2020-05-11 22:08:53 +00:00
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title: "ReConLangMo 3: Morphosyntactic Typology"
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date: 2020-05-11
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series: reconlangmo
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tags:
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- conlang
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- lewa
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---
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In the last post of [this series][reconlangmoseries], we covered the sounds and
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word patterns of L'ewa. This time we are covering morphosyntactic typology, or
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how words and sentences are formed out of root words, details about sentences,
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word order and those kinds of patterns. I'll split each of these into their own
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headings so it's a bit easier to grok. This is a response to [this
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prompt][rclm3].
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[reconlangmoseries]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
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[rclm3]: thttps://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/ghvo48/reconlangmo_3_morphosyntactic_typology/
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## Word Order
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L'ewa is normally a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language like English. However,
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the word order of a sentence can be changed if it is important to specify some
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part of the sentence in particular.
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I haven't completely finalized the particles for this, but I'd like to use `ka` to
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denote the subject, `ke` to denote the verb and `ku` to denote the object. For
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example if the input sentence is something like:
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```
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/mi/ /mad.sa/ /lo/ /spa.lo/
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mi madsa lo spalo
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I eat an apple
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```
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You could emphasize the eating with:
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```
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/kɛ/ /mad.sa/ /ka/ /mi/ /lo/ /spa.lo/
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[ke] madsa ka mi lo spalo
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V eat S I an apple
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```
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(the `ke` is in square brackets here because it is technically not required, but
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it can make more sense to be explicit in some cases)
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or the apple with:
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```
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/ku/ /lo/ /spalo/ /kɛ/ /mad.sa/ /mi
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ku lo spalo ke madsa mi
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O an apple V eat I
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```
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L'ewa doesn't really have adjectives or adverbs in the normal indo-european
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sense, but it does have a way to analytically combine meanings together. For
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example if `qa'te` is the word for `is fast/quick/rapid in rate`, then saying
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you are quickly eating (or wolfing food down) would be something like:
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```
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/qaʔ.tɛ/ /mad.sa/
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qa'te madsa
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is fast [kind of] eat
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```
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These are assumed to be metaphorical by default. It's not always clear what
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someone would mean by a fast kind of language (would they be referencing
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[Speedtalk][speedtalk]?)
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[speedtalk]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedtalk
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L'ewa doesn't always require a subject or object if it can be figured out from
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context. You can just say "rain" instead of "it's raining". By default, the
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first word in a sentence without an article is the verb. The ka/ke/ku series
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2020-05-11 23:42:37 +00:00
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needs to be used if the word order deviates from Subject-Verb-Object (it
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functions a lot like the selma'o FA from Lojban).
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2020-05-11 22:08:53 +00:00
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## Morphological Typology
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L'ewa is a analytic language. Every single word has only one form and particles
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are used to modify the meaning or significance of words. There are only two word
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classes: content and particles.
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### Alignment
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L'ewa is a nominative-accusative language. Other particles may be introduced in
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the future to help denote the relations that exist in other alignments, but I
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don't need them yet.
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### Word Classes
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As said before, L'ewa only has two word classes, content (or verbs) and
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particles to modify the significance or relations between content. There is also
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a hard limit of two arguments per verb, which should help avoid the problems
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that Lojban has with its inconsistent usage of the x3, x4 and x5 places.
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As the content words are all technically verbs, there is no real need for a
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copula. The ka/ke/ku series can also help to break out of other things that
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modify "noun-phrases" (when those things exist). There are also no nouns,
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adjectives or adverbs, because analytically combining words completely replaces
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the need for them.
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Nouns and verbs do not inflect for numbers. If numbers are needed they can be
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provided, otherwise the default is to assume "one or more".
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## Conscript
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I am still working on the finer details of the conscript for L'ewa, but here is
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a sneak preview of the letter forms I am playing with (this image below might
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not render properly in light mode):
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My inspirations for this script were [zbalermorna][zbalermorna], Hangul, Hanzi,
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Katakana, Greek, international computer symbols, traditional Japanese art and
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the [International Phonetic Alphabet][ipa].
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[zbalermorna]: https://mw.lojban.org/images/b/b3/ZLM4_Writeup_v2.pdf
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[ipa]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
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This script is very decorative, and is primarily intended to be used in
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spellcraft and other artistic uses. It will probably show up in my art from time
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to time, and will definitely show up in any experimental video production that I
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work on in the future. I will go into more detail about this in the future, but
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here is my prototype. Please do let me know what you think about it.
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---
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As a side note, the words `madsa`, `spalo` and `qa'te` are now official L'ewa
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words, I guess. The entire vocabulary of the language can now be listed below:
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**Content Words**
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| L'ewa word | IPA | English |
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| ---------- | --- | ------- |
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| `l'ewa` | `/lʔ.ɛwa/` | is a language |
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| `madsa` | `/mad.sa/` | eats/is eating |
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| `qa'te` | `/qaʔ.tɛ/` | is fast/quick/rapid in rate |
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| `zasko` | `/ʒa.sko/` | is a plant/is vegetation |
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| `spalo` | `/spa.lo/` | is an apple |
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**Particles**
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| L'ewa word | IPA | English |
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| ---------- | --- | ------- |
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| lo | /lo/ | a, an, indefinite article |
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2020-05-15 21:19:50 +00:00
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| le | /lɛ/ | the, definite article |
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2020-05-11 22:08:53 +00:00
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| ka | /ka/ | subject marker |
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| ke | /kɛ/ | verb marker |
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| ku | /ku/ | object marker |
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| mi | /mi/ | the current speaker |
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