Zompist Bboard Again

In the case of English, we see in everyday English a "subjective accusative" in the place of the "subjective genitive" (e.g. "If it weren't for me setting up the firewall this Windows box'd be full of worms by now.") At the very least, there's also the attraction of th...

We also see the subjective accusative in things like " me and my friends rode around town in my pickup truck removing stop signs". I think that's just an example of the nominative being triggered by an adjacent verb, with fallback to the unmarked accusative when separated. Which only goes...

We also see the subjective accusative in things like "me and my friends rode around town in my pickup truck removing stop signs".

From what can a nominative case suffix or marker develop? Esp. if there were no nominative markers so far and there's few cases to begin with. Maybe a demonstrative or an intensifier? Japanese ga (currently used as a nominative/subject marker, although there's a distinct topic marker wa ) seems to ...

Gawaaziyemam fizaa saxat loohijat. 其れ憎き書道。 「けうれにふきせきぢ。」 Keole nyûki sekiji. [kʰǿ̞ᵝˑ.l̪ʲè̞ ɲýːˑ.c͡çì s̪éˑ.c͡çì. ɲ ʑì] ugly.ADNOMINAL write.system "I think that is an ugly orthography." know (trans.), lig way, method, hanna pretty, iste type, key, kita Taye zon /ɣawaːzijɛmam fizaː saχat loː...

Ʒe nitt ei sedilʒe for me gaulisc tung, forat stae for the meuk t. I use a cedilla for my Gaulish lang, to represent the lenited *t. At minns me, ʒe ska warke pen at wi noe punt. That reminds me, I should work on it at some point. 其つ語 何ふ声らゆっへ？ 「くえついふ えどふくをへらゆっへ？」 Keotsu iyu edō koelayu e? [kʰǿ̞ᵝˑ.t...

[kʰǿ̞ᵝˑ.t̪͡s̪ʰʲỳᵝ íˑ.jỳᵝ è. n ðô̞ᵝːˑ kʰʷó̞ᵝˑ.è̞.l̪ʲɐ̞̀.jỳᵝ é̞ˑ] compress, squeeze, loohi sounds (coll.), saxaa all, fiza crazy, gawa Gawaaziyemam fizaa saxat loohijat. crazy-RES-AGT.3.S.INAN-PRES-PAT.1.S-INV all-ERG sounds-GEN compress-ADJ.PAT-GEN All those compressed sounds drive me nuts.

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 7:39 pm Fan çad oa Wêsgermansç sprêç, iç vrât c mydd cedille.
When I had a West Germanic language I used <ç>.

• high, caale

Tayela fad'a jermanit caalet?
COP-PRES-YESNO language German-GEN high-GEN
Is that a High German language?

Perhaps from an active-stative system? The trouble is that the scenario is caseless predecessor with a plain old nom-acc alignment. You're not giving yourself much to work with. :) And pure nominative markers are kinda rare. The fact that IE originally had nominative markers in the first place is r...

• strange, oha
• less, fewer, gak

Yaa ha ximaamutha ha taye ⟨ʒ⟩ oha gak gabi yoh.
would COMP think-AGT.1.S-HAB-NEG COMP COP-PRES ⟨ʒ⟩ strange less exist-ABL yogh
I would not think that ⟨ʒ⟩ is less strange than the yogh.

Meine deutschen Vorfahren sprachen wahrscheinlich Platt, da sie aus Pommern stammten.
My German ancestors probably spoke Platt, as they came from Pomerania.

Perhaps from an active-stative system? I recall that I may have seen such a suggestion for how IE got its -s and -m markers for nominative and accusative.

Ik kann ok öven! Ik heff nich bemerkt, dat de Thread aktualisiert worrn harr. I can practise too! I didn't realise that the thread had been updated. Ik wünsch, ik kunn ümsüns studieren (un Medikamenten ümsüns opschreven warrn, wat dat bedraapt). I wish I could study for nothing (and get prescribed ...

• problem, teelat
• speak (trans.), laxa

Taye teelat ⟨z⟩-t ha laxaleekanum zo nuuxa xacagyi.
COP-PRES problem ⟨z⟩-GEN COMP speak-INST-AGT.3.P.ANIM-HAB-INV PROX.1.S.INAN people write-NOM.PAT
The problem with ⟨z⟩ is that people spelling-pronounce it.

Can you even be precise about how many registers a language has? I would have thought whether a language has, say, three or four registers is a matter of interpretation. This is especially true of a language like English which does not really have grammaticalized registers. 'snot true. Elipsis of f...

Raphael wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2024 12:10 pm Can you even be precise about how many registers a language has? I would have thought whether a language has, say, three or four registers is a matter of interpretation.

This is especially true of a language like English which does not really have grammaticalized registers.

How many distinct registers do you all build into your conlangs? I've done up to three, but most often zero. Martin Joos believed there were five registers in English, but I've never worked out that many for a conlang in any detail. Honestly I haven't really done much of anything with register in m...

After all we've tested this with (say) planes and spacecraft, to say nothing of particles circling accelerators: they all go slower from our perspective. We even have tested that the speed of particles affects their decay times. For instance, this is why muons can reach the Earth's surface ─ from o...

Of course, any physical object aside from an elementary particle at a 0.99c speed in an orbit would not be able to maintain any kind of structural integrity and would rapidly disintegrate as it approached the object it was orbiting around.

The idea therefore being that nouns are unmarked when they appear in their expected position, and marked when they appear in a position which contradicts their animacy. The basic idea is really ‘marked vs unmarked’, not ‘ergative vs absolutive’. (You can even merge the accusative and ergative cases...