Re: Conlang Irregularities

Sally Caves wrote:
> How many of you established
> conlangers, after having done that, deliberately
> introduce irregularities and contradictions into
> your conlang with an eye to giving it dimension
> and realism?
As far as irregular conjugations, and the like, none of that exists
(yet) in W., however there are a number of irregular or unpredicatable
conjugations.  Compare gla', "all" with galla', "universe".  In an
earlier stage, gla' was gala', and when the suffix -la' (which regularly
shifts the pitch rightward one syllable), it became galala'.  Now,
low-pitch a before a high-pitch syllable was regularly dropped, where it
didn't violate syllable-rules, thus _gala'_ became _gla'_ while
_galala'_ became _galla'_.  There's also irregular correspondances like
klu', "stab" and kli's, "stab to death", based on an archaic suffix -i,
"successful" (I'm not sure exactly what to call it, indicates that the
intent of the act was accomplished successfully), the archaic _klu's_
had -i attached making it _klu'si_, then fronting to produce _klu''si_,
then _klu''s_, then finally unrounding to produce _kli's_, meanwhile,
_klu's_ had become _klu'_.  Incidentally, this is homophonous with the
word for foot (altho foot, as a noun, has a gender prefix added, thus
_piklu'_).  There is also a frequent construction involving a noun plus
the verb _labi'_ (to give), in that order.  This is a violation of the
normal VSO word order (altho word order is otherwise quite free, the
verb nearly always comes first).  Also, the meaning isn't always
predictable, it's frequently idiomatic.  For example, pla'i'q labi',
literally "to give a path" = "to lead", walassi' labi' = "to give an
eye" = "to watch over", wakassa' labi' = "to give life" = "to give
birth".  In colloquial speach, and later Watya'i'sa, the direct object
was frequently incorporated into the verb (one of the very few
accusative patterns in W., in that subjects of intransitive sentences
were never incorporated), thus _lassilabi'_ or _lassibbi'_ (from
lassilbi'_).  In "correct" W., only instrumentals can be integrated,
e.g., _tlunikapa'_ = _kapa' pitluni'li'_ = "to hit with the hand" (kapa'
= hit, pi- = G7, tluni' = hand, -li = instrumental; gender and case
markers are stripped from incorporated nouns).    This sometimes causes
two nouns to be incorporated, for example, _lassilalaiqlabi'_ =
lassila-laiq-labi' = labi' pla'iq plassi'la'li' = "to give a path with
foresight" = "to lead with foresight".