Vreleksá

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 7:27 pm Post subject: Conlang word order?

Just out of curiosity, what's the dominant word order in most peoples conlangs? I think in reality SOV is most common, so I'm curious about conlangs.

PKM and Emitare are both VSO.

imdamoos · Joined: 06 Jul 2008 Posts: 64 Location: New York

I made Caelaurian SOV just because it was one less thing to figure out.

Hemicomputer · Joined: 04 Feb 2008 Posts: 610 Location: Calgary, Alberta

Holxws is OSV.

Drumu is SOV (I think, haven't quite worked it out.)

Sun has various word orders depending on the transitivity and negativity of a sentence:

Intransitive=SV
Intransitive Negative=NVS
Transitive=SOV
Transitive Negative=NVSO
Ditransitive=SDoVIo
Ditransitive Negative=NIoVSDo

With Do and Io being direct object and indirect object respectively, and N being the negation particle.

In a new one I've been working on, Geupasa, the most common word orders would likely be VSO and SVO. Don't expect to see more anytime soon, though. It's not ready yet.

Aert · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 354

Aert is SVO (though I thought this would be more common).

achemel · Joined: 29 Mar 2009 Posts: 556 Location: up for debate

If anyone's seen my conlang list you can tell I've got a bunch... I think they are about half SOV and half SVO. I have at least one that's VSO/VOS (it's flexible as long as the verb comes first) and one where adjective placement is a noticeable feature; I might post that one just for the heck of it. (^_^) My preference is SOV, because although SVO is easiest (being Englishish) I still have a good grasp on SOV.

I think the three languages I've posted so far are SVO...
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killerken · Joined: 30 Sep 2008 Posts: 134 Location: Florida

Fỉðâs is SOV. I can't remember why I chose it. There's no significance.
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Kiri · Joined: 13 Jun 2009 Posts: 471 Location: Latvia/Italy

Well I guess Vaijerīna is SOV,
but I have no idea what is the difference between subject and object Very Happy

(because of Latvian way of calling different things in the sentence)
But well, I seem to learn a lot in this site Smile

Baldash · Joined: 19 May 2009 Posts: 86 Location: Sweden

SVO and SOV are as far as I know even among natural languages, which of them that appears to be most common depends on your sample. 40% SVO, 40% SOV, and 15% VSO, I think.

Most of my conlangs are VSO, VX (verb-oblique), NA (noun-adjective), PC (preposition-constituent), and AD (adjective/adverb-degree word). Or perhaps more concisely: WA/WM (word-argument/modifier) Razz

WA/WM is my favorite word order.

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 1:49 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the replies, everybody. Seems there is mostly SOV and SVO in conlangs too.

@Baldash: So you prefer head-initial languages? (That's basically what you described.)

Baldash · Joined: 19 May 2009 Posts: 86 Location: Sweden

Hemicomputer · Joined: 04 Feb 2008 Posts: 610 Location: Calgary, Alberta

I agree. Verb-initial orders are my favorite, don't know why I don't have many in my conlangs... Confused

eldin raigmore · Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:44 pm Post subject:

Adpihi is VSO when unmarked.
But since it has topic-first, and focus-last, and given-first, and new-last, rules, it's "marked" more often than unmarked; though it's unmarked more often than any particular type of "marked".
"Marking" tends to put the verb second.
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Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:31 am Post subject:

@eldin: So it's VSO except when it's not? Razz

Verb-initial word orders are fun, maybe just because they aren't that common in reality. Object-first ones are the ones you never see, though.
Anybody got any of those?

eldin raigmore · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:19 pm Post subject:

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:15 pm Post subject:

I did not know Klingon was object-initial. That's cool.

BTW, my stupid family firewall/internet-security-thing is blocking a couple of recent threads in the Translations forum (the Quotes thread and the Things to Write thread), so if a mod / the posters could edit out any profanity or whatever to let me in that would be great. It's not that I have a problem with the content of the threads/posts/whatever, it's just that I'm being denied access to the threads in their entirety.

Aeetlrcreejl · Joined: 08 Jun 2007 Posts: 839 Location: Over yonder

Jinnic is VSO (though I always forget), Tans is SVO, Lorošae is SOV.
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