Re: New to the List and New Languages

> (from Nik Taylor)
> Joseph Fatula wrote:
> > Silwen Nunáth - A mostly inflectional language, with three grammatical
> > "genders" (though based on divisions of the world, not masc/fem/neut)
>
> No need to put gender in quotation marks.  Plenty of languages use
> gender systems other than masc/fem/neut, such as animate/inaniamte or
> human/non-human or human/non-human animate/inanimate.
I'm aware of some of the other systems out there, like Swahili, but I didn't
know if they were called gender or not.  Good to know.

> > a case division rather like ergative/absolutive, and a total of 12
cases.
>
> What do you mean by "rather like"?  What are the cases?  My conlang also
> uses ergative/absolutive, and a total of 19 cases (altho, even by
> Classical times, some of them were falling out of use)
The distinction that I'm calling ergative/absolutive here is based on the
semantic (?) meaning of the word in the sentence.  I'm not entirely sure if
it's equal to the regular use of ergative, so that's why the qualifier.  In
Silwen Nunáth, ergative nouns are acting on something, while absolutive
nouns are not.  Absolutive nouns are being acted upon or acting, but not on
anything.  I think it's a transitive/intransitive distinction, but also
active/passive.  I'm not sure of the right word for this, but ergative
sounded close, so that's what I'm currently using.

The cases are as follows:
ergative
absolutive
reflexive - acting on itself
referential - about X, pertaining to X
genitive - belonging to X, in relation to X
benefactive - for the good of X, on behalf of X
instrumental
prescriptive - as X commands, on X's orders, the way X wishes it
ablative - away from X
allative - towards X
transformative - turning into X, becoming X
imitative - in the way of X, in the manner of X

> > Torum Morgénón - A highly agglutinative lanugage, where 7-9 endings may
be
> > placed on a single noun.  There are 14 different vowels, divided into 7
> > tense and 7 lax, including 2 front-rounded vowels of each.  A set of 4
noun
> > inflections can make known some of the speaker's views concerning the
noun.
> > Verbs are inflected for subject, object, and a number of mood and voice
> > categories.
>
> Interesting!  What're the vowels?  What are these noun inflections that
> "make known some of the speaker's views"?
The vowels of Torum Morgénón are (in my orthography and SAMPA):
a  a
á  {
e  e
é  E
i  i
í  I
o  o
ó  O
ö  9
o  8
u  u
ú  U
ü  y
u  Y

In case the ones corresponding to 8 and Y don't show up right, they're the
lax variants of ö and ü, using the Hungarian double acute accent.

> > Thanyar - Most words in Thanyar consist of two or three consonants, and
in
> > the case of nouns and adjectives, a root vowel.  Vowel alteration and
> > reduplication make up the bulk of the grammatical changes.
>
> Like Semitic languages?
The same kind of idea, but between the unvoiced vowels and the tones, it
doesn't sound too much like Arabic!

> > with many naturally inanimate objects considered animate for cultural
> > reasons.
>
> Uatakassi has a special "pseudo-animate" gender which includes things
> like human institutions, languages, precious metals, projectile weapons
> (like arrows and spears), plants, insects, etc, as well as an inanimate
> gender.  It's not always clear why a noun is pseudo-animate or
> inanimate.
It's not too different in this regard.  Altsag Venchet (and all the Chovur
languages) have a number of words that are animate, even though they are not
alive (rain, sky, chariot, bow, river, fire, time, water), and a few
substance-type things that are parts of animals, and so ought to be animate,
but are inanimate (blood, wool, horsehair).

> > Pahalor - Not the name of it, but a word from it, as I haven't yet made
up a
> > name.  This is another non-human language, not quite as odd as
Teuthurev,
> > but still different.  The intent of the one doing the action and who
knows
> > about it is reflected by various verb and noun endings.
>
> Interesting.  How so?
To give a few examples:
There is an "announcing" verb ending, for completed events that the speaker
knows about and is announcing to their audience.  For example, they might
carve on a stone "Hadel lived here." using this ending on the verb "to
live".
If an action is normal, natural, or instinctual, the one doing the action
takes an ending to indicate this.
And so on.

> --
> "There's no such thing as 'cool'.  Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
> you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
> overheard
> ICQ: 18656696
> AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42

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