(Conlangs) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here [2010-2020]

[sangi39]

Do these pronouns look naturalistic? (hope you can read Cyrillic):
http://conworkshop.info/view_article.ph ... 1c1ca69a09

They seem okay to me Although is that a word-final click in "внаǃ"?

Yes. This language has Slavic phonology and clicks. That's the gimmick.

Huh, okay then. I was just wondering since clicks aren't documented in that position in any natlang. Then again, as someone over on the ZBB put it, there doesn't seem to be any consensus as to whether that's down to the history of click genesis or a fact of biology.

Honestly if you asked me I'd point to all the click languages and pretty much all the surrounding languages (excluding recently immigrated European languages) all forbid coda consonants anyway, I'd say the lack of coda-position clicks is a quirk of the data available.

But that doesn't seem to be quite correct either. Taa, for example, allows coda-final nasals, as does the related Nǁng, while Khoekhoe apparently allows any of /p/, /s/ and /ts/ to appear at least word-finally.

I'm not quite sure what direction that data points in. Perhaps we'll just never really know.

[Creyeditor]

I think the problem is, that word final stop-like consonants are often unreleased. I don't know how an unreleased click would sound like. If word-final non-continuants are released, word final clicks might be a thing.

[holbuzvala]

Anyone know of any natlangs (or conlangs) that have a non-present/present distinction instead of non-past/past?

[eldin raigmore]

Anyone know of any natlangs (or conlangs) that have a non-present/present distinction instead of non-past/past?

All natlangs with only two morphological tenses have either future vs nonfuture or past vs nonpast.
Every report of a present vs nonpresent situation has been retracted, usually by the scholar who made the report in the first place.

As for conlangs; Exasperanto has three tenses, to wit; nonpast, nonpresent, and nonfuture.
But it's a really incomplete conlang.

If you're curious as to whether the lack of a present-vs-nonpresent two-tense system in natlangs is because it's unworkable or just because it's unlikely to arise through natural diachronics, try to make a conlang like that. If you can make the conlang, then the reason there isn't a natlang like that must have something to do with how languages evolve rather than with the usability of such a system.

H Beam Piper had a conpeople in his story "Uller Uprising" whose language had four tenses; these tenses applied to nouns rather than verbs.
They were:

1. things present in both time and place; "here and now"
2. things present in time but remote in place; "there and now"
3. things remote in time but present in place; "here and then"
4. things remote both in time and in place. "there and then"

I can't remember the name of the conpeople. (Kragan? I have a feeling it began with a K. But maybe that was their king's personal name, instead of their people's ethnonym.)
Piper never published anything about the language except that.
He had a (strong?) Sapir-Whorf thing going on, in which these "primitives" (actually about as advanced as Gurkhas during the Sepoy Rebellion) were very fast on the uptake about Relativity Theory; their language had primed them to be rapid learners of this particular subject matter.

If you read and enjoy the book, you might, as a fan, flesh out the conlang of those people.
Or you might contact his estate and get permission, if you think you might have enough success to need it.

[hr][/hr]

Edit: For a fruitful source of things which have been reported in natlangs but have never actually occurred in any natlang, check the deleted sections of Wikipedia's various language (or, more especially, linguistics) articles.

[Frislander]

The closest I've seen to a present/non-present dichtomy in a natlang is the Papuan syncretism of "yesderday" and "tomorrow", but in that case the verbal tense system still makes a definite distinction of past vs. non-past.

[Salmoneus]

Anyone know of any natlangs (or conlangs) that have a non-present/present distinction instead of non-past/past?

It's usually really important to people to distinguish whether things have happened or are going to happen, so if they have tense marked at all they're likely to mark past vs future.

Meanwhile, very few things happen in the present, and most of them are obvious.

It is very important to be able to know whether "me burn!" means "I was on fire!" or "I will be on fire!". The possibility that it may mean "I am currently on fire!" can often by eliminated through context and observation.

[gach]

The closest I've seen to a present/non-present dichtomy in a natlang is the Papuan syncretism of "yesderday" and "tomorrow", but in that case the verbal tense system still makes a definite distinction of past vs. non-past.

For more of this check for example Tent (1998, Sect. 5.1) and Szeverényi (2012). Languages discussed in the papers as having symmetric deictic day-names include Hindi, Komba, Capanahua, and Nganasan. It's definitely a semantic phenomenon and presumably not really connected to verbal tense.

[Adarain]

Huh, okay then. I was just wondering since clicks aren't documented in that position in any natlang. Then again, as someone over on the ZBB put it, there doesn't seem to be any consensus as to whether that's down to the history of click genesis or a fact of biology.

Honestly if you asked me I'd point to all the click languages and pretty much all the surrounding languages (excluding recently immigrated European languages) all forbid coda consonants anyway, I'd say the lack of coda-position clicks is a quirk of the data available.

The main problem with that is that clicks do seem quite awkward to say post-vocally as the tongue movement to the double closure takes quite a bit of effort, during which there's a pause. saying /a!/ sounds more like [a.!] to me. Clicks in isolation are fine (but as far as I know only occur paralinguistically). I wouldn't be surprised if the maximum onset principle acted much stronger on clicks than other consonants. Alas, we simply lack the data.

[cedh]

The closest I've seen to a present/non-present dichtomy in a natlang is the Papuan syncretism of "yesderday" and "tomorrow", but in that case the verbal tense system still makes a definite distinction of past vs. non-past.

For more of this check for example Tent (1998, Sect. 5.1) and Szeverényi (2012). Languages discussed in the papers as having symmetric deictic day-names include Hindi, Komba, Capanahua, and Nganasan. It's definitely a semantic phenomenon and presumably not really connected to verbal tense.

Even some variants of English have something similar, e.g. when phrases like "the other day" can be used to mean both "the day before" and "the day after". (Of course the former meaning is much more common, but I've seen the latter too.)

[holbuzvala]

Thanks all for the present/non-present info.

Another quick question:

Which is the likelier soundchange? ('b' is a prefix, and 'hol' is a pronoun, and my lang has no aspirated stops)
'b' + 'hol' -> vol
OR
'b' + 'hol' -> pol

Or something else entirely?

[Chagen]

If a language distinguishes transitive verbs from intransitive morphologically (that is, one verb can't be used for both valences as in English), what is more likely for derivation: transitive derived from intransitive, or intransitive derived from transitive? I'm going to guess the latter, since that involves going up 1 in valence.

[Sumelic]

If a language distinguishes transitive verbs from intransitive morphologically (that is, one verb can't be used for both valences as in English), what is more likely for derivation: transitive derived from intransitive, or intransitive derived from transitive? I'm going to guess the latter, since that involves going up 1 in valence.

I'm not sure in general, but I remember from reading a thing about SAE that deriving transitive causatives from intransitive inchoatives is more common than the reverse (e.g. having "break" (intr) vs. "break-CAUS" (tr) is relatively more common; the "break" (tr) vs. "break-REFL" (intr) seen in a number of European languages is fairly unusual).

[Adarain]

Thanks all for the present/non-present info.

Another quick question:

Which is the likelier soundchange? ('b' is a prefix, and 'hol' is a pronoun, and my lang has no aspirated stops)
'b' + 'hol' -> vol
OR
'b' + 'hol' -> pol

Or something else entirely?

Other alternatives to consider: [pʰol] (this would not be a phonemic aspirate, but merely a realization of the cluster /bh/), [bol] (second consonant in illegal cluster drops), [əb.hol], [bəhol] (epenthetic vowel [doesn't have to be schwa] inserted to break the illegal cluster), [ob.hol], [bohol] (same as before, but the vowel reduplicates from the following syllable instead of being a fixed value)

[Sumelic]

Thanks all for the present/non-present info.

Another quick question:

Which is the likelier soundchange? ('b' is a prefix, and 'hol' is a pronoun, and my lang has no aspirated stops)
'b' + 'hol' -> vol
OR
'b' + 'hol' -> pol

Or something else entirely?

Well, /bh/ to /v/ as a single sound change seems fairly odd to me. Are you thinking of an intermediate stage like [bʰ] > [β]? Odd sound changes do occur, but I suppose they are not as likely as familiar-looking sound changes.

The alternatives that Adarain mentioned all seem likely to me, in particular [bol] since [h] is prone to being lost in many languages, especially in non-word-initial position.

[k1234567890y]

If a language distinguishes transitive verbs from intransitive morphologically (that is, one verb can't be used for both valences as in English), what is more likely for derivation: transitive derived from intransitive, or intransitive derived from transitive? I'm going to guess the latter, since that involves going up 1 in valence.

maybe it depends

Lonmai Luna is a language where verbs can't be used for both valences, and many transitive verbs are from intransitives.

The causative prefixe si- is used to derive transitive verbs from intransitive verbs if the verb is unaccusative in nature. For example:

- pos "to move(intransitive)" > sipos "to move(transitive)(to make something move)"
- forkut "to seethe, boil(intransitive)" > siforkut "to boil(transitive)(to make something boil)"
- pisuk "to burn out(intransitive)" > sipisuk "to extinguish"

For unergative verbs, the particle de might be used with the verb, which occurs the position of the direct object, but it might not be counted as a derivation:

- gata "to eat(transitive)" > gata de "to eat(intransitive)"

If a language distinguishes transitive verbs from intransitive morphologically (that is, one verb can't be used for both valences as in English), what is more likely for derivation: transitive derived from intransitive, or intransitive derived from transitive? I'm going to guess the latter, since that involves going up 1 in valence.

I'm not sure in general, but I remember from reading a thing about SAE that deriving transitive causatives from intransitive inchoatives is more common than the reverse (e.g. having "break" (intr) vs. "break-CAUS" (tr) is relatively more common; the "break" (tr) vs. "break-REFL" (intr) seen in a number of European languages is fairly unusual).

yes, however, I have ever used the European-like strategy for some verbs along with the more-common-worldwide strategy in a collab conlang...

[Creyeditor]

If a language distinguishes transitive verbs from intransitive morphologically (that is, one verb can't be used for both valences as in English), what is more likely for derivation: transitive derived from intransitive, or intransitive derived from transitive? I'm going to guess the latter, since that involves going up 1 in valence.

It really depends on the verb. Haspelmath has a recent paper on it. The gist is that verbs that very frequently occur with an agent need a detransitivizer to occur without it and verbs that very frequently occur without an agent need a transitivizer to occur with it. He calls this the spontaneity scale. Here is an earlier paper of him on the same topic.

[Ælfwine]

Are there any examples of natlangs using loans for demonstratives? Ive heard this doesn't happen but I would bet there is one counterexample.

[ixals]

Not directly, but isn't English them from Old Norse þeim/þeir is used as a demonstrative in dialects as in "Them boys are nice"? But I don't know of a demonstrative that's been loaned directly to fulfill the same function.

[LinguoFranco]

How does nominal TAM work? I get the basic idea, but can I have a system where say nouns are only marked for tense, but not for aspects or moods?

So far, I have a language that uses aspects on verbs, but only nouns take a tense. How would aspect modify a noun?

[eldin raigmore]

How does nominal TAM work? I get the basic idea, but can I have a system where say nouns are only marked for tense, but not for aspects or moods?
So far, I have a language that uses aspects on verbs, but only nouns take a tense. How would aspect modify a noun?

I don't know.
Of those three verbal accidents, I can most easily apply mood and tense to nouns.
(MIchelangelo is famously (mis?-)quoted as having said something to the effect that that wasn't just a block of marble, it was a potential horse (irrealis), and he was going to carve the excess marble off the horse. Or something.)
(And I have two ex-wives (past)).

But I think nominal aspect, like gender, may usually be something a noun just has, not something about the noun one frequently changes.
Some writers seem to label the count-noun -vs- mass-or-measure-noun distinction "nominal aspect".
A few English nouns do seem, sometimes, to be used in each aspect; viz. "grain".

Place-names, too, could have an aspectualish character.
Are we at school or in school? (for instance).
There's bad feeling between some Ukrainians and some Russians, so I hear, over Russian writers treating the Ukraine as a spot to be at (as if perfective) instead of a region to be in (as if imperfective).
In English we seem to communicate the difference by choice of preposition. And it's not always important. To us English-speakers.

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Does that help at all?