Re: A Conlang Sketch I uncovered

--- Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> writes:
> > Looking around some files on my computer, I came
> > across an old sketch of a conlang. ...
> Looking at the sentences, it looks very much like
> Inuktitut and the
> sandhi/mutations look very reasonably (naturally)
> irregular. :-) But
> there seems to be no lexical resemblence, however --
> the stems and
> also the endings feel like Inuit, but aren't.
I do believe I wanted an Inuit feel when I made it, it
was some time ago, probably going on 4 years or so,
maybe more. What kinds of irregularity do you see? I
thought it seemed rather regular to me, but, I guess
I'm used to strange sandhi/mutations from having dealt
with Silindion for 8 years.


> Very nice!  I like the feel of this language.
Yay! Thanks.

> > Vowels:
> >  i   u
> >   e o
> >    a
> >
> > (e and o seem rare)
>
> Inuit langs have /a i u/ with [e o] allophones of /i
> u/ in the
> presence of uvulars.  Could it be this?  Or are
> those really phonemes?
They seem to be really phonemes, they exist in the
following words/affixes of the corpus:

-ok    stative verb
=qo    interrogative clitic
wekib  black-thing
Rulon  (a name)
embo   but, however

There's no real rhyme or reason to why they're in
these words, they just seem like they belong
there...much more phoneme like than allophonic.


> Further, the capital G reminds be of a strange velar
> phoneme in
> Kalaallisut that is written |G| by Sadock.  It is a
> bit like /k/ but
> often behaves strangely in suffixation processes.
Yes, it's a strange phoneme, I think it's probably a
glottal stop in this language. It behaves weirdly too.

Take the copula and verbalizer that I'm going to talk
about now for an example of this weirdness.

1) Adjectives
Adjectives are basically a special class of verbs that
have two main forms:

 a) ROOT-VERBALIZER-TENSE   (predicative)
 b) ROOT-(RELATIVE)-VERBALIZER-SUBORD. (attributive)
 (the subordinate is an infix before the last
consonant of the verbalizer)

The verbalizer is a suffix that is identical to the
copula:  "-saG"

 Example:
  wekib "black thing"

 Predicative Adjective:
   wekib-V-saG >  wekibasa-  "to be black"

Present : wekibasannui      (wekibasaG-ngui)
Past    : wekibasa'asak     (wekibasaG-V-sak)
Future  : wekibasa'asuq     (wekibasaG-V-suq)
Immed. Future : wekibasabat (wekibasaG-pat)
Past Prog. :  wekibasagu    (wekibasaG-kuG)

 Attributive Adjective:
 wekib-V-sa.n.G  > wekibasang "black" (presently)
 wekib-naG-V-saG   > wekimba'asa "which was black"
                    (formerly)

Now on to clitics

2) Clitics
 (proclitics: saG "copula", taG "and")
 (enclitics: =qo  "interrogative", =da "not")

The copular proclitic _saG_ is placed before a
predicate nominal, and causes mutations to that
nominal and, sometimes undergoes some mutations. The
tense of the phrase is expressed on the predicate
nominal itself.

 Examples:
a)  ma sa bandannui "I am a story-teller"

ma "I"
saG "copula"
pandan-ngui  "story.teller-present"  (p > b after G)

b) dagann sa'a sanguqqusak "The man was your leader"

dagar "man"  > dagann "the man"
saG-V (with connective vowel before "s")
sangun "chief"
-qu 2nd singular possessive  sangun-qu > sanguqqu
-sak "past"

c) kapaqqinata sang mallubasak
  "The dogs were ours"   (literally "at us")

kapang "dog"  > kapaqqit "dogs"
 > kapaqqinVt "the dogs" + connective vowel before "s"

saG "copula" (G > ng before nasal, except "ng")

ma 1st singular > mal 1st plural
Locative: mal-sub > mallub "at us"

-----------------------------------------------
The other proclitic "taG" works the same way:
  sangunn ta'a sangayut "the chief and his tribe"

sangun "chief" > sangunn "the chief"
taG-V (before "s")
sanga "tribe" (-y- is a liaison consonant)
-ut 3rd singular possessive

------------------------------------------------
The two enclitics attach to whatever word is being
negated (in the case of =da) or questioned (in the
case of =qo).

yaqa sa' upasupqo?  "is it his?"

yaq "it" (with connective vowel)
saG copula  (with glottal stop final before vowel)
upa "his" upasub "at him"
upasub=qo > upasupqo "at.him=interrogative"

---------------------------------------------------
Other than what I've already presented, the corpus
seems to have a derivation process in some of its
words:

qut/puk "sleep"
 quppak "bed"  (slept-in)
               (slightly irregular semantics?)
  quppukan "sleeper"

dawuk "give"
  dawak "gift" (given)
  dawukan "giver"

un/ng "see"
   unn "vision" (seen)
   unnan "prophet"

tup/mur "fight"
    tumbar "war" (fought)
    tumburan "warrior"

ya/tu "do, perform"
     yata "performance" (done, performed)
     yatun "performer"

sa/ngu "rule"
      sanga "tribe"  (ruled)
      sangun "chief, lord"

pat/n "tell, say"
       pand "story" (said, told)
       pandan "story-teller"

ba/lus "name/be named"
       balas "name"
       balusan "celebrity"

...And that's it.

> Anyway.  Is that lang polysynthetic?  How's it
> inspired?
Doesn't really seem polysynthetic to me, no real noun
incorporation that I can see, but perhaps it might
have it, to some extent (outside of the corpus, but of
course, that's up to my imagination)

Inspired by looking at but knowing nothing about
Innuit and other such languages.

-Elliott
> **Henrik
>

		
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