Let's develop a language
- Thread starter Zuvarq
- Start date
Keenir
Banned
everything is subjective. (and I never mentioned having 3 pasts - though that's cool)
but if I say "Sargon married Sai", are you seriously going to ask if I'm using Distant Past?
not in English. (past & non-past)
hell, I think even Chinese has tense and number with their own words - not grammaticalized at all.
two would be a balance too, as would four, or five.
or we could just use noun classes - one might mark for Things No Longer Present.
everything is subjective. (and I never mentioned having 3 pasts - though that's cool)
but if I say "Sargon married Sai", are you seriously going to ask if I'm using Distant Past?
not in English. (past & non-past)
hell, I think even Chinese has tense and number with their own words - not grammaticalized at all.
two would be a balance too, as would four, or five.
or we could just use noun classes - one might mark for Things No Longer Present.
What's wrong with three?
Anyway, as Xaisяŕ of this thread, I declare that there are three tenses, unless someone has a reason that's not just Keenir's opinion (or if at least 4 people think we need more than three tenses). And we should start adding to the language instead of arguing over established things. For example, we need nouns for animals, nouns for materials, nouns for furniture, adjectives for personality traits...
and we need to add stuff to the wikia as well.
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So it is decided we have three tenses. Although I am counting four. So far we have:
Present which stays the same as the irregular
Past which modified by adding the suffix -at
future which is modified by the suffix -ai
How distant a future and past will have to be specified by the context of the sentence.
However we also have the present participle (the equivalent of the english -ing) by having the addition of the suffix -ŕeḩné. Personally I think this suffix is way too complicated and we have not used it at all.
Creating participle is not that hard because it is always accompanied by a conjugated "to be". We are eating, we were eating, we will be eating. So I suggest we forget about this tense and simply conjugate both verbs accordingly.
So as an example here is the verb "to write" civ, conjugated.
I write (present) = Aş civ
I wrote (past) = Aş civat
I will write (future) = Aş civai
I am writing (present participle) = Aş ar civ
I was writing (past participle) = Aş arát civat
I will be writing (future participle) = Aş arai civai
Do we all agree?
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awesome!! here are a few animals:
we had dog = cwcuga
cat = kecli
mouse = nèz
rat =naḩa
bird = flyt
parrot = kikiflyt
falcon = herryn
zebra = ctreva
lion =þumpa
tiger = trakcli
horse = frred
aligator = RRovykt
Because I had finals. Also because I didn't want to have too big an individual impact on the language and its vocabulary.
Keenir
Banned
its what happens to most conlangs - there's an initial flury of excitement and what can we do with this?, that gives way to the details of the conlang.
i speak from experience.
At least it is more organized now. I'm down for staying here and once the language has a bit more structure and vocabulary I hope to translate some neat texts into it.
It should be interesting, hopefully by then popularity rises up a bit.
We need more people contributing to the wikia.
I think the best way to come up with new vocabulary other than creating words based on categories (nouns for animals, adjectives for traits, etc.), would be to translate texts.
Also, have we even decided whether adjectives go before or after the noun they describe?
I think the best way to come up with new vocabulary other than creating words based on categories (nouns for animals, adjectives for traits, etc.), would be to translate texts.
Also, have we even decided whether adjectives go before or after the noun they describe?
Keenir
Banned
texts? there's always these: http://www.zompist.com/phrases.html
my proposal: noun classes:
Class 1 - people
Class 2 - long, straight things (ppon in Japanese)
Class 3 - fire and dangerous things
Class 4 - small things
Class 5 - spirits, gods, wind, and fish
more?
my proposal: noun classes:
Class 1 - people
Class 2 - long, straight things (ppon in Japanese)
Class 3 - fire and dangerous things
Class 4 - small things
Class 5 - spirits, gods, wind, and fish
more?
Keenir
Banned
noun classes are what you put in front of a noun (like in Japanese or Australian languages) or infixing within a noun (like in Bantu languages)
Keenir
Banned
not familiar with those; sorry.
if I may ask, what's the difference between Noun Types, and Nouns?
because what it makes me think, is back to the discovery that there are at least two ways of dividing up the world: give people a hammer, a nail, a saw, and a block of wood, and they'll do one of two things:
- some will group the hammer, nail, and wood together - because that's a complete activity.
- some will group the hammer with the saw - because they are both held in the hand and used.
Combination of not wanting to deal with fixing the same mistake over and and over, and going on a trip to Ohio (leaving in 1 1/2 hours)
At this point I would like to point out that, although the various grammatical compendia have referred to the suffix "-át", the only verb that anybody actually conjugated that way was "ar": "arát". In every other case*, the suffix "-at" has been used instead.
*Excluding some irregulars; "ar" is de facto irregular in that respect and has been marked as such on the wiki.