Future English Brainstorming

[Herra Ratatoskr]

While I may be known as the West Saxon guy (to the extent that I'm known at all), I do have other conlang ideas that I work on from time to time. One of which is a descendant of Modern English. The setting, time frame, and all that sociological stuff is still to be determined, mainly to give me max freedom in how I evolve the language. Likewise, sound changes are not really being considered atm as I'm focusing on my main objective; mangling English grammar in weird ways. I want to see what I can come up with, and at least have a fig leaf of realism to justify the changes, though realism is not the strictest priority.

I'm going to be using this thread as a dumping ground for ideas, and I'd love to hear any thoughts

First idea - A case system based on derivational morphology.
The idea is that future English speakers increasingly started using adverbial derivations of nouns in ways that developed into a case system.

The first idea I had was to use -ward(s) as a dative marker; so "I threw the ball to John" becomes "I threw the ball Johnward". The forms -ward and -wards existed for a bit in free variation, but by analogy with the plural -s, -ward became the singular form and -wards the plural. While I haven't worked out the details of the sound changes, I imagine it will reduce to something like -urd/-urz

Now, for more cases. I thought of using -ish as a new genitive case marker. The original genitive 's will live on as a possessive marker on human nouns

For more speculative ideas: A locative developed from "by", but used as a suffix. The fig leaf I'm hanging on this is analogy from "hereby", "thereby". Singular and plural forms would be -b

Final case ending idea (so far): -ly as an instrumental suffix, so instead of saying "I cut down the tree with an axe" you'd say "I cut down the tree axely".

The nominative/accusative case would be the base form of the noun, and in nouns would be identical. In many pronouns, there would be distinct nominative/accusative forms based on the current nominative/oblique forms, and other cases derived like nouns from the oblique form as a stem.

I also am debating a vocative form derived from the nominative, prefixed with a worn down form of "hey" of "yo" (depending on dialect, probably)

[Travis B.]

I time to time think of creating a Future English based on the English, well, right here in southeastern Wisconsin, and the biggest developments would be phonologically (development of phonemic vowel length orthogonal to vowel quantity, lots of new diphthongs, phonemic vowel nasality, continuation of phonemic gemination as already found here today) and with regard to the verbal system (there already has been the development of a 'quasi-modal' system, and this is easily subject to further reduction of forms where former independent morphemes are essentially mushed together into new independent modals and auxiliaries). Also, there would be further development of adpositional and adverbial forms. Conversely, the nominal and adjectival systems would be largely conservative.

[zompist]

The first idea I had was to use -ward(s) as a dative marker; so "I threw the ball to John" becomes "I threw the ball Johnward". The forms -ward and -wards existed for a bit in free variation, but by analogy with the plural -s, -ward became the singular form and -wards the plural. While I haven't worked out the details of the sound changes, I imagine it will reduce to something like -urd/-urz

Offhand reaction: first, cases really do develop from particles, which develop from independent words, so overall this is OK.

But second, future English is unlikely to develop from outmoded Engish. -ward is not productive— no one says Johnward. But they do say "to John", so a dative [təjan] could easily develop. You could make this sexier with some voicing assimilation [dəjan], so you start to get a Celtic-style consonant mutation.

[Travis B.]

The first idea I had was to use -ward(s) as a dative marker; so "I threw the ball to John" becomes "I threw the ball Johnward". The forms -ward and -wards existed for a bit in free variation, but by analogy with the plural -s, -ward became the singular form and -wards the plural. While I haven't worked out the details of the sound changes, I imagine it will reduce to something like -urd/-urz

Offhand reaction: first, cases really do develop from particles, which develop from independent words, so overall this is OK.

But second, future English is unlikely to develop from outmoded Engish. -ward is not productive— no one says Johnward. But they do say "to John", so a dative [təjan] could easily develop. You could make this sexier with some voicing assimilation [dəjan], so you start to get a Celtic-style consonant mutation.

At least in the English I am familiar with, the /t/ in to is very commonly voiced and flapped, especially if the preceding word ends in a vowel, too. (Hell, it is not infrequently elided, leaving evidence only in that the preceding word will end in a short rather than long vowel.)

[zompist]

(re "to John")

At least in the English I am familiar with, the /t/ in to is very commonly voiced and flapped, especially if the preceding word ends in a vowel, too.

Agreed.

(Hell, it is not infrequently elided, leaving evidence only in that the preceding word will end in a short rather than long vowel.)

Now, infinitival "to", I agree— that's why we have "gonna" for "going to".

But could you really elide the /t/ in "I'm gonna give this pizza to John"? It's [d] or [ɾ] for me.

[Man in Space]

But could you really elide the /t/ in "I'm gonna give this pizza to John"? It's [d] or [ɾ] for me.

I wouldn’t usually produce that unless I was having a throat infection, but I want to say that I at least occasionally hear it (and understand).

[Travis B.]

(re "to John")

(Hell, it is not infrequently elided, leaving evidence only in that the preceding word will end in a short rather than long vowel.)

Now, infinitival "to", I agree— that's why we have "gonna" for "going to".

But could you really elide the /t/ in "I'm gonna give this pizza to John"? It's [d] or [ɾ] for me.

I would go either way here.

[Emily]

i agree, i think case prefixes derived from prepositions are the more feasible method than the suffixes proposed. (dative could also use "for" if "to" doesn't give a distinct enough prefix)

[Raphael]

Hm, to which extend would a lot of new prefixes in future English be a departure from traditional SAE features? Didn't SAE languages usually have suffixes rather than prefixes?

[zompist]

Hm, to which extend would a lot of new prefixes in future English be a departure from traditional SAE features? Didn't SAE languages usually have suffixes rather than prefixes?

"SAE" arguably means "languages influenced by French", and as it happens French is an example of a mostly suffixing language (Latin) becoming mostly prefixing. The French verbal complex and the prepositions + article + noun combo are all made of prefixed clitics.

[Emily]

SAE is a fake idea and people spend way too much time worrying about it for no reason. besides, case prefixes are hardly a european mainstay, and i thought the idea behind this project was to shake things up in unexpected ways

[Raphael]

That's what I suspected - I was curious how much prefixes would shake things up in unexpected ways. Neat!

[Travis B.]

I agree that one shouldn't worry too much about how 'SAE' or not something is.

[Raphael]

I agree that one shouldn't worry too much about how 'SAE' or not something is.

I'm not worrying about anything. I was asking how innovative and unconventional the prefix idea would be, because I generally see being innovative and unconventional as a good thing.

[Richard W]

But second, future English is unlikely to develop from outmoded Engish. -ward is not productive— no one says Johnward.

This legacy human demurs. I can certainly imagine uttering, 'The report is wending its way managementwards'. However, the sense is very much one of direction than of indirect object, so it would be a long path if it were ever taken. It would also compete with '-bound'.

[Ketsuban]

I don't think that's evidence of a productive -ward — it's a jocular expression deriving humour from the juxtaposition of poetic language with the mundanity of office busywork.

[Glass Half Baked]

I made a Future English conlang a couple years ago, set 500 years in the future.

Something I discovered very quickly is that these grand, high-level ideas of "what if English grew Iroquois-style noun incorporation" or whatever are really unnecessary. Once you actually dive into the details of diachronic English, you will find more work to keep you busy than you could ever imagine.

Have you ever looked at an English adverb? Like, really look at it? Figuring out how the syntax of adverbs would work in a future dialect filled more notebooks and emptied more bottles of antacid than all the noun case charts you care to draw. One detail for now. I found some commonalities between the adverb "just," and some adverbs with much more permissive syntax. So I proposed that "just" migrated to that syntactic class, allowing sentences like "I'm joking just," with very minimal anlogical change.

My advice would be: ignore the grandiose speculations for now. Imagine the most likely changes in your own dialect two or three generations from now, and pull on that thread. You'll find so much to interest you, and it will be organic and realistic. You might even end up with case suffixes afterall, but probably not in any way you anticipated.

[Gareth3]

One fun prediction I've read is that there'll be a sentence-final question particle "adal" or "dal". This came from someone noticing that shop assistants often ask if you "want a bag, at all", This does seem to be restricted to the UK.

[Travis B.]

One fun prediction I've read is that there'll be a sentence-final question particle "adal" or "dal". This came from someone noticing that shop assistants often ask if you "want a bag, at all", This does seem to be restricted to the UK.

Do the varieties where this is currently found have any kind of intervocalic voicing of unstressed /t/? I thought that was more of a North American or Australian thing.

[Gareth3]

I don't know, but I think the guy speculating about it was English, and predicted using a /d/, so he was probably working off his own accent.