Miscellaneous fun facts about your conlang to share and know

[Nel Fie]

I have nothing elsewhere to post, so I guess I'll add another one here:

One of my prospective conlang projects (the same as in the previous post) will be heavily rooted in a bimodal signed-spoken register. One consequence of this is that there are no spoken 1st and 2nd person pronouns, because pointing is so much easier. For situations where this is not possible, speakers employ a vocative particle and/or illeism in combination with the 3rd person.

[Arayaz]

Might as well share a bit here about Laakitlantu:

- Laakitlantu has a mandatory realis/irrealis split on the verb: -ra- for realis and -ts’u- for irrealis.
- While the interrogative suffix -ki- is used only for questions, there is also an evidential -li that marks all questions (including WH-questions.)
- There are three or four different verbs corresponding roughly to English "to see" in Laakitlantu: atling, p’ang, and asiquu/asiquutla. Atling, in addition to meaning "to see," can mean "to meet (a person)," "to read (something)," or "to understand (something)." (This last sense can also be covered by atlinqu, with a metaphoric suffix.) P’ang is used with a clausal patient (as in "I see that you've met her before" Yap’annira qi sa sii atlinniraqa tsa.). Asiquu(tla), as opposed to atling, refers solely to the physical act of seeing, and does not have the other meanings that can make using atling potentially ambiguous (e.g. yatlinnira sii can be "I saw you" or "I met you"). Asiquutla is usually glossed as "behold" or "watch," and asiquu as "see" (intransitive). But p’ang was "see" originally, so kip’angusi "to be blind" is still derived from it, and this is definitely not me rationalizing a mistake I made.

[Imralu]

Some facts about Balog:

1. Like virtually all of my conlangs, there's no lexical distinction between nouns and verbs. (There are still arguments and predicates though.) Everything that can be thought of as a noun also means "be [noun]" and everything that can be thought of as a verb also means "[verb]er", "one that [verb]s".

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2. No transitivity. Clauses are [predicate | subject]. Transitive sentences are translated into Balog by means of multiclausal constructions. There is a general tendency for semantic agents to be in clauses with contentives indicating which body part or tool was used and semantic patients in a clause with describing the action it undergoes. E.g. "I eat the cake" consists of the clauses [use mouth | I] and [get eaten | the cake]. Clauses are not linked by conjunctions in this way and it is the lack of a contextual link between neighbouring clauses, not the presence of one, that must be indicated with an extra morpheme, such as tšqe meaning "unrelatedly".

It is possible to essentially incorporate an object into a predicate phrase through compounding, however. For example, from vaŋ "to hunt, to be a hunter" and šim "to be a fish", we can make vuŋešim "to be a fisherman, to fish" so it is possible to say, in one clause, I'm a cake-eater, but it would be stylistically odd to use this as the normal way to express transitive notions.

Mul aaž tem illokas.
mul aa=ž | tem ii=lokas
use.mouth DEF.R2=1S | be.consumed DEF.R5=cake
I eat the cake.

Tuwemelokas aaž.
t<uw>em-e-lokas aa=ž
be.consumed<CAUS>-LK2-cake DEF.R2=1S
I'm a cake-eater. | I "cake-eat".

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3. Following my trend of creating concultures that I'd hate to live in, Balog requires all subjects, when specific and known, to be marked with a grammatical category called "rank". There are five ranks. These are the definite proforms:

— R1 uu
— R2 aa
— R3 oo
— R4 ee
— R5 ii

The basic metric for determining rank within a discourse is "who could beat who in a physical fight". Individuals who are politically powerful, regardless of their own physical fighting ability, get ranked higher because they would win a physical fight by proxy. Plural groups of people tend to be ranked higher than singulars because if they were to all fight together, the plural groups would win, although this depends on the speaker's perception and choices. Failure to agree on who should be ranked higher can result in physical displays of strength and even outright combat in some situations, where the loser has to acquiesce to being lower ranked. The contentive molim means "concede rank; acquiesce to being ranked lower". In certain contexts where the potential for displays of strength and combat to settle ranking issues is to be avoided, referents are ranked only by their height as, theoretically, the worst that can happen here is that two people compare their heights. This is common in organisations with a pacifistic mindset, however it can backfire if stronger but shorter individuals who are combative and do not naturally adapt to the pacifist mindset resent being ranked as subordinate to weaker but taller individuals. In radically pacifist circles, the ranks are inverted, giving the weakest individuals the highest rank as a sign of respect, but this is extremely rare (as radically pacifist circles are rare). Ranking the emperor or a regional king lower than they should be, in their presence, is frequently punished with death.

Inanimate objects are assigned to rank 5, although a discourse about many different inanimates may separate them into a wide variety of ranks to distinguish them more easily. Some inanimates which are either completely untouchable and inevitable or destructive are also traditionally given rank 1, such as tot "time", nuwax "sun" and kaleš "fire", "combustion". The word koled refers to fire as a tool, i.e. a lit fire, contained somewhere, whereas kaleš is the general word for combustion and thus, by contrast, tends to be used for out of control blazes. Koled, being a controlled tool, generally defaults to rank 5, but it too is often given rank 1 in the presence of children in order to instill in them its capacity to injure.

These ranks, once set, are used pronominally as the primary means of anaphora. For example, if your interlocutor is obviously higher ranked and refers to himself as aaž and you as eel, you will follow suit and adopt these ranks (unless you are prepared for physical combat to prove your superiority). You can call yourself eež and him aal. However, now that the ranks have been set, the contentive proform morphemes ž (1S) and l (2S) can simply be dropped. You are now referred to as ee and your interlocutor is aa until these ranks are assigned to other referents. Coming into a conversation that is underway is sometimes difficult because the referent of each rank is not known and must be guessed from context. If being welcomed into the conversation, the contentives that supply this information (as well as the markers of tense, aspect etc.) may be mentioned by one of the speakers.

Rank 5 tends to become full of members if there are many inanimates in a discourse and this means that the contentives (or shorter disambiguating contentives such as demonstratives) need to be used more frequently, but the higher ranks generally fill up exclusively, each being occupied by a single referent.

In political satire, it is very common to find a way to artfully mention multiple powerful/untouchable inanimates (time, sun, fire, tsunami etc.) to fill up the upper ranks and then speak of the emperor or a regional king in the lowest rank. Such a usage is allowed. One emperor tried to outlaw such a practice and enforce the use of rank 1 for himself under all contexts, by threat of death. However, people widely ridiculed him for thinking he could beat the sun in a fight and when the ensuing executions ramped up, there was a coup and he was overthrown by his own guards and killed.

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4. The main means of indicating position is a geocentric north-south-east-west frame of reference rather than an egocentric front-back-left-right one. Conceptually, the future lies to the east as that is where the sun, the stars, the moon and the prevailing winds and weather patterns all come from. The unknown future lies beyond the eastern horizon. The forgotten past lies beyond the western horizon. East is up on maps and facing east is regarded as facing forwards, with the consequence that most houses face east. Beds are usually oriented east-west and one sleeps with one's head in the west. This means that, upon waking, one is facing the east, facing the future. One's head being in the west symbolises dreaming about and learning from the past and one's feet being in the east symbolise being ready to conquer/subjugate the coming events. The cardinal directions are given as east, north, west, south in that order because (at least by folk-explanation), when holding a weapon in the right hand and surrounded by foes, one turns anticlockwise in defence.

Because facing left is seen as the default position, left and right body parts are termed north and south body parts, respectively. Translating the English term "southpaw" to refer to a left-handed person would seem backwards to a Balog speaker because the left hand is the north hand. The words for left and right hand are bined and baped respectively, with b being the root indicating use of the hands, -in and -ap suffixes for "north" and "south" respectively, and -ed a derivational suffix indicating a body-part or tool necessary to perform the root. To refer to whichever hand happens to be in the north or south at the contextually understood time frame, an equative (attributive) phrase is generally used:

bed wellap
b-ed wee=l-ap
use.hand-part EQ=located-south
the hand which is in the south (irrespective of whether it is right or left)

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5. The number system is binary and very artificial, having long ago supplanted a natural system (which may or may not still have some fossilised traces in idioms — I haven't decided on any yet). It is integrated with a finger counting system which comes from a sign language with which the Balog can communicate with the Kihel, the presumed terraformers of their world. Even those who do not know the sign language are taught to count on their fingers in this binary system.

These are the powers of 2 represented by the single fingers of the dominant hand.

— na = 1 (thumb)
— he = 2 (index finger)
— žu = 4 (middle finger)
— ti = 8 (ring finger)
— wo = 16 (little finger).

With all fingers of the dominant hand raised, we get the binary number 11111 (8+16+4+2+1) = 31. The spoken number is a compound of all of those morphemes. However, the compounding is non-linear. Each morpheme is split into its consonant and its vowel, with the consonants arranged in the compound from smallest to largest value and the vowels from largest to smallest. Thus, 31 comes out as nohižutewa.

There are ten monosyllabic roots corresponding to each of the fingers, with the little finger of the non-dominant hand, ro, representing 512. Numbers up to 1,023 are formed on the first set of hands. 1,024 is hebwana (thumb of dominant hand up on the "second set of hands") and 1,025 is hebwana nabwana (thumb of the dominant hand up on the "second set of hands", thumb of the dominant hand up on the "first set of hands"). 1,029 is hebwana nabwanuža. The scrambling of consonants and vowels only occurs in each word and only before and after the -bwa- interfix, not across the whole number.

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6. Compounds are formed with either one of two linking morphemes o and e. I gloss these as LK1 and LK2 respectively. LK1 indicates that both words refer to the same entity, whereas LK2 indicates that they do not.

For example, a dentist is buweŋ-e-kaned, using -e- because a dentist is a kind of doctor, buweŋ, connected to teeth, kaned. Using -o- would mean a doctor who is a tooth/teeth.

Buweŋelas = (be a) gynaecologist
Buweŋolas = (be a) lady doctor

Note, however, that there is a small but important difference between o and wee= (the equative clitic). To simply say a "female doctor", usually you would say buweŋ wellas. Using -o- would imply that the doctor's womanhood has something to do with her being a doctor. The silly joke about coconut oil and baby oil would (unfortunately) be neutralised in Balog because it would be oil-o-coconut and oil-e-baby.

Examples with more kind of modal/concatenative verb-like meanings can show the difference here.

tsal = try, attempt, be an attempter
louh = sleep, be a sleeper

Tsalolouh aaž. = I'm trying to sleep.
Tsal wellouh aaž. = I'm trying ... while sleeping ???

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7. The plosives and affricates are: /pʼ p b tʼ t d tsʼ ts dz tʃʼ tʃ dʒ tɬʼ tɬ dɮ kʼ k ɡ ʔ/ with /tɬʼ/ having a velar allophone (in free variation) even though /tɬ dɮ/ do not have velar allophones.

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8. The word nuwax "(be the) sun" is derived from nax "photosynthesise(r)" plus the causative/antipassive infix -uw-. The Balog can photosynthesise, so nax is a basic root like "eat", "drink", "sleep". Sunlight is niwax, with the gerundive infix, i.e. "(be) something to be photosynthesised".

[VaptuantaDoi]

In political satire, it is very common to find a way to artfully mention multiple powerful/untouchable inanimates (time, sun, fire, tsunami etc.) to fill up the upper ranks and then speak of the emperor or a regional king in the lowest rank. Such a usage is allowed. One emperor tried to outlaw such a practice and enforce the use of rank 1 for himself under all contexts, by threat of death. However, people widely ridiculed him for thinking he could beat the sun in a fight and when the ensuing executions ramped up, there was a coup and he was overthrown by his own guards and killed.

That is brilliant.

[eldin raigmore]

@Imralu :
In re Balog :
1. Wow!
2. What VapuantaDoi said!

[lsd]

@imralu
pretty good post...
It makes us want to compare to you...

in fact, 3SDL are following quite opposite paths...
1. there are action roots, that can be considered as verbs, but no predicate...
2. all action roots can be defined, that can be considered as verbs with transitive construction only...
3. no grammatical mark, only positions are used...
4. all positions are seen only in an egocentric frame, even cardinal points, where antipodal men are men from below...
5. numbers are semantics primes, with a prime but odd radix...
6. compounds are the main constructions and replace clauses, with no order, position in chain of primes differentiates meanings...
7. phonotactics is not very accurate and depends of the triple equality 1Sense=1Sign=1Sound...
8. the compound for sun is, as often, very visual, but this is my weltanschauung, one could use other definition...

[lurker]

In Commonthroat you can form patient nouns from transitive verbs by reduplicating the verb stem. thus:
<oD> (a yip followed by a long, high, strong whine) = to love
<oDoD> someone who is loved, a friend.
One of the most common words yinrih use for humanity as a whole is <f oDoDl nKin mI> (our best friends/those good friends of ours).

You can also reduplicate a single-syllable adjective to form a noun with the meaning of one who possesses the quality of the root adjective:
<gh> (a short, high, strengthening growl) = little
<ghmgh> = little one. The nasal exhalation <m> in the middle is a meaningless interfix. The phrase <f ghmghmk> (you little ones) occurs frequently in the scriptures of the Bright Way, referring to the yinrih species as a whole.

[Man in Space]

In political satire, it is very common to find a way to artfully mention multiple powerful/untouchable inanimates (time, sun, fire, tsunami etc.) to fill up the upper ranks and then speak of the emperor or a regional king in the lowest rank. Such a usage is allowed. One emperor tried to outlaw such a practice and enforce the use of rank 1 for himself under all contexts, by threat of death. However, people widely ridiculed him for thinking he could beat the sun in a fight and when the ensuing executions ramped up, there was a coup and he was overthrown by his own guards and killed.

That is brilliant.

[Arayaz]

In political satire, it is very common to find a way to artfully mention multiple powerful/untouchable inanimates (time, sun, fire, tsunami etc.) to fill up the upper ranks and then speak of the emperor or a regional king in the lowest rank. Such a usage is allowed. One emperor tried to outlaw such a practice and enforce the use of rank 1 for himself under all contexts, by threat of death. However, people widely ridiculed him for thinking he could beat the sun in a fight and when the ensuing executions ramped up, there was a coup and he was overthrown by his own guards and killed.

That is brilliant.

[Man in Space]

Of course, Samantha T. Carter actually did blow up a sun once. Would she be able to pull rank here?

[lsd]

gods and other fabulous fictional characters take precedence over real people...
the advantage of the world of ideas over the real world...