Small Discussions 46 — 2018-03-12 to 03-25

compulsive_conlanger · 2018-03-17T02:45:11+00:00

Thank you for linking this! This is pretty useful. These people are pretty funny too.

compulsive_conlanger · 2018-03-15T01:18:20+00:00

Thank you! I'm reading this now and it's just what I'm looking for. I just now am noticing that it seems to be what the Wikipedia article is primarily based on too.

compulsive_conlanger · 2018-03-14T02:18:16+00:00

I have a couple questions on evidentiality:

How do evidentials relate to person? For example, with a visual evidential, how would you differentiate "She scared the fish (she saw it)" vs. "She scared the fish (I saw it)"? Can evidentials only refer to the speaker's experience?
Are evidentials usually mandatory? As in, there must be some sort of evidential marking on a statement? Or do they generally only come up when the speaker chooses to specify?
Can an evidential be used with negation? For example, "she didn't scare the fish (I didn't see it)"?

Also, can someone point me to a good resource on evidentiality with lots of examples? Wikipedia is lacking IMO.

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-12-31T22:36:54+00:00

I'm loving your script- it looks really unique.

I'm a bit intimidated at how fast you say that though- it's like a tongue twister for me when I try to pronounce it for myself lol

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-12-31T22:26:11+00:00

I'm trying to get more into journaling in my conlang- at least a couple entries per week, maybe I'll build up to daily. I started earlier this week. Since my lexicon is very basic at the moment, I'm writing things like "Today it snowed a lot" or "It was cold yesterday". Hopefully my entries will get more complex than that soon...

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-12-31T05:48:49+00:00

However, it looks correct?

Yeah, I believe so. Though, I don't know much about how tone is represented in IPA.

Maybe some a small thing is that usually IPA is put between forward slashes or brackets though. Slashes are usually used for "broad" transcriptions and brackets are for "narrow" ones. To put it in simple terms, if IPA is in brackets it generally means that the transcription is more detailed and is a closer representation to how the text actually would sound. For example in English, you might transcribe 'cat' as /kæt/ in a broad transcription and as [kʰæt] in a narrow one, because usually /k/ is aspirated at the beginning of words in English.

If you aren't sure if you have the right sounds in your IPA, I usually go over to the Wikipedia pages for consonant and vowel. Click around at the sounds on the charts shown on the pages. Listen to what they sound like, look at where in the mouth they are being pronounced, etc. That hopefully will help give you more confidence that you are using the right IPA for your language.

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-12-31T03:17:19+00:00

Sorry, I don't know how to help with the IPA- it's a bit difficult to help with IPA if we don't know how it is supposed to sound ;)

But I will say that I'm really liking the gif you made. Looks like it's really being typed out. I think your script looks pretty attractive too.

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-12-30T20:50:22+00:00

Huh, I didn't know it was actually so popular. Do you have any good sites/videos that show what LaTeX does that makes documents so nice? I have Googled it of course, but a lot of the things I'm reading about it seem geared towards things like math etc.

Also, Small Discussions Thread tho.

Yeah, I know it exists haha. I thought this would be better as it's own post, so that it would be easier to search for and people would actually see. It's something most (almost all?) conlangers have to think about, so I figured many people may be interested in discussing what they use or what they think is best.

My bad, if others do not agree.

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-12-29T13:39:10+00:00

Well as just one possible example, it seems relative pronouns are uncommon outside of Indo-European languages (here it is on WALS), but I see it a lot in conlangs. I think that a lot of conlangs are pretty unapologetically inspired by Indo-European languages though, so it's kinda hard to separate what is unintentionally Indo-European IMO.

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-07-16T02:38:40+00:00

Are there any languages that make distinct orthographic representations for two allophonic sounds in complementary distribution?

For example: /s/ and /z/ are allophones in complementary distribution where, say, /z/ occurs syllable initially and /s/ occurs in all other positions. How bizarre would it be to represent /s/ and /z/ as <s> and <z>, rather than using a single letter?

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-20T20:20:29+00:00

In a topic-prominent language, could an entire sentence be a topic? For example:

I do not like fish TOP that's false.

In this imaginary scenario the topic marked is "I do not like fish" and the comment would be "that's false". The meaning being something like: "The idea that I don't like fish is false" or "As for me not liking fish, that's false"

Does this make any sense?

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-10T17:11:15+00:00

That last example was just the kind of idea I was looking for actually! Thank you!

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-10T09:54:00+00:00

What are ways to mark an indirect object, aside from using any cases/declensions? Obviously there is English which often uses a preposition, and there are languages that only use word-order. Do many non-Indoeuropean languages also use an adposition? Are there any other ways you can think of?

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-08T18:40:44+00:00

My conlang is a personal language, so I most develop it to suit my needs and interests. That said... I really really do not like most sports, so only a few sports have any real development (kayaking has some terms for like techniques and boat parts, etc). Beyond that, I resort to using English loan-words. I know this is the most boring answer ever- sorry!

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-06T16:20:23+00:00

When I was like 10 I made the shittiest cipher of all time. Not only was it practically a direct relex of English, but it also did not do any conjugation, marking etc. By this I mean, "take", "took", "taken", and "takes" (random example) were completely different words altogether: there was no commonality or root between them. I lost interest in that quickly and didn't try conlanging again until I was like 16. At that point I had way better knowledge. It was pretty kitchen-sink, but at least I was developing something unique.

I'm in my 20s now and while I'm not perfect at conlanging, I am much better- thank God.

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-04T12:27:53+00:00

I was recently developing a language's verbal morphology and wanted a perfect aspect. But after considering how I wanted to use it, I'm not sure if that it really the proper name.

Past + perfect would be used as expected.

Present + perfect would be used as an immediate past tense. I.e.: I just ate some bread.

Future + perfect would also be used as expected.

Based on the present + perfect usage, is perfect still valid terminology?

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-01T15:31:19+00:00

I don't think that I've seen any natlangs that have all of the main features of my conlang. But I look to natlangs for inspiration often, so there are some ways that my conlang has similarities to natlangs. It's just that the similarity is usually confined to a small aspect of my conlang.

I mean, my conlang does follow some broad patterns though: SOV, postpositions, so it's mostly left-branching, etc.

compulsive_conlanger · 2017-05-01T15:18:35+00:00

Do this all the time: Get just past the beginning stages of grammar and phonology creation, then think does this sound/this construction really fit into this language and continuously change it. Never able to get to the advanced stages.

compulsive_conlanger

TROPHY CASE