Vreleksá

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:09 pm Post subject: Modern Emitare

All right, time for another wall-of-text about Emitare! I finally got off my butt last night and put together all of my ideas for Modern Emitare (hereafter ME, Classical Emitare = CE). A brief description thus follows:

I haven't done much phonologically (so I'll probably revisit this later (perhaps with suggestions? *hint* Razz

)). The biggest change is probably that ME has ONLY PALATAL stops - since <t> became their corresponding fricatives. (Except t before u went tu > t_hu > tsu. Other than tsu, I haven't changed the orthography to match - just remember <t> = /T/.) I've also messed with a few diphthongs and stuff here and there (mostly e > y / _V, ae > ai), but not too much.

The dissimilation is gone - 'yariri' (is to do, an obligational form) is possible. All consonant-stem verbs now are t-stem verbs, k-stem is reanalyzed into it (so CE eu(ke) > ME yu(tje)).

I'll preface the section on verbs by noting the changed periphrastic word order, that leads to recreating inflections. Originally it was verb subj verb.NOM[STAT] (btw periphrastics always look like a verb with a nominalized verb as the object), it became verb.NOM[STAT] verb subj, and then the verb and the stative-nominalized ending got smushed together.

A couple of new aspect/tense forms (2 aspect, 1 tense) from various locative cases + verbs. Progressive from LOC-COP, perfect from ABL + 'come', and a new definite future (it WILL happen) from ALL + 'go'. The old future endings are now an indefinite future (it MIGHT happen, it PROBABLY will happen).

I haven't quite figured out what to do with expective (it MUST be there) and potential (I CAN) moods, if I need to at all.

Some more periphrastics (these were periphrastic back in CE) have collapsed into the verb, a volitive from verb.NOM[STAT] + 'want', a causative from verb.NOM[STAT] + 'make happen', and a passive from verb.NOM[STAT] + 'happen', which is a relic form of the PKM passive + 'do'.

Nouns - lessee. Marking a specific number is no longer an inflection, I'm going to a classifier system. Classifiers with 1 can also be used as intensifiers with negatives, and when the negative form is used alone the classifier for 'one bit, one part' can be used as a specifier with all verbs (since the negative for adjectives is markedly indistinct).
I have yet to actually come up with the forms for the classifiers though.

Forms of the possessive genitive have been replaced by those of the descriptive genitive, but many adjectives derived from proper nouns (like 'Emitare') reflect the old possessive genitive. Most of these are being reanalyzed to become -i stem adjectives with irregular attributive forms (Emitare, att Emitare (not the expected Emitarai), but past Emitarayu).

That's mostly what I've done with it so far. There are a few noun case indistinctions that have resulted from monophthongization, but I'll sort those out later.

I'd love to put some good illustrative examples up, but ATM I can't think of any.

Hope this isn't so long it gets no comments ! ^_^

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

I think it looks good, though examples (when you can think of some) would be great too. Wink

Do you mean classifiers like in Chinese and Japanese and whatever other languages use them? If so, how extensive are they going to be?

For the things you haven't decided what to do with yet, perhaps they worked out just fine but underwent some sound changes? And I like the palatalization idea, it makes me think of Russian. (^_^)
_________________
I have some small knowledge of:
English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, French
I would like to learn:
Italian, Norwegian, Gaelic
Main conlangs:
ddamachel, tadvaradcel, ra cel, lashel, hemnalg, nomah

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 2:15 am Post subject:

Here's a less than satisfactory example.

Nere, esarima toryatji ö, yaivuyö ö tjesje yozjiguru.
/ne4e esa5ima To4jaci 2 jaivMj2 2 ceSe joZiGuru/
nere, esari-ma torja-tji ö, yai-vu-yö ö tjesje yo-zji-gu-ru.
now, moonlight-LOC walk-INDEFFUT 1[ACT], see-VOL-but 1[STAT] star[STAT] see-POT-NEG-and.
'I'm going to walk in the moonlight, but I want to see the stars and I can't.'
(Indefinite future can be used for intent, 'I'm going to'.)

CE: Nere(na), esairima toriyate nuraku ö, evuö ö yae tjesje yozjiguru.
time-DEM-(LOC), moonlight-LOC walk-NOM.STAT decide-PERF 1[ACT], want-but 1[STAT] see-NOM.STAT star[STAT] see-POT-NEG-and.

There doesn't seem to be enough difference...

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

Well, yeah, but it still makes me think of Russian.

Your examples do seem somewhat similar, but just how dissimilar were you hoping to make them? Did you want ME to be as different from CE as English is to Old English, wherein the latter is pretty much incomprehensible to us now? Or is the gap between ME and CE not quite far apart enough for that to have happened yet?
_________________
I have some small knowledge of:
English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, French
I would like to learn:
Italian, Norwegian, Gaelic
Main conlangs:
ddamachel, tadvaradcel, ra cel, lashel, hemnalg, nomah

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:54 am Post subject:

Aert · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 354

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

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 11:25 am Post subject:

@Aert: Yup ^_^ It also makes learning other related languages very hard for English-speakers though, since if they learn (say) French they've got a lot of the vocab there, but no grammar at all, and for German the opposite.
Thanks, BTW ^_^

@Hemi: Wow! Never knew that.

Serali · Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:39 am Post subject:

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:57 am Post subject:

Serali · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:04 am Post subject:

OMG.

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:16 am Post subject:

Like I said, I'd guess 85-90% loanwords.

Serali · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:24 am Post subject:

Damn.

_________________

Tobo deu ne lenito sugu? - You kissed a frog?!

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 4:00 am Post subject:

Yeah, English is a bit extreme... it's got a rather unique history.

To think I used to think Japanese's 50% was bad. That's nothing.

Serali · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:10 am Post subject:

I thought that Korean was bad for having lots of Japanese, Chinese, and English derived or inspired words..........guess I was wrong huh?

I wonder if there's any language that can top our percentage ( I highly doubt it though )?

_________________

Tobo deu ne lenito sugu? - You kissed a frog?!

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:43 pm Post subject:

Serali · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:36 pm Post subject:

Dhanus · Admin Joined: 06 Jul 2007 Posts: 192

I read somewhere that French was absorbing quite a lot of English words, terms and phrases, but I don't think its any where near as bad as other languages' absorption.

Tolkien_Freak · Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:32 am Post subject:

Yeah, the level to which other languages have absorbed English words (and a whole lot of them have) has a long way to go to make any sort of major long-term impact on those languages.

(It has impacted Japanese a little - originally /di/ was [J\i], now there's a difference between [di] and [J\i].)

Dhanus · Admin Joined: 06 Jul 2007 Posts: 192