Re: Conlang Irregularities

Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
>
> Here's a new question that I'm curious about,
> and that I didn't ask on the Lunatic.:
>
> I know that one of the difficult tasks of getting
> a conlang up and running is to make the rules
> of grammar.  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?  Or maybe you don't do it so
> deliberately... maybe it just happens and you
> decide to leave it be?
Grammar is not really the most difficult part for
me; lexicon is. I tend to produce a lot of little
lexical irregularities, always trying to trace them
back to the protolanguage. Most times I change a
form of a word because I don't like what it sounds
like, or because the rules of change allow me do it
so, and it's interesting. For example, in Drasele'q,
_okal_ "berry" has the plural _okloth_; the protolang
singular form was /'okalo/. This regularly lost the
final /o/, but the plural /'okaloS(u)/ (unvoiced u)
couldn't possibly evolve into regular _okalth_:
the middle unstressed /a/ was syncoped and the final
/u/ lost, /S/ > /T/ (regular), and so _okloth_.
In the same way I have pairs like _esun/esnuth_,
_apas/apsath_, _na`m/nambath_.

Syncope is very common in Drasele'q and produces a
lot of semi-irregularities when adding the genitive
case suffix (or others) to certain nouns, for example:

_maikar_ "plenty, abundance"
_maikres_ "of plenty" (-es = genitive)

Some very common verbs are irregular too (though not
so irregular as English irregular verbs), generally
being shortened forms.

I also have irregular derivations from the protolang,
showing older and newer words change differently.

Finally, I have some grammatical oddities that you may
call "irregularities" because they're not strictly good
Drasele'q; for example, using accusative for dative
(see my earlier post about this).

>
> In other words, how many exceptions to the rules
> you' ve made will you tolerate?
As many as I don't find annoying.

> One of the
> criticisms leveled at invented languages is that
> they are too regular.  Does that bother you?
No (because of the above :-)

>
> I have the choice of modifying my volitional verbs
> that end with an "n" and that have done so for twenty
> years.  _Euan_, for instance, means "to go," volitionally..
> But I've fairly recently made it a rule that non-volitional
> verbs will end in "n" in their absolute form (retaining the
> vestige of the gerundive suffix that marks them as
> non-volitional:  -ned.)  So:  teprorem, y tepro,  "touch,"
> "I touch"; but teproned, y tepron, "feel," "I feel."  Brilliant!
> But what do I do with euanrem y euan, "go," "I go," denrem
> y den, "tell, I tell," and uenrem, y uen, "take, I take"?
> Except to make them exceptions to the rule?  These
> are beloved words that I've had for decades and don't
> want to mess with.  And yet I can predict how they might
> change in subsequent usage: _euaned_ "go" but not with
> volition, and a new vol. form,  euarem, y eua--which I'm not
> crazy about.  And an epinthetic vowel inserted between
> root and suffix for uenrem and denrem:  _uenarem, denarem_.
> which are other verbs.  Yikes, what to do?
>
Why don't you use suppletory forms? (We were talking about
this a few days ago.) Use _euanrem, euan_ for "go, I go"
(non-vol) and another verb (root not ending in -n) for
volitional "go". The others... well, can you tolerate
ambiguity? Or you may use adverbs to make things explicit:
"I purposefully touch/feel".


--Pablo Flores

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
 And the Lord said unto Job, "There's no
 reason for it.  It's just policy."
                                       Kelvin Throop