Kinuiltys, version 2

[Ambrisio]

There are four more ways to inflect a Kinuiltys verb -- two conditionals, an imperative, and a benedictive. The

The past conditional is formed by conjugating the future stem in the past tense: oselesiam ((if) I wanted)

The perfect conditional is formed by conjugating the future stem in the distant past tense:
soselesiam ((if) I had wanted)

(by the way,
Eryn is irregular in the past tense:
oiram, oirith, oira, oirme, oirte, oiren. That comes from dissimulation. Their conditional forms are oiresiam, oiresīth, ...)

There's also another construction which is attested in the Muletī and more commonly used in Modern Kinuiltys, especially by L1 English speakers (yes, English is considered a classical language in Fronties):

zīden kellīn oiresiam which is a literal translation of English 'if I were to fly' (the gloss is if fly-INF be-PAST-SUBJ-1SG.PRES). The most common Archaic Kinuiltys construction is zīden okellīsiam.

[Ambrisio]

The second person singular imperative is formed simply by removing the -th from the second person present. There are exceptions, however -- and these have to do with the irregular verbs!
eryn 'to be' - tē cha (present tense) but ri! imperative form
tonēn 'to eat' - also tē cha but tonei!
lepīn 'to think' - tē kobi but lepī!

The second person plural imperative is formed by adding dē. So ridē!, toneidē!, lepīdē!

The third person imperative is formed by adding -tū to the appropriate third-person present form. The first person imperative is formed by adding -em (singular) or -mē (plural) to the second person singular imperative:

So: estamyn - read
estamith - you are reading
estami! - read!
estamiem! - let me read!
estamimē! - let's read!
estamentū! - let them read!
Arghunys digin lepiatū! let Arghunys think for himself!

There are five irregular verbs in Archaic Kinuiltys (not counting derived verbs). Eryn is one (and there are derived verbs such as tāleryn 'to exist', hence tālbulo, tālcha, tālpora, tālkshobi, tālmuke, tāltūpyk, āneryn 'to be absent', hence āmbulo, āncha, āmpora, ānkshobi, āmmuke, āntūpyk, ...) Another irregular verb is lepīn 'to think':
sē bulo, tē kobi, lī mākuth, nēs doghāl, tīs pētukh, lois chōki
(notice that the 1st person singular forms are the same!)
There is the derived verb rēlepīn 'to contemplate, reflect', so sē rēbulo, tē rēkobi, lī rēmākuth, ...
And: tonēn 'to eat':
sē pakol, tē cha, lī nangos, nēs pālās, tīs muma, lois jōgi
There are two other irregular verbs but I haven't worked on them yet.

In Modern Kinuiltys, there's only one irregular verb: eryn. The others are regularized. Hence I can say Lepiam tēmar bulo 'I think, therefore I am' -- in Archaic Kinuiltys it would be the confusing Bulo tēmar bulo.

The negative particle is mā 'isn't, doesn't, hasn't'. So:

Ghēwīt estama. He's reading a book. (book-PART read-3SG.PRES)
Ghēwīt mā estama. He isn't reading a book.

In English, the personal inflection is on the negative particle rather than the verb. In Kinuiltys, it's the other way round, like Spanish or Latin:

Ghēwīte mā estamen. They aren't reading books.
Ōte ghēwit mā estami! Don't read that book!

[Ambrisio]

The benedictive is formed by infixing -evi- or -vi-, kind of like the future tense.

selyn -> seleviam, selevīth, ...
The rules are the same as the future tense: -evi- in athematic verbs and -vi- in thematic verbs.

So there are the 10 verbal conjugations in Kinuiltys! That's 60 forms.

[Ambrisio]

There are many participial forms in Kinuiltys. The infinitive is the citation form of the verb -- it ends in -yn. For the supine, just replace -n with -don, and for the verbnoun, just replace the -th in the second person present with -dhē. Verbnouns decline like feminine nouns in -ē.

[Visinoid]

I like it, it's a good latin-like conlang, and I also like this explanation:

you sleep - tē dīrith (in the manuscript Aleksīn muletī, fictional astronaut Alexis Lewis explains the meaning of the th sound in the second person singular: since her pronunciation is strongly interdental, it creates the visual effect of pointing the tongue towards the addressee)

[Ambrisio]

latin-like conlang

It's one of the four classical languages of my conworld.

There are eight participles in Kinuiltys:

Present active: selyn -> selitō, selites, selitys, seliton (fem., yin, yang, masc)
Present passive: selyn -> selmitō, ...
Past active: selyn -> selūtō, ...
Past passive: selyn -> selustō, ...
Future active: selyn -> selesitō, ...
Future passive: selyn -> selesmitō, ...
Gerund (indecl.): selyn -> selek (replace -n in 3rd person plural present with -k)
Gerundive: selyn -> selinnē, selinnis, selinnes, selinnes (replace -th in 2nd person singular present with -nnē)

That's 337 forms (counting case and number inflections). Adding the infinitive, supine, and the verbnoun (which can inflect according to case and number) that's 337+60+2+12=411 different verb forms.

The gerund and gerundive are similar to those in Latin.

[Ambrisio]

There are four declensions of adjectives in Kinuiltys:

Old adjectives
(fem, yin, yang, masc)
'old': sennō, sennes, sennys, sennon
'young': shurō, shures, shurys, shuron
'easy': lintō, lintes, lintys, linton

New adjectives
'new': maidē, maidis, maides, maides
'green': reznē, reznis, reznes, reznes
'quick': vēnē, vēnis, vēnes, vēnes

Wet adjectives
'wet': orilis, orilis, orilas, orilan
'grand': stōvis, stōvis, stōvas, stōvan
'steep': mestilis, mestilis, mestilas, mestilan

Dry adjectives
'dry': sīvā, sīves, sīvas, sīvan
'early': merā, meres, meras, meran
'pure': rizenā, rizenes, rizenas, rizenan

So: Pora dianilan, mi? means 'He's clever, isn't he?' but Pora dianilis, mi? means 'She's clever, isn't she?'

(Note: mi? and ē? are the two most common tag questions in Kinuiltys. The second isn't attested in the Muletī, but is common in Modern Kinuiltys.)

[eldin raigmore]

There are eight participles in Kinuiltys:
Present active: selyn -> selitō, selites, selitys, seliton (fem., yin, yang, masc)
Present passive: selyn -> selmitō, ...
Past active: selyn -> selūtō, ...
Past passive: selyn -> selustō, ...
Future active: selyn -> selesitō, ...
Future passive: selyn -> selesmitō, ...

.... OK so far ....

Gerund (indecl.): selyn -> selek (replace -n in 3rd person plural present with -k)
Gerundive: selyn -> selinnē, selinnis, selinnes, selinnes (replace -th in 2nd person singular present with -nnē)

Hmm? How can gerunds be participles? Gerunds are verbal nouns; participles are verbal adjectives. If your conlang distinguishes between nouns and adjectives, it should also distinguish between gerunds and participles.

OTOH that's not super-important; how your language acts is more important than what terminology you use to describe it.

[Lambuzhao]

There are eight participles in Kinuiltys:
Present active: selyn -> selitō, selites, selitys, seliton (fem., yin, yang, masc)
Present passive: selyn -> selmitō, ...
Past active: selyn -> selūtō, ...
Past passive: selyn -> selustō, ...
Future active: selyn -> selesitō, ...
Future passive: selyn -> selesmitō, ...

.... OK so far ....

Gerund (indecl.): selyn -> selek (replace -n in 3rd person plural present with -k)
Gerundive: selyn -> selinnē, selinnis, selinnes, selinnes (replace -th in 2nd person singular present with -nnē)

Hmm? How can gerunds be participles? Gerunds are verbal nouns; participles are verbal adjectives. If your conlang distinguishes between nouns and adjectives, it should also distinguish between gerunds and participles.

OTOH that's not super-important; how your language acts is more important than what terminology you use to describe it.

A gerund is a verbal noun. A gerundive is not a verbal noun, but a kind of participle.
A gerundive, at least insofar as classical langs is concerned, is technically a Future Passive Participle. In it used in a periphrastic construction to indicate obligation or necessity.

Where some confusion may lie is, for example, in , el gerundio refers to both the verbal noun in /ndo/, and also the PRS.PTCP that also happens to end in /ndo/. Its a covergent sort of collapsing as what occured in .


Another well-nigh incredible coincidence is that in Rozwi, the Gerundive is formed from the PRS.3SG . In most verbs (except, lamentably, /selar/) the termination happens to be /k/ .To make the Gerundive, the verb stem undergoes a fortition to /q/, and then adds a /š/. It's only one more step added to the similar result for the Kinuiltys Gerund.


Ambrisio, we must've looked over each other's shoulders during REM sleep once or twice.

[Lambuzhao]

Kinuiltys

Ghēwīt 'book'


Rozwi

χætoa 'knowledge'; 'history'; 'story'

[eldin raigmore]

A gerund is a verbal noun. A gerundive is not a verbal noun, but a kind of participle.

Thanks, I knew that. I was careless with my grouping, leading one to wonder whether I thought a gerundive was, like a gerund, a noun instead of an adjective, like a participle.

A gerundive, at least insofar as classical langs is concerned, is technically a Future Passive Participle.

I didn't know some of that! I knew it was a passive adjective, and that's about it. Future, eh? Thanks!

In it used in a periphrastic construction to indicate obligation or necessity.

As in "we who are about to die salute you" or "and furthermore Carthage must be destroyed"?

Where some confusion may lie is, for example, in , el gerundio refers to both the verbal noun in /ndo/, and also the PRS.PTCP that also happens to end in /ndo/. Its a covergent sort of collapsing as what occured in .

There does seem to be a lot of that going around!

English's active participle (if it's from a transitive verb), its imperfective participle, its present participle, and its gerund, all end in "-ing" for most verbs.
English's passive participle (if it's from a transitive verb), its perfective participle, its past participle, and for regular verbs its simple past tense, all end in "-ed" or some allomorph thereof.
English's supines and its infinitives look and sound like each other.

Spoiler:

Most L1 English speakers who are linguistically naive, or have just never studied any other language, don't even know that there might be a difference between an "-ing" participle and an "-ing" gerund, or that there might be such a thing as a supine (or any other verbal-derived adverb with still some verbal features) in English, or that such a thing might be distinct from an infinitive. (And indeed why would it matter unless there's some other language to compare it with that does things differently?)
Also, most don't know that active participles might be different from imperfective participles which might be different from present participles; nor that passive participles might be different from perfective participles which might be different from past participles. Mostly they'll only have heard of "past participles", and (maybe) "present participles".

In English, we usually use some form of the verb "to be" plus the active/imperfective/present participle to indicate the progressive aspect; e.g. "was proceeding" for past progressive, "is proceeding" for present progressive.
For transitive verbs, we usually use "to be" plus passive/perfective/past participle for something that is/was/has been/will be a patient of some instance of the verb; and "to have" plus perfective/past participle for something that is/was/has been/will be an agent of some instance of the verb.
But there's some variety with the participles of intransitive verbs. Do we say "is gone" or "has gone"? If we say both, when do we say which?

It's not at all surprising, once one knows all that, that other languages also might have two verb forms that are widely distinct in some languages but widely identical in yet others.

[Omzinesý]

Very different verb forms in different grammars are called gerund. Some of them aren't even nonfinite.
French grammars call what I would call a converb le gerundif. I would call all participles just participles.

I prefer the typological triplet to be called: infinitive, converb, participle, and action nominal.

It's very possible that a language with the class of adjectives codes nonfinite relative clauses with verb form other than participles.

[eldin raigmore]

It's very possible that a language with the class of adjectives codes nonfinite relative clauses with verb form other than participles.

My guess is, it's not only possible, but likely, that some language with participles nevertheless uses some other verb form in at least some of its relative clauses, whether restrictive or appositive.
Does anyone actually know?

Anyway it's Ambrisio's call what Kinuiltys does.

BTW why would you "prefer the typological triplet to be called: infinitive, converb, participle, and action nominal"?
And why do you call that particular set of four verbforms "the typological triplet"?
I'm assuming you have a perfectly good reason; I just would rather not guess what it is; I'd rather just ask you.

[DesEsseintes]

Ambrisio hasn't posted on the CBB since 2015, so wow necro!

[Lambuzhao]

Took me that long to get back to where I once belonged.

[lsd]

Do (con)languages have expiration dates...

[DesEsseintes]

Took me that long to get back to where I once belonged.

Maybe this will conjure Ambrisio up out of the aether.

[Omzinesý]

It's very possible that a language with the class of adjectives codes nonfinite relative clauses with verb form other than participles.

My guess is, it's not only possible, but likely, that some language with participles nevertheless uses some other verb form in at least some of its relative clauses, whether restrictive or appositive.
Does anyone actually know?

I actually meant that some languages don't even have participles. Turkish, for example uses the same nonfinite verb form form for relative clauses and complements. As a relative clause, it just precedes a noun and as a complement it precedes a verb.

BTW why would you "prefer the typological triplet to be called: infinitive, converb, participle, and action nominal"?
And why do you call that particular set of four verbforms "the typological triplet"?
I'm assuming you have a perfectly good reason; I just would rather not guess what it is; I'd rather just ask you.

Quartet or course, and that's just my way to call them.

(Maybe not the best thread to argue for them.)
Basically European languages have long grammatical traditions, and those reading the grammars usually know the language and the tradition. We know that the gerund means verb forms used for very different functions in Latin (a verbal noun), Polish (a verbal adverbial) and Spanish (sometimes even the progressive aspect) grammars. But if you are writing a grammar of an undescribed "exotic" language or a conlang, you just cannot suppose those reading your grammars understand anything of their use. Maybe Siwa has a grammar that complete that the terms are explained well enough, but most conlangs simply don't.
Those names at least give a hint of what the forms mean, because they are defined in language typology. Of course real languages (and conlangs) use the forms for many functions, but from the name you have at least some understanding of what they mean. It's basically the same that you say "In that languages subjects of transitive and intransitive clauses are coded by the translocative case." You can call the case what you like but are much better understood if you call it the nominative.

[eldin raigmore]

.... (various good points. I probably shouldn't have snipped some of them.) ....

I know that for some languages there are certain traditional ways to use these traditional labels that are different from how I want to use them; but:
to me:
supines are verbal adverbs of the sort that modify modifiers (and possibly also verbs and VPs)
participles are verbal adjectives used to indicate that the modified NP is/was/might be/whatever a participant in such a verb
gerunds are verbal nouns satisfying certain other conditions
infinitives are verbal nouns satisfying certain other conditions
etc.

Just as I want to use "dubitative mood" for a mood one of whose main uses is to indicate doubt,
and save "subjunctive mood" for a mood one of whose main uses is to indicate that the verb's clause is subordinately conjoined:
and, indeed, just as you have a preference for a particular terminology for your typological quartet (is it some kind of cross-linguistic near-generalization of the "principal parts of a verb"? It seems to be!):
I believe my own preferences make much more sense than tradition makes (that much may be mere hubris on my part), and much more importantly would also be much easier to understand when describing a conlang (as opposed to some natlang for which there's already a tradition).

I could be wrong; but it would take some convincing to make me change my mind, so, if I am wrong, I'll probably still be wrong for a while after everyone else knows it.