Zompist Bboard Again

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 9:25 pm Does your conlang have a word that is, approximately, /ni/? If so, what does it mean?

I want your examples of /ni/!

In Old Albic, ni means 'not'. It of course comes from PIE *ne.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 9:25 pm Does your conlang have a word that is, approximately, /ni/? If so, what does it mean?

I want your examples of /ni/!

Possessive enclitic in ǁamə. My impression is that enclitics are "words", but I'm not sure.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2026 6:22 pm

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 9:25 pm Does your conlang have a word that is, approximately, /ni/? If so, what does it mean?

I want your examples of /ni/!

Possessive enclitic in ǁamə. My impression is that enclitics are "words", but I'm not sure.

In any case the concept of ‘word’ is cross-linguistically meaningless. In some languages it’s a useful unit, in others it isn’t, and even where it is the ‘words’ aren’t generally comparable between languages. For much more information I like Adam Tallman’s approach, e.g. https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/291 (open-access).

I decided the geminate stem verb form (D-stem) will be reserved solely for denominative verbs (and not have verbal causative or pluractional meaning), mostly factitive or attributive.

esnis "ash" > ḥ-s-n "be white" (iḥassin > iessin > issin; ḥassinti > essinti)
zūlas "soil, soft earth" > z-w-l "be red" (izawwil > izūil > izīl; zawwilti > zūilti > zīlti)
I like this sort of regular irregularity

issin ḫurris "the fire is/becomes white"
ḫurris essinti "the fire that is white"

izīl cīmas "the blood is red"
cīmas zīlti "the blood that is red"

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Jul 17, 2026 6:31 pm In any case the concept of ‘word’ is cross-linguistically meaningless. In some languages it’s a useful unit, in others it isn’t, and even where it is the ‘words’ aren’t generally comparable between languages. For much more information I like Adam Tallman’s approach, e.g. https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/291 (open-access).

Thanks.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 9:25 pm Does your conlang have a word that is, approximately, /ni/? If so, what does it mean?

I want your examples of /ni/!

In Ineru, ni is an aspectual verb meaning 'do/be briefly, temporarily'

I have an idea to do something similar to Algonquin languages in having a set of verbs that denotes an object's animacy

Ṣ-D-Y "eat" (original) > "eat (activity)"
Ṣ-D-? "eat [animate]"
Ṣ-D-? "eat [inanimate]"

It will be a closed class and become unproductive and gradually replaced. Have to think what the affixes will be.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 9:25 pm Does your conlang have a word that is, approximately, /ni/? If so, what does it mean?

I want your examples of /ni/!

In Hlu ni is a locative verb, e.g. hnaemcae nila "he's at the beach".
In Gehui nyii means, approximately, "give", e.g. ktạp nyii ŋdie bsɛq sie ḷɛtqɛh "he gave his father a fish".

In Nyango, /ni/ に is much like Japanese, the locative particle although it has other uses.

In Rihalle Kaafi <ni> /ni/ [ɲe] is a proclitic used to construct subordinate clauses.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 9:25 pm Does your conlang have a word that is, approximately, /ni/? If so, what does it mean?

I want your examples of /ni/!

In an unnamed dwarvish language I'm working on [ni:] means not.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 6:40 pm Another persistent problem with my minimalist project has been whether the tiny phonology and strict phonotactics can even allow enough roots for the language to work. It really depends on how many roots the language really needs and how fastidiously it keeps roots phonologically distinct. Over the years, I have seen many estimates ranging from the hundred and twenty of Toki Pona to the thousands of characters in Chinese each representing one morpheme.

How many syllables can a root be?

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 6:40 pm Another persistent problem with my minimalist project has been whether the tiny phonology and strict phonotactics can even allow enough roots for the language to work. It really depends on how many roots the language really needs and how fastidiously it keeps roots phonologically distinct. Over the years, I have seen many estimates ranging from the hundred and twenty of Toki Pona to the thousands of characters in Chinese each representing one morpheme.

As I recall, Whorf got the oligosynthetic idea from Nahuatl. It's not taken seriously anymore, but Nahuatl does seem to derive a lot from a comparatively small number of roots, so it might be an inspiration.

For instance, it's really impressive how many words are derived from the root ā- 'water'.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2026 8:20 am

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2026 6:40 pm Another persistent problem with my minimalist project has been whether the tiny phonology and strict phonotactics can even allow enough roots for the language to work. It really depends on how many roots the language really needs and how fastidiously it keeps roots phonologically distinct. Over the years, I have seen many estimates ranging from the hundred and twenty of Toki Pona to the thousands of characters in Chinese each representing one morpheme.

As I recall, Whorf got the oligosynthetic idea from Nahuatl. It's not taken seriously anymore, but Nahuatl does seem to derive a lot from a comparatively small number of roots, so it might be an inspiration.

There are good examples beyond Nahuatl too. In the verbs, Kalam (which I’ve discussed here before) has only 200 roots and derives a lot of other concepts from serialising these. In the nouns, Seri is rather fond of deriving concepts with transparent nominalisations and relative clauses, including surprisingly basic ones (cmaa quiih ‘it is now’ = ‘new’, ziix quiisax ‘thing having life’ = ‘person’).

For instance, it's really impressive how many words are derived from the root ā- 'water'.

Oh?

Qwynegold wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2026 5:02 am How many syllables can a root be?

Up to three. However my impression is that most languages strongly prefer roots with one or two syllables. It would be quite unusual for a language to have more trisyllabic roots than bisyllabic ones from what I can tell.

Yes, ānoquia, 'to urinate' (water-pour), ānālli 'river bank' (water-side) to āltepētl 'city' < water-mountain
This feels perhaps more surprising than it really is since English or French prefer different roots. (Though getting back to the IE etymons some PIE root seem to be doing a lot of work)

I have a list of various nouns and the differences between the major registers

https://linguifex.com/wiki/Appendix:Vrkhazhian_stems

It is hard for me to say which dialect I like most. I like the simplicity of Common and the phonemes feel more stable, but I like the look of Imperial's romanization.

One day I will finish the native script, which will reflect the historical pronunciation of the words from Old Vrkhazhian

For a language that has a consonant inventory of /p t k s m n r w y/ and a vowel inventory of /a i u/ and syllables that are uniformly CV, monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic roots provide a total of 20439 roots. This is probably enough.

Ahzoh wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2026 5:50 pm I have a list of various nouns and the differences between the major registers

https://linguifex.com/wiki/Appendix:Vrkhazhian_stems

It is hard for me to say which dialect I like most. I like the simplicity of Common and the phonemes feel more stable, but I like the look of Imperial's romanization.

One day I will finish the native script, which will reflect the historical pronunciation of the words from Old Vrkhazhian

It seems that Common Vrkhazhian has simply lost the tone that is reflected by Imperial Vrkhazhian. Have you thought of doing something creative with it, e.g. falling tone > low tone > voicing of the preceding consonant

(I don't know if this is the right place to ask this ...)

I keep wanting to write things in my conlang and then not being sure whether a clause is an indirect question or just something that looks like one in English. I have question-words and syntax for direct/indirect questions and relative clauses but not for ... some other things.

'What should I do?' -- direct question
'I asked what I should do' -- indirect question
'I told you what you should do' -- object clause I think? (equivalent to 'I told you that which you should do', right?)
'I don't know what I should do' -- ???