Conlang
Texture
...
Starting Off
* Texture
* Grammar: isolating
* Corpus-driven
The Hundred Words
* a, about, after, all, am, an, and, are, as, at, away
* back, be, because, big, but, by
* call, came, can, come, could
* did, do, down
* for, from
* get, go, got
* had, has, have, he, her, here, him, his
* I, in, into, is, it
* last, like, little, live, look
* made, make, me, my
* new, next, not, now
* of, off, old, on, once, one, other, our, out, over
* put
* saw, said, see, she, so, some
* take, that, the, their, them, then, there, they, this, three, time,
to, today, too, two
* up, us
* very
* was, we, were, went, what, when, will, with
* you
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4514106.stm
...
"'You' and 'they' are regular plurals, formed by adding the plural suffix to
the singular pronouns. That's a regularity that didn't occur to the inventor
of Esperanto!"
- http://www.zompist.com/quechua.html
Perl6... kia ma, tokti.
A'Tuin (turtle), amuz (like), aunos (sound), awan (piece), bagrap (broken),
biti (small), da (adjective copulative), dun (past tense), duna (adjective past
tense copula), elamu (apple), elamubiti (strawberry), ema (it), eyan (good),
feni (every), fortu (word), gad (foot), glina (diamond), goro (noun
copulative), ib (and), ishi (but), ka (imperative marker), kalun (future), kape
(love), kauno (dog), kauze (house), kia (of), kome (eat), kua (cow), kuay
(moon), leotta (gold), loatra (story), lok (located at), lol (humour), ma (I,
me, my), mafortu (pronoun), miqi (mouse), multa (many), mung (feces), murarat
(slowly), neuditi (new), nezres (know)...
...
Are semantic types inherent? Cf. stonying vs. stone.
* Noun: can co-occur with articles and attributive adjectives.
* Verb: usually denotes action ("bring", "read"), occurrence ("decompose",
"glitter"), or a state of being ("exist", "stand").
* Adjective: noun modifier, making it more specific attaching a quality.
...
Verbs are like functions in procedural programming languages. The argspec is
called the valency in linguistics.
Arguments/Valency: 1 => Intransitive
runs(he), falls(it)
Arguments/Valency: 2 => Transitive
eats(she, fish), hunt(we, rabbits)
Arguments/Valency: 3 => Ditransitive
gave(I, her, flowers), sent(she, me, book)
gave(subject, object=None, thing=None)
runs(he), falls(it)
...
Stative verbs... the redded house?
Playing about with the Gricean maxims.
Employer, employee.
Morphosyntactic alignment: SaO in EA, SAo in NA.
Ergative/Absolutive:
arrived(THE-MAN), saw(the-man, THE-BOY)
Nominative/Accusative:
arrived(THE-MAN), saw(THE-MAN, the-boy)
Ergative/Absolutive is a bit like OSV or something.
"Ergativity may be manifested through syntax in addition to through morphology.
Syntactic ergativity is quite rare, and while all languages that exhibit it
also feature morphological ergativity, few morphologically ergative languages
have ergative syntax."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative-absolutive_language
Isolating languages are also called "Analytic languages".
Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_typology
I don't think it's wise to be so isolating that you don't have natural things
such as undo, rather than un do. English has not do rather than notdo though.
Chinese analytic example:
"I possessive friend(s) all want eat chicken egg(s)"
Words often follow sounds: "Bulgarian is the only analytic Slavic language -
in its noun system - acquiring this feature from the Balkan linguistic union.
This allows us to study the process. In the beginning, cases began to mix
sounds; this paved the way for the distinctions between forms to be forgotten."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language
Oligoanalytic or oligoisolating: few morphemes, and isolating. Toki Pona!
Some really unusual languages mix Ergative and Nominative. This system is
called Austronesian alignment.
English "methinks" and Active/Stativeness. -ness is a cool morpheme.
English does have OSV! *Bill* I can see. But it's mainly SVO, along with French
and Chinese. Latin and Finnish have no fixed word order though SOV is most
common in Latin, and SVO in Finnish.
SOV: premodifiers, postpositions.
VSO: prepositions, postmodifiers.
...
"Some languages are more complicated: in German and in Dutch, an ancestral AOV
order is retained in subordinate clauses even though AVO is the unmarked order
in main declarative clauses." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Verb_Object
Switching between SVO and VSO might be possible, as a linguistic typology. VSO
is like (non-reverse) Polish notation. Ah, this swapping is called inversion:
"There are many languages which switch from SVO (Subject Verb Object) order to
VSO order with different constructions, usually for emphasis. For example,
sentences in English poetry can sometimes be found to have a VSO order; French
and Spanish questions may reverse the order of the subject and verb into the
VSO order" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_Subject_Object
OSV is rare, OVS the rarest.
Natural syntactic metalanguage is an interesting idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_semantic_metalanguage
Here are the primitives, to be compared with the 100 above:
substantives: I, YOU, SOMEONE, PEOPLE, SOMETHING/THING, BODY
mental predicates: THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR
speech: SAY, WORD, TRUE
actions, events and movement: DO, HAPPEN, MOVE
existence and possession: THERE IS, HAVE
life and death: LIVE, DIE
time: WHEN/TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME,
FOR SOME TIME, MOMENT
space: WHERE/PLACE, HERE, ABOVE, BELOW; FAR, NEAR; SIDE, INSIDE; TOUCHING
"logical" concepts: NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF
intensifier: VERY
augmentor: MORE
quantifiers: ONE, TWO, SOME, ALL, MANY/MUCH
evaluators: GOOD, BAD
descriptors: BIG, SMALL, (LONG)
taxonomy, partonomy: KIND OF, PART OF;
similarity: LIKE
determiners: THIS, THE SAME, OTHER
No AND? OR?
...
From the horse's mouth (oh right, idioms...):
Substantives: I, YOU, SOMEONE, PEOPLE, SOMETHING/THING, BODY
Determiners: THIS, THE SAME, OTHER
Quantifiers: ONE, TWO, SOME, ALL, MANY/MUCH
Evaluators: GOOD, BAD
Descriptors: BIG, SMALL
Intensifier: VERY
Mental predicates: THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR
Speech: SAY, WORDS, TRUE
Actions, events, movement, contact: DO, HAPPEN, MOVE, TOUCH
Existence and possession: THERE IS / EXIST, HAVE
Life and death: LIVE, DIE
Time: WHEN/TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME,
FOR SOME TIME, MOMENT
Space: WHERE/PLACE, HERE, ABOVE, BELOW; FAR, NEAR; SIDE, INSIDE; TOUCHING
"Logical" concepts: NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF
Augmentor: VERY, MORE
Taxonomy, partonomy: KIND OF, PART OF
Similarity: LIKE
[[[
For an example of an explication of a meaning which will be unfamiliar to most
readers, we can take the Japanese word 'amae'. According to Takeo Doi (1974,
1981), 'amae' is "peculiarly Japanese emotion" which "runs through all the
various activities of Japanese society" and represents "the true essence of
Japanese psychology". So what exactly is amae? Doi explains that it is the noun
form of 'amaeru', an intransitive verb which means 'to depend and presume upon
another's benevolence'. It indicates 'helplessness and the desire to be loved'.
'Amaeru' can also be defined as 'wish to be loved' and 'dependency needs'.
Various bilingual dictionaries define 'amae' as 'to lean on a person's good
will', 'to depend on another's affection', 'to act lovingly towards (as a much
fondled child towards its parents)', 'to presume upon', 'to take advantage of';
'to behave like a spoilt child', 'be coquettish', 'trespass-on', 'take
advantage of', 'behave in a caressing manner towards a man'; 'to speak in a
coquettish tone', 'encroach on (one's kindness, good nature, etc.)'; 'presume
on another's love', 'coax', and so on.
]]] - http://www.une.edu.au/lcl/nsm/explications.php
Superusage of small words.
Wikipedia says that AND, OR, and BUT are prototypical conjunctive coordinators,
and that NOR is close.
It appears to be easier to create a language than to understand it.
Aplenty, elect, galore, proper: irregularly positioned adjectives.
Attributive: the big book
Predicative: the book is big
Atttibutive only: main, former, ...
Predicative only: alone, ...
Substantive: the merciful
Misses out the noun entirely.
His farewell letter: an adjectivalised noun.
No one has a clue about adjective order.
I asked clsn for ideas on places to start with vocabulary. He suggests:
* Lojban gismu
* Basic English, Esperanto, and Klingon
...
Ooh, a conlang taxonomy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_language
* 1.1 Fictional languages
* 1.2 Alternative languages
* 1.3 Micronational languages
* 1.4 Personal languages
* 1.5 Jokelangs
* 1.6 Experimental languages
* 1.7 Language games
...
* http://www.phreacs.com.au/tanerai/
* http://www.geocities.com/bprice1949/vab1.html
* http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s693291.htm
[[[
I describe Taneraic as a "hermetic" language after the style of Mallarmé or
Stefan George: a private pact negotiated between the world at large and the
world within me; public words simply could not guarantee me the private
expression I sought. Taneraic was born of the unconscious ("The unconscious is
structured like a language." -- Jacques Lacan); of an inchoate poetic
personality; of conflict between artist and middle-class upbringing; of variant
sexuality. English, my native tongue, would have submerged me in its long,
magnificent yet etiolated history -- and prejudices. I needed the immediacy of
a marginal language, a creole, so to speak, arisen out of need, and adaptable
yet of central importance. A language whose culture was that of a single
individual.
]]] - http://www.phreacs.com.au/tanerai/
What a paragraph! George's philosophy is interesting.
...
John Cowan suggests this book:
http://amazon.co.uk/dp/0521588057
Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists
by Thomas Payne
It outlines how to describe languages in the field; for doing a conlang, you
can simply define the language that you want to make.
...
So, which languages are beautiful?
* Welsh (often)
* English (sometimes)
* Finnish (sometimes)
* Greek (rarely)
* Proto-Germanic (rarely)
...
Roles and grammar...
The adverbialising morpheme, if -ly is such, could be separated out:
"Frankly, I don't care."
Here, "Frankly" modifies the whole sentence. Adverbs seem to have a habit of
modifying everything but nouns, which is what adjectives do. We could separate
out the -ly...
"FRANK(adj) LY(part) I(pronoun) DO(verb) NOT(part) CARE(verb)"
"FRANK(adj) LY(part) I(pronoun) CARE(verb) NOT(part)"
Anyway, adverbs clearly do a million things; it might be better to have a
particle for each modern recognized function, or something. Wikipedia hits the
nail on the head:
[[[
However, modern grammarians recognize that words traditionally grouped together
as adverbs serve a number of different functions. Some would go so far as to
call adverbs a "catch all" category that includes all words that don't belong
to one of the other parts of speech.
]]] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverb
Shades of meaning depending on function...
He has a lot of goodness.
He is good.
He does things well.
HE POSSESSES GOOD <- implies some disassociation
HE POSSESSES QUALITY GOOD <- directermost association
HE POSSESSES ACTIONS QUALITY GOOD <- but he himself...
Taxonomy, partonomy: KIND OF, PART OF
Existence and possession: THERE IS / EXIST, HAVE
HE HAVE GOOD
HE KIND-OF GOOD
POSSESSES QUALITY probably is a weirdness for KIND-OF
"Adverbs that modify adjectives typically express something about the degree
of the adjective, such as `very'. Such adverbs are usually called degree
adverbs for obvious reasons."
- ibid.
Descriptors: BIG, SMALL
Intensifier: VERY
Hmm: "Nahuatl, as well as some other Amerindian languages, has no copula.
Instead of using a copula, it is possible to conjugate nouns or adjectives
like verbs."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_copula
Closed vs. Open
"Typical closed classes found in many languages are adpositions (prepositions
and postpositions), determiners, conjunctions, and pronouns. [...] Typical open
classes such as nouns and verbs can and do get new words often, through the
usual means such as compounding, derivation, coining, borrowing, etc."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_class_word
Kalusa's copulatives typed their objects...
English: You are a man
Kalusa: YOU COPULATIVE-NOUN MAN
English: You are manly
Kalusa: YOU COPULATIVE-ADJECTIVE MAN
Wikipedia says there are sub-uses
Identity, i.e. equality
Class membership, e.g. be married, is a city
Predication, i.e. link to adjective
Predication also includes location and temporality, says Wikipedia. Hmm.
[[[
Most English verbs (traditionally known as "weak verbs") have just four
separate forms, e.g. "start", "starts", "starting", "started". A large minority
of verbs (traditionally known as "strong verbs") have five separate forms, e.g.
"begin", "begins", "beginning", "began", "begun". "To be" is a very special
case in having eight forms: "be", "am", "is", "are", "being", "was", "were",
"been". Traditionally, it had even more, including "art", "wast", "wert", and,
occasionally, "beest" as a subjunctive.
]]] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula
States and Qualities... tired, hungry, located at, stupid...
Japanese is a topial language, and topical languages are funny.
This beer be-tasty! Tasty beer!
"Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood,
voice, or other grammatical categories."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation
Conjugation is so boring.
PERSON: I make, you make, she makes
NUMBER: the fish swims, the fishes swim
GENDER: -
TENSE: When It Happened (cf. Chris's diagram)
ASPECT: Is It Happening?
MOOD: Reality vs. Intent
VOICE: the mouse ate the cheese, the cheese was eaten by the mouse
Ooh, gerundive verbs denote something that should be or is deserving of the
action in question.
<kandinski> gender marks size sometimes
<kandinski> un barco is bigger than una barca
<kandinski> but un charco is smaller than una charca
<kandinski> barco: ship, barca: boat
<kandinski> charco: puddle, charca: pond
...
The Gender Disambiguator
"He took the book from the suitcase and threw it in the ocean."
<kandinski> "it" agrees with either book or suitcase
<kandinski> "sacó el libro de la maleta y la tiró al océano"
<kandinski> "sacó el libro de la maleta y lo tiró al océano"
<kandinski> lo: el libro; la: la maleta
[[[
Since a Pidgin strives to be a simple and effective form of communication, the
grammar, phonology, et cetera, are as simple as possible, and usually consist
of:
* A Subject-Verb-Object word order in a sentence
* Uncomplicated clausal structure (i.e., no embedded clauses, etc)
* No codas within syllables (Syllables consist of a vowel, with an optional
initial consonant)
* Basic vowels, like /a/ /i/ /u/ /e/ /o/
* Separate words that indicate tense, usually before the verb
* Words are repeated twice to represent plurals, superlatives, and other
parts of speech that represent the concept being increased
* A lack of morphophonemic variation
]]] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin
Aspect vs. Tense
"Aspect is a somewhat difficult concept to grasp for the speakers of most
modern Indo-European languages, because they tend to conflate the concept
of aspect with the concept of tense."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect
Bei in Mandarin is like is ... of or the arrows in Notation3.
'Baltic-Finnic languages such as Finnish and Estonian have a "passive", which
conceptually postulates a never-mentioned "seventh person"' - ibid.
The distinction between simple and progressive senses seems pretty silly; at
least perfect ("completed action") makes some sense.
Topicalisers in English:
As for...
Regarding...
Given...
...
Principle of least annotation: thing > person > man > etc.
When to use words, and when to use morphemes?
Handy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_respelling_for_English
Determiners vs. Adjectives
Chinese adjectives
NOUN ADJECTIVE
NOUN SHI DISJOINT-ADJECTIVE
That car.
THAT COUNTING-WORD CAR.
That cat.
THAT OTHER-COUNTING-WORD CAT.
...
English more closely aligns Nouns and Verbs, whereas Chinese more closely
aligns Adjectives and Verbs. In Japanese, i-adjectives are like intransitive
stative verbs.
...
-- Sean B. Palmer, inamidst.com
Originally circa 2006-12-15 and 2006-12-16.