Re: Conlang Typology Survey

il Tuesday 20 May 2003 08:43 am, il temenne ke Garrett Jones ien:
> 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:
>
> multiple choices can be selected for any of these questions if that makes
> sense for your conlang.
Answers for Kélen:

> 1. morphological type
> a. agglutinative
> b. fusional/inflecting
> c. polysynthetic
> d. isolating
hmm. nouns are agglutinative prefix + root + suffix, though the different
combinations of prefix & suffix mean different things.
relationals are fusional/inflecting
particles are isolating

> 2. Word order
> a. SOV
> b. SVO
> c. VSO
> d. VOS
> e. OVS
> f. OSV
> g. free
No verbs. But counting the relational as the nearest thing to verbs, the word
order is Relational - Object - Everything Else. The object of the relational
can be either the "subject" or the "object" depending on context. It's
usually absolutive, however - i.e. not the agent or source or cause. However,
some relationals can inflect for agent/cause/source when such is animate.

> 3. adposition/noun order
> a. noun - preposition
> b. preposition - noun
generally prep - noun, though there are also noun - prep
for example in locative phrases, the locatives to, from, and at come before
the noun. All else combines with one of those three and comes after the noun.
So, near the house is actually "at the house near" and into the house is "to
the house in"

> 4. adjective/noun order
> a. adj - noun
> b. noun - adj
"adjectives" are usually nouns, and it's irrelevant which comes first:
the house the large one or the large thing the house are both okay.
susually, though, the general precedes the specific.

> 5. genitive/noun order
> a. genitive - noun
> b. noun - genitive
hmm. usually noun - genitive, unless the two are in a whole/part relationship
(i.e. me & my hand), then the whole comes first and the part second. All
inalienable possession is in a whole/part format.

> 6. relative clause/noun order
> a. rel. clause - noun
> b. noun - rel. clause
Generally b.

> 7. main verb/aux verb order
> a. main verb - aux verb
> b. aux verb - main verb
no verbs. but aspect words/clausal modifiers, some of which perform the same
function can go at either end of the clause, either immediately before the
relationals, or at the end of the clause.

> 8. adverb/verb order
> a. adv - verb
> b. verb - adv
usually handled by a peripheral phrase near the end of the clause.

> 9. compounding type
> a. head-last compounding
> b. head-first compounding
Kélen has few compounds, and the only real rule I use is aesthetic. If head
first sounds better than head last, I'll use it , & vice versa.

> 10. case type
> a. nominative/accusative
> b. ergative/absolutive
> c. split ergative
> d. other
b/d. Relational - Object, and the object is usually considered "absolutive"

> 11. tense system
> a. time (past/present/future)
> b. aspect
> c. realis/irrealis
a & b. these things get complicated. Only 2 relationals can be inflected for
tense, and of these tenses, some of them are really modal (should, would).
Any relational can be modified with aspect.

> 12. script
> a. latin
> b. other existing natlang script
> c. con-script
definitely c! though I use a. for personal use.

> and some free answer questions:
>
> 13. number of genders/noun classes
two classes: animate & inanimate
animate nouns come in singular, collective (same suffix as inan plural), and
distributive
inanimate nouns come in singular, plural, collective, distributive, and
stative.
However, one could also analyze these as three classes:
animate, inanimate, and abstract
with the first two coming in sing, plural, and distributive
and the last coming in 'singular' and collective/plural

> 14. number of cases
hmmm....
animate source
inanimate source
animate cause
beneficiary
comitative (and variations thereon)
jé (hard to define)
three locative/directional cases
a proper noun marker (limited usage)
a quotative (limited usage)

> 15. number of phonemes
24 consonants and 16 vowels

> 16. lexicon size
over 2000. I don't have the exact figure at my fingertips.

-Sylvia
--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com

The Kélen language can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html

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