Starcaptain's Langs

Hi everyone! I'm a homo with a love of language. This is my side blog where I post about my conlangs. I have wanted to post more about my langs because I have fun making them and want to share them with the wider conlang community.

If you wanna find my main blog follow me @starcaptain

The past few days are about verb documentation. I have settled most of how my verb conjugations will work and did my best to document what I have. There's more to refine and work out, but basically verbs conjugate for tense and aspect paraphrastically by using auxiliary verbs. English does this with constructions like "had eaten". MyLang works similarly.

I'm thinking I want more irregular forms for the auxiliaries. Two, ha "to be" and véj "to have" have irregular past tenses, but I am also tempted to add irregular negative forms.

I've spend most of today's time working out the Tense/Aspect stuff for my verbs. I looked at Basque because it does some cool things with paraphrastic conjugation. I borrowed some of that and came up with a system that I'll sumarize:

There are a handful of verbs that conjugate synthetically for the past tense (like "do" "be" "have")

These serve as auxiliaries for creating conjugations for things like the imperfective, perfective, perfect, near past, remote past, etc. when combined with a participle, perfect or aorist non-finite form of other verbs. I have a chart I'm working out that I'll post sometime later.

Here is an example of the system. It features the verb ha "to be" in the past plus the participle to create the past progressive. Plus, you can see the inverse particle showing that the lower animate noun is acting on the higher one is this sentence:

Sha fœ́ henn reéngax ná kó grakú The mouse was crushing INV the boulder The boulder was crushing the mouse

Oh, no! Poor mouse!

I still have a lot to work out with it, but it's a start. Yesterday and today were about negation. I considered a few options:

Have a special form of auxiliary verbs for negation

Have a negation converb

Have a negation prefix and a following particle (a la French)

I ultimately decided to go with the Frenchy strategy.

Negation:

To negate a verb áx “no” comes before the auxiliary verb and the negation particle bre follows:

Sha fœ́ áx henn reéngax bre ná kó grakú The mouse no was crushing NEG INV the boulder The boulder was not crushing the mouse

Yay!

Day 98 was about creating index markers for verbs. I need to make markers for:

Number marking

Direct/inverse partilce

Tense marker

Active participle suffix

Auxiliary

Luckily I worked out the lexical sources giving me:

Subject number prefix: dhe/é-

Inverse particle: ná (follows verb)

Past tense suffix: -lá/a (maybe changes when put on aux, or aux has its own form)

Future tense adverb: huúl

Active participle suffix -a/áx

Auxiliary: ós

I'm not fully decided if the auxiliary is going to be always used or if it will be used in certain grammatical situations. Here are examples of the same sentence with one using the auxiliary and one not:

Sha fœ́ lárollá dhe ódhi. The mouse gathered the dandelion (no auxiliary) Sha fœ́ ósla lároax dhe ódhi. The mouse gathered the dandelion (with auxiliary)

Both work for me, so I can decide later. I'll have to do some research on converbs to see how I can incorporate them, but I'll leave that for another day.

Here's an example that incorporates all the above, except the future adverb:

Sha fœ́dh ósla dhereéngax ná kó grakú Sha fœ́-dh ós-la dhe-reéng-ax ná kó grakú The mouse-PL do-past PL-crush-PART INV the boulder The mouse is crushed by the boulder/The boulder crushed the mouse

The inverse marker shows that the lower animate argument is the actor in the sentence.

Day 99 is about creating tense/aspect forms. I have a simple past and a future adverb so I'll just focus on aspects.

The imperfective will be the default so why not use the auxiliary verb to make the perfective? That makes sense to me. The revised example sentence is:

Sha fœ́dh ós dhéreéngax ná kó grakú The bounder crushes the mice (in one instance) Sha fœ́dh dhéreéng ná kó grakú The boulder is crushing the mice (currently/ongoing)

I think that's right. I'm kinda rushing today. So the perfect will be made with the past marker and the auxiliary. That's all I can do for those today. Let's move on!

Day 100 was about making examples to show non-finite verb forms.

I have the active participle covered with the -a/áx suffix. For the infinitive, I think I'll just use the plain verb. I'll have to do example clauses later.

Day 101 is about mapping out the components of the verb structure. Here is what I got:

ós-la dhe-[ROOT]-la(n)-ax huúl ná aux-PST PL-ROOT-past-participle future inverse

Yesterday's prompt was about organizing the verb inflection notes. I think I have a good idea of the lexical sources that the few inflections I have are going to come from, but I haven't found a good proto form for "make" which will become the helper verb that takes on stuff like aspect and number (at least that's how I'll try it)

Today's prompt is about creating verbs to be used in the coming days. I reevaluated whether or not I'd want verb classes and I don't think it makes sense for the lang. Transitive and intransitive verbs would be treated the same and there aren't going to be many "stative" verbs, or any at all. I have those in K'awatl'a already anyway.

So here are some more verbs:

hárva - to lean, press against

guuló - go up; ascend; rise

shésko - see; observe; watch; look at

ferí - to ask; pray

xáth - to take

Before I write about the prompts I have developed words for the speakers! Up till now I've called them Fae. They're also divided into different types of Fae, like Fairies, Sprites, and Gnomes. I derivdd the terms for the subtypes from the words for Stars, Moon, Sun, and Earth. Gnomes ended up splitting into two (the Earth Gnomes that dig underground and the Sun Gnomes that build above ground) Here's the terms:

sílve - Fae, person

ádharfégh - Fairy, "star-child"

tólirávegh - Sprite, "moon-child"

domfégh - Earth Gnome "earth-child"

huldávégh - Sun Gnome "sun-child"

The different terms are related to the creation story that I'm developing. I might post it in a separate post.

Onto the grammar!

Day 93 was about deciding if I want index markers cooccurring on the verbs. I think I am going to go with these:

Number

Class/Gender (through the use of the direct/inverse marker)

I don't think I need person as that's going to be handled with the direct inverse marker.

Day 94 was about brainstorming options for tense/aspect. I think that I am going to have the verbs inflect for tense and use serial verbs to create aspects.

Today, Day 95 is about considering optipns for non-finite verbs. Thinking through this I want to have a helper verb that takes on the TAM stuff and the verbs normally are in an active participle. I think that would be fun.

So I've decided that the infinitive form of the verb is the bare stem. The active participle has a suffix that I'll derive from a verb meaning "to make". So I think that an example verb phrase would be:

Sha fœ́ [made] mído[ing] kó ha the mouse [made] eat[ing] the seeds The mouse eats/is eating the seeds

Days 90 and 91 were basically cleaning up entries for modifiers and putting them in the dictionary.

Today is the first day of verbs!! Woo!

Looks like we're starting with deciding if there are different verb classes. I'm not sure if that's something I want to do or not, but I think that verbs might inflect differently if they're intransitive vs transitive.

How? idk Maybe with the negation strategy and TAM stuff?

This week was pretty busy, but I found time to sit down and hammer out the prompts for the past few days. It's all about indefinite pronouns!

Day 85 was about brainstorming pronouns. I came up with some interesting origins after researching stuff on Wiktionary. I also coined the word for frog fááravú. It descended from *phájrabu, a compound "green frog", which generalized into "frog" or "someone who is indecisive to the point of motionlessness; someone who waits for inspiration; someone who communes with nature". *rabu "frog" became a verb meaning "to groan, complain, moan".

Day 86 was about the indefinite pronouns. I already have a singular number so I'll just stick with that to indicate one of something as a modifier. The modifier version is just ghé "one". I derived kré "each from *qër "finger" thinking that each finger is separate. You have to use the genitive case with a noun when it's a modifier: kré yr fááravú "each frog". As a pronoun, it would take the ko article and thus become a noun! Voila!

Day 87 was about making plural indefinite forms. I created these:

ísh "few" from *ixi "few, small, little". Example: ísh yr téven "a few trees"

livó "some" from *bilfo "bundle". Example: livó ýr xaméredh "some foxes"

kúf "many" from *kuphar "swell, increase". Example: kúf yr hérkedh "many rats"

jer "all" from the root *jer. It just so happens that there's nothing that changes here. Example: jer yr thágej "all hawks"

To make these a pronoun, just slap the pronoun ko/kó before it.

Day 88 was about making an absence form. I decide to make a root *hekhë which became áx "no". When used as modifiers, the modified noun does not take a plural form. Other forms:

áxjer "none", compounded from *hekhë + jer "all"

ághe "no one", compounded from *hekhë + *geh "one"

I'll have to make forms for "nobody" and "nothing" once I have words for "person" and "thing". I haven't really decided what the Fae call themselves. Maybe Fée? I'm not sure.

The past few days have been about demonstrative pronouns. I decided to keep it simple and have the pronoun form be the same as the modifier form. The demonstratives fit into the animacy hierarchy as being the lowest animate class (ko-class) when used as a pronoun.

Here is an nexample

Dhe fœ́ [dághe] érav

The mouse [carry] this(near me)

dághe - verb "to carry, bear, bring"

I finished up pronouns today and changed up the first person pronoun bc I wasn't vibing with shó. Here's a screenshot of what I settled on:

Now to add them to the dictionary!

We're finishing up pronouns today!

Second person came out pretty standard, evolving from *be "you (sg.)". We get:

vé - you (sg.)

véos - you (formal)

véth - you (pl.)

Pretty regular, but I like it.

For the second person possessive forms, I decided to mess around with the derivation from *khura be to crush it to *khurbe and then wear it down further to just bré. It's not totally in line with the sound changes, but I figure it'd be more messy as a pronoun. And it's my lang, so there! They are:

bré - your (sg.)

brés - your (formal)

brédh - your (pl.)

Third person gets complicated! There are six pronouns to cover the singular and plural forms of the class system.

Here is also where I'll talk about hierarchy. Because I settled upon a direct-inverse alignment, the pronouns are also part of that hierarchy. Sitting at the top of all nouns as the most animate is the first person pronoun followed by the first person plurals then second and then third which are furhter divided into a hierarchy that mirrors the class system Sky (Shórl) > River (Dhur) > Stone (Grakú).

I figured that the third person pronouns would be derived from the same words as the articles. Ooooooooooo wait. What if the articles are pronouns? I'll shelve that for now and play with creating pronouns from the roots *xozël "sky", *dur "river", and *garku "boulder". I futzed with some more than others.

ór (Sky-class sg.)

lœr (Sky-class pl.)

dru (River-class sg.)

dryth (River-class pl.)

gar (Stone-class sg.)

geredh (Stone-class pl.)

Today's prompt is about creating first-person pronouns. This was pretty easy once I decided upon the first person singular proto-form xal. Using the idea from yesterday of the dual and plural forms becoming the exclusive and inclusive forms made some fun forms:

sho - I, first person singular

shallós - We, exclusive

shél - We, inclusive

I like that they feel related, but are all distinct and irregular forms. They don't modify for class or case because those are marked with particles. So here's the first sentence with pronouns (but no verb markings lol)!!!

sho ázhe sha ádher I see the stars

Now the question is: do I want to have possessive pronouns or just use the same genitive particle yr as other nouns do? I have some ideas of deriving the possessive pronouns

*khura xal > ýr sho > rysh "my"

*khura xallohsal > ýr shallós > rylós "our (exclusive)"

*khura xalë > yr shél > ryshé "our (inclusive)

This would also mean that possessive pronouns come after the possessed noun, ie: tóg rysh "my house".

I think I'm feeling those possessive pronouns, but I also like the use of the genitive particle and treating the pronoun as a regular noun. Why not have both strategies!

This also means I can start creating some of the relational demonstratives I brainstormed earlier last week:

éry - This/here (near me)

érosh - That/there (near both of us)

soósh - That/there (not close to us but in sight)

toésh - Yonder/That over there (beyond sight)

Here's an example combining the possessive pronouns and demonstratives:

éry ko grakú rysh this DEF boulder my My bounder near me

Day 73's prompt was to write a section on demonstrations. I don't have the forms complete until I have pronouns, so I did an intro and set up my examples.

Day 74's prompt was to update the dictionary with the demonstrative forms. This will have to come later. I like to do these kinds of markers (particles, class markers, etc) in their own tables with derivation, and contractions and stuff.

Day 75's (today) prompt is to brainstorm ideas for personal pronouns. I have some fun ideas:

The proto-forms are 1st, 2nd, 3rd, each with a singular, dual, and plural pronoun

The dual becomes an inclusive plural and the regular plural becomes an exclusive plural in the 1st.

The dual form becomes a formal pronoun in the 2nd.

In the third person, the proto-3rd singular form becomes the pronoun for the Stone-class of nouns (least animate). The dual form becomes the pronoun for the River-class nouns (middle animate). The word "person" becomes the pronoun for the Sky-class nouns (most animate)