Subject Object Verb Link

The Creator stood upon the mountain and overlooked a frozen land. This is how it was in the beginning.

English is an SVO language which means that, typically, the subject comes before the verb which comes before the object. I don't know how to explain what each of these is as it's not as simple as agent-patient (the one doing the verb and the one being acted upon). We understand subject, object, and verb even if we can't entirely formulate the words to entirely explain them. "The dog bit me" and "I was bit by the dog" mean the same thing, the agent and patient are the same in both, but the subject and object switch.

SVO isn't the only word order either. We'll use the words "She hit me" in all word orders:

SOV: she me hit (Japanese)

SVO: she hit me (English)

VSO: hit she me (Irish)

VOS: hit me she (Fijian)

OVS: me hit she (Urarina)

OSV: me she hit (Warao)

I ordered these from most common to least common word order as well - and before going to Wikipedia for example languages! (Had SOV and SVO switched on the list initially though)

SOV accounts for almost half of the world's languages. But there's actually one other word order: free word order. This was the word order of Latin that would eventual be replaced in the Romance languages with groups preferring to use words in certain orders, most of them being SVO. The way that Latin did this is by markings that indicate what is what through a nominative-accusative system, one of the morphosyntactic alignment systems.

These systems are dependent on the syntactic relationship between various components of a sentence rather than placement of words within the sentence. The simplest system is the Dixon argument system:

(S)ole - the subject of a transitive verb

(A)gent - the subject of an intransitive verb

(P)atient - most times called the Object, but I like giving it more separation from word order, the object of a transitive verb

And the various alignments:

Nominative-Accusative - S=A ; P

Ergative-Absolutive - S=P ; A

Active-Stative - S¹=A ; S²=P

Austronesian Alignment - both S=A ; P and S=P ; A are true, people can choose to use either, although there are common triggers for each, working similar to voice in English

Direct Alignment - there is no distinction between S, A, or P, it's based on context clues

Tripartite Alignment - S, A, and P have their own separate cases

Transitive Alignment - A=P ; S

The most basic breakdown of the section chosen without any alteration to words to mark for anything is this:

Creator stand mountain overlook land-(frozen). This be beginning.

Marking them again for word position:

Creator stand mountain and overlook land-(frozen). This be beginning.

And now marking for argument:

Creator-A stand mountain-P and [Creator-S] overlook land-(frozen)-P. This-A be beginning-P.

Creator here is both the Sole and Agent in the same sentence since there's 2 verbs linked by an "and" which, in English, implies the subject being used again if no new subject is presented. Stand and Be are intransitive verbs where Overlook is transitive. Transitive verbs require an object for the subject to act upon where an intransitive verb can be acted upon by a subject without an object. You can say "I'm standing" and that's a complete sentence but you can't say "I'm overlooking" and have it be a compete sentence. "I'm standing" can take on an object with a preposition such as "on", but "I'm overlooking" always requires an object that is being overlooked and takes the object without the need for a preposition.

There's a few ways we can deal with the double argument:

Implied argument change - the subject is implied in the second part and so is the argument

Prepositional argument change - the preposition takes on the argument for the subject, so "and-S" would be its own separate thing from "and-A"

Repetition argument change - having to use the subject both times, changing only the argument

There's also other noun classes that can be used. For the nouns we have, we can go for a number of different possible cases (and this isn't an extensive list, just what would work here):

Creator : direct, ergative, nominative (not the intransitive case even though there's an intransitive verb because the preposition makes it grammatically act like a transitive verb and we could even make stand-on its own verb)

Mountain : absolutive, accusative, direct, locative, prepositional, superessive

Land : accusative

This : ergative, identical, nominative

Beginning : ablative, accusative

Could've missed some, but here we are. Thinking of cases, there's a hierarchy that languages typically follow, although breaking from these typicalities is typical of language as well. It's a general rule rather than a hard-set law.

nominative > accusative or ergative > genitive > dative > locative or prepositional > ablative and/or instrumental > others

Generally, if they're missing one of these, they are missing all after it. Such as, if there's no dative case, there likely isn't a locative, prepositional, ablative, instrumental, or others.

Verbs also have their own "classes" leading to what's called conjugation. Anything that changes a noun can even affect the verb form, such as having verb-a for a nominative and then verb-b for an accusative. The main ones to focus on first are gender, person, tense, and aspect.

Linguistically, gender has nothing to do with biology or psychology, although it's often tied to human biological genders (male and female). Could even look to a "spiritual gender" such as the concept of two-spirit in Amerindian cultures where one person has both a male and female soul and are, as a result, closer to the spiritual. That's why the culture building is an important part of language building. I imagine Mochian culture as having a belief in 3 souls: the genderless immortal soul that reincarnates, the soul that is inseparable from the body (and thus is what the body is) that rests when they die, and the soul that is created by memories that dies once they are forgotten. The memory-soul's "gender" is what they are remembered as and has nothing to do with one's biology.

Person depends on perspective. We all know first, second, and third person. First person is from the perspective of the subject "I ran home". Second person is from the perspective of the other "you ran home". Third person is from the perspective of an outside observer "they ran home". But there are other persons to go with. Could simply split the third person to have one case for denoting the topical person and the other case for the obviate person. Could even have a 4th person or a 0 person for an indefinite general referrence.

Tense is another commonly understood one. English has three - past, present, and future - right? Actually, no. That may be true in an abstract temporal sense but not in a linguistic sense. English only has two tenses: past and non-past. "I wanted", "I want", and "I will want" are all talking about want at various temporal moments, the past being "I wanted". But "I want" and "I will want" are using the same grammatical tense, the non-past tense. The word "will" is adding context about the non-past verb "want" to denote this as a future thing that is to come. But there are languages that do have a dedicated future tense so "I will want" would have "will want" as a singular verb with a future tense, so it's more like "I want-F". There are a lot more tense systems - and even tenseless systems which rely on context clues and "helper" words. Past-Nonpast is as described, Present-Nonpresent and Future-Nonfuture work similarly. Tenses work in two ways: relative or absolute. An absolute tense is relative to the "now", a relative tense is relative to another point in time. A relative tense can also be divided between a strict relative and an absolute-relative tense. Strict relative is relative to just some point in time, absolute-relative is relative to a point in time that is relative to the "now". "I ran", "I sweat when I run", "I will be running tomorrow" are examples of absolute, strict relative, and absolute-relative, in that order.

Aspect is another side to temporal marking. Rather than telling the point in time, aspect tells the finality, or lack thereof, of the verb. These do more than just say whether or not the verb is ongoing (continuous "I'm running") or complete (perfect "I ran"), it can also tell that it happened in a single moment (momentane "I sighed"), that it's done regularly (habitual "I run everyday"), that it almost happened (defective "I almost fell"), and that it is beginning (inceptive "I'm about to run").

So breaking down the verbs:

Stood : Past tense, perfect aspect of Stand

Overlooked : Past tense, perfect aspect of Overlook

Is how it was : Past tense, perfect progressive aspect of Be

All of these verbs had an ending, all of them happened before the present, one of them is the end of some that was continuous. Last thing I want to get to is adpositions and modifiers, which are divided between prepositions (preceding their complement) and postpositions (following their complement). The main thing about adpositions to look at is Hawkins' Universals:

Preposition ⊃ ( (N-Demonstrative v N-Numeral v N-Possessive ⊃ N-Adjective) & (N-Adjective ⊃ N-Genitive) & (N-Genitive ⊃ N-Relative) )

Postpositions ⊃ ( (Adjective-N v Relative-N ⊃ Demonstrative-N & Numeral-N & Possessive-N) & (Demonstrative-N v Numeral-N v Possessive-N ⊃ Genitive-N) )

Lemme explain what you're looking at...

If the language is Prepositional, then is the Demonstrative, Numeral, or Possessive comes after the Noun then the Adjective will come after the noun, if not then it can go either way. If the Adjective is after the Noun, then the Genitive will come after the Noun, if not then it can go either way. If the Genitive comes after the Noun, then the Relative will come after the Noun, if not it can go either way.

If the language is Postpositional, then if the Adjective or Relative come before the Noun, then the Demonstrative, Numeral, and Possessive will come before the Noun, if not then they can go either way. If the Demonstrative, Numeral, and Possessive come before the Noun, then the Genitive will come before the Noun, if not then it can go either way.

I just threw a lot of words at you so I should define things that you probably don't know (we all know what an Adjective and Noun are, right? I don't need to define those, right?).

Demonstrative : "this" and "that" words, indicating what's being referred to

Numeral : "one" and "once" words, indicating the quantity of what's being talked about

Possessive : 's, indicating the owner of a thing

Genitive : an expression of the relationship between two nouns

Relative : a clause that modifies a noun

And finally, languages have hierarchies in the order of a modifier. The modifier hierarchy for English so as so:

Quantity > Opinion > Size > Age > Shape > Color > Origin > Material > Purpose > Noun

You don't say "the grey round old stone", you say "the old round grey stone". In an agglutinative language, you could pile all of these into one word, mashing word pieces together to build a bigger word. "The old grey stone" could be theoldgreystone if English were agglutinative.

First thing I'm revamping is the phonemes...

I also brought /e/ over because I kept wanting to use the phoneme when thinking of roots.

Red letters are the written forms

I'm still using the Animate-Inanimate gender with a Masculine-Feminine Animate distinctions as well as the Singular-Plural-Superplural plurality.

Pronouns

Keeping the Agentive-Default Fluid S S¹=A;S²=P and changing something about the cases. (Made a mistake here, the Agentive is used when the subject is the actor, the Patientive is when the subject is acted upon)

And how they relate to the Agentive and Patientive.

Articles will still only mark the definite, the indefinite is unmarked.

And I got a list of derivational morphology, which basically is just a way you go from a root word to a new word.

Verb tense and aspect are fine as is.

Let's play around with word order after figuring some other stuff out first, although I'm leaning towards OSV right now. Let's just remind ourselves the system we're working with

Subject Object Verb Link

The Creator stood upon the mountain and overlooked a frozen land. This is how it was in the beginning.

I'll be going with Active-Stative alignment, so S¹=A and S²=P, perhaps going with agentive-default fluid-S, so this would mean that S¹=A will be unmarked, as it is assumed the default position, where S²=P will be marked, as it is a change to the default. Nouns will have a Agentive and Patientive form as a result, with the Patientive Sole being marked like the Patient. But languages aren't strict rule followers, they have exceptions. I could imagine there being exceptions to the rule, such as a Locative being marked in both Agentive and Patientive cases, depending on which one is being x'd on. Speaking of cases, I think I'll go with Genitive (GEN - attributive relationship between two nouns), Dative (DAT - marks the recipient of an action), Locative (LOC - indicates location in relation to another noun), and Instrumental (INS - something being used by another noun) cases. For the locative case, the specifics of in, on, under, &c. is inferred but helper words could be used.

And here's the rule for adpositions:

Prepositional - Demonstrative, numeral, adjectives, comes after the noun, possessive, genitive, and relative come before the noun

Quantity > Opinion > Size > Age > Shape > Color > Origin > Material > Purpose > Noun seems perfectly fine to me, I guess I could change some just to change some. Could order them by objectivity I suppose. I could go objective to subjective

Quantity > Material > Size > Shape > Origin > Age > Color > Purpose > Opinion > Noun

Or the reverse

Opinion > Purpose > Color > Age > Origin > Shape > Size > Material > Quantity > Noun

The noun should come at the end due to the language being prepositional. So I'll go with subjective to objective for this, keeping the objective closer to the noun just makes sense to me.

Number is something I didn't really go over, that's my bad. English only has 2 numbers: singular and plural. But I'll do more than just the two. Singular (SNG) "one dog", definite plural (DPL) "multiple dogs", indefinite plural (IPL) "many dogs". The definite plural is for a defined or implied set amount, such as "dogs in the city" or "two dogs". The indefinite plural is for an undefined amount, there's just "dogs" out there and we're not talking about some specific amount.

I will also go with a tri-gender system of Masculine, Feminine, and Inanimate. There is a neuter as well, but it would be based on syntax. So this means I would need to determine what triggers gender agreement. The most common is vowel-based triggers. I think I'll go with /i/ and /ɪ/ for the feminine neuter and /a/ and /o/ for the masculine neuter. The masculine and feminine are together the "animate" gender for this language, but this doesn't mean only animals will get it, as animacy has been applied to what is inanimate, such as rivers, mountains, the sun and moon, &c. Pronouns would come from this, so He/It (it¹), She/It (it²), and It⁰ are the pronouns that come directly from this gender system but some others will be used as well. There will be both an inclusiveᶦ and exclusiveᵉ to various pronouns. Clusivity is simply marking whether includes or excludes something. English doesn't have this, if you say "we" one would have to infer by context clues if you're including them or if it's you vs them. So, we have I/me, youᶦ referring to a group, youᵉ referring to an individual, weᶦ including you, weᵉ excluding you, and they. It⁰ would be divided between 3 definites: d¹, d², and d³. These are the this, that, those, and these of the language. There's also the relative and indefinite pronouns which I would say distinguishes directness rⁿ for the relative which refers back to something "to whom it may concern, that which we knew what was to come" and r⁰ for the indefinite which is more general "to each his own"

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last post: articles. Articles are the "the"s and "a(n)"s. English has 3 articles, 2 marked. Definite, indefinite, and zero. Definite is like "the book", whereas indefinite is "a book", and zero is simply "books" as it's only used for plurals and mass nouns. I'll go with animate definite "the¹ man", inanimate definite "the² book", and zero which will be for anything not definite "the² book" vs "⁰ book".

Now for verbs... imma be pretty basic with tense: past (PST), an unmarked present (PRS), and future (FUT). Then I have to think of the aspects that I want to convey. I think unmarked would be perfect (PER - it has happened and still has relevance to the now). There will also be a perfective (PFV - it has happened at some point in relation to the now), continuous (CON - it is ongoing in the now), discontinuous (DIS - it happened but might not be now), prospective (PRO - it is beginning to happen), and I couldn't find one for this so I'm creating the name suspensive (SUS - it is about to stop happening). The discontinuous could only be applied to the past. At least, I can't conceptualize it being used in a present or future tense.

Word order is still there to figure out, though... so the general rule across the majority of languages is Object-Verb bonding. That means that the Object and Verb are most likely to be next to each other. So SOV, SVO, VOS, and OVS. So would Proto-Mochians hold to this? Most likely. But part of what should be figured out is where exactly their Euro-Asiatic ancestors came from and then we can look at how their languages developed. One idea for the first peoples of the Americas would be through ancient Siberian populations. So what are the Siberian languages like? Itelmen is SOV, Chukchi is free but SOV is standard, Alyutor is also free with SVO and VSO being common, Nivkhe languages are SOV, Ket is SOV. It seems that among Siberian languages, there's a tendency towards SOV, but this also may be a result of contact with other languages, such as the Turkic, Slavic, and Mongol languages. What of languages in the region in our timeline? The Salish languages are by and large verb-initial with the most common word order being VSO. Alyutor has VSO also being common, so perhaps the Alyutors (sadly going extinct with less than 500 people and less than 10% of that actually speaking the language) and the Salish might have a common linguistic ancestor? Highly unlikely, bordering on the absurd, though interesting to think about such a possibility. So we could take the other approach to the Salish for that dichotomy of the two worlds, but I think a fusion of them might be better. So what do we get with SOV+VSO? We could use both, and indeed this proto-language will be free word order, but for the purposes of where we'll end up, let's go with VOS as the commonly used word order and give that a shot. Can always change it later as a part of the language's evolution.

An important thing to consider might also be the ice age implications. The last glacial period (LGP) ended approximately 11,700 years ago. The earliest evidence of human habitation in the Pacific Northwest would be about 18,250 years ago in Oregon. That places them as being in the area during the LGP, just after it's peak. Human habitation in the Americas has even been suggested as being over 27,000 years ago, but the how is varied. Ideas have been proposed of the ice bridge, Polynesian sailing, and African sailing as ways the Americas became populated. It's even been suggested, although more controversially, that at least some of the population descends from around Europe. The ice bridge is the most likely for the Pacific Northwest so the question is "when did the (fictional) Proto-Mochian people get there?" A reasonable time frame I would say is about 20,000 years ago, so around the peak of the LGP. This would mean that a frozen landscape might have more of a lasting impact on these people. Given the mountains still have frozen peaks almost all year round today, it's safe to say that through most, if not all, of their pre-Columbian period they would know an age of ice and the flowers that bloomed as it receded. I think I'll work off that for this early creation myth.

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1. The Creator stood upon the mountain and overlooked a frozen land. This is how it was in the beginning. He grabbed the bone of an ancient creature and fashioned for himself a flute, the shavings creating the trees rising high above the ice and snow. From his right eye he plucked out the sun, from his left eye he plucked out the moon. The sun warmed the land and the flowers began to grow and the animals awoke. Rising high into the sky with the sun was Owl. Rising high into the sky with the moon was Crow. With the sun came Coyote, with the moon came Fox.

2. The Creator called in Owl, Crow, Coyote, and Fox to a feast with him. At the entrance to the feast, Badger asked Fox to let him in, promising him safe haven in his home. Fox agreed and snuck Badger inside in his stomach. Once inside, Badger crawled out and joined the others, but the Creator noticed. He said to him, "Badger, you were not invited, but since you are here, you may stay, but you are not permitted to eat, as I have not prepared enough food for you." So they feasted, but Badger was hungry, so he asked Coyote for some of his food and as thanks he would help Coyote find more food back home for them to share. Coyote agreed and so Badger ate in secret.

3. After the feast, the Creator asked each of them what they would want from him. Owl was first and said, "I ask for Crow to live in the day, to feel the warmth of the sun." Crow, angered by this, for he loved the moon, said, "I ask for Owl to live in the night, so he may not feel the sun." Both of their requests were granted and their rivalry began. Coyote was next and said, "I ask to know the world," and so was granted intelligence. Fox was next and said, "I ask to be safe from danger," and so was granted cunning. Finally, Badger approached the Creator and asked, "May I make a request as well?" but the Creator looked at him and said, "You came where you were not invited, but I will hear your request." Badger thought for a moment before seeing, "I ask to have the means to keep my promises." The Creator was surprised at the selflessness, so he decided to granted Badger ferocity in battle and knowledge to dig his home.

4. One day, Coyote brought a bounty of food for the Creator and offered it to him saying, "We live with plenty, we have not known hunger. As thanks, I bring the best of my catch to you so that you may too enjoy our bounty!" The Creator thanked him and feasted. After eating his fill, the Creator was tired and so he slept. Coyote then took his flute. He went to the neighboring mountain's peak and sat down with his prize. Coyote wanted to try out the flute and then return it before the Creator noticed. So he lifted the flute to his mouth and began to play. As he played, flowers popped out of the snow. It was beautiful, so Coyote continued to play. As he played, a stream began to flow from the mountain. Coyote was overjoyed and so decided to keep playing. As he played, cattails grew around a frozen pond. As he played, the ice melted. As he played, the cattails opened up and from them came the first humans. Coyote jumped with joy and danced with the humans.

5. After his fun, Coyote returned to the Creator's peak to find the Creator had awoken. He approached the Creator and said, "I found your flute among the salal bushes." Coyote held out the flute and the Creator thanked him for returning it. "What is it you want as thanks?" asked the Creator. Coyote thought for a moment and then said, "I ask for a piece of the sun that I may light my way in darkness." The Creator granted him a piece of the sun and Coyote went off to meet with the humans. He gave them his piece of the sun so they would have fire. Coyote taught them to catch salmon and to cook with the fire.

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There's a community value, artisans and creatives are valued and given a spiritual role in society, animals are honored (waste nothing, every part of an animal has its use), leaders are expected to venture forth first, the forest must be tended to (it is the giver of life and shelter)

Some things that might find places of honor, fear, and reverence: rivers, oceans, rain, mountains, forests, trees, bushes, ferns, foxes, birds, fish, deer, rabbits, elk, marmots, bears, caribou, otters, moose, mountain lions, beavers, bats, moles, frogs, snakes, spiders, rats, opossum, mice, dogs, goats, fire, sun, moon, music, clay

There's a number of ways to go about a "human origin story" with all of this in mind. A salmon egg, formed from clay, coming from the mist of the forest, &c. This proto-religion's story will be important to the themes of descendent stories and will reflect how these people viewed the world. The salmon egg story would put humanity in a position much more tied to the natural world, the clay story would set humanity aside as a more special being (created alongside other animals or as the only one with this origin), while the forest story would give a more mystical aura to man's origins. With the clay story, that would be the only one that requires some divine beings to exist prior to humanity, while the others leave the origins of the gods as possibly being separate from humanity.

Story 1:

The Salmon swam up the river against the rapids, making her climb up the mountain to lay her eggs. Three eggs were larger than the rest and from them hatched the Man, the Woman, and the Rabbit. The Rabbit multiplied in the care of the two, finding them berries and being a source of warmth. The Salmon was pleased with this and taught the Man to hunt, telling him, "You will need to labor for the Woman and give her the first of your meat, hunt these animals for this purpose; treat them with reverence." The Salmon also taught the Woman to make traps for fish, telling her, "When you need it and the Man has not brought you meat, you will find fish and crabs within these traps for you to eat; treat them with reverence." One day, the Salmon was nowhere to be seen and a great hunger was set upon the Man and the Woman. The Rabbit saw their hunger and said to them, "Slaughter me and half of my children so that you may live, set the other half free so they may live." The Man and the Woman did as the Rabbit said and slaughtered her and half her children for meat. But they decided to only let half of the remaining children go free, keeping the other half to breed for more meat. The spirit of the Rabbit looked on them with anger and cursed the Man to grow tired with pain from his labor, for the Woman to feel pain in birth, and blessed the rest of her children with speed and fertility, to propegate faster than other creatures.

Elements: man born from an animal, the parent animal teaches them to survive on their own, famine comes, another animal sacrifices itself and a portion of their children with the rest to be free, man breaks their promise to the animal and the animal's spirit curses them

Story 2:

The Creator Spirit was walking through the forest, every step leaving behind a trail of salal bushes. He happened upon a river and pulled from it clay which he formed into the form of man so that he would not be lonely in his walks. After shaping the Man and the Woman, he grabbed a handful of salal berries and crushed them above the Man and the Woman. The juice flowed into them, filling the clay. The Creator Spirit then told them to stand, to which they did and the sun shining through the trees baked the clay. They would walk with the Creator Spirit and feed off the salal bushes he would grow. He taught them how to make fire, to build shelter, and play music. Soon, the Creator Spirit grew tired and told the Man and the Woman he did not have long. He wanted to give them a gift and breathed into them his essence, "Now you too may join the great spirits." His body became the mountains and his spirit divided and became the gods.

Elements: a deity creates man from clay in a river, he gives man life blood, brings them to life with the spoken word, he enjoyed their presence for a time, he gave them souls, he died and became part of the landscape and the gods rose from his spirit

Story 3:

At one time, there was only the forest. All was quiet, until one day when a great mist came over the forest causing the trees to grow tall. Out from the mist came a great many creatures. First was the quick fox, then the wise crow, then the persevering salmon, then the fierce bear, and on it went. Humans were among the last to appear from the mist. The first humans went far from the forest, claiming new lands as theirs. The last of the humans came out with the timid rabbits and found all land was taken but the forest which they came from. They would become the Mochian tribes and would remain long after the mist had died.

Elements: single landscape at first, weather event brought life, other tribes arrived first, rabbits came with humans