Re: conlang servey

>Language namebac /batS/>creator's namebnathyuw, well, Matthew Butt>realative date of
>creation (just any old number will do) errm, 1997ish>country and first
>language of creatorLondon, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and
>Northern Ireland, Europe ( take your pick )>purpose of conlang (auxlang,
>conlang, loglang, . . . ).art ( poncy but accurate )>Phonetics:>number of
>consonants13 cardinal consonants k g c j t d p b y r l w s/k g tS dZ t d p b
>j 4 l w s/each has 2 mutated formswith n/N N J J n n m m J r L\ mw z/with h/x
>G S Z T D f v C r\ 0 [zero] W h/taking out the homophones, that's 33>number
>of vowels5 cardinal vowelsa e o i u/a E O I U/all can fuse with
>semivowelsy/aI e OI i UI/w/aU EU o IU u/all can be nasalised or lengthened (
>but not both )so 45 in toto> presence of nasalizationyep, phonemic>tone and
>how manyoriginally, but not really any more>where the accent generally
>falls.initial. always> Morphemes: presence of allomorphsno> mutationextensive
>( it's the core!
 of the accidence system )> assimilationonly in rapid speech> prefixesfew (
|gu| and |du| for good and bad are the only ones currently )> suffixesplenty>
infixesfor morphology> suprafixationoriginally, no more> dicontinuationsort of>
exclusioneh ?> total fusionnot really> subtractionnot really, tho you
occasionally get disappearing |l| ( but only because it alternates with 0 in
the mutation scheme )> reduplication.no>Is the conlang agglutinating, isolating
or fusional?a combination of all three. the syntax is characteristic of an
isolating language, there are certain agglutinative suffixes, and tense, case
&c are marked fusionally> Nouns and such: subclasses of nouns (common/proper,>
abstract, things that may not be expressed> explicitly> in affixes)fixed
reference nouns ( usually abstracts )fixed meaning nouns ( most concretes
)flexible reference nouns without meaning ( pronouns )> presence of cases and
how many and what kindtwo: direct and oblique> kind of possession (ali!
enable, inalienable, no> distinction, etc.) no distinction, nor difference from
adjectival construction except with personal suffixes> presence of
genderabsent, altho sex can be marked by suffix> numberthree: simple,
collective and dispersed. particular numbers expressed by suffix> articlesno.
definiteness marked directly on the noun. an empty pronoun can be used to
disambiguate> demostrativesby suffix> adjectivesno, nouns used ( there are
plenty of adjectival nouns, eg |selb|, redness )> quantativeseh?> Are
comparatives expressed by affix, word order or both?mutation. augmentative and
diminutive forms of the adjectival noun are used, followed by an oblique form
of the comparator if needed> Do pronouns express gendeno, but it can be marked
by suffix>numberin the same way as nouns> declension?in the same way as nouns>
Are there indefinite pronounsyes, tons> possessed pronouns?not as such, but any
of the many pronouns can take possessive suffixes> Others?too many to mention>
A!
re prepositions bound, unbound? How many> prepositons (approximate). there are no
prepositions. nouns and verbs are used insteadPresence of clitics.few>Is
derivational morphology mostly by compounding words or by affix or both?both,
and also change of word shape and vowel gradation> Verbs and such:> Are person,
number, object expressed with the verb?no> Are there static verbs (to be)?
quite a few> Is the object incorporated into the person marker (making a
phonetically different affix like in the Native American languages)? bac has no
objects> Is transitivity marked for transitive, intransitive, bitransitive or
other?bac has no transitive verbs. it does have reciprocal verbs, and
deviations from standard interpretation are marked> Is the person inclusive,
exclusive, no distiction? the cardinal personal pronouns are exclusive.
compound personal pronouns can express further distinctions. the personal
suffixes are INclusive> Kind of gender.none> Are past, present, future e!
xpressed?yes> Recent, remote? idiomatically> Is mode express, what kind?indicative,
subjunctive, optative. the imperative is a phrase form> Is voice expressed?
What kind?voice is basically absent, altho there is a form which means 'do
something but not by one's own volition, which is a sort of causative passive>
Manner? no> Aspect? Please list what kinds of manner and aspect the conlang
expresses in its verbs. simple, continuous and habitial/repeated> Presence of
adverbsno, but nouns and verbs can give adverbial meaning> pro-drop. yes, tho
usually colloquially> Can nouns, adjectives, adverbs be changed to verbs and
vice versa?nouns to verbs easily. derived nouns can get their meaning from the
verb rather than the root noun> > Presence of adjective, adverbial clauses and>
relative> pronouns.yes to all> > Sentences:> Does the conlang have an ergative
or accusative> system? neither ( no transitive verbs )> Word order and is it
free or strict?pretty strict. it's basically !
topic-verb ( SV ) but most sentences have strings of verbs which makes things much less
obvious. fronting is possible> Are adjectives, adverbs and prepositions before
or after the modified word? after> Is the word order changed in a question? no,
altho the questioned word can be fronted>How many (approximately) conjugations
are> there?one > Other:> What is the number base for the numeral system (10?>
12?)? 5> Presence of idioms tons> irregular forms of nouns and verbs. none.
some departures from pattern, but these are entirely predictable> Is the
language syntax very predictable, or are there many exceptions? very> How much
literature has been produced and what kind (I'm not talking about translations,
but stuff you wrote yourself). very little. only jottings and text messages
(!?)> Is there a history and dictionary of the conlang? no history, a database
of words exists> Script invented? yep> Other conlangs produced by the creator
of this one.bits and pieces. bac is t!
he maius opus> If you could summarize your conlang in a sentence,> what would you
write?bac is my attempt to turn some funny ideas about language and thought
into a reality of a sort> > On my servey, I knew I couldn't possibly cover>
everything that conlangs will be, so I included a> long> notes section. If you
want to provide any other> information about the conlang, just keep
typing!peculiarities of bac:-verbs aren't transitive. there are no objects. to
deal with this most sentences contain chains of verbs and almost anything can
be used adverbially-definiteness works in a slightly different way from the
languages i'm familiar with. essentially an indefinite fixes the reference of a
word which the definite form then refers to. pronouns show definiteness and
indefiniteness as well as nouns (?!)i think that's about it. for other
peculiarities, you'll have to ask one of my relay victims ( altho the language
has moved on since then )bn

bnathyuw | landan | arR
stamp the sunshine out | angelfish
your tears came like anaesthesia | phèdre



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