Re: conlang survey

>Language name,
         Taalen

>creator's name,
         Aidan Grey

>realative date of
>creation (just any old number will do)
         2001

>, country and
>first language of creator
         USA, English

>, purpose of conlang
>(auxlang, conlang, loglang, . . . ).
         Artlang, magiclang, religion-lang,
something-to-avoid-homework-with-lang

>Phonetics:  number of consonants, number of vowels,
>presence of nasalization, tone and how many, where the
>accent generally falls.
         Cons: 22
         Vowels: 9
         no nasalization or tones
         accent primarily penultimate

>Morphemes:  presence of allomorphs, mutation,
         Mutation: soft (nasalized, voicing) and breathed (fricativization)

>assimilation,
         lots

>prefixes, suffixes, infixes,
         yes

>suprafixation, dicontinuation, exclusion, total
>fusion, subtraction, reduplication.  Is the conlang
>agglutinating, isolating or fusional?
         mostly inflecting. I don't even know what half those things above
mean.


>Nouns and such:  subclasses of nouns (common/proper,
>abstract, things that may not be expressed explicitly
>in affixes), presence of cases and how many and what
>kind,
         3 cases, nominative (for subject and object), oblique (for dative
and prep. with motion), and genitive (alienable).

>kind of possession (alienable, inalienable, no
>distinction, etc.)
         alienable - case marking
         inalienable - conversion to a stative verb


>presence of gender, number,
         singular, plural, and a special paucal suffix which creates a word
indicating an easily countable number of something. The paucal can then
appear in sg or pl. A pl. paucal form would indicate discrete groups of
arranged items.
         gender: animate and inanimate

>articles, demostratives,
         only a def. art., before sg. inanimate nouns causes breathed
mutation (lenition)

>  adjectives, quantatives.
         adjectives: stative verbs (lun 'be blue' : in eyan lunna 'the bird
which was blue, the formerly-blue bird')
         numerals: nouns in effect, which take gen. sg. nouns (i.e. 5 of
bird = 5 birds)

>  Are
>comparatives expressed by affix, word order or both?
          both. affix to verb, requires a particular construction (an old
relative clause).


>Do pronouns express gender, number, declension?
         distinguish number, and gender only in 3s. There is an
obviative/4th person pronoun.


>Are
>there indefinite pronouns, possessed pronouns?
>Others?
         yes.

>  Are prepositions bound, unbound?
         unbound.

>  How many
>prepositons (approximate)
         3. I haven't got too far with them yet...

>.  Presence of clitics.
         not yet

>Is
>derivational morphology mostly by compounding words or
>by affix or both?
         both


>Verbs and such:
>Are person, number, object expressed with the verb?
         object isn't. person, number, gender are

>Are there static verbs (to be)?
         yes

>  Is the object
>incorporated into the person marker (making a
>phonetically different affix like in the Native
>American languages)?
         no.

>  Is transitivity marked for
>transitive, intransitive, bitransitive or other?
         no.

>  Is
>the person inclusive, exclusive, no distiction?
         no distinction.

>   Kind
>of gender.
         animate/inanimate

>Are past, present, future expressed?
         yes. past as imperfect and preterite.

>Recent, remote?  Is mode express, what kind?
         one subjunctive tense.

>Is voice
>expressed?  What kind?
         only passive, sort of. It is indicated by a verb in the 4th
person. Technically not a passive, it still functions like a passive in
most utterances.


>  Manner?  Aspect?  Please list
>what kinds of manner and aspect the conlang expresses
>in its verbs.
         Don't know yet.

>Presence of adverbs, pro-drop.
         adverbs, yes. prodrop-sometimes. in relative clauses, it depends
on the kind of clause.

>   Can
>nouns, adjectives, adverbs be changed to verbs and
>vice versa?
         easily. and verbal markers can create new nouns: adan 'person' +
-ne IMPF = adanne 'ancestors, the people who used to be'

>Presence of adjective, adverbial clauses and relative
>pronouns.
         yes.

>Sentences:
>Does the conlang have an ergative or accusative
>system?

         acc.

>Word order and is it free or strict?
         strict.

>Are
>adjectives, adverbs and prepositions before or after
>the modified word?
         after.

>  Is the word order changed in a
>question?
         no, but the form of the verb changes (Are you happy? Ae launach? I
am happy. Launin. )

>How many (approximately) conjugations are
>there?
         2. Strong or Weak.


>Other:
>What is the number base for the numeral system (10?
>12?)?
         10, but 9 is culturally significant too.


>  Presence of idioms, irregular forms of nouns
>and verbs.
         yes

>  Is the language syntax very predictable,
>or are there many exceptions?
         predictable

>How much literature has
>been produced and what kind (I'm not talking about
>translations, but stuff you wrote yourself).
         not much yet, but i have grand plans

>  Is there
>a history and dictionary of the conlang?
         not yet

>   Script
>invented?
         creating a version of the font I like right now.

>   Other conlangs produced by the creator of
>this one.
         Aelya, Yllis (a future-english), Dele and Taxa (for a world family
project)

>If you could summarize your conlang in a sentence,
>what would you write?
         Taalen = tal 'tree' + ra 'speak' + en '-er'

         Aidan