bradrn’s scratchpad

[bradrn]

Fair. I think the apostrophe makes perfect sense for the glottal stop, unless you also use it as a diacritic e.g. for ejective stops (as in many languages) or aspirated stops (as in Wade-Giles).

Indeed; it’s just a personal preference of mine that I don’t love it.

[bradrn]

For the translation relay I wrote up a set of notes on some aspects of Eŋes grammar which aren’t yet fully described here. They’re focussed on the relay text, but ended up comprehensive enough that I’ve decided to link them publicly too: https://bradrn.com/files/2024-relay/e%C ... topics.txt.

(Note that details may change… at some point I do hope to write proper posts about all the topics covered in this document.)

[bradrn]

I was pleasantly surprised to discover just now that Jacques Guy, in his grammar of Sakao, independently came up with the term ‘verboid’ — with the same meaning as my usage in Eŋes! That is, in both Sakao and Eŋes, ‘verboids’ are bound forms which can be used in SVC-like constructions accompanied by a free verb. But unlike Eŋes, in Sakao there are only six of them. As usual, ANADEW…

[keenir]

I was pleasantly surprised to discover just now that Jacques Guy, in his grammar of Sakao, independently came up with the term ‘verboid’ — with the same meaning as my usage in Eŋes!

kudos!

[bradrn]

I got some queries about Eŋes diachronics in the Fluency Thread:

I'd like to see them.

I would like to see it too.

So I guess I have to talk a bit about them now…

Anyway, the big secret (which I was trying to avoid revealing, but I already mentioned it a couple of times elsewhere so I guess I’ve lost that battle already) is that Eŋes is a ‘Savanna’ language, descended from Proto-‘Savanna’ as described previously in this thread. (I really should find a non-placeholder name for the family…) The extreme difference in appearance compared to its ancestor comes mostly from two big changes:

• Massive syncope of unstressed syllables, along with umlaut and reshaping of the vowel system
• Change from SVO to SOV order, causing the verb complex to move clause-finally becoming more tightly bound in the process

Other than those, the language is surprisingly conservative, and many features can be traced back directly to the ancestor.

The specific query of Travis and Lērisama related to the structure of the verb stems, and especially the intercalating roots like √fw-s-eʼu. This particular feature can be traced back to the ancestral derivational/lexical aspect suffixes. In Proto-‘Savanna’ these suffixes were optional, and used for clause combining as much as derivation; in Eŋes they became obligatory, then fused with the verb root due to syncope and umlaut: e.g. *qefay-tsi, *qefay-ŋu, *qefay-me became feys, foyŋ, feym. (Note *q *e were /ʔ ə/.)

Further complicating the situation are the coverbs, which co-occur with a full verb to create a new meaning. In the ancestor those weren’t completely bound to the verbal root, but in Eŋes they fused, trapping the aspectual suffix between them: thus from *lhiise meŋul ‘see’ we get modern lsesŋun ‘search’, lsoŋŋun ‘see’, lsenŋun ‘look at’. These became the ‘complex roots’ of the Eŋes verb system. To some extent parts of these roots can still be matched up to the simple verb roots, but there is no longer any simple synchronic relationship between them.

[Lērisama]

Well, I made a nice post and then lost it, so you can have this one instead…

---

Anyway, the big secret (which I was trying to avoid revealing, but I already mentioned it a couple of times elsewhere so I guess I’ve lost that battle already) is that Eŋes is a ‘Savanna’ language, descended from Proto-‘Savanna’ as described previously in this thread.

Ooh, interesting. I think I was vaguely aware of this, but it's nice to see

(I really should find a non-placeholder name for the family…)

For what it's worth, Lēri Ziwi was supposed to be a placeholder¹, but it's been around for 2 years or so now, and I don't think it's going anywhere.

The extreme difference in appearance compared to its ancestor comes mostly from two big changes:

[snip interesting explanations]

This is really interesting, and I will probably have more to say when I've absorbed it better, and re-read the relevant information on Proto-‘Savanna’. And Ephraim's posts

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¹ It's LZ for ‘Our language’, and it's not like there's any consistent way of distinguishing it.

[bradrn]

Well, I made a nice post and then lost it, so you can have this one instead…

Ah, pity. So it goes…

(I really should find a non-placeholder name for the family…)

For what it's worth, Lēri Ziwi was supposed to be a placeholder¹, but it's been around for 2 years or so now, and I don't think it's going anywhere.

¹ It's LZ for ‘Our language’, and it's not like there's any consistent way of distinguishing it.

And Wēchizaŋkəŋ is Wēchizaŋkəŋ for ‘what we speak’. But I plan to redo that language at some point, at which time I’ll change the name to something better.

The extreme difference in appearance compared to its ancestor comes mostly from two big changes:

[snip interesting explanations]

This is really interesting, and I will probably have more to say when I've absorbed it better, and re-read the relevant information on Proto-‘Savanna’. And Ephraim's posts

Wait, which of Ephraim’s posts?

EDIT: oh right, the ones on aspect which I linked from the description.

[Tsimaah]

On the other hand, aspectual verboids are fixed in position, and trigger stem alternations in other verboids, neither of which is very verb-like. Between these extremes are elements which may be more or less restricted, with their own distinctive behaviours.

So do strings of multiple verboids that are able alternate "agree" in whether they use stem 1 or stem 2?

[bradrn]

On the other hand, aspectual verboids are fixed in position, and trigger stem alternations in other verboids, neither of which is very verb-like. Between these extremes are elements which may be more or less restricted, with their own distinctive behaviours.

So do strings of multiple verboids that are able alternate "agree" in whether they use stem 1 or stem 2?

I don’t quite understand the question. But it’s true that, following an initial aspectual verboid, every following verboid takes the appropriate stem (if this is what you’re asking). Thus, for instance:

Siwlesamfeŋwel.
[siw.le.sam.feŋˈwel]
si-wl·es·am-feŋ-wel
PRF-fly-exit.B-go.B

[S/he] flew out.

But:

Sarwlesamfewal.
[saɾ.wle.sam.feˈwal]
sar-wl·es·am-fe-wal
PROG-fly-exit.A-go.A

[S/he] was flying out.

[Tsimaah]

That is what I meant, since it looks like the stems agree in being in A form: fe-wal: exit.A-go.A, or
B form: feŋ-wel: exit.B-go.B. Which aspects trigger which stems?

[bradrn]

That is what I meant, since it looks like the stems agree in being in A form: fe-wal: exit.A-go.A, or
B form: feŋ-wel: exit.B-go.B. Which aspects trigger which stems?

It’s listed in the table in that post, but there’s a fuller list in this document:

https://bradrn.com/files/2024-relay/e%C ... topics.txt.

[Man in Space]

https://bradrn.com/files/2024-relay/e%C ... topics.txt.

This gives an error relating to the HTTPS.

[bradrn]

https://bradrn.com/files/2024-relay/e%C ... topics.txt.

This gives an error relating to the HTTPS.

Ah yeah… I forgot to renew the certificate. Should be fixed now.

[bradrn]

How (not) to build a generic verb system

The problem

With this post I’m returning to the previous language in this thread, ‘Proto-Savanna’ (as recently mentioned, the ancestor of Eŋes). As you may recall (but probably don’t), perhaps the most distinctive attribute of this language is that its class of true verbs is closed (i.e., new verbs cannot be created by borrowing or derivation) and relatively small. Earlier I wrote that there are ~150 true verbs; I feel that number should be revised upwards somewhat, but it’s in the right ballpark.

Of course, the language still needs to express verbal concepts beyond this set of basic roots. ‘Proto-Savanna’ has two means of expanding its verbal inventory: serial verb constructions (SVCs) and verb adjunct constructions (VACs). This example shows both:

Be

1s

fasi

stand.PFV

sasay

home

thaŋ

DEF.SG

waalhi tsagif

go.PFV running

qaathan

fall.PFV

fawetli

speak.PFV

feqe.

cry

I ran down away from home and cried.

(Reminder: ⟨q g e lh th⟩ are /ʔ ɣ ə ɬ tʰ/; the rest should be obvious.)

This post focuses on verb adjunct constructions, like the above *walha tsagif, lit. ‘go running’ = ‘run’. In these constructions the main verb belongs to a smaller set of ~20 verbs with highly generic meanings, while its complement provides the specific verbal meaning. There is a class of ‘coverbs’, which occur exclusively as verb adjuncts, but they can also be nouns, adjectives or ideophones. The verb adjunct is not a direct object of the verb, as VACs can take another NP as the direct object. It is not an NP itself, although to some extent the verb adjunct can be modified by adjectives or quantifiers.

Since the verb class is closed, VACs (and SVCs) are used to express a wide range of meanings where there is no suitable true verb. And since the verb class is small, this extends even to seemingly basic meanings — thus we have *lhiise meŋul ‘see’, *siwe tsisa ‘want’, *walha naŋa ‘walk’.

However, there is a problem. As should be obvious by now, ‘Proto-Savanna’ tends very strongly towards disyllabic roots. The consequence is that most verb adjunct constructions are four syllables long. And I’m increasingly coming to believe that this state of affairs is simply impractical for a human language. No-one wants to take the time saying /ɬiː.sə.mə.ŋul/ when they just want to say they saw something. (And zompist agrees.)

(There is actually a single verb which is monosyllabic: waq~mah ‘do, make’. This is also the most common verb for VACs, which helps somewhat. But on its own this isn’t nearly enough to fix the problem.)

At this point it’s worth looking at some comparable natlangs. VACs are probably most widespread in north-western Australia, where many languages have small, closed verb classes, alongside an open class of coverbs. The most famous case is probably Jingulu, with only three full (inflecting) verbs: -ardu ‘go’, -jiyimi ‘come’ and -ju ‘do’. (Most VACs occur with ‘do’ there.) However, this is an extreme case. Within the region, VACs are probably best studied in Jaminjung, with 35 full verbs (Schultz-Berndt 2000). These full verbs mostly have highly generic meanings: for instance -irdba ‘come to be in a locative relation’, -ijga ‘move/extend along a path / to a state / be involved in sth. for a long time’, -mili / -angu ‘be in contact or in the same place affecting’. These combine with adjuncts to encode, for instance, jag -irdba ‘fall down’, digirrij -ijga ‘die’, ngalyag -angu ‘lick’.

As with ‘Proto-Savanna’, we can see that many of these verbs and adjuncts are disyllabic or even longer. (This is not unusual for roots in Australian languages, which impressionistically are often rather verbose.) However, many are monosyllables also, as in Jaminjung birl -ma ‘blow off’. Also note that verbs mark various categories as well — subject, object and TAM in Jaminjung — and often with stem suppletion, so these verb stems can carry more information than those in ‘Proto-Savanna’. (The extreme case is probably Murrinhpatha, where 39 verbs occur in 1638 separate verb forms with few regularities.)

Furthermore, it is common to use verbs without an accompanying adjunct. In Jaminjung, Schultz-Berndt states that this occurs in 40% of clauses. In such cases the specific meaning of the verb must be inferred from context: ‘the verb -ijja ‘POKE’ can be read as ‘spear’ in a kangaroo hunting context, as ‘dig with digging stick’ in a yam digging context and as ‘stab’ in a knife fight context’ (p118). By contrast, in ‘Proto-Savanna’, when a specific meaning can be expressed using a VAC, I’ve tended to stick with that construction: for instance I’ve always expressed ’see’ as *lhiise meŋul, never just *lhiise. Being more flexible on this would already be enough to make the system more usable.

(For much more on verbs in north-western Australia, see McGregor’s 2002 book, Verb Classification in Australian Languages.)

Outside Australia, VACs are widespread in Papuan languages. This is especially the case in Trans-New Guinea, where even open-verb-class languages often use them for borrowed verbs. My impression is that most TNG languages have far more verbs than Australian languages do: for instance, Kalam has a closed class of ~300 verbs, but still makes very extensive use of VACs to express meanings like wdn nŋ- ‘eye perceive = see’, suk ag- ‘shouting say = shout’, dad amn- ‘carrying go = carry’. (Kalam in particular also uses SVCs, like ‘Proto-Savanna’.) As in Australian languages, the verbs which occur in these constructions have highly generic meanings.

In Kalam, a great many of both verbs and adjuncts are monosyllabic, and it seems rare for both to be disyllabic. There is no explicit information on the use of generic verbs by themselves, but at least in some cases it appears very common: for instance, in Kalam Hunting Traditions (Majnep & Bulmer 1990), I can find no instances of wdn nŋ- for ‘see’, which appears to be expressed with nŋ- alone. (In the Kalam Dictionary, sample sentences for wdn nŋ- seem to have a rather emphatic meaning — ‘see with my own eyes’, and similar.)

Outside Australasia, VACs are widespread in Indo-Iranian and Dravidian languages. However, the only closed-verb-class language I’m aware of in the region is Kurmanji Kurdish, where the construction occurs with only three main verbs. In other languages such as Hindi-Urdu, VACs occur with more verbs than this, but they don’t take on anything like the importance they have in Australian or Papuan languages (or even Kurdish) with their closed verb classes.

I find it interesting that all the above languages are verb-final, unlike ‘Proto-Savanna’. Are there any verb-medial languages with true VACs? It appears not. However, Ewe (which has a closed verb class) has something similar in the form of ‘inherent complement verbs’ (Essegbey 1999): highly generic verbs which obligatorily occur with a specific nominal complement. But unlike a true VAC, the objects here are syntactically just ordinary direct objects, making them similar to English light verb constructions like ‘have sex’ (my go-to example because English has no single-verb equivalent, similar to Ewe).

So, the problem I must solve is: how do I make the ‘Proto-Savanna’ verb adjunct system less impractical, with as little change as possible? And, secondarily, how do I square this with the fact that it’s a verb-medial language?

Whence did it come?

I am of the opinion that even very unusual or unstable linguistic features are fine in a conlang (especially a con-protolang), as long as they can be justified diachronically. After all, such things do turn up on occasion — just look at the PIE stop system, or the marked-nominative case system in Old French and Old Norse. None of those systems lasted for long, but they did all exist at some time, and there’s no reason why ‘Proto-Savanna’ couldn’t have been in a similar situation. (If anything, I like having an unstable protolang: it gives me more opportunities for descendants to go different ways.)

So, what are the possible origins of VACs? It’s tempting to look at ordinary V+O idiomatic constructions, present in many languages including English (as mentioned). But very few languges seem to have turned those constructions into VACs where the adjunct is not a true object.

The key seems to be the prior presence of some other VAC-like verbal construction. For instance, Haig (2002) traces the origin of Indo-Iranian VACs back to IE particle verbs. He suggests that various structural factors conspired to make nominal and adjectival objects behave similarly to particles, such that it was easy for the particle verb construction to be generalised to VACs — a tendency which was encouraged by the paucity of methods for deriving new verbs. Unfortunately, this particular instance doesn’t really help with ‘Proto-Savanna’, which has no analogue to IE particle verbs.

In North Australia, VACs are extremely old and widespread. However, McGregor has noticed that coverbs in these languages possess some interesting properties:

• They are much more likely to be monosyllabic than other parts of speech: across Warrwa, Gooniyandi and Gunin, ~30% of adjuncts are monosyllabic, compared to only 1–3% monosyllables in other parts of speech.
• They are much more likely to end in consonants or contain consonant clusters than other parts of speech. In some languages these consonants appear to be phonaesthetically motivated: e.g. in Gooniyandi, stops are used with ‘abrupt activities’, and continuants with ‘continuous or iterative events’ (McGregor 2002, mentioned above).
• Some languages allow coverbs to be used independently with an expressive meaning, outside their normal syntactic position.
• Of the limited modification allowed on coverbs, reduplication is the most common process.
• In some languages there are elements which can refer either to quotes or to coverbs (e.g. Gooniyandi yiniga ‘how, in what manner’).

For these reasons, McGregor posits that VACs in Australian languages derive ultimately from ideophones — words denoting ideas in a sound-symbolic fashion. He suggests a historical process in which ideophones, originally restricted to minor clauses and used for expressive purposes, become increasingly common in speech. As they occur more often next to verbal clauses, ideophones become associated with main verbs, creating a proto-VAC which becomes increasingly common in the language, at the expense of simple verbs.

(It’s worth noting that Ewe makes extensive use of ideophones too. Why have they not triggered the evolution of VACs there? I think it’s because ideophones don’t form a single word class in Ewe, and thus have no distinctive syntactic behaviour; instead they are distributed across the classes of adjectives, verbs, nouns, etc. In this light, the issue of OV vs VO word order may not be as big an issue as it seemed.)

Very conveniently, ‘Proto-Savanna’ has ideophones! And not only that — I already specified that those ideophones are most often used as verb adjuncts. Some Eŋes verbs are even derived from verb+ideophone combinations already. Thus, ‘Proto-Savanna’ already has the perfect conditions for developing widespread VACs. (Or near-perfect: Haig noted that the development of Kurdish VACs was aided by a lack of articles, but I feel comfortable handwaving this away.)

In fact, not only does this give me a justification for the system, it even gives me a way to bypass the bisyllabicity issue with minimal changes. As mentioned, ideophones are phonologically unusual in many languages, and ‘Proto-Savanna’ is no exception. So far I’ve made most ideophones reduplicated, but there is already at least one monosyllabic ideophone. It’s easy enough to change the situation to make such ideophones the usual type, then use those ideophones as verb adjuncts. Indeed, the protolanguage might not even need a separate class of coverbs — they could all just be ideophones. (Though I’m not sure I love the idea of going that far.)

Whither can it go?

Even though this system is now justified, and can be made less impractical than it was, I still think it’s somewhat unstable. How could it evolve in the descendant languages?

Looking at Australian and Papuan languages, it seems that there are basically three possible outcomes:

1. The system continues more or less as-is, with a variety of simple verbs, only some of which are generic and occur in VACs.
2. The set of true verbs is much reduced, to perhaps only a few dozen, nearly all with highly generic meanings; new coverbs appear to replace the old verbs.
3. Verb and adjunct both become obligatory, forming a bipartite stem, or being reduced even further to opaque and/or unproductive conjugational classes.

Most Papuan languages have a system like (1). The languages of northwestern Australia mostly have some form of (2): in some cases with the verb and adjunct being distinct elements (even with some freedom of word order), or in other cases having them integrated into a single word.

By contrast, Eŋes has undergone something like (3). But it’s an unusual example of the type, because the verb and adjunct fused at a fairly early stage: massive syncope obscured the previous system of verb roots, leading to verb+aspect+adjunct combinations being lexicalised as a new (and open) verb class. The forms of the original verbs can still be distinguished, just barely — e.g. the widespread /w-/ from previous *waq ‘do, make’, or /siw-/ and /rw-/ from *siwe ‘have’. But their original semantics have largely been overridden by the lexicalisation of the aspect system, which have come to encode similar notions of Aktionsart and/or manner.

Intriguingly, McGregor suggests that the verbal conjugation system of Pama-Nyungan languages may also have come from (3). Most Pama-Nyungan languages have a set of 2–6 conjugation classes, distinguished partly by the first consonant of verb suffixes. McGregor’s suggestion is that these conjugation classes may ultimately be the remnant of a small set of inflecting verbs, with the modern verb class deriving from the verb adjuncts. This seems plausible to me, but the original situation is probably unreconstructable (unless by some miracle Pama-Nyungan is ever linked to one of the other Australian families).

Another unusual (3)-like outcome is found in Gooniyandi. This language still has distinct adjuncts and verbs, but the relation between them has been flipped: the former adjuncts are now the obligatory verbal element, and the former verbs are now optional classificatory morphemes. McGregor suggests that this could be a precursor stage to the Pama-Nyungan–type conjugational classes.

In any case, there’s enough possibilities here to inspire many years of happy conlanging!

[Lērisama]

How (not) to build a generic verb system

I really like this post – I learned a lot – but I don't have much to say other than it is indeed firtile ground for conlanging, and I look forward to what you do with it.

[bradrn]

Generic verbs, part 2: The Great Reverbification

With this post I have three main aims:

• To redo the existing set of ‘Proto-Savanna’ verb adjuncts as described in the last post
• To better pin down the semantics of the most common generic verbs (and occasionally revise their forms)
• To expand the verbal vocabulary — I am very slow at lexicon-building, and need an excuse to force me to do so!

…mostly in the form of a very long list of verbs.

Ideophone phonaesthetics

But first I want to work out some guidelines for ideophones! Partly because it’s naturalistic, partly because it gives me a place to start with making up new forms, and partly because it’s fun.

Like the Australian ideophones mentioned above, I’ll say that the primary phonaestheme is the last consonant of the ideophone. The associations are as follows:

• Stops /p pʰ ᵐb b t tʰ ⁿd d k kʰ ᵑɡ ɡ/ and affricates /ts tsʰ tɬ tɬʰ/ suggest abrupt sounds or activities. (Note that /ɡ/ is restricted to ideophones.)
• Nasals /m n ŋ/ suggest resonant sounds, or sometimes mental states.
• Fricatives /f s ɬ ɣ h/ suggest continuous processes or states.
• The glottal stop /ʔ/ can suggest iterative or interrupted processes.
• Laterals /l ɬ tɬ/ suggest fluidity or motion, especially uncontrolled motion.
• Labials /m p pʰ b ᵐb f/ suggest contact of surfaces.
• Apicals /n t tʰ ⁿd d ts tsʰ s r/ suggest pointed shapes and straight lines.
• Velars /ŋ k kʰ ᵑɡ ɡ ɣ/ suggest roundness, bluntness or hollowness.
• Voiceless sounds generally suggest lightness or higher pitch than voiced sounds. Aspirated stops and affricates /pʰ tʰ tsʰ tɬʰ kʰ/ can alternate to form diminutives.

Vowels are less significant. As in many languages, /i/ may suggest smallness and /a/ largeness. On occasion /ə/ is used as a despective. Long vowels can suggest longer activities or stronger feelings. (Note that long /uː/ is restricted to ideophones.)

Ideophones have basic phonological shape CVC or CVCVC. Previously most ideophones were reduplicated, but I’ve decided that the unreduplicated form is most basic (though some ideophones are almost always reduplicated and their forms are given as such).

Verb list

For reference, here was my first attempt at defining the generic verbs, almost exactly three years ago:

waq~mah ‘do’ (ambi. s=a): do, happen, make, create, cause, exist (adjunct-taking)
fawetl~fawetli ‘say’ (intr.): say, speak, talk, ask, shout, scream, laugh, cry, murmur, call (adjunct-taking)
siwe~siwi ‘have’ (tr.): have, get, take, hold, catch, carry, use, control, constrain, rule (adjunct-taking)
lhiise~lhiisi ‘perceive’ (tr.): sense, see, hear, smell, touch, taste, feel, understand, infer (adjunct-taking)
gadiq~gadye ‘absorb’ (tr.): absorb, contain, ingest, have something attached to, have something inserted in, eat, drink, conquer, have something carved on
ndeqis~ndisi ‘place’ (tr.): place, set down, hold tight, stabilise, settle, halt, comfort
fas~fasi ‘stand’ (tr.): be at/on/in a place, stand up, walk, reside, arrive at, leave

(Notation: Quotation marks show literal translations and italics show glosses. I use an arrow → to indicate where I’ve changed the form or meaning of a previous lexeme, or created a new one. ‘tr’ = ‘transitive’, ‘i’ = ‘intransitive’. And as above, A~B indicates the imperfective and perfective verb stems respectively.)


waq~mah i/tr do, make. The most common of the generic verbs. As a standalone transitive verb, its core meaning is that the subject ‘does’ an action, or ‘creates’ or ‘makes’ an object. This is one of the rare ambitransitive verbs of ‘Proto-Savanna’: used intransitively, it can be translated as ‘happen’ (of an event). In SVCs it denotes causation.

In VACs, it has three main functions. Firstly, it can denote an intentional or dynamic actions. Secondly, it can denote bodily or mental events. And thirdly, it can combine with adjectives or ideophones to form states (in the imperfective), inchoatives (in the perfective), or causatives with an object. (See also qatha below for this meaning.)

waq dafin tr ‘do hand’ make, create (of an object)
waq kuwi i ‘do disease’ be ill
waq safilh i ‘do breath’ breathe
waq khaliŋ i ‘do soul’ live, be alive
waq fetlhalh i be horrible
→ waq mal tr wipe
→ waq tletlem i be scared
siwe tsisa → waq tsisa tr want
siwe lhanu → waq lhanu tr ‘do direction’ mean
siwe lheŋe → waq lheŋe tr ‘do name’ be named, called

---

fawetl~fawetli i speak. Indicates speech acts. In VACs, also includes other vocalisations and sounds. Also used as a quotative.

(This ought to fully supersede the former verb qagu~qagwi, which turns out to be a perfect synonym. But I really like both forms, so I’ll keep them as synonyms; various descendants can use one or the other.)

fawetl feqe i cry
fawetl qawi ‘speak question’ i ask
fawetl dafin ‘speak hand’ i request (an object)
fawetl gulaagulaa → fawetl luugluug i growl
fawetl haŋuhaŋu → fawetl ŋuhŋuh i blow
fawetl khuyikhuyi → fawetl duung i shout
waq heŋheŋ → fawetl heqheq i laugh
→ fawetl lheŋe ‘speak name’ tr be called

---

siwe~siwi tr have, get. The core meaning is that of possession. In the imperfective it can be translated ‘have’; in the perfective it is inchoative ‘get’ or ‘take’. More generally it expresses that the object is under the control of the subject in some way: for instance by the subject catching it, carrying it, restraining it, etc.

Previously I used this verb in VACs with a stative meaning. But on further thought, that’s not quite consistent with the previous definition, which has a rather more physical sense. Those uses have thus been moved to other verbs (mostly waq), such that few verb adjuncts are still used with siwe.

→ siwe qelas tr
→ siwe pand tr have/grab hold of

---

lhiise~lhiisi → lhise~lhisi tr perceive. Used of sensory or mental perception. On its own the core meaning is ‘see’, but note that even in English ‘see’ is often used metaphorically; lhise even more so.

(As noted, my original concern focussed around the unwieldiness of the VACs for ‘see’ and ‘hear’; but this is resolved by simply using lhise on its own, plus the fact that I’ve now removed a mora from its first syllable. Those descendants which make coverbs obligatory will presumably find their own strategies to simplify them phonologically, as has Eŋes.)

lhise meŋul tr ‘perceive eye’ see
lhise tluŋse tr ‘perceive ear’ hear
siwe lhibuq → lhise lhibuq tr ‘perceive thought’ think, know
→ lhise hunuŋ tr smell

Also (an SVC): lhise wiilets tr ‘perceive contact’ touch, feel

---

gadiq~gadye → gadi~gadye tr ingest, consume, absorb. Generically, for the subject to be altered by the object becoming part of it. Most commonly used for ‘eat, drink’, but has a variety of other senses.

gadi tlaame i/tr ‘ingest food’ eat
→ gadi sul i/tr drink
→ gadi(ŋu) katap tr eat up completely
→ gadi lis tr suck on
→ gadi pik i nip, bite
→ gadi yenag i ‘ingest dirt’ get dirty (of e.g. a cloth)

---

ndeqis~ndisi → waq ___ qatha. Previously with the core meaning of place down, come to be in a position. I’ve decided now that this verb is redundant: it is replaced by a causative SVC, lit. ‘make ___ fall’.

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ndiyam~ndiyam i/tr start, begin (an action), leave (a place). Previously also become, but that meaning is taken over by qatha. This verb is usually transitive but can be ambitransitive in SVCs. The meaning ‘leave’ comes from usages like fas ___ ndiyam waalha ‘begin at ___ to go’. (Apparently this colexification is also found in Quebec French for partir.) Not adjunct-taking.

(Also previously a defective verb with no imperfective stem, but it feels weird to have only a single defective verb, so I’ve just made both stems identical.)

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fas~fasi tr be at. The primary locative verb. Previously glossed ‘stand’, but since it’s transitive it should really be ‘stand at’, if glossed that way at all. Previously not adjunct-taking, it can now combine with postural ideophones, as well as with other adjuncts involving staying at some location for a period of time: in all cases it is transitive.

→ fas panis tr stand
qaathan danit → fas dabag tr sit
→ fas nunug tr lie
→ fas sasay tr ‘be.at house’ live, reside at

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qaathan~qaathan → qatha~qathay i fall. The core meaning is that of downwards motion, and it is widely used in directional SVCs with that meaning. With verb adjuncts, it has genericised with the meaning ‘come to a state, become’. It thus supersedes (via SVCs) the previous verb ndeqis ‘place’, and partly ndiyam ‘become’. Like waq, it can occur with adjectives: in fact, many VACs with waq have alternatives with qatha, and vice versa.

There is considerable overlap between qatha, waq and fas, especially in the perfective, since the perfective stem often implies inchoativity. Of these, qatha is the only inherently inchoative verb: thus in the imperfective it can denote the process leading up to the final state, e.g. ‘while he was standing up’, which the other verbs cannot. Perfective mah with adjectives, used intransitively, is essentially a synonym of qathay: the latter perhaps suggests less control over the process (reminiscent of English ‘get’ vs ‘become’). Perfective fasi with posturals differs from qathay in being transitive.

qatha gilut i have a dispute, come to disagree (of plural subject)
→ qatha panis i stand up
qatha danit → qatha dabag i sit down
→ qatha nunug i lie down

Also (SVCs):
qatha ndiq walha tr ‘fall IDEO go’ become, turn into
qatha tsek walha tr ‘fall IDEO go’ turn into suddenly

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qisa~qisni i move, be removed. Indicates motion away from a previously stable state. Hence in some sense the opposite of qaathan, and similar to it, is metaphorically extended to all kinds of change-of-state from some starting point. Note that this verb is intransitive: to give motion away from some specific location, use fas ___ waalha ‘be.at ___ go’, or (if it was already in motion) mandaŋ pass.

(Previously I had this as meaning ‘separate’, which made it a perfect synonym of phage~phaŋi ‘break’. This is a much more useful meaning for it, which is not totally unrelated.)

→ qisa pad i throw
wiilets kapa → qisa kapa i ‘move arrow’ shoot
→ qisa qitsim i ‘move hole’ dig

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paatli~paatli tr give, help, let. Describes receipt of an object or service from someone else. As ‘Proto-Savanna’ has no ditransitive verbs, the object of this verb is the recipient: a theme can be supplied by instrumental serialisation with siwe ‘take’. This verb is also generally used in serialisation to introduce a recipient. In a VAC, used to describe all sorts of interactions between two people where something is communicated or transferred.

→ paatli gur tr give in exchange
paatli fawetl → paatli khulem tr ‘give speech’ advise
→ paatli karar tr fight with (also with pakha ‘strike’)

Also (an SVC): paatli __ lhiise tr ‘give ___ perceive’ show, teach

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walha~waalhi → waalha~waalhi i/tr go. Straightforwardly a verb of motion along a path. Used with manner ideophones. (Unlike some languages like English, it’s not used to introduce sound ideophones, which take fawetl or waq.) A destination can be specified as an object, or with fas.

waalha tsagif i run
waalha tsulh i stagger
waalha kama → waalha kamas i fly
waalha naŋa → waalha naŋaq i walk
siwe qitsim → waalha qitsim i ‘go hole’ hide

Note: yusaa~yusaye i come has the same distribution as waalha, except that it’s always intransitive.

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wiilets~witsi tr contact, touch. Indicates an object or surface coming in contact with another, with the object being unaffected (‘touch’, ‘stroke’) or mildly affected.

→ wiilets qilh tr stroke
→ wiilets qalalh tr sweep
→ wiilets puġpuġ tr

Also: lhise wiilets tr ‘perceive contact’ touch, feel (an SVC)

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pakha~pakhay tr strike. Indicates contact with an object (like wiilets), with the object being strongly affected, typically with its integrity being disrupted. Often undergoes resultative serialisation with phage ‘break’, tsakaq ‘be hurt’ or segek ‘die’.

→ pakha tam tr poke
→ pakha patsad tr stab
→ pakha karar tr fight with (also with paatli ‘give’)

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phage~phaŋi i break. Indicates splitting or separation into two or more parts. Often used in a causative SVC with pakha. Supersedes the previous meaning of qisa~qisni, namely ‘separate’, with which it appears to have always been synonymous.

phage siki → phage sik i crack
→ phage qets i be cut (also wiilets phage qets cut)

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tsakaq~tsakaqi i be hurt. Non-generic and non-adjunct-taking. I mention it here only to record that I’ve changed it to an intransitive verb: transitive hurt is now expressed by resultative serialisation with another verb like pakha ‘strike’.


Implications for Eŋes

Mostly I’ve been talking about the protolanguage here, but these changes do of course have implications for Eŋes.

The most significant structural change occurs with motion verb roots. Previously, these were ordinary roots like √wl-am ‘related to flying’. But now, since the main motion verb has been changed to waalha, the syncope rule operates to give roots like √wal-mas, where the first syllable is always transparently identical to the verboid wal- ‘go’. Thus, unlike many of the other verb classes, this one maintains its transparency — and the obvious development is for it to be rebracketed: the first half is treated as a motion verboid, while the second half becomes an entirely new type of verb root with the aspect marker at the beginning, like √-mas. Naturally these would remain most common after motion verboids like wal- ‘go’ and isa- ‘come’, but I can imagine cases where it would be used on its own.

A side-effect of this is to alter the order of motional SVCs. Previously and in unpublished materials I’ve specified the order as manner–path–motion, but with this change the motion verboid comes first: motion–manner–path. (This seems to be the preferred order in SOV natlangs, too.) Perhaps the path verboid might also move next to the motion verboid, splitting up the original verb: motion–path–manner, e.g. wal-fa-ne·mas ‘it flew up’.

A similar process might happen with fawetl → √fw-, which like waalha yields a set of verb roots which remain coherent in both form and semantics. But I don’t really like the idea of having a special construction for utterance verbs. The simplest solution is to replace fawetl with qagu → √u-, which variably collapses into a single vowel. (Besides, phonaesthetically, I never liked /fw/ anyway.)

Otherwise, it mostly affects the form of individual verbs, most notably:

• √as- → √t- ‘movement downwards’ (and verboid -san → -tan)
• √fw- → merged into √u- (but I don’t know what to do about former fw·e ‘be called’)
• √wl-naŋ → √-nŋaʼ ‘walk’
• √wl-oʼx → √-oʼx ‘run’
• √wl-am → √-mas ‘fly’
• √pes-ʼnap → √pas- ‘help’
• √rw-ses → √w-ʼ-ses ‘like’

I might also redo the system of deverbal passives (which turned out to be far too verbose for practical usage), but that’s something to be worked out another day.

[Man in Space]

I greatly appreciate your explication of the ideophones in Proto-Savanna (especially in light of the contents of several of the talks at the LCC). I need to sit down and do some work on these concepts for (more than) a few of my conlangs…

[bradrn]

I greatly appreciate your explication of the ideophones in Proto-Savanna (especially in light of the contents of several of the talks at the LCC). I need to sit down and do some work on these concepts for (more than) a few of my conlangs…

Thank you! Ideophones and sound symbolism are an area I wish I knew more about. (I comfort myself by saying that linguists don’t seem to know much about them either…)

What were the LCC talks about?

[Ares Land]

In any case, there’s enough possibilities here to inspire many years of happy conlanging!

Thank you for this! Extremely interesting.

[bradrn]

In any case, there’s enough possibilities here to inspire many years of happy conlanging!

Thank you for this! Extremely interesting.

You’re welcome! And indeed, for a long time I have found closed verb classes enormously interesting.