Conlang Survey (was Re: Introduction; need advice)

Joseph Fatula wrote:


>I actually never saw her survey, as I joined the group only a few weeks
ago.
>It was being discussed at the time, and I recall her (or perhaps someone
>else) mentioning reasons they saw for conlangs being made.
I don't recall any discussion of motives, etc.
Nokta Kanto suggests some interesting questions in a later post today, but
that would require Heather to recompute all her results.  (Worth answering
separately, however......)

I'm about to go no-mail for 3 weeks, but here's a copy of the survey (from
my reply on Oct.25; presumably the original survey will be in the archive at
some prior date). This _may_ not be complete, but I think it is.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

CONLANG SURVEY (Heather Rice, sorry no email addr.)

>Language name, creator's name, realative date of
>creation (just any old number will do), country and
>first language of creator, purpose of conlang
>(auxlang, conlang, loglang, . . . ).
>Phonetics:  number of consonants, number of vowels,
>presence of nasalization, tone and how many, where the
>accent generally falls.
>
>Morphemes:  presence of allomorphs, mutation,
>assimilation,
prefixes, suffixes,

infixes, suprafixation, dicontinuation, exclusion, total
>fusion, subtraction,
reduplication.

Is the conlang
>agglutinating, isolating or fusional?
>
>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,
kind of possession (alienable, inalienable, no
>distinction, etc.)
presence of gender, number,
Demonstratives

Are
>comparatives expressed by affix, word order or both?
>Do pronouns express gender, number, declension?
Are
>there indefinite pronouns, possessed pronouns?
>Others?  Are prepositions bound, unbound?  How many
>prepositons (approximate).
Presence of clitics.

Is
>derivational morphology mostly by compounding words or
>by affix or both?
>
>Verbs and such:
>Are person, number, object expressed with the verb?
>Are there static verbs (to be)?
Is the object
>incorporated into the person marker (making a
>phonetically different affix like in the Native
>American languages)?  Is transitivity marked for
>transitive, intransitive, bitransitive or other?
Is
>the person inclusive, exclusive, no distiction?  Kind
>of gender.
Are past, present, future expressed?
>Recent, remote?
Is mode express, what kind?  Is voice
>expressed?  What kind?
Manner?  Aspect?  Please list
>what kinds of manner and aspect the conlang expresses
>in its verbs.
Presence of adverbs, pro-drop.

Can
>nouns, adjectives, adverbs be changed to verbs and
>vice versa?
>Presence of adjective, adverbial clauses and relative
>pronouns.
>
>Sentences:
>Does the conlang have an ergative or accusative
>system?
Word order and is it free or strict?

Are
>adjectives, adverbs and prepositions before or after
>the modified word?
Is the word order changed in a
>question?
How many (approximately) conjugations are
>there?
>
>Other:
>What is the number base for the numeral system (10?
>12?)?
Presence of idioms, irregular forms of nouns
>and verbs.
Is the language syntax very predictable,
>or are there many exceptions?
How much literature has
>been produced and what kind (I'm not talking about
>translations, but stuff you wrote yourself).
Is there
>a history and dictionary of the conlang?  Script
>invented?
Other conlangs produced by the creator of
>this one.
>
>If you could summarize your conlang in a sentence,
>what would you write?