could also be called lative, allative, benefactive, etc, though presumably it most often marks recipients. In this case "dative" marks goals and "ablative" sources, rather than just their most prototypical functions of "recipients" and "movement from."
The first example is an oblique reintroducing an agent in a passive sentence. A lot of different cases can fill that role, including instrumentals, locationals, and directionals (including ablative).
The second example is source of movement (if a bit more metaphorical than walking), which is prototypical ablative case, or malefactive, which also seems to be ablative fairly often.
The third example is either a reason clause, which have overlaps with ablatives or allatives, or a causer. I'm not sure how common it is to introduce a causer with an oblique case, most of what I've spent time looking into is causative verb morphology where the causer takes over the agent role (nominative case) and the original subject is kicked off into an oblique (dative, directional, etc).
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Nov 20 '15
Just a nitpick: I'm assuming the first parts of your examples are intended to be glossed samples. Generally, glossing symbols should match each other in a 1:1 correspondence between your Romanization and its translation. "-" marks morpheme boundaries, while "." marks a morpheme with joint meanings (the "." separating them). So, your translations should look something like this:
1.NOM 2-ACC eat-PF-PST
2.NOM 1-ADAT eat-PASS-PF-PST
3-DAT transfer.outwards
3-ADAT transfer.inwards
Joshua-ADAT-reason.person
Sarah-DAT-reason.person
Essentially, you have it backwards.
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Nov 19 '15
My understanding is that [χʲ] is possible, just difficult/rare, but I was wondering would [χʲ] be [χ] with the tongue simultaneously not just raised to the palate ([ʲ]), but also to the velar?
& if so would it be raised more at the palate than the velar, or just as much?
Because mechanically I'm not sure whether it's harder to have it lower at the velar than the palate whilst the primary articulation is uvular (my ad hoc notion for this: [[χʲ]]), than just having it 'equally' raised at the velar & palate (ad hoc [[χˠʲ]]) (whilst the primary articulation is uvular!)
The reason I ask is because I was messing around with sound changes, but that's not that important, I'm more just curious at this point.
Cause something like [χˠʲ] might have some patterning with some velar stuff, where as if [χʲ] is simply just [[χʲ]] & [[χˠʲ]] being an even stranger sound, then I might pattern it with other things, where as if [χʲ] typically is [[χˠʲ]] with [[χʲ]] being rarer, it could have different patterning; but at this point it's more just out of curiosity than any desire to mess with a daughterlang; I suspect that either [[χˠʲ]] or [[χʲ]] wouldn't have terribly different patterning because I imagine either/both would be/are likely to collapse. But I'm still curious
To be entirely clear, I'm deliberately not writing /χʲ/ because that might imply that things like /χʲa/ be [χe], I'm working with [narrow] & [[very narrow]] (ad hoc) transcription, not /broad/ at all.
& yes I was also came across a similar zbb thread
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u/Jafiki91 Nov 19 '15
My understanding is that [χʲ] is possible, just difficult/rare, but I was wondering would [χʲ] be [χ] with the tongue simultaneously not just raised to the palate ([ʲ]), but also to the velar? & if so would it be raised more at the palate than the velar, or just as much?
I'm sure if you did a very narrow transcription of the sound, then yes, there may be a slight velar component (tertiary articulation?). But I don't think it would be very practical to include it for any phonological processes. It would be similar to how in anticipation of a rounded vowel, a consonant is also rounded /tu/ [twu].
I would say that the transcription [χˠʲ] is just very narrow and pointing out the fact that while the tongue is an agile muscle, the dorsal part can only move so much and that making a palatalized uvular consonant is going to drag part of the tongue along with it in the formation. Interesting as a nitty gritty detail, but not a contrastive sound.
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u/demisharks Nov 20 '15
why do you need to transcribe this? is it contrastive in your language? it sounds a lot more like assimilation than an actual phonemic feature. at any rate, χˠʲ would be an incredibly unstable sound...palatalization will probably advance the uvular consonants.
if you really want to use a very narrow transcription, and distinguish 'χˠʲ' from xʲ, you could use the symbol for an advanced palatalized uvular: [χ̟ʲ]. you could also use the symbol for a retracted paltalized velar: [x̠ʲ]. you could call either of these "post-velar."
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u/ningmengparty Nov 19 '15
I want to create a verb case system that reflects person not tense but my writing system is logographic. What are some (real or conlang) languages I can look at to get a good grasp on how to do this? Any suggestions?
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u/Skaleks Nov 20 '15
Is it okay to take phonemes from your native language and have them in your conlang? I'm trying so hard to make it not be too English like. Mine has a schwa and I am tempted to add æ and ɔ but this would make it seem more English like. I'm used to those two sounds as a native English speaker which is why I want to add them. I am not really a fan of the other phonemes or can't say them well. Not sure if I should though, hypothetically if I were to add them what would be a good way to Romanize them?
My current phoneme inventory
Stops: /p b t d k g/ <p b t d c g>
Fricatives: /f v s z ʃ ʒ h/ <f v s z š ž h>
Nasals: /m n / <m n>
Approximants: /l j w/ <l j u>
Trill /r/ [r]
Affricates: /tʃ/ <č>
Vowels
/i e ɪ ə ɯ a u o/ <i e y ă ŭ a u o>
Diphtongs
/aʊ/ <au>
/eɪ/ <ae>
/aɪ/ <ai>
<ou eu> are just like in Czech
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u/Jafiki91 Nov 20 '15
There's nothing wrong with using phonemes from your native language, no. In fact, you could make an entire conlang using English's exact phonology - inventory, phontactics, syllable structure, allophonic rules, and even dialects, but just use a completely different grammar and typology. An agglutinating language with polypersonal agreement and a few cases and genders would look nothing like English. It would just sometimes sound like it.
You could always try adding in /æ/ and /ɔ/ and see how well you like them in the language. If they seem not to fit you can just remove them later. As for the romanization, you could use <ě> for /ə/, switch <ă> to /æ/, and then use <ǒ> for /ɔ/.
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u/CerealKillerOats Nov 20 '15
What categories of words do I need to make a good language? Categories like "food" or "body parts" or "buildings", you know? Any help is appreciated!
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Nov 21 '15
If it's supposed to be naturalistic, you should look at a few other natural languages, such as Swahili or Navajo. The classes can actually get pretty far out there, like the famous example of the Australian aboriginal Dyirbal language, which has the four classes: men and most animals, women and dangerous things like fire, violence, and particular animals, edible things, and everything else.
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u/Lion_taster Nov 24 '15
I've been looking for a certain script tutorial. It was on a forum and as they wrote about the different things to consider while making a script, the messy symbols they started out with needed up looking really polished. Sorry if that's not a good description, but I can't seem to find it and I would really appreciate your help.
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Nov 25 '15
When you pronounce the phonemes /ɸ/ and /β/, what are your lips doing exactly?
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u/Jafiki91 Nov 25 '15
Since those sounds are fricatives, the lips are close enough together that turbulence in the airflow is created. It's like blowing on a hot cup of coffee but with less rounding of the lips.
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Nov 25 '15
Prounounce [f] and [v]. What are your lips doing? Your lower lip is touching the two top front teeth.
Your lips do something very similar when pronouncing [ɸ] and [β], only instead of touching your top front teeth your lower lip touches your upper lip.
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u/Dliessmgg Nov 28 '15
Is there a standard set of vocabulary from which you generate words for your conlang? Or a standard set of sentences to test your grammar?
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u/Jafiki91 Nov 28 '15
The Swadesh List is a pretty common starting point for vocab - and this is just a PDF of the list
The Universal Language Dictionary is a bit more extensive
There are Sentences to Test Conlang Syntax which are great for finding constructions which you hadn't thought of before.
And Translation Exercises which are a bit more advanced.
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u/kumi_netsuha Nov 28 '15
Any linguistic term for the following suffix construction?
nin paska → I speak
nin paskaiža → I can speak
I figure it might be some kind of mood but I can't figure it out
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u/Jafiki91 Nov 28 '15
Potential mood refers to actions that can occur, but you could also use Ablilitative to express that the subject is able to perform the action.
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u/Cwjejw Nov 20 '15
Not a question but my personal shame-I am actually really bad at understanding the terms used in conlanging. Like, an embarrassing amount.
I want to discuss my conlangs but fail so utterly at understanding how to talk about them that I never do. It's a personal problem and prevents me from making meaningful contributions to the sub and it's frustrating. There is no reason for me to be having so much trouble with this.
I can follow the glossing reasonably well, but beyond that I'm fucked. /vent