Re: Conlang Typology Survey

En réponse à Garrett Jones :

>I'm curious about the distribution of the types of conlangs on this list.
>So, a survey. Maybe it will generate some on-topic discussions. Answer it
>for your respective conlangs:
OK, Let's do it for Maggel. Although not complete, there should be enough
to be able to reply to those questions meaningfully (and will raise my
quota of on-topic posts :))) ).


>1. morphological type
>a. agglutinative
>b. fusional/inflecting
>c. polysynthetic
>d. isolating
b/c/d. Maggel is mostly inflecting (and has a lot of umlaut and ablaut
features) with some traces of polysynthetism and some grammatical
structures typically isolating.

>2. Word order
>a. SOV
>b. SVO
>c. VSO
>d. VOS
>e. OVS
>f. OSV
>g. free
Mostly VSO, but often turns into VOS or OVS, more rarely SVO (never SOV).
Alternative word orders are used to emphasize components by fronting, and
often need some specific grammatical structures.

>3. adposition/noun order
>a. noun - preposition
>b. preposition - noun
b. But when the noun is replaced with a pronoun, the possessive prefixes
are used, making the order sudddenly pronoun-preposition.

>4. adjective/noun order
>a. adj - noun
>b. noun - adj
Both orders are possible and about as common as each other.

>5. genitive/noun order
>a. genitive - noun
>b. noun - genitive
b. Maggel uses a construct state structure, where it's the completed noun
which is modified rather than the completing one.

>6. relative clause/noun order
>a. rel. clause - noun
>b. noun - rel. clause
b. Note that relative clauses are not introduced by a relative pronoun. The
VSO word order is practical for that :)) .

>7. main verb/aux verb order
>a. main verb - aux verb
>b. aux verb - main verb
b. A lot of periphrastic constructions not unlike what can be found in
Irish Gaelic :) .

>8. adverb/verb order
>a. adv - verb
>b. verb - adv
Both are possible but b. is the most common, due to the VSO word order.

>9. compounding type
>a. head-last compounding
>b. head-first compounding
Well, it depends on the original phrase. Maggel doesn't have compounding
per se, like French. Instead, it uses phrases, and if those phrases are
used very often, they tend to erode and fossilise into very irregular
nouns. Depending on the original form of the phrase (construct state
phrase, noun+adj or adj+noun, verb+subject, verb+complement, etc...) the
resulting word can be considered to be a head-last or head-first compound.

>10. case type
>a. nominative/accusative
>b. ergative/absolutive
>c. split ergative
>d. other
So far as I can tell it is a.

>11. tense system
>a. time (past/present/future)
>b. aspect
>c. realis/irrealis
The conjugation system in Maggel is quite messed up actually :)) . Tense,
aspect and realis/irrealis are mixed into a witch's soup :)) . It also has
a productive distinction between performative and unperformative verbs,
probably three moods (indicative, subjunctive and optative/desiderative)
and a bunch of voices (reflexive, reciprocal, middle, causative, various
applicatives, but no passive).

>12. script
>a. latin
>b. other existing natlang script
>c. con-script
Well, the Maggel script is a variation on the Uncial form of the Latin
alphabet. It's thus something between c. and a. :)) (a naturalistic
conscript :))) ).

>and some free answer questions:
>
>13. number of genders/noun classes
Three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, but the names are deceptive
as they are purely grammatical and have nothing to do (or so little) with
natural gender :)) .

>14. number of cases
The majority of Maggel nouns have a construct state, but that doesn't
really count as a case as it is orthogonal to cases. A minority of nouns
have a complement form different from the subject form, and some (not all)
pronouns distinguish a subject and a non-subject form. So Maggel doesn't
have cases, except for a minority of nouns for which it has two cases.

>15. number of phonemes
That's a trick question :)) . The thing is, I know the phone*t*ic inventory
of Maggel, but it's so complicated and the phones influence each other so
much that I haven't been able to reduce it to a phone*m*ic inventory. But
if I take the point of view that most phones are actually phonemes (which
seems to be quite close to the actual state of the language), then Maggel
must have something like a hundred and fifty phonemes (including tense
consonants and overlong vowels and long diphtongues as phonemes, what they
seem to be).

>16. lexicon size
Currently above a hundred entries, but the numerals make most of it.

>that's all the ones i could come up with quickly. so, how do your conlangs
>look?
Like someone forgot that spelling *should* be related to pronunciation ;))))) .

Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.

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