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Post by holbuzvala »

Can anyone point me in the direction of evidence of a language LOSING click phonemes, and what they become? (If there is data on such, hypothetical or otherwise)
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Post by Sumelic »

LinguoFranco wrote: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 feel like a temporary/habitual distinction would be fairly aspect-y. Like "I am a hunter-progr." = "I am hunting" vs. "I am a hunter-habit." = "I hunt as a profession." But I don't think this kind of thing would be common enough to be inflectual rather than derivational in most languages.

Guarani is said to have "nominal tense" in a way other languages apparently don't, but apparently calling it tense is somewhat controversial (Nominal Tense? The Meaning of Guaraní Nominal Temporal Markers, Judith Tonhauser, 2007). As far as I can tell the suffixes in that language are somewhat similar in meaning to the English "ex-" prefix, but Tonhauser says they are much more common than English "ex-_," former _" and "future _" and are obligatory in more contexts (an example she gives that I found helpful is "Let's go look for a friend for us"; in the equivalent Guarani sentence the word "friend" needs to be marked with a future suffix because the individual is not yet a friend at the time of the utterance).
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Post by opipik »

holbuzvala wrote:Can anyone point me in the direction of evidence of a language LOSING click phonemes, and what they become? (If there is data on such, hypothetical or otherwise)
The only data I have is from the Index Diachronica, which says that some Khoisan languages had ǃ -> k.
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Post by LinguoFranco »

Sumelic wrote:
LinguoFranco wrote: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 feel like a temporary/habitual distinction would be fairly aspect-y. Like "I am a hunter-progr." = "I am hunting" vs. "I am a hunter-habit." = "I hunt as a profession." But I don't think this kind of thing would be common enough to be inflectual rather than derivational in most languages.

Guarani is said to have "nominal tense" in a way other languages apparently don't, but apparently calling it tense is somewhat controversial (Nominal Tense? The Meaning of Guaraní Nominal Temporal Markers, Judith Tonhauser, 2007). As far as I can tell the suffixes in that language are somewhat similar in meaning to the English "ex-" prefix, but Tonhauser says they are much more common than English "ex-_," former _" and "future _" and are obligatory in more contexts (an example she gives that I found helpful is "Let's go look for a friend for us"; in the equivalent Guarani sentence the word "friend" needs to be marked with a future suffix because the individual is not yet a friend at the time of the utterance).
So then is it unusual for a language to place most of its inflections on nouns when verbs do not get that much inflection? I was thinking I could do a fairly analytical language with inflection occurring on nouns for nominal TAM, and maybe number. However, you said it is more likely to be derivational than inflectional.
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Post by sangi39 »

opipik wrote:
holbuzvala wrote:Can anyone point me in the direction of evidence of a language LOSING click phonemes, and what they become? (If there is data on such, hypothetical or otherwise)
The only data I have is from the Index Diachronica, which says that some Khoisan languages had ǃ -> k.
This seems to be backed up by a couple of sources, e.g. "The Khoesan Languages" (2013, edited by Rainer Vossen) and "The Cradle of Language" (2009, edited by Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight), but it almost always covers the loss of the alveolar clicks and their replacement by velar plosives and velar nasals. The first source also notes the shift of palatal clicks to palatal plosives/nasals, so there's that as well.

The lateral and dental clicks feel sort of affricate-esque, to the laterals might switch to something with a lateral fricative in them, e.g. /ǁ/ > /tɬ/ or maybe even just /ɬ/ which feels to me sounds a bit more like /ǁ/. Similarly /ǀ/ could shift to a dental /ts/, although the first source notes a shift from /ǀ/ to a glottal stop (although given the other examples this could be a typing error).

The bilabial clicks, I guess, would just become bilabial plosives although I suppose plain /ʘ/ could become a glottal stop as well.
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Post by Sumelic »

LinguoFranco wrote:
Sumelic wrote:
LinguoFranco wrote: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 feel like a temporary/habitual distinction would be fairly aspect-y. Like "I am a hunter-progr." = "I am hunting" vs. "I am a hunter-habit." = "I hunt as a profession." But I don't think this kind of thing would be common enough to be inflectual rather than derivational in most languages.

Guarani is said to have "nominal tense" in a way other languages apparently don't, but apparently calling it tense is somewhat controversial (Nominal Tense? The Meaning of Guaraní Nominal Temporal Markers, Judith Tonhauser, 2007). As far as I can tell the suffixes in that language are somewhat similar in meaning to the English "ex-" prefix, but Tonhauser says they are much more common than English "ex-_," former _" and "future _" and are obligatory in more contexts (an example she gives that I found helpful is "Let's go look for a friend for us"; in the equivalent Guarani sentence the word "friend" needs to be marked with a future suffix because the individual is not yet a friend at the time of the utterance).
So then is it unusual for a language to place most of its inflections on nouns when verbs do not get that much inflection? I was thinking I could do a fairly analytical language with inflection occurring on nouns for nominal TAM, and maybe number. However, you said it is more likely to be derivational than inflectional.
It depends on what you mean I think by nominal TAM. There are things like Guarani, that have suffixes that turn the meaning of a noun "X" into something like "thing/person-that-will-be-X" and "thing/person-that-was-X." This doesn't really fully play the role of a usual TAM inflection system (Tonhauser argues that it isn't one) and Guarani has verbal tense inflection in addition to "nominal tense".

Another thing that can sometimes be called nominal TAM is having different subject pronouns for different tenses and aspects. In a situation like this, I think it is common for the main verb word to not inflect for these categories. I don't know if this kind of "nominal TAM" is productive for normal nouns, though: it may in fact be more like "pronominal TAM."
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Post by Creyeditor »

Wikipedia has something to say about it and even though it is a citation needed, it looks reasonable to me.
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Post by eldin raigmore »

LinguoFranco wrote:So then is it unusual for a language to place most of its inflections on nouns when verbs do not get that much inflection? I was thinking I could do a fairly analytical language with inflection occurring on nouns for nominal TAM, and maybe number. However, you said it is more likely to be derivational than inflectional.
Something being unusual in natlangs is not necessarily a reason to avoid it in a conlang!
(Unless you decide it is!)
If you can make that work in a conlang, I (am probably not alone in saying I) would like to see it!

.. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. .

TAM isn't the only thing verbs often inflect for. (I'll assume the "M" in "TAM" also includes illocutional force; interrogative, imperative, etc.).
Polarity and voice (including reciprocal and reflexive) are the other two big ones; and there are also evidentiality, mirativity, pluractionality, validationality, and others.
And of course in many languages verbs inflect to agree with the gender (possibly including animate or inanimate), number, person, pragmatic status (e.g. referential/specific or not, definite or not, etc.), of one or more of their participants.

These features or categories can be shown in other ways than morphology; if they're shown lexically, by auxiliary words, who is to say that they apply to the verb, rather than the whole clause, or to a noun-phrase or an adjective or adverb? In fact, the auxiliary words may be considered nouns or adjectives or adverbs rather than verbal auxiliaries.

IMO (actually, IME) English needs a way to localize the negative polar auxiliary "not" to a particular word or phrase. It can be done, but it isn't done habitually, and sometimes not easily.

.. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. .

Do you want all these verb-features to be auxiliary words or adverbs?
If so, they could be enclitic or proclitic on the participant noun-phrases.
Or, you could turn them all into "adpositions" (or something like!).

.. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. .

What would you plan to do for the common ways of deriving verbal nouns, verbal adjectives, and verbal adverbs, from verbs?

.. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. .

Natlangs do exist whose verbs take almost no inflection. TAM and other verbal features are shown by syntax, or auxiliary words, or lexical suppletion.
That part of their grammar is very analytical and/or isolating.

I don't think that means the nominal part of their grammar couldn't be pretty agglutinative.

I don't see why the challenge of constructing a conlang with no or almost no inflection on verbs, but lots and lots of inflection on nouns, is any bigger than the challenge of constructing any other kind of conlang. For the average person they're all nearly insurmountable, but of course the average person doesn't join this BBoard.

Was I any help?

And, anyway, good luck!
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Post by LinguoFranco »

Yes you were.

I know it's a conlang, but I like to make naturalistic conlangs, though I'll occasionally venture out to make something more alien. I find it to be a fun challenge to make a conlang that follows the trends and universals of natlangs while still trying to make it unique and stand out.

So far, verbs only conjugate for polarity, but I'm debating whether or not they should conjugate for person and tense, as well.
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Post by WeepingElf »

Creyeditor wrote:Wikipedia has something to say about it and even though it is a citation needed, it looks reasonable to me.
One of my conlang side projects is a Para-Anatolian IE language (i.e., more closely related to Anatolian than to Nuclear IE) where the "thorn" clusters (i.e., dental-velar stop clusters as in *dhǵhom 'earth') have become clicks. The details still need to be worked out, though.
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Post by Dezinaa »

WeepingElf wrote:
Creyeditor wrote:Wikipedia has something to say about it and even though it is a citation needed, it looks reasonable to me.
One of my conlang side projects is a Para-Anatolian IE language (i.e., more closely related to Anatolian than to Nuclear IE) where the "thorn" clusters (i.e., dental-velar stop clusters as in *dhǵhom 'earth') have become clicks. The details still need to be worked out, though.
That's a neat idea. It's kind of disappointing that it didn't happen in any real IE langs.
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Post by Frislander »

I'm wanting to include a pitch-accent system in Frislandian, but I can't decide what it'll be. I've already decided that, aside from prefixes (of which there are precisely two), stress will be strictly word-initial, which restricts the accent placement. Outside of the accent there are no long vowels or diphthongs. The accent (which actually thinking through it is beginning to sound a lot more like Tibetic-style tone) is lexical on nouns but (mostly) grammatical on verbs, serving as one of the distinguishing factors between perfective and imperfective stems.

I'm currently thinking of a low/rising/falling triplet, where imperfective verbs take no accent (or a fall in some cirsumstances), perfectives take a rising accent and those verbs which don't distinguish the two (of which there are a few) may take any. However I am definitely open to other suggestions.
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Post by MrKrov »

So I got a project that's V2. My question is whether the slot before the verb can be considered filled with just a (polar question) particle or is there some theoretical requirement to have a regular constituent there too?
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Post by All4Ɇn »

MrKrov wrote:So I got a project that's V2. My question is whether the slot before the verb can be considered filled with just a (polar question) particle or is there some theoretical requirement to have a regular constituent there too?
Doesn't seem impossible to me. Considering German inverts the subject and verb to form polar questions, I see no reason why a particle couldn't go before an already inverted sentence and thus bringing it back to the syntax in all other constructions
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Post by somehomo »

I'm considering multiple temporal cases for nouns in my language. I'm wondering if anyone could provide feedback on how my cases could be different, if I should add any more, or on the names I chose for them. Also, I'm wondering if this is even somewhat naturalistic because I haven't found something like this in a natural language.

Temporal case: 'on/at'
Durative case: 'for/while'
Preceditive case: 'before'
Proceditive case: 'after'
Initiative case: 'since'
Limitative case: 'until'

I'm thinking this could easily take the place of some adverbial clauses especially when suffixed to a gerund.
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Post by Creyeditor »

Frislander wrote:I'm wanting to include a pitch-accent system in Frislandian, but I can't decide what it'll be. I've already decided that, aside from prefixes (of which there are precisely two), stress will be strictly word-initial, which restricts the accent placement. Outside of the accent there are no long vowels or diphthongs. The accent (which actually thinking through it is beginning to sound a lot more like Tibetic-style tone) is lexical on nouns but (mostly) grammatical on verbs, serving as one of the distinguishing factors between perfective and imperfective stems.

I'm currently thinking of a low/rising/falling triplet, where imperfective verbs take no accent (or a fall in some cirsumstances), perfectives take a rising accent and those verbs which don't distinguish the two (of which there are a few) may take any. However I am definitely open to other suggestions.
Is the first/stressed syllable long? If so, I think your system makes totally sense.
MrKrov wrote:So I got a project that's V2. My question is whether the slot before the verb can be considered filled with just a (polar question) particle or is there some theoretical requirement to have a regular constituent there too?
I think it depends on your goal. If you want a Germ-style lang, you might want to look at Gothic, which has a polar particle/clitic in the wackernagel position. I think the problem is that a polar particle is functional material, which does not usually occur in the preverbal position in v2 sentences in Germanic language IIRC.
On the other hand, if you ware going for something else, feel free to do this of course.
somehomo wrote:I'm considering multiple temporal cases for nouns in my language. I'm wondering if anyone could provide feedback on how my cases could be different, if I should add any more, or on the names I chose for them. Also, I'm wondering if this is even somewhat naturalistic because I haven't found something like this in a natural language.

Temporal case: 'on/at'
Durative case: 'for/while'
Preceditive case: 'before'
Proceditive case: 'after'
Initiative case: 'since'
Limitative case: 'until'

I'm thinking this could easily take the place of some adverbial clauses especially when suffixed to a gerund.
Two comments. First, you should not just use English prepositions as a translation, but give some explanation about the meaning of the cases and maybe some examples of how they are used. Remember, languages split up the semantic space differently. Second, a lot of languages use locative cases for temporal meaning, because several metaphors are (almost) universal TIME is SPACE, LIFE is a JOURNEY and so on. You might want to think about that, if you are going for naturalism.
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Post by Frislander »

All4Ɇn wrote:
MrKrov wrote:So I got a project that's V2. My question is whether the slot before the verb can be considered filled with just a (polar question) particle or is there some theoretical requirement to have a regular constituent there too?
Doesn't seem impossible to me. Considering German inverts the subject and verb to form polar questions, I see no reason why a particle couldn't go before an already inverted sentence and thus bringing it back to the syntax in all other constructions
I think it would partly depend on the etymology of the marker: if it started off as a content word then I'd definitely say yes.
Creyeditor wrote:
Frislander wrote:I'm wanting to include a pitch-accent system in Frislandian, but I can't decide what it'll be. I've already decided that, aside from prefixes (of which there are precisely two), stress will be strictly word-initial, which restricts the accent placement. Outside of the accent there are no long vowels or diphthongs. The accent (which actually thinking through it is beginning to sound a lot more like Tibetic-style tone) is lexical on nouns but (mostly) grammatical on verbs, serving as one of the distinguishing factors between perfective and imperfective stems.

I'm currently thinking of a low/rising/falling triplet, where imperfective verbs take no accent (or a fall in some cirsumstances), perfectives take a rising accent and those verbs which don't distinguish the two (of which there are a few) may take any. However I am definitely open to other suggestions.
Is the first/stressed syllable long? If so, I think your system makes totally sense.
It's long when it has a contour and short when it is the default low.

Glad you think so! I implemented this system and it felt more natural than the system which I tried before, which was a weird mash-up of low, short high, long high and falling, which was definitely unsatisfying to me and felt very non-natural (although minus the falling accent this is apparently how Tuvan works).
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Post by MrKrov »

Eh, I guess I'll do it. Gracias.
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Post by Omzinesý »

Creyeditor wrote:
somehomo wrote:I'm considering multiple temporal cases for nouns in my language. I'm wondering if anyone could provide feedback on how my cases could be different, if I should add any more, or on the names I chose for them. Also, I'm wondering if this is even somewhat naturalistic because I haven't found something like this in a natural language.

Temporal case: 'on/at'
Durative case: 'for/while'
Preceditive case: 'before'
Proceditive case: 'after'
Initiative case: 'since'
Limitative case: 'until'

I'm thinking this could easily take the place of some adverbial clauses especially when suffixed to a gerund.
Two comments. First, you should not just use English prepositions as a translation, but give some explanation about the meaning of the cases and maybe some examples of how they are used. Remember, languages split up the semantic space differently. Second, a lot of languages use locative cases for temporal meaning, because several metaphors are (almost) universal TIME is SPACE, LIFE is a JOURNEY and so on. You might want to think about that, if you are going for naturalism.
I think the English prepositions are just examples and the name of the case tells the (core) meaning more accurately. So I see no problem with how they present their cases.
It's true, though, that natural languages almost exclusively use local expressions for such temporal functions, and specific temporal cases are quite odd. That's at least my intuition.
Verbs usually are defined in time. So I think most uses of those cases would be with deverbal nouns, i.e. action nominals. I see them develop quite quickly to temporal converbs, which aren't cases anymore.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Post by LinguoFranco »

Creyeditor wrote:
Frislander wrote:I'm wanting to include a pitch-accent system in Frislandian, but I can't decide what it'll be. I've already decided that, aside from prefixes (of which there are precisely two), stress will be strictly word-initial, which restricts the accent placement. Outside of the accent there are no long vowels or diphthongs. The accent (which actually thinking through it is beginning to sound a lot more like Tibetic-style tone) is lexical on nouns but (mostly) grammatical on verbs, serving as one of the distinguishing factors between perfective and imperfective stems.

I'm currently thinking of a low/rising/falling triplet, where imperfective verbs take no accent (or a fall in some cirsumstances), perfectives take a rising accent and those verbs which don't distinguish the two (of which there are a few) may take any. However I am definitely open to other suggestions.
Is the first/stressed syllable long? If so, I think your system makes totally sense.
MrKrov wrote:So I got a project that's V2. My question is whether the slot before the verb can be considered filled with just a (polar question) particle or is there some theoretical requirement to have a regular constituent there too?
I think it depends on your goal. If you want a Germ-style lang, you might want to look at Gothic, which has a polar particle/clitic in the wackernagel position. I think the problem is that a polar particle is functional material, which does not usually occur in the preverbal position in v2 sentences in Germanic language IIRC.
On the other hand, if you ware going for something else, feel free to do this of course.
somehomo wrote:I'm considering multiple temporal cases for nouns in my language. I'm wondering if anyone could provide feedback on how my cases could be different, if I should add any more, or on the names I chose for them. Also, I'm wondering if this is even somewhat naturalistic because I haven't found something like this in a natural language.

Temporal case: 'on/at'
Durative case: 'for/while'
Preceditive case: 'before'
Proceditive case: 'after'
Initiative case: 'since'
Limitative case: 'until'

I'm thinking this could easily take the place of some adverbial clauses especially when suffixed to a gerund.
Two comments. First, you should not just use English prepositions as a translation, but give some explanation about the meaning of the cases and maybe some examples of how they are used. Remember, languages split up the semantic space differently. Second, a lot of languages use locative cases for temporal meaning, because several metaphors are (almost) universal TIME is SPACE, LIFE is a JOURNEY and so on. You might want to think about that, if you are going for naturalism.
How does that work exacty, using locative cases for temporal meaning?
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