My conlang again [LONG] (Was: Re: T-Shirt yet again)
| From: | H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, October 6, 2000, 4:32 |
|---|
On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 10:55:27PM -0700, Sally Caves wrote:
[snip]
> Tell me about your conlang, and you too, Yoon Ha Lee.
[snip]
Well, I've only just started on my conlang (a few months ago) so it's
still rather sketchy and the lexicon has less than 40 entries. But I've
worked on the conculture for many years now, and it's heavily influencing
the language. So although some of the stuff below may seem strange, it's
actually deeply rooted in the conculture... OK, enough ado. On to the
meat:
Parts of speech: nouns, verbs and relatives (relatives are a broad class
of particle-like words serving mainly as syntactic glue for words,
clauses, sentences, or even entire passages).
Sentence types:
- nominator sentences: consisting of a single noun clause, these are
"topic-setting" sentences to provide context for subsequent discourse.
- stative sentences: verbless sentences expressing unchanging state (eg.
being, static identity, etc.)
- verbal sentences: sentences describing events. The language
differentiates between unchanging state (stative sentences) and changes
of state (events -- verbal sentences).
- summaritive sentences: consisting mainly of relatives, recaptures main
points of preceding discourse.
Phonology:
- 9 vowels: [orthography, /IPA (Kirsh)/]
u /u/ w /u"/ y /y/
o /o/ 3 /V"/ i /i/
0 /O/ a /a/ e /E/
- Doubled vowels in the orthography are long vowels, unless separated by
a dash (-).
- there are NO diphthongs -- adjacent vowels have /?/ inserted between
them. `h' is prefixed to a vowel in the orthography if the vowel is
"harsh" (pronounced with a preceding glottal fricative)
- 27 consonants: [orthography, /IPA/]
gh /Q/ kh /x/ ng /N/ g /g/ k /k/ K /k<h>/
dh /D/ th /T/ n /n/ d /d/ t /t/ T /t<h>/
(or:) /d]/ /t]/
jh /C<vcd>/ ch /C/ - j /J/ c /c/ C /c<h>/
z /z/ s /s/ l /l/ r /*./
v /B/ f /F/ m /m/ b /b/ p /p/ P /p<h>/
- The language is pitch-accented. There are no absolute pitches; what
matters is the pitch contour. Syllables marked with (') are high pitch
points; surrounding syllables are lower in pitch unless they are also
marked with (').
Nouns:
- 5 genders: reflects physical gender
masculine
feminine
double (both masc. and fem., used for words referring to married
couples or hermaphroditic creatures)
epicene (either masc. and fem. but not specifically one way or the
other -- used to address a mixed audience or a person
whose gender is not known to the speaker)
neuter (used for everything else)
- 3 numbers:
singular
plural
nullar (indicates absence of noun)
- 5 cases: cases are marked semantically -- more on this later
originative - marks the noun as an origin or source
receptive - marks the noun as a recipient or destination
instrumental - the noun is that which keeps an event happening
conveyant - marks the noun as that which is moved, transferred,
conveyed.
locative - the noun describes either the location of an entire
event, or the current, specific location. Idiomatically
used as default case when talking *about* a word (think
"locus" of a discourse).
[I'd love to get into the morphology here, but it involves vowel and
consonant gradation which is too complex and will make this message too
long -- perhaps another post, upon request :-P ]
Verbs:
- 3 aspects:
inceptive - marks the start of an event. Can also be used as an
imperative ("ta'ma" - speak up! / start speaking now!)
progressive - indicates an event in progress. Usually implies the
event will be interrupted.
perfective - indicates a complete event. This is the default verb
aspect; even when the event isn't complete when the
speaker tells about it, he/she would still use the
perfective unless he/she thinks it will be interrupted.
- 3 degrees of "focus" (don't know a better term for this):
incidental - the speaker views the event as a random, purposeless
event.
deliberative - the speaker perceives the event as directed toward
a goal; i.e., it's not a chance event.
consequential - the event happened as a consequence of a previous
event.
- 3 domains (still sketchy, not fully worked out yet): physical,
introvertive, abstract. Will explain more once I get this worked out :-)
Relatives:
- so far, the system is still incomplete, but I've worked out relatives
for constructing subclauses and adjoined sentences.
OK, time for some *real* sentences :-)
1) An innocent sentence...
pii'z3d0 tww'ma 3mir33'nu.
man talk children
(org) (perf,incid) (rcp,plural)
"The man chats with [or speaks casually to] the children."
2) No, it's not an SVO language:
lyy's pii'z3d3 manga' loo'ri.
go man horse countryside
(perf,incid) (cvy) (instr) (loc)
"The man rides the horse around [or through] the countryside."
Note that "man" is in the conveyant case.
3) It's not an active language either:
jul0'r luy's pii'z3d3 manga' loo'ri.
house go man horse countryside
(org) (perf,delib) (cvy) (instr) (loc)
"The man goes from the house through the countryside on
horseback."
The originative noun, remember, indicates *origin* not agent or
subject.
4) Favorite pathological case: (pathological from the POV of traditional
linguistic theory, that is)
biz3t30' fww't3 d3m3'l pii'z3du.
woman see beauty man
(org) (perf,incid) (cvy) (rcp)
"The man sees the beauty of the woman", or "the man sees that the
woman is beautiful". Literally, "the man sees the beauty exuded by
the woman."
The reason for the seemingly odd noun cases involved will become clear
if you think of sight as the transmission of visual information from
the object of sight to the seer.
5) Another use of the instrumental:
byy'jh b33'l3na 3lymo3'n biz3tau'.
give boy flowers woman
(perf,incid) (instr) (cvy,plur) (rcp)
"The boy delivers the flowers to the woman."
Why is "boy" in the instrumental case? Because he isn't the sender
of the flowers -- he's merely delivering it. The following
sentence reveals the sender:
6) pii'z3d0 byy'jh b33'l3na 3lymo3'n biz3tau'.
man give boy flowers woman
(org) (perf,incid) (instr) (cvy,plur) (rcp)
"The man gives the flowers, delivered by the boy, to the woman."
Now, some stative sentences for your amusement:
7) biz3t30' d3m3'l.
woman(org) beauty(cvy)
"The woman is beautiful"; literally, "the woman shows forth
beauty." Notice that if you add the verb "fww't3" and the
receptive noun "pii'z3du", you get the sentence "the man sees the
beauty of the woman" in (4). The originative/conveyant construction
here is not arbitrary in the least.
8) th0't33 mil3d3u'.
height(cvy) girl(rcp)
"The girl is tall" -- literally, "there is height to the girl."
Why does this sentence use a conveyant/receptive construct instead
of an originative/conveyant construct? Because the former is used
for possessive attributes; the latter for expressive attributes.
Expressive attributes are what you show forth / express, such as
beauty, wisdom, etc.; possessive attributes are things like
spatial dimensions (eg. height). Things in your possession also
use this former construct:
9) m3ng3' pii'z3du.
horse(cvy) man(rcp)
"The man's horse", or, "The horse is the man's".
10) Other statives:
k0'rumi k3'.
color(loc) red(cvy)
"Red is a color." Literally, "red is among the colors."
This locative/conveyant construct is used for partitive statements
such as the above, or for containment or location:
11) 3jul33'r moo'ji.
houses village
(cvy,plur) (loc)
"The houses in the village", or, "There are many houses in the
village."
Hmm, already 200 lines and I haven't even talked about subordinate clauses
and adjoined sentences yet! Better save it for another post, I suppose.
T