Substantial postings about constructed languages and constructed worlds in general. Good place to mention your own or evaluate someone else's. Put quick questions in C&C Quickies instead.
clawgrip wrote:- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
no problem
Frankly, I'd throw this away. It confuses several things.
Topic (vs. focus) in information structure is not precisely the same thing as topic in topic-prominent languages; it's the latter ilk that tend to use a grammatically obligatory "topic marker"; such obligatory marking is not very common outside Europe either; the rest of languages often have frequent words that tend to be used in either the topic domain or the focus domain, so it's not a trivial task to reject a claim that a language (European or not) does have some sort of topic-marking particle; all the related issues are rarely discussed in proper detail in standard grammars, etc.
For Ahu, I'm going to use clawgrip's semi-revised questions, because I understand them better.
Sorry about the giant questions. Realised I should have made all the stuff in between smaller instead, but it's too much of a pain to change.
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Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
Yes ... but I still feel that Ahu does it a fairly non-SAE way. The inflected relative pronouns, while identical to interrogative pronouns, are not fronted, and the whole thing is introduced by the word em, which is an attributive marker linked onto the complementiser.
teli e-m dxek i zacu-a-z
house ATTR-C Jack PRED constructor-of-what the house that Jack built (literally kind of like "the house which is that what did Jack build")
A more common way to say "the house that Jack built" would be a bit more like "the built by Jack house"
teli e ne zacu-a dxek
house ATTR PASS builder-of Jack
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said")
No. The perfect is made from an unanalysable monomorphemic word li. The word se combines perfect with passive.
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
It depends. There are often two ways to express the same thing, a bit like German Ich mag das versus Das gefällt mir, but extending also to seeing and hearing etc. Half points.
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known")
No. The passive is marked by an unanalysable monomorphemic word ne (or se when combined with the perfect).
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare")
No. Possessive is always indicated by an oblique modifier. The oblique suffix is glossed as "of". This is more akin to marking the possessor as an accusative object.
Am-o i tuzún-a pel-a kili.
mother-of.INDEF.SG PRED cleaner-of hair-of child
Am-o i tuzún-a pel e vu-a kili.
mother-of.INDEF.SG PRED cleaner-of hair which.is part-of child
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
Yes, but it is also possible to say "Everybody didn't listen," or "Anybody didn't listen," for the same meaning. Half points.
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")*
I'm still unsure about exactly how comparisons of inequality are made in Ahu, and I'm also still unsure of what this question means. Since Ahu is mainly isolating and I have a feeling whatever form I do end up settling on will necessitate a true particle for syntactic reasons (rather than a word that looks like a particle but is actually a content word), I'll give that a fucking maybe, but a begrudging one because I don't think this is because it's very SAE, but because it's isolating. Hrmph!
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante")
If I understand clawgrip's interpretation of this question, and it is correct, probably a no. The word for "how" does not come into it. This is also not completely settled in Ahu either.
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous
No subject marking on verbs. Arguably no verbs either ... or maybe only a copula.
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
Yes, but is this really a typically SAE thing? I would have thought the default among languages is that they're two different things and that combining them into one is something only a few weird languages like English and Turkish do.
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
No distinction most of the time, but it becomes obligatory when possession must be indicated other than by a naked oblique modifier. For example, if I want to say "my cook" (but not have it mean "the one who cooks me") I have to indicate whether that person is my personal property (ie. a slave) or simply associated with me.
- number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") Nu = 1p.EXCL Uán = 1p.INCL
- no productive usage of reduplication
Indicates repetition. For example, tsa means "one who hits" but tsatsa means "one who hits repeatedly".
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking
What would probably be called the verb generally indicates the closest thing there is to an object, or the presence of a following object.
Na i el
1s PRED lover I love. / I am a lover
Na i el-a-u
1s PRED lover-of-2s I love you. / I am your lover.
Na i el-a mu.
1s PRED lover-of that.3 I love that guy/girl over there.
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective*
No obligatory plural marking (although if you want to mark definiteness, you also have to mark number). Collectives formed with om, which is just the word for "group".
- grammatical sex marking
Ahu does weird things with gender, but not in an SAE grammatical gender on every noun way. For example, all words relating to killing are semantically male, such as the word vun, which is generally equivalent to "hunt(er)" but most literally mean "man who hunts". To say "he hunts" is simple:
Xa i vun.
DEF.SG.man PRED man.who.hunts
To say "she hunts" has to be ...
La i ci vun.
DEF.SG.woman PRED that.which.is.similar.to man.who.hunts
... or more likely ...
La i fu vun.
DEF.SG.woman PRED one.who.shamefully.breaks.gender.roles.by.being.similar.to man.who.hunts
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Two points:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes
Not obligatory, unless number or (semantic) gender also need to be marked, in which case they all tend to be marked together (without gender if indefinite).
- non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions
Nope. Yes-no questions marked with ha, content questions generally include za in situ.
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
Nope. Isolating, and the "more" word doesn't necessarily need to be marked ... although comparatives are still not set in stone.
- conjunction A, B and C
Yes. I couldn't think how else to do it. It's a bit weird for SAE though. If clauses are linked, the complementiser sits on the end of "and", and if the phrase preceding "and" is more than one word long, it generally needs the particle u to come before it indicating that the right-branching tree has been cut there.
- SVO or V2 word order
Sort of ... if you want to find verbs and objects, then yes.
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
Half marks. Topics can be fronted and set off from the rest of the sentence either by intonation or by the word do.
- specific "neither-nor" construction
No, just "not A (and) not B".
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
Yes but syntactically the suffixes are more like prefixes for the following word but written on the preceding word because they sometimes affect (and depend on) its pronunciation. It's a bit like putting an accusative marker on the verb instead of on the following noun ... in effect giving you a transitive suffix.
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
If it's hard to pin down exactly what is an object in a language, it's a bit hard to say what the MSA is, but yeah, it's most similar to Nom-Acc.
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One point:
- only one gerund
Either zero or open ended gerunds, depending on how you want to define it.
- preference for finite subordinate clauses
Yes ... for EVERYTHING. Finite subordinating clauses pretty much replace everything in every other language, ever. To say "let someone go" you say "let that someone goes". Any complex sentence generally includes the complementiser or some other subordinating particle.
Result, 29%SAE.
I think the test should also include something about adjectives being one class, distinct from nouns and verbs (but possibly not distinct from adverbs). And it should also mention a lack of productive infixing.
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous.' - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") - no productive usage of reduplication - subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective - grammatical sex marking
2p:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - conjunction A, B and C - SVO or V2 word order - topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes - specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
1p:
- only one gerund - preference for finite subordinate clauses
31 points
I think the SAE-ish way of handling comparisons - with particles and inflections for the comparative and superlative is one if my "favourite hangups" - something I tend to take note of whenever I see a new conlang on some board. I started a thread on this at the CBB, to vent my opinions some time ago.
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous.'
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns Could someone explain this question please??? - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
- no productive usage of reduplication - subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective - grammatical sex marking
2p:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes
- non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
- conjunction A, B and C
- SVO or V2 word order
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
- specific "neither-nor" construction
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
1p:
- only one gerund
- preference for finite subordinate clauses
When I read this I instinctively expected a Back to how much I rule... link at the bottom of your post.
I think the SAE-ish way of handling comparisons - with particles and inflections for the comparative and superlative is one if my "favourite hangups" - something I tend to take note of whenever I see a new conlang on some board.
This really is a good point which bears being made more widely known. Legion disco'd it a few years back and it was news to most of us in IRC at the time. I've tried, but have yet to succeed, to incorporate locative comparison formations into some of my langs. I should do it for Salanjan-Zein, actually...*scurries off*
5p: - postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous.' - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") - no productive usage of reduplication - subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective - grammatical sex marking
2p: - obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - conjunction A, B and C - SVO or V2 word order - topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes - specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
1p: - only one gerund - preference for finite subordinate clauses
44.5% This plus the phonology fits the marginally European feel intended in creating the language.
Ksso:
5p: - postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous.' - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") - no productive usage of reduplication - subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective - grammatical sex marking
2p: - obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - conjunction A, B and C - SVO or V2 word order - topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes - specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
1p: - only one gerund - preference for finite subordinate clauses
26% This is what you get when you combine Ōgami Miyako and Lojban.
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns Could someone explain this question please???
As far as I understand it, that means something like this.
Reflexive pronoun: Er hat sich (selbst) umgebracht.
he has REFL (INTENSIFIER) killed He killed himself.
Intensifier: Er hat die Hühner selbst geschlachtet.
he has the chickens INTENSIFIER slaughtered He slaughtered the chickens himself.
So, as you can see, German has a distinction between reflexive pronouns (in ACC: mich, dich, sich, uns, euch, sich, DAT: mir, dir, sich, uns, euch, sich) which indicate a verbal argument or complement which is identical to the subject, and an adverb selbst which emphasises the subject. In English, we use the reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves) for both. So for this question, I would mark German as green and English as red ...
... I don't really believe that non-European languages in general conflate these two different roles (as English does). I don't really know enough though as the only non-IE languages I know well enough are Turkish (which conflates them in kendi-) and Auslan (which also conflates them but probably because of the huge amount of English influence), but I would be very surprised. I would be equally as surprised if you told me that it's a very SAE thing to distinguish a difference between relative pronouns and interrogative pronouns.
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Here's Ngolu
5p: - postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous.' - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") - no productive usage of reduplication - subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective. - grammatical sex marking
2p:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - conjunction A, B and C - SVO or V2 word order - topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes - specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
1p:
- only one gerund - preference for finite subordinate clauses
Only 21% SAE and this test doesn't even go into the number of open lexical classes. I think the main things that bring it closer to SAE are the nominals, which are a closed-class, complex system of words functioning as both pronouns and, when followed by a verb phrase, articles. They inflect for case, person, number, definiteness and gender. If I trimmed them back, removing all but case and person from them and allowing other things to be indicated optionally on verbs, Ngolu would only get 10%!
5p: - postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - Yipta uses simple gapping when relitivizing the subject of the main clause, and pronoun retention otherwise - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - The perfect can be formed through the use of an adverbial particle or a coverbal construction with the verb "to finish/complete" - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - The passive is handled through the use of transitivity and case inflections - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - No dative case - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous. - No verbal inflection for person or number - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") - no productive usage of reduplication - Reduplication marks plurality in nouns and repetition in verbs. - subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - No subject marking on the verb. - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective. - Plural marking is never obligatory. - grammatical sex marking
2p:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - Clauses are consistently verb-initial. - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - conjunction A, B and C - A, B, C - SVO or V2 word order - VSO word order - topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes - specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - There are relatively few inflections, which are handled through ablaut. - nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
1p:
- only one gerund - I think? Kind of hard to figure with this grammar... - preference for finite subordinate clauses
Total: 25% SAE. About what I expected, since the grammar is pretty out there, at least from my own, English-speaking perspective.
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns Could someone explain this question please???
As far as I understand it, that means something like this.
Reflexive pronoun: Er hat sich (selbst) umgebracht.
he has REFL (INTENSIFIER) killed He killed himself.
Intensifier: Er hat die Hühner selbst geschlachtet.
he has the chickens INTENSIFIER slaughtered He slaughtered the chickens himself.
I thought it was kind of surprising that Irish vernacular English has this and probably got it calqued into English general use but I don't think the intensifier in Irish is a reflexive. It's also surprising that the English has a similar look to the German syntax overall.
German modal particles are pretty exotic actually.
Five points:
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - there is a periphrastic perfect, but it's formed with "be" plus an active participle
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me")
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - Icastrian uses OV word order with zero-agent: "I am known" is nu kaila (1SG-ACC know-3SG).
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - genitive all the way: an ema mosk ar váigia foltyt (the mother wash-3SG the-GEN child-GEN hair-ACC)
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - must use the negative verb: sutku í róta "nobody didn't listen;" sutku róta is "anybody listened"
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - can use a particle or case marking: uroras zhu tere (bigger than house) or uroras tereas (bigger house-ABL).
- equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") - same as above: uros zhu tere (big as house) or uros tereas (big house-ABL)
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous - optional pro-drop except for the third person
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
- no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
- no productive usage of reduplication
- no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective - plural marking is obligatory; there is a separate collective: lippa > lippaid "bird/birds;" > lippot "flock of birds." Some nouns are collective-singulative: zeura "animals" > zeurion "animal"
- grammatical sex marking
40/80
Two points:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - definite article is obligatory, but there is no indefinite article
- non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - same word order as declaratives, distinguished through intonation and/or optional question marker
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
- conjunction A, B and C
- SVO or V2 word order
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
- specific "neither-nor" construction
- predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - exclusively suffixing, though there are a few prefixes in the derivational morphology
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
15/18
One point
- only one gerund
- preference for finite subordinate clauses
Five points apiece: postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") I'll count this half, but this would use an action nominal construction and the pronoun would be a possessive and inflect for the animacy of the noun. a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") there is no perfect, just use the temporal adverb 'already' a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") there are several verbs that encode e.g. evidential information. a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") there is only one passive, with verbal inflection, and it's just for changing valence dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") I don't think so verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") nobody isn't a person - negation goes on the verb; "I didn't hit someone" particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") has a word for 'than' equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") uses something subordinated like, "his being large so resembles elephant(s)' " subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous (-s) N/A ; no person, number marking on verb differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns it could probably work, but there will be a variety of particles besides no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession intrinsic versus incidental association plays a role, especially in meronymy and existentials. no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") me-we(not you) ; we(you and me=dual=us two)-we(you and me and others) ; you(alone) - you(and others but not me) ; it(/this/that) - (these/those) ; (s)he - (they/them) no productive usage of reduplication (it's technically productive but it's not *productive* productive) okay I'll use this in the onomatopoeia and in the aspect system, specifically on both roots and affixes. no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb no marking for person on verb obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective non-obligatory marking for plural/collective. mass nouns do not use it.
Two points: definite and indefinite articles noncompulsory specificity marker verb-initial order in yes/no questions nope, sentence-final interrogative particle comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) lit. "more big" conjunction A, B and C uses 'and' between all of them
suppletivism in second vs. two SVO or V2 order SVO-SOV topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes information structure is directly expressed by a variety of very flexible, multifunctional correlative particles
One point each: only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses there is only one level of subordination, with action nominals specific "neither-nor" construction lit. "not....not...not....etc." along with negation on the verb. negation on nominals is usually pleonastic unless another discourse particle comes into play, then you can have negative pregnants. hm... predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology [updated bc germanic/latin derivational verb prefixes) nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
18.5% SAE Edit: missed stuff
Last edited by Melteor on Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Trying out ʔösleömös, an Akana-based conlang I've been tinkering with for a while:
5p: - postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - prenominal relative clauses - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - perfect optionally formed through the use of various adverbs - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - passive voiced is marked with a verbal suffix - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - no dative case - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - verbal negation is accomplished with a negative particle - particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - equative constructions normally use a particle meaning, roughly, "like" - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous. - Pro-dropping, and number is not indicated - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") - distinct inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns - no productive usage of reduplication - subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - Subject and object marking on the verb - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective. - Plural marking is never obligatory. - grammatical sex marking
2p:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - Word order is the same in statements and questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - conjunction A, B and C - A, B, C - A, B, C and - SVO or V2 word order - topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes - specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment - Direct alignment
1p:
- only one gerund - preference for finite subordinate clauses - I guess, though there aren't really any nonfinite verbs
I came across something that might shed some more light on the intensifiers-reflexive a issue. Apparently there's a database - and "half the world's languages" display this pattern.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him! kårroť
5p: - postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose")
Essentially no relative clauses. The role is either filled by attributive modifiers (with or without passive marking) or adverbial clauses.
mba
house
ye
ATTR
ne
undergo.AG
zyenu
build.AG
zyi
GEN.DEF.E
Dyegi
Jack
"the house that jack built"
Hi
DEM.E
e
COP
la
woman
u
ADV
de
DEF.E
i
COP
zye
cause
zyu
GEN.C
na
1s
i
COP
bahe
need
zomba
go.home.AG
"That's the woman who I needed to go home because of." ("That's the woman, her being the cause of that I had to go home.")
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened")
Possible. Either "nobody listened" or "everybody didn't listen" possible.
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant")
de
DEF.E
i
COP
ba
extreme.E
da
large.E
u
ADV
gi
mild.E
e
COP
eleva
elephant
"It's bigger than an elephant." ("It is very big, what is slightly big being an elephant.")
- equative constructions uses the word for 'how' (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous.' - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns
de
DEF.E
i
COP
ngu
kill.AG
zyi-zu
GEN.DEF.E-same.E
"He killed himself."
de
DEF.E
i
COP
ngu
kill.AG
zyi
GEN.DEF.E
u
ADV
de
DEF.E
"He killed it himself."
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession
No distinction in genitive case but there is a three-way distinction made in the nouns equivalent to "have", nyu "owner" (indicates legal ownership), za "holder" (indicates often temporary physical having, wearing, carrying), ne "undergoer" (indicates a form of possession which the possessor has no or little control over und hence also creates passive constructions - one who has a murderer is murdered, for example).
- number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you")
Wana 1p.INCL vs wena 1p.EXCL
- no productive usage of reduplication
No rampantly productive usage but there are a few things that cause it. One is similar to English. Le means "lover" but is often just used to mean "liker", so to make sure someone knows that you mean "love" you can double it ... lele is definitely a "lover" not just a "liker". It's also used for frequentatives. Gu "one who hits (generally once)", gugu "one who bashes"
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking
Isolating.
- obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective. - grammatical sex marking
2p:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes
3rd person pronoun able to be used as non-obligatory definite article.
- non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger)
isolating
- conjunction A, B and C
Must be A and B and C
- SVO or V2 word order
SVO as far as this terminology fits
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes
Mostly, but the adverbial particle u can also get involved as in the intensifiers
- specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology
isolating
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
Well, kind of ... the equivalent of objects are just genitive phrases, but closer to NOM/ACC than ERG/ABS
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") ~ (relative pronoun shows suppletion for animacy, but doesn't inflect otherwise)
- a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") ~ (perfect is formed periphrastically, but uses neither 'have' nor a participle)
- a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") ~ (both variants are common)
- a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - (morphological passive voice)
- dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") ~ (both dative external possession and genitive internal possession are common, but the dative construction is not a double object construction - it's more like "the mother washed the hair for the child")
- verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - (negative auxiliary verb)
- particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - (verbal "exceed"-type comparatives)
- equative constructions uses the word for 'how' (e.g. Spanish "grande como un elefante") - (verbal "match"-type equatives)
- subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous - (no subject affixes on the verb)
- differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns ~ (no dedicated reflexive pronouns at all, but intensifiers are generally not used to indicate reflexivity)
- no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - (inherently possessed nouns appear without a preposition in possessive phrases)
- number distinction in pronouns, but no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") + (SG :: DU :: PC :: PL, but no clusivity distinction)
- no productive usage of reduplication - (reduplication used e.g. to indicate intensity, reciprocality, and habitual/iterative aspect)
- subject marking on the verb but no other argument marking - (no argument marking at all)
- obligatory plural marking, but no distinct collective - (plural not always obligatory; distinct class of collective nouns which have a marked singulative but no plural)
- grammatical sex marking - (grammatical animacy, but no sex-based gender distinction)
2p:
- obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - (no articles)
- non-verb-initial order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions + (statements are mostly SVO; one of three types of yes/no questions uses qVSO order, where q is a question particle)
- comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - (no comparative inflection)
- conjunction A, B and C ~ (A and B and C)
- SVO or V2 word order + (SVO)
- topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes + (topic optionally marked by word order)
- specific "neither-nor" construction ~ (not a specific construction, but a specific quantifier for "neither one, none of a few")
- predominantly suffixing, fusional inflectional morphology - (relatively little morphology, and while most of that is fusional, none of it is suffixing - only prefixes and infixes)
- nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment ~ (clauses with inanimate subjects can be analysed as morphologically ergative)
1p:
- only one gerund - (no gerund at all)
- preference for finite subordinate clauses + (no non-finite clauses at all)
clawgrip wrote:
- only one gerund, preference for finite subordinate clauses
not sure. These seem to be two different ideas merged into one.
Three years late here, however I thought I'd bring it up. What he says exactly:
European languages tend to have just one converb (Art. 83) (cf. Nedjalkov 1998). For instance, Romance languages have the gerundio/gerundif, English has the -ing-form,and Slavic and Balkan languages have their adverbial participle. The Celtic languages in the west completely lack such a form, and the languages east of SAE tend to have more than one converb. Otherwise the core European languages tend to have adverbial conjunctions (Art.63) to make adverbial clauses. According to Kortmann (1997:344), they have "a large, semantically highly differentiated inventory of free adverbial sub-ordinators placed in clause-initial position". More generally, they tend to have finite rather than non-finite subordinate strategies (Art. 100), though a multi-purpose infinitive usually exists (except for the Balkan languages).
Core Altaic, and to some extent Northeast Caucasian, tend to have a single finite verb per sentence with subordinates, lexical verbs in periphrastic constructions, etc in one of several-to-a-multitude-of nonfinite forms.
Here's the full paper the Wikipedia article references, which may help clear up other problems as well if someone was interested in updating this.
Thanks. That explains the origin of that point very clearly, and also highlights why it is written improperly. It shouldn't be "only one gerund" (non-finite nominal), it should be "only one converb" (non-finite subordinated verb). Even so, these are still kind of two points. A language with only one converb, but that used it extensively would not be prototypically SAE.
- postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns (e.g. English "who" vs. "whose") - a periphrastic perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g. English "I have said") - a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers, i.e. experiencers appear as surface subjects in nominative case (e.g. English "I like music" instead of "Music pleases me") - a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English "I am known") - dative external possessors (e.g. German "Die Mutter wusch dem Kind die Haare") - verbal negation with a negative indefinite (e.g. English "Nobody listened") - particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality (e.g. English "bigger than an elephant") - equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures (e.g. French "grand comme un élephant") - subject person affixes as strict agreement markers, i.e. the verb is inflected for person and number of the subject, but subject pronouns may not be dropped even when this would be unambiguous - differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns - no distinction between alienable (e.g. legal property) and inalienable (e.g. body part) possession - no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns ("we and you" vs."we and not you") - no productive usage of reduplication - no marking of arguments other than the subject on the verb - obligatory plural marking and no distinction between plural and collective - grammatical sex marking
Two points: - obligatory definite and indefinite articles/suffixes - non-initial verb order in statements but verb-initial order in yes/no questions - comparative inflection of adjectives (e.g. English bigger) - conjunction A, B and C - SVO or V2 word order - topic and focus expressed by intonation and word order, not particles or affixes - specific "neither-nor" construction - predominantly suffixing inflectional morphology - nominative–accusative morphosyntactic alignment
One point - only one gerund
- preference for finite subordinate clauses
FWIW, Rawàng Ata would score between 10% and 15% I think, depending on interpretations and a few details I'm not certain of yet. But I'm not entirely convinced by the test.
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
