Re: Nur-ellen (was: Re: Degrees of volition in active languages)

Me govan`n!

daniel andreasson wrote:
>
> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>
> > The solution I have found for this problem in Nur-ellen (an active case
> > marking language I am currently working on) is the following system of
> > degrees of volition:
>
> I must say that Nur-ellen looks remarkably similar to Sindarin. :) So what
> are the differences, phonologically speaking (the grammatical differences
> seem to be bigger)? And what is the concultural background?
Phonologically, it has weakened and partly lost unstressed vowels,
monophthiongized duphthongs and changed a few smaller things.
The phonology is in quite a mess, though, and needs some work.

> > P.S. If you think the examples above remind you at Sindarin, this is
> > because Nur-ellen, being a language of modern-day Elves, is largely
> > based on it.
>
> Ah. Didn't see the PS at first. You're still welcome to explain the
> development from Sindarin to modern Elvish.
Sure.  The original idea behind the language was that Tolkien's books
reflect some kind of historical truth, and that there really have been
Elves in the past who actually spoke Quenya and Sindarin.

The idea behind Nur-ellen is that there are still a few thousand Elves
around among us - and Nur-ellen is their language.  It is mostly a
descendant of Sindarin, though influenced by several other little-known
languages including Nandorin, several Avarin languages, Westron and
others.

I have recently come up with a more "realistic" background, however,
according to which Tolkien's Elvish languages are based on languages
which were actually spoken in pre-Celtic Britain, by a people who are
the historical core of the Celtic and Germanic tradition of Elves; in
this second version, Nur-ellen dates back to one of these pre-Celtic
languages.
I have noticed that Sindarin is a pretty good candidate for the
enigmatic pre-Celtic substratum language held responsible for the
idiosyncrasies of Insular Celtic.

> And it also looks a lot like my own conlang Rinya. Phonologically
> Rinya is more like Quenya (nowadays), (though the words aren't the same,
> unlike Nur-ellen) but with mutations from Sindarin and Welsh, and umlauting
> from good ol' Old Icelandic.
>
> > The unmarked form is the agentive (nominative), which is always used
> > if the action is voluntary.
> >
> > If the action is something the subject does in error or accidentally
> > without intending it, the dative preposition _na_ is used, as in:
>
> Myself, I use the absolutive for this. Or rather patientive, or patient
> or P-function, or maybe even Pamela Munro's "II". Help! :)
It seems that everybody has their own terms for the core cases of active
languages, perhaps because active languages with case inflection are so
rare (almost all active natlangs seem to be head-marking).

> > Na  Turin dagnent   Veleg     mjeln.
> > DAT Turin kill-PAST OBJ.Beleg OBJ.friend
>
> OBJ? So you have an objective case? How is that distinguished
> from agentive? Or isn't it? Hm. It looks like the object gets
> mutated, but the subject doesn't even when the subject's governed
> by the preposition 'na'. Is that right? Is that how they differ?
It is exactly as you guessed.  The objective is mutated, the agentive
is not.  The mutation is purely grammatical and not a sandhi phenomenon
as in Insular Celtic.  (Sandhi = modification of morphemes by
neighbouring morphemes.)

> > With verbs of perception, dative distinguished cursory perception
> > from intentional observation, as in
>
> Just like Tokana, iirc. (I'm just waiting for Matt Pearson to join this
> thread. :) ).
Such distinctions seem to be typical for active languages.

Many conlangers grep the list for the names of their own languages,
so perhaps this will prompt him to join...

> > Martin lastent linnel e Daeron.
> > Martin listened to the singing of Daeron.
> >
> > vs.
> >
> > Na Martin lastent dringel e neug.
> > Martin heard the hammering of the dwarves.
>
> Just like Rinya does it for the moment. Although I will surely change
> it as soon as I'm done with my BA thesis on the subject. Hopefully,
> I will have an even cooler system worked out by then. Created
> by taking the best pieces from the active langs in my survey.
I look forward to it.

> Great how you can combine uni and conlanging, isn't it? :)
>
> > The dative is also used with negated verbs to express failure of an
> > intended action, while the unmarked agentive expresses intentional
> > non-action.
>
> Neat to have the agentive unmarked. It gives a feeling of an
> accusative system.
Yes; with inanimate nouns, the objective is of course the unmarked case.

> > Finally, there is the instrumental (_ni_ + objective case).
> > This is used to denote an inanimate "subject" (such as a stone that
> > hits a window), but also that someone does something involuntary,
> > against his will.
>
> Very neat. Combining the dative and objective to form an instrumental.
> It seems to work a bit like a causative in the passive voice. Could you
> give an example?
Ni   gendel   gendent  men  e        Garnil.
INST computer computed path GEN.PART Mars

We would translate this as "A computer computed the orbit of Mars"
or "The orbit of Mars was computed by a computer", while it actually
means: "[Someone] computed the orbit of Mars by the means of a
computer".
Compare:

Men`lgoldir gendent men e Garnil ni gendel.

An astronomer computed the orbit of Mars by the means of a computer.

Note that there is no passive voice in Nur-ellen.

> > This is _not_ to be confused with comitative (same preposition, but
> > agentive case), which is also sometimes used as a degree of volition
> > which is not easy to explain in a few words, but grammaticalizes what in
> > modern motivational psychology is called a "state of flow".
>
> You're welcome to explain it in more than a few words. :)
A "state of flow" is a state of bliss by action, one where the agent
becomes "one" with the action, a condition often experienced by artists.

> 'Na' seems to be doing a _lot_ of work. Even more overused than Rinya's
> dative case. Though I also use it to denote possession. Do you do
> that too? :)
No, and you have confused _na_ with _ni_, though both prepositions have
two functions:

_na_+agentive: dative; _na_+objective: allative;
_ni_+agentive: comitative; _ni_+objective: instrumental.

Possession is marked by _e_, which also has two functions:

_e_+agentive: alienable possession (_bar e Daeron_ "Daeron's house");
_e_+objective: inalienable possession (_dol e Dhaeron_ "Daeron's head").

> > The object of the sentence always remains in the same case in all these
> > versions, namely the objective.
>
> I use the ablative for the 'object' of transitive involuntary perception verbs.
> Ex: I.ABS saw the bird.ABL.
>
> > It ought to be noted that only animate nouns have an agentive case.
> > This also means that inanimate nouns have only one case, the objective;
>
> Of course. Or is it possible to come up with a sentence featuring a stone
> having the semantic role of Agent? :)
No!  Unless you first introduce an animate proper name for it first,
which is sometimes done in poetry (and only in poetry).

> > Nur-ellen has only these two cases, everything else is done with
> > prepositions, some of which govern the agentive, but most the
> > objective.
>
> I must say that it's amazing that you have come up with almost the
> exact same language that I've been toying with for quite some time now.
> Sindarin or Quenya, but active. Though I have rather used case endings
> instead of like you, prepositions.
Case endings are nice, and I shall use them in a later conlang.
One day I'll create an active language with an NEC-style locative
system.
(NEC=North-East Caucasian; these languages have very interesting
locative
systems.)  However, I felt that case endings are diachronically
implausible in a language that evolved from Sindarin.  Having it become
an active language was enough of a stretch.

>       But instead of doing that, I've done
> almost the same thing, but with new words and a slightly different
> phonology. The new Rinya phonology has a voiceless uvular fricative
> {qh} and a voiced velar fricative {gh} /G/.
None of these exist in Nur-ellen, mainly because Elves don't like them.

> Show me all you've got on Nur-ellen. I'm very interested!
It is currently in quite a mess; I have two conflicting versions of the
reference grammar at home, both incomplete and out of date, and I am
busy writing up a new version, which I hope to put on the web next week.
The verb morphology is still sketchy, and the pronouns in a complete
mess.
I will then post further information about the language.
(See also my follow-up on David Bell's posting.)

Syld,
Joerg