On Tue, May 20, 2003 at 08:43:11AM -0700, Garrett Jones wrote:
> 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:
Sure. M = Methkaeki, K = Kaikutin.
> 1. morphological type
> a. agglutinative
> b. fusional/inflecting
> c. polysynthetic
> d. isolating
M: a/d
K: b/d
> 2. Word order
> a. SOV
> b. SVO
> c. VSO
> d. VOS
> e. OVS
> f. OSV
> g. free
M: b.
K: a/g = SOV is the usual order (specifically S,DO,IO,V), but nouns
before the verb can be rearranged into any order without changing the
meaning.
> 3. adposition/noun order
> a. noun - preposition
> b. preposition - noun
M: b
K: a
> 4. adjective/noun order
> a. adj - noun
> b. noun - adj
M: a
K: b
> 5. genitive/noun order
> a. genitive - noun
> b. noun - genitive
M: b
K: b
> 6. relative clause/noun order
> a. rel. clause - noun
> b. noun - rel. clause
M: b
K: b
> 7. main verb/aux verb order
> a. main verb - aux verb
> b. aux verb - main verb
M: b
K: a
> 8. adverb/verb order
> a. adv - verb
> b. verb - adv
M: a or b
K: b for true adverbs, but several nouns which precede the verb
also function adverbially.
> 9. compounding type
> a. head-last compounding
> b. head-first compounding
M: a
K: b
> 10. case type
> a. nominative/accusative
> b. ergative/absolutive
> c. split ergative
> d. other
M: a
K: a
> 11. tense system
> a. time (past/present/future)
> b. aspect
> c. realis/irrealis
M: a
K: a/b
> 12. script
> a. latin
> b. other existing natlang script
> c. con-script
M: c
K: c
> 13. number of genders/noun classes
M: 1
K: 3
> 14. number of cases
M: 1 or lots, depending on how you count prepended prepositions.
K: 9, more if you count explicit temporalization/spatialization
> 15. number of phonemes
M: 25
K: 17
> 16. lexicon size
M: uncounted
K: ~125 roots
-Mark