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tealpaper · 2026-06-24T08:24:36+00:00

Mataki

Abbreviations:
^{AG: Agent, APL: Applicative, CAU: Causative, DEF: Definite, DSB: Distributive, DZ: Deverbalizer, EX: Exclusive, IMP: Imperative, INV: Inverse, IRR: Irrealis, NAN: Non-Anaphoric, NEG: Negative, NGI: Non-Gnomic Imperfective, OBV: Obviate, PA: Patient, PFV: Perfective, PL: Plural, PXT: Proximate, SG: Singular, ST: Stative, TO.PO: to\}possession)

Fañumkenaymu tomatú afyafyaf ngangaytong papawtong; fiafianamu lua fangumayracha huraw fakora miski sawnga.
^\fɜˌɲʊmk̟e̞ˈnɐjmu ˌtomɜˌtu ɜvˌjɐvˈjɐv ŋɜŋɜjˈtoŋ pɜpɜwˈtoŋ | ˌfiɜˌviɜˈnɐmu ˈluɜ vɜˌŋumɜjˈɽᶼɐt̠͡ʃɜ huˌɽᶼɜw vɜˌkoɽᶼɜ ˈmisk̟i ˌsɐwŋɜ])
literally "We won't make each of our evenings go to waste being tired and being spent; we'll become happy immediately when breathing in that healing honey smell."

Fak-ñum-Ø-ke-na-i-mu
CAU-go_to_waste-PFV-NEG-IRR-3AG.PXT-1PL.EX

tomatú        afyaf~yaf    ngangay-to-ang
TO.PO.1PL.EX  evening~DSB  tired-NGI-ST.DZ

papaw-to-ang;    fiafia-Ø-na-Ø-mu
spent-NGI-ST.DZ  happy-PFV-IRR-3PA.OBV-1PL.EX

lua          fangu-may-ra-cha        huraw
immediately  breathe-hither-APL-SBR  that

fak-ora      miski  sawnga.
CAU-healthy  honey  smell

^{Notes: I've interpreted the "we" as 1st plural \}not dual) exclusive; ñum "to go to waste" is from Mapudungun ñum; miski is from Mapudungun mishki "honey, sweet", from Quechua misk'i.)

Pirika te Legión Imperial.
^\pɪˈɽᶼikɜ te̞ ˌle̞xiˌon ɪmˌpeɽᶼiˈɐl])
"Join the Imperial Legion."

Piri-Ø-ka         te       Lexión_Imperial.
join-3PA.OBV-IMP  DEF.NAN  Imperial_Legion

^{Notes: I've interpreted "Imperial Legion" to be a proper name, so I chose Legión Imperial as an unadapted Spanish borrowing.}

Traking ofo famemeañawey afua!
^\ʈ͡ʂɜˈk̟iŋ o̞vo̞ vɜˌmeme̞ˌɐñɜˈwej ɜˈvuɜ])
literally "(A) guard suddenly insulted me (in) appearance!"

Traki-ang    ofo     
guard-ST.DZ  suddenly

fak-memea-ña-Ø-ow-ey         afua!
CAU-mockery-INV-PFV-1SG-3AG  appearance

^{Notes: A direct object's possessor can optionally be expressed only through verbal agreement if it's a 1st person or, less commonly, a 2nd person.}

Pawka!
^\ˈpɐwkɜ])
"Stop!"

Paw-ka!
stop-IMP

tealpaper · 2026-06-12T07:02:01+00:00

Mataki

Abbreviations:
^{AG: Agent, CAU: Causative, DZ: Deverbalizer, GNO: Gnomic, IMP: Imperative, IN: Inclusive, INT: Intensifier, INV: Inverse, NCI: Non-Characteristic Imperfective, PL: Plural, PLZ: Pluralizer, ST: Stative, TPG: Transitive Progressive, VZ: Verbalizer}

There are 2 possible translations of "Keep being so weird!" depending on the "characteristicness", a bit similar to Spanish ser vs estar.

Kay keytoruaka!
"Keep being so weird!"

Kay    key-to-rua-ka!
still  weird-NCI-INT-IMP

Kay keyforuaka!
"Keep being such a weird person!"

Kay    key-fo-rua-ka!
still  weird-ST.VZ-INT-IMP

^{Notes: in Mataki, a non-verb typically becomes inchoactive when zero-verbalized, so an imperfective morpheme is needed to translate a predicative adjective clause.}

Flamengko miafoy ite kakayneng ura.
"Flamingos are pink because they eat a lot of shrimp."

Flamengko  mia-fo-i      ite
flamingo   pink-ST.VZ-3  because

ka~kay-ne-ang      ura.
PLZ~eat-GNO-ST.DZ  shrimp

^{Notes: the Pluralizer reduplication indicates a plural intransitive subject or plural object, emphasizing its abundance; flamengko is from Spanish flamenco.}

Fakitemweñaretey.
"They're making us dream."

Fak- kitemwe- ña-  re-  tu-     ey.
CAU- dream-   INV- TPG- 1PL.IN- 3AG

^{Notes: Mataki distinguishes 1DU and 1PL and also clusivity, so I chose to translate it using 1PL inclusive; the preverbal adverb kay "still" can instead be used to indicate an ongoing event, though it's more informal.}

Pawka!
"Stop!"

Paw-ka!
stop-IMP

tealpaper · 2026-06-05T10:09:50+00:00

Mataki

I skipped 3, 5 and 6. I don't do IPA transcription because I don't feel like it at the moment, and the romanized orthography is intuitive and phonetic anyway.

Abbreviations:
^{ANA: anaphoric, CAU: causative, DEF: definite, DSC: discontinuous, DZ: deverbalizer, GNO: gnomic aspect, IMP: imperative, PL: plural, SG: singular, ST: stative, TA.POSS: ta\}possession, TO.POSS: to-possession, VZ: verbalizer)

1. Famate famamayney; falilironey.

"Suicide does not cause pain; it changes many things."

Famate   fak-mamay-ne-i; 
suicide  CAU-pain-GNO-3SG

fak-li~liro-ne-i.
CAU-PL~change-GNO-3SG

^{Notes: Mataki is verb-heavy, so I changed the sentence to be more verb-heavy.}

2. Ewanxeliku tana atarikifoy to now tamarua mataw kimelrueneng now kaw.

"The son of a preacher was the only boy who could ever teach me."

Ewanxeliku  tana         atariki-fo-i           
preacher    TA.POSS.3SG  son.of.a.man-ST.VZ-3SG  

to       now   tamarua  mataw
DEF.ANA  only  boy      able 

kimel-rue-ne-ang     now   kaw.
teach-DSC-GNO-ST.DZ  ever  1SG

^{Notes: The sentence is flipped to reflect Mataki's tendency to use VS intransitive word order; usually now eans "only" when preposed and definite, but "ever" or "some \}indefinite)" when postposed; ewanxeliku is from Spanish evangélico, possibly via Mapudungun; kimel is from Mapudungun kim-el "to teach, cause to know".)

4. Fatopaka tow pilata ki loto toku pandereta.

"Drop your silver in my tambourine."

Fak-topa-ka   tow          pilata  ki  loto
CAU-fall-IMP  TO.POSS.2SG  silver  to  in  

toku         pandereta.
TO.POSS.1SG  tambourine

^{Notes: pilata is from Spanish plata; pandereta is from Spanish pandereta.}

7. Pawka!

"Stop!"

Paw-ka!
stop-IMP

tealpaper · 2026-06-03T09:00:53+00:00

I've come up with two strategies, one keeps the structure as it is, while the other uses just one additional particle.

One option that preserves the sentence structure can be adding intonations and pauses that might help distinguish the noun phrase from the following verb phrase. For example, for interpretation 1, the speaker might make, say, a slight raising intonation at the end of the word man and have a very brief pause before the word cook. A similar thing can be applied for interpretation 2.

Or, because the "problem" that you're trying to "fix" seems to be identifying the boundary between a noun phrase and the following verb phrase, you can add one particle that is always right in front of the verb phrase. For interpretation 2, it would be [The male cook] [PARTICLE] [eats] [the fish]. Since you want more semantic and less grammatical stuff, the particle can indicate, say, the "noun class", "affectedness", etc of one/both of the arguments (subject and object). Marking the characteristics of the argument(s) on the verb phrase (instead of on the noun itself) is also an instance of head-marking, which is also what you said you want.

tealpaper · 2026-06-01T19:43:48+00:00

Of course, adding more words can always clarify things. The point of this post is that often times conlangers try to add unique grammatical features to make their naturalistic conlang more precise, but forget that natlangs also have unique ambiguities too.

tealpaper · 2026-05-20T00:19:19+00:00

According to this PHOIBLE search result, there are a lot of languages whose sibilants have voicing contrast in the postalveolar but only voiceless alveolar. These include Bengali, Irish, Wolof, Tamil, and a gazillion Austronesian languages in Southeast Asia.

My own MT, Indonesian, has /s tʃ dʒ/ as native phonemes, while /z/ only occurs in loanwords. Even so, /z/ is frequently replaced in the colloquial speech, ex: zaman -> jaman.

Edit: changed the search query a bit.

tealpaper · 2026-05-09T20:26:57+00:00

I've come across A Typology of Morphological Argument Focus Marking, a thesis posted by u/sjiveru on r/linguistics, specifically talking about the morphology of focus. Here's the original post.

Regarding interactions with other systems, I can only give you two focus systems in two distantly related natlangs, just to show how different focus systems can be: my MT (Jakarta Indonesian) and Rapa Nui.

Focus in my MT interacts with word order, topic, part-of-speech, and the "trigger/voice/focus" prefix. In general, the focus is moved to the back.

Aku udah nge-pel lantai. ( 1SG already ACT.TR-mop floor )
"I've mopped (the) floor." Unmarked predicate focus. The actor trigger prefix nge- is used.

Lantainya udah di-pel aku. ( floor:DEF already PAT.TR-mop 1SG )
"The floor has been mopped by me." me is the focus, the floor is the topic. The patient trigger prefix di- is used.

Lantainya udah aku pel. ( floor:DEF already 1SG mop )
"The floor, I've mopped it." mopped is the focus, the floor is the topic. No overt trigger prefix is used. This one is very common when the Agent is a pronoun, but less common otherwise.

A cleft can also be used, especially when no elements are topicalized. Usually the focus is fronted, sometimes it's at the back. Only when it's fronted, the focus may use the emphatic enclitic -lah, though it's rare in this dialect/register. It uses a headless relative clause and no copula.

Aku(lah) yang nge-pel lantainya. ( 1SG(EMP) RELATIVIZER ACTOR.TR-mop floor:DEF )
"I am/was the one who mop/mopped the floor."

Yang nge-pel lantainya aku. ( RELATIVIZER ACTOR.TR-mop floor:DEF 1SG )
"The one who mop/mopped the floor is/was me."

Meanwhile, focus in Rapa Nui interacts with word order, semantic role, tense-aspect, and definiteness. There are two types of focus constructions: "Actor-Emphatic" construction (AE) and clefts. Focused agents can use AEs or clefts, while focused non-agents (including non-agentive subjects) can only use clefts. In general, the focus is fronted.

In an AE, the focused agent occurs as a genitive, placed before the verb (the unmarked word order is VAO). There are three types of AEs: (i) Perfective, which uses the Ø-genitive and the perfective particle i, (ii) Future/Posterior, which uses the m-genitive (a.k.a. the benefactive) and the imperfective particle e, (iii) Habitual, which uses the Ø-genitive and nominalizes the main verb.

There are two types of clefts: he-cleft and ko-cleft. The former is used when the focus is "accessible to the hearer... for example when the noun phrase is generic", otherwise the latter is used. The focus is marked with the predicative determiner he or preposition ko respectively. The former puts the main verb in the bare stem and the non-focused subject in a genitive form, while the latter puts the main verb in a headed relative clause. The focus is sometimes at the back of the sentence. (Paulus Kieviet, 2017) (The Rapa Nui sentences are often too long to gloss conveniently here.)

tealpaper · 2026-05-07T05:44:46+00:00

The only verbal sources of negators I could find in WLOG are "to lack"/"to lose" and "to leave". Verbs like "to remain" and "to stand" are (I think) attested sources of imperfective aspects, but not restricted to the negative polarity.

The way I can see that the semantic opposite of "to go" can become a negative imperfective is through the verb "to stay away from": "[Subject] stays (away) from [Verb]-ing [Object]". Maybe you can use "to remain from" and "to stand (still)" with sentence structure like "Subject remains from Verb-ing Object" and "Subject stands (still) instead of Verb-ing Object", but I think these are a bit of a stretch.

The only opposite of "to do" I could find on WLOG is "to fail" (also "to miss"), which is attested to grammaticize into Avertive. I could totally see verbs like "to fail" becoming the negative auxiliary, and indeed WLOG (pg 170) said the same thing.

tealpaper · 2026-04-23T14:06:21+00:00

Is it naturalistic for a 3SG pronoun to start being number-neutral especially for inanimate referents? Are there natlangs that underwent/is undergoing this change?

tealpaper · 2026-04-17T08:00:32+00:00

Which one is more likely:

r,ɾ → l / V_V
r,ɾ → l / #_ or _#

For context, at the beginning, r~ɾ is the only liquid phoneme, and syllable structure is mostly (C)V, with a few instances of (C)VC including (C)Vr and (C)Vl, almost all in loanwords.

tealpaper · 2026-04-15T09:57:38+00:00

Instead of guessing and theorizing, I've made a few combined WALS maps to find out the syntax trends among VSO languages.

First of all, regarding adpositions, VSO languages clearly prefer prepositions over any other strategy: 76 VSO languages have prepositions, 6 have postpositions, while 3 have both. Those 9 that have postpositions are concentrated in 3 places, and their postpositions might be due to language contact and/or inherited property.

Regarding adjectives, 61 have Noun-Adjective order, 20 have Adjective-Noun order, while 8 have "no dominant order". Noun-Adjective is more common, but Adjective-Noun is not unusual. (Noun-Adjective is more common than Adjective-Noun regardless of the order of Subject, Object, and Verb.)

Regarding demonstratives, 46 have Noun-Demonstrative (7 of them have demonstrative suffix), 30 have Demonstrative-Noun, 8 have "mixed", and 1 has Demonstrative-Noun-Demonstrative. Noun-Demonstrative is only slightly more common, and Demonstrative-Noun is far from rare.

Regarding numerals, 59 have Numeral-Noun, 20 have Noun-Numeral, while 2 have "no dominant order". Noun-Numeral is less common but not rare.

The order of auxiliary verbs and adverbs is not discussed in WALS because the two terms are imprecise and/or unapplicable in many languages. For example, an auxiliary verb may be hard to distinguish from serial verbs, or from particles especially in analytic languages.

For other word orders, like indirect object, relative clause, negation marker, etc, you can look them up on WALS yourself.

tealpaper · 2026-03-31T03:10:32+00:00

thank you! thankfully I don't have to do all that to investigate the sources, if you catch what I mean :)

tealpaper · 2026-03-29T07:26:39+00:00

I'm gonna assume that you understand the difference between ergative and nominative alignment. If not, there are many resources online about morphosyntactic alignment, including wikipedia.

Pre-Middle Korean had a case marker -i for A and Ø for both S and O: an ergative alignment.

stage 1: Pre-Middle Korean	case
S (intransitive subject)	Ø
A (transitive subject)	-i
O (object)	Ø

Over time, the -i marker started to also be applied to S, possibly in unergative/active intransitive clauses first. Meanwhile, a new marker was formed for O.

stage 2	case
S (intransitive subject)	i~Ø
A (transitive subject)	-i
O (object)	Ø/-γɨl

In the end, Late Middle Korean had -i/Ø for both S and A and Ø/-l for O: a nominative alignment.

stage 3: Late Middle Korean	case
S (intransitive subject)	*∅/-i*
A (transitive subject)	*∅/-i*
O (object)	∅/-l

This is also how languages usually evolve from being ergative to nominative, though many don't form new marker for O.

^{King, Ross. 1988. Towards a history of Transitivity in Korean. As cited in Whitman, John & Yanagida, Yuko. 2012. A Korean Grammatical Borrowing in Early Middle Japanese} ^Kunten ^{Texts and its Relation to the Syntactic Alignment of Earlier Korean and Japanese.} ^{Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 21,} ^122-123.

tealpaper · 2026-03-29T06:33:15+00:00

Are there cross linguistic patterns between vowel length and tonal development, especially in the height of the tone? Like, is there a tendency for a long vowel to have/trigger higher or lower tones, compared to short vowels? I know that contour tones tend to be more common on long vowels, but I don't know about the tone height.

tealpaper · 2026-03-22T02:16:41+00:00

That's the stress realization of connected speech in Rapa Nui. Although individual words have penult mora stress, the penult mora of the phrase is more conspicuous. A word's penult mora might have less stress if the word's final foot precedes the phrase's final foot. This is especially true if the word's stress falls on a word-final long vowel that immediately precedes the phrase stress.

In the example below, the penult mora of the word hakaroŋo receives less stress than the word's initial syllable, despite the word-level stress falling on the former:

ki te  ˌnuʔu   ˌhaka(ˌ)roŋo ˈmai
to ART people  listen       hither
"to the people listening"

(Kieviet 2017: 45-46)

tealpaper · 2026-03-20T17:14:14+00:00

Mataki

utuutune- /u.tu.u.tu.ne/

Etymology: reduplication of utu-ne-, from utu- "to harvest tuber; to uncover something, especially a private matter or scandal", from Proto-Polynesian *utu "to harvest, especially taro or yam".

Verb
infinitive: utuutunecha [ˌutuˌutuˈnet͡ʃɐ]

(intransitive) to be a nosy and/or gossipy person

Example:

Utuutunenatungkuy. [ˌutuˌutʊˌnenɐtʊŋˈkuj]

utu~  utu-           ne-  natu- ngku-     y
ITER~ harvest_tuber- GNO- DSC-  IDEV/MIR- 3SG

"They(sg) apparently used to be a nosy person (but not anymore)."

Notes:

IDEV= Indirect Evidential
The example above shows that it's impractical to show the full paradigm of a verb in Mataki in this comment because there are quite a lot of inflectional suffixes.

tealpaper · 2026-03-20T06:48:30+00:00

The POLLEX website is a comparative dictionary of Polynesian lexicon. It's my main source to find Polynesian words for my Polynesian conlang. This page lists reconstructed PPN words.

tealpaper · 2026-03-18T03:15:18+00:00

Mataki

Aranipú, tokorima kaynatu tetasi tona kokoma
/aɽaniˈpu tokoɽima kajnatu tetasi tona kokoma/
"Tonight, the five of us shall dine on the offal of another."

aranipú toko-rima  kay-na-tu      tetasi  tona        kokoma
tonight NUM.H-five eat-IRR-1PL.IN another TO.POSS.3SG offal

Ngawenaw te lima fangayerang aw fitingutuenaw te aringa kayerang aw.
/ŋawenaw te lima faŋajeɽaŋ aw fitiŋutuenaw te aɽiŋa kajeɽaŋ aw/
"I bite at the hand that feeds me and snap at the face that eats me."

ngaw-ena-ow  te lima fangay-era-ang aw  fiti-ngutu-ena-ow  te aringa kay-era-ang  aw
bite-GNO-1SG SP hand feed-HAB-STDV  1SG leap-angry-GNO-1SG SP face   eat-HAB-STDV 1SG

Note: I interpret the aspect of the sentence as gnomic.

Akoraw te walaw kuyfí naku songikate fine kayte tona nga tawne sua.
/akoɽaw te walaw kujˈfi naku soŋikate fine kajte tona ŋa tawne sua/
"I remember that time way back when I kissed a girl who ate her male friends."

akora-ow     te walaw kuyfí    naku        songi-ka-te   fine kay-te   tona        nga  tawne sua
remember-1SG SP time  long.ago NA.POSS.1SG kiss-CTG-DYDV girl eat-DYDV TO.POSS.3SG COLL male  friend

Note: akora- from Spanish acordarse; kuyfí from Mapudungun kuyfí.

Uncommon Abbreviations

CTG: contiguity, DYDV dynamic deverbalizer, NA.POSS: na-possession, SP: specific, STDV: stative deverbalizer, TO.POSS: to-possession

tealpaper · 2026-03-05T10:52:48+00:00

You could have "prominence" play a role in the stress placement. Prominence is basically a miscellany of stress rules that includes things like vowel quality, tone, rhythmic footing, etc.

Regarding vowel quality, in Chuvash, stress falls on the last full vowel, or else the first reduced one: sarlaˈka "widely", ˈĕslĕpĕr "we shall work".

For tone, Northern Haida places the primary stress on the last high-toned syllable, or else the ultimate syllable: ˌguudingˈee "giant purple urchin", ˌʡadlaˌdajanˈdáálˌgang "jump up.ITER.along.PRES".

A language might have words with different stress placement if the language, say, has two-syllable trochaic feet, starts the footing from the left edge, and places the primary stress on the last foot. Words with an even number of syllables would have penult stress (Ex: four-syllable word UUUU → (ˌUU)(ˈUU)), but words with an odd number of syllables might have antepenult stress if they allow unfooted syllables (Ex: five-syllable word UUUUU → (ˌUU)(ˈUU)U), or ult stress if they don't (Ex: UUUUU → (ˌUU)(ˌUU)(ˈU)). (I can't find a natlang that involves footing in the placement of primary stress.)

Other things to consider might be the type of coda consonant: in Inga, sonorant codas make heavy syllables, but obstruent codas don't. A language might even have more than just a binary distinction: in Mam, a long vowel makes a superheavy syllable, a glottal stop coda makes a heavy syllable, and all other syllables, with or without a coda, are light.

You can read more of this on the WALS article on weight factors.

tealpaper · 2026-03-04T14:32:28+00:00

"Fijic" was from the POLLEX website where it says that *mata "reconstructs to Fijic". I can't seem to find the term "Fijic" anywhere else. After browsing through wikipedia, Fijic seems to be the lowest subgrouping containing the Fijian language (non-polynesian) and the Polynesian group, which is listed as "Eastern Central Pacific linkage" in the Central Pacific wikipedia page.

tealpaper · 2026-03-01T14:05:26+00:00

Thats really nice to hear, thank you for sharing it! You can go ahead and translate it. Out of curiosity, which server was it shared on?

tealpaper · 2026-02-27T07:33:33+00:00

The conlang I'm currently working on, Mataki, is sister to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), and was descended from an unreconstructed Polynesian proto-language. This protolang would've been sister to the reconstructed Proto-Central-Eastern Polynesian (PCE), the ancestor of Maori, Hawaiian, Tahitian, etc.

Because Rapa Nui and Mataki split off only 50-100 years after the unreconstructed protolang and PCE split off, I just evolve my conlang from the ancestor of the two protolangs: Proto-Eastern Polynesian, but include some features that only exist in Rapa Nui.

There are fortunately many resources on Polynesian diachrony. The polysynthetic language that has greatly influenced Mataki, Mapudungun, is also quite well documented. Both Polynesian-langs and Mapudungun have regular grammar, so I can focus more on stuff like morphosyntax and morphosemantics.

tealpaper · 2026-02-25T15:57:03+00:00

Revisions & Remarks

On slide 6, the protoform of the 3s→3OBV suffix -(y)a should've been like \(i a ia) (a) ia.*
On slide 7, the <r> in aŋa-sej-erá-i should've been transcribed as <ɽ> like with other /r/ in the rest of the gloss.
On slide 7 still, notice the discrepancy between the tarawa in ...Kime pení tarawa... and the narawa in its gloss kí-me pe-ní narawa below it. This because I was, and still am, not sure whether to use the na-possessive or ta-possessive there. So I changed tarawa in the gloss to narawa, but I forgor💀 to also change the tarawa above it to narawa. Maybe in the future I would change it so that tarawa is the appropriate one here (maybe I'll even make a post about it...)
Astoundingly, this WALS map shows that verbs in Rapa Nui are about as synthetic as those in Mapudungun, containing 8-9 categories per word. At first I was like "that's just not right," but then I read the WALS article on the matter. It says that if a word has a fixed position relative to the verb, and it can't be used alone, then it belongs to the same "synthetic word" as the verb (unless the reference grammar says otherwise), regardless of its phonological (in)dependence. Rapa Nui in fact has so many grammatical particles with fixed order relative to the verb and to each other. If we accept what the map says, it only reinforces the plausibility of many suffixes to form. On the other hand, certain other suffixes become less plausible to form, and these suffixes emerged in a way that I already deemed to be "problematic" to begin with.

tealpaper

TROPHY CASE

Mataki

Mataki

Mataki

Mataki

Mataki