Yay or Nay? [2011–2018]

[qwed117]

I have an idea for a language that uses suffixes for inflections and prefixes for derivational morphology. One issue that I am having so far is that it can get hysterically redundant. For example, "vuti" means to eat. and "vivuti" means "food" because the prefix "vi-" makes a verb into a noun. So "I eat food is "Uka vuti vivuti." Of course, you'd normally just say "I eat."

Well, that would make it like trying to alliterate in Swahili, or trying to rhyme in Latin. In other words; not difficult.
I'm not sure the redundancy is a bug instead of a feature. An L1-speaker's tolerance-setting for "hysterically" might be a good deal less strict than yours.
My advice (to the degree that I can even actually give advice) would be to go for it if you want to.
Trying to avoid saying the same thing the same way too many times in a shortish utterance is something speakers of languages with lots of synonyms -- i.e. English -- can (and some do) have as a goal.
It might be a worthwhile experience for you to develop this conlang along the lines it's already taking.
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But of course, the only real advice is "do what you want as long as it fits your design goals; and your design goals are whatever you say they are".

Eldin has a good point here. Language speakers tend to reduce redundancy if for solely the reason of not wanting to use those tongue muscles. . Maybe have repetitive structures be prefixed, so something like
Uka vuti vi
1SG eat NOM
"I eat food"
Sometimes its important to have a construction that can concisely say that, even if redundant. What if I wanted to shout at the chef "I eat food, not garbage!". The most realistic construction I can see would be just retaining the nominalizer, but cutting off the verb.

[Iyionaku]

I am thinking of adding a system of evidentiality to Yélian, which would fit neatly by means of verbal participles as prefixes (I've always considered Yélian classifiers as an open class, so structurally it will fit and even be plausible to raise naturally).

Ta tem yiolket. - She killed him.
Ta tem yirîyatsolket. - I heard that she killed him / From hearsay it is known that she killed him. [From rîya - to hear]
Ta tem yivalatsolket. - I saw that she killed him / Obviously, she killed him. [From vala - to see]

And maybe a few more.

What speaks against it is that this will add an additional category to Yélian verbs (that can already be very long) and hence will make speaking even more complicated without fixing something that couldn't be said before. Plus, it will make it hard to distinguish from formally identical constructions that would mean "She killed him audibly"; "She killed him visibly" etc.

Jay or nay?

[Creyeditor]

Yay.

[Lao Kou]

I am thinking of adding a system of evidentiality to Yélian, which would fit neatly by means of verbal participles as prefixes (I've always considered Yélian classifiers as an open class, so structurally it will fit and even be plausible to raise naturally).

What speaks against it is that this will add an additional category to Yélian verbs (that can already be very long) and hence will make speaking even more complicated without fixing something that couldn't be said before. Plus, it will make it hard to distinguish from formally identical constructions that would mean "She killed him audibly"; "She killed him visibly" etc.

Jay or nay?

食べさせられました
tabesaseraremashita

I wouldn't worry about length.

And nearly identical constructions are cool and can always be cleared up, if one cares to, by using a modifier or two.

Yay.

[loglorn]

I am thinking of adding a system of evidentiality to Yélian, which would fit neatly by means of verbal participles as prefixes (I've always considered Yélian classifiers as an open class, so structurally it will fit and even be plausible to raise naturally).

What speaks against it is that this will add an additional category to Yélian verbs (that can already be very long) and hence will make speaking even more complicated without fixing something that couldn't be said before. Plus, it will make it hard to distinguish from formally identical constructions that would mean "She killed him audibly"; "She killed him visibly" etc.

Jay or nay?

食べさせられました
tabesaseraremashita

I wouldn't worry about length.

And nearly identical constructions are cool and can always be cleared up, if one cares to, by using a modifier or two.

Yay.

If you're not worried about making sense and all that jazz there are some much much longer morphologically possible forms:


食べられさせてしまっておかなければいけません
Taberaresaseteshimatteokanakerebaikemasen


You can't really get any meaning from this though, especially since it implies both a lack of volition and premeditation.

[Lao Kou]

I am thinking of adding a system of evidentiality to Yélian, which would fit neatly by means of verbal participles as prefixes (I've always considered Yélian classifiers as an open class, so structurally it will fit and even be plausible to raise naturally).

What speaks against it is that this will add an additional category to Yélian verbs (that can already be very long) and hence will make speaking even more complicated without fixing something that couldn't be said before. Plus, it will make it hard to distinguish from formally identical constructions that would mean "She killed him audibly"; "She killed him visibly" etc.

Jay or nay?

食べさせられました
tabesaseraremashita

I wouldn't worry about length.

And nearly identical constructions are cool and can always be cleared up, if one cares to, by using a modifier or two.

Yay.

If you're not worried about making sense and all that jazz there are some much much longer morphologically possible forms:

食べられさせてしまっておかなければいけません
Taberaresaseteshimatteokanakerebaikemasen

You can't really get any meaning from this though, especially since it implies both a lack of volition and premeditation.

Presumably, one would like to say things that make a modicum of sense in context. My point is: I wouldn't worry about an extra syllable or two or three in the name of evidentiality. That doesn't mean one has to make it a syllable-count ad absurdum game of "Can You Top This?"

Still yay.

[eldin raigmore]

One idea I've had for a while for one of my conlangs is to give each verb two tenses, one fixing the start of the action (the initial tense) and one fixing the end of the action (the terminal tense). Together with more than one degree of past and future, this would give plenty of opportunity for varying degrees of perfectivity to be expressed.

The general idea is broadly similar to something I saw online before phpBBoards were invented. So the guy-or-gal had to make his-or-her illustrating diagrams via ASCII art.
I can't remember seeing it ever combined with degrees-of-remoteness for the tenses, though, nor with the idea of perfect or prospective (if that's what you meant?) nor perfective-vs-imperfective (i.e. aspect, if that's what you meant).

Spoiler:

AWAICR (as well as I can remember) the candidate beginning times were:
* "infinitely" long-ago past
* a certain (probably known) past time
* right now
* a certain (perhaps known) future time.

And AWAICR the candidate ending times were:
* a certain (probably known) past time
* right now
* a certain (perhaps known) future time.
* "infinitely" far in the future; or never-ending; or indefinitely.

The candidate durations were:
* momentary (a point in time)
* a perceptible but finite amount of time
* an "infinite" time

Spoiler:

You can see there'd be several logically-possible combinations; but not 48(=4*4*3) of them!
Actually there are only 15 logically-possible combinations.

If the "duration" is momentary -- i.e. imperceptibly short, or instantaneous -- there are just three combinations of beginning-and-ending tenses;
* begun-finite-past-ended-immediately
* begins-right-now-ends-immediately
* will-begin-finite-future-will-end-immediately

If the duration is a perceptible but finite amount of time, there are five combinations of beginning-and-ending; to wit,
* begun-finite-past-ended-later-past
* will-begin-future-will-end-later-finite-future
* begun-finite-past-ending-just-now
* beginning-right-now-will-end-finite-future
* begun-finite-past-will-end-finite-future

If the duration is infinite there are seven combinations of beginning-and-ending-tense;
* always been that way and always will be.
* was always that way until right now. (but maybe won't be from now on.)
* will always be that way from now on. (but maybe never was that way until now).
* started some definite time in the past and will never end.
* has always been, but will end at some definite time in the future.
* had always been true up until some definite time in the past.
* will always be true beginning at some definite time in the future.

[hr][/hr]
[hr][/hr]

Edit:

I am thinking of adding a system of evidentiality to Yélian, which ....
Jay or nay?

I say "Yay". Late to the party, I know, but I still say "Yay".

[esoanem]

Ah yeah, that does seem similar in concept although I'm not sure I see much reason to make the duration part of concept per se rather than having it just emerge from the start and end points. The asymmetry (with only having the distant/infinite past available in the initial tense and the distant/infinite future only in the terminal tense)'s interesting though.

It's cool and reassuring for its plausibility that I'm not the only person to have though of something along these lines though

[Iyionaku]

Thanks guys. I will implement it then.

And sorry for being a little passive-aggressive, I just didn't want to have it buried by... well... variants of Portugese.

[Adarain]

Alright, I have a somewhat difficult decision to make: I feel the need to change a feature of Mesak that has been established since essentially day 1. As such I would like to ask for some feedback.

Right now, Mesak’s ergative case is directly derived from the absolutive case via a possessive construction: There is a clitic ñ which acts as the possessor of a noun phrase in the absolutive to turn it ergative:

kámbos man (absolutive)

Code: Select all

káb-o-s
man-SG-ABS

ñ-ikábnos the ergative’s man = man (ergative)

Code: Select all

ñ=i-káb-no-s
ERG=3poss-man-SG>SG-ABS

Now, I feel like it would be more consistent with… pretty much with syntax in general, if I switched the order of possession, yielding this:

kámbot iñnos the man’s ergative = man (ergative)

Code: Select all

káb-o-t     i-ñ-no-s
man-SG-ESS  3POSS-ERG-SG>SG-ABS

I think this makes much more sense syntactically; but it’s also less interesting, and more importantly, would mean changing things that had been established for a very long time.

[zyma]

Hmm, I think I'd leave things as they are, personally.

[DesEsseintes]

Hmm, I think I'd leave things as they are, personally.

I vote nay as well, just because I prefer the agglutination in ñ-ikábnos.

[Frislander]

Spoiler:

Alright, I have a somewhat difficult decision to make: I feel the need to change a feature of Mesak that has been established since essentially day 1. As such I would like to ask for some feedback.

Right now, Mesak’s ergative case is directly derived from the absolutive case via a possessive construction: There is a clitic ñ which acts as the possessor of a noun phrase in the absolutive to turn it ergative:

kámbos man (absolutive)

Code: Select all

káb-o-s
man-SG-ABS

ñ-ikábnos the ergative’s man = man (ergative)

Code: Select all

ñ=i-káb-no-s
ERG=3poss-man-SG>SG-ABS

Now, I feel like it would be more consistent with… pretty much with syntax in general, if I switched the order of possession, yielding this:

kámbot iñnos the man’s ergative = man (ergative)

Code: Select all

káb-o-t     i-ñ-no-s
man-SG-ESS  3POSS-ERG-SG>SG-ABS

I think this makes much more sense syntactically; but it’s also less interesting, and more importantly, would mean changing things that had been established for a very long time.

For the first I don't think that's how any case affix/clitic/adposition has ever worked in any natural language (they're always the heads of a noun phrase, never a dependant if you see what I mean), so in that respect the second would be the "more" natural one (though some of the other things going on look a little odd to me, do you have any resources online I could look at to see what's going on?). You could keep the first one though if you reanalysed it to say that it was a single prepositional clitic ñi= rather than a possessive construction.

[Osia]

Ok, so in my language Tasaqi, I have a large inventory of postural verbs, which indicate locatives depending on the characteristics of the object. For example, "I am at the store." is "I stand at the store.". These verbs commonly get grammaticalized to indicate imperfective aspect, so I am thinking of having many distinct imperfective markers that vary depending on the semantics of the object, but I don't want a marked imperfective and unmarked perfective.

Yay or Nay?

[Creyeditor]

Yay, sounds a bit like Khoekhoe?

[Ælfwine]

Should I introduce front rounded vowels to my Hungarian inspired romlang?

I could easily innovate them from /wE/ and /wI/ like in the word /'battwErE/ > modern /'bat2r/ <batör>

[Porphyrogenitos]

Should I introduce front rounded vowels to my Hungarian inspired romlang?

I could easily innovate them from /wE/ and /wI/ like in the word /'battwErE/ > modern /'bat2r/ <batör>

The answer is always: Do it, but have another dialect not do it.

[qwed117]

Should I introduce front rounded vowels to my Hungarian inspired romlang?

I could easily innovate them from /wE/ and /wI/ like in the word /'battwErE/ > modern /'bat2r/ <batör>

I'd imagine the more Frenchy route of el and il are also possibilities. You should seek out multiple paths, not just one.

[Dormouse559]

/wɛ/ > /ø/ is also quite Frenchy, as it happens. In cœur, for example, you have /kwer/ > /kœr/. I say yea. Front rounded vowels are fun.

[Ælfwine]

I do love front rounded vowels.

Should I introduce front rounded vowels to my Hungarian inspired romlang?

I could easily innovate them from /wE/ and /wI/ like in the word /'battwErE/ > modern /'bat2r/ <batör>

I'd imagine the more Frenchy route of el and il are also possibilities. You should seek out multiple paths, not just one.

I'm not sure how Italian definite articles play into this? Unless this is /eI/ /iI/ you are talking about.