Detail #38: Auxiliary verb thing in a polysynthetic language

Inspired by the previous post, I came up with a simpler related concept. An auxiliary that does not code anything related to the meaning of the verb itself, but codes things for several arguments of the verb.

The idea is for some polysynthetic-style conlang, the verb normally would have congruence for something like {subject, object, indirect object, maybe some other things}and whenever certain conditions are met for a given NP, an auxiliary is added to the VP whose sole role is marking congruence with arguments taht meet those conditions - e.g. definiteness, count noun-ness, etc.

Short Sketch #5: Definiteness marking and definiteness types

Definiteness is a thing some languages do not grammaticalize to the extent English does, and on the other hand, some languages have it even more grammaticalized - see, e.g. how it influences both adjective and noun inflection in Swedish, how it affects verbs in Hungarian, and so on.

Let us try out a slightly more complex thing. Some languages have three levels of definiteness, e.g. known to listener, known to speaker, and indefinite. 

Example, based on sample sentences from some pidgin, I don't recall the source where I saw these:

1. I am looking for a car → any car will do.
2. I am looking for one car → there is a specific car, but the listener is not expected to know which.
3. I am looking for the car → the listener too knows which car you are looking for.

(Also notice how "this" is acquiring a similar usage in colloquial English, c.f. any google result for "so this girl|dude|chick|guy|... walks|says|..." This is clearly not a deictic use of this, but rather a pragmatic use where it marks 'there is a specific girl that did it, but you probably don't know who she is, but I might refer to her in the future so she's significant enough for the narrative.)

Now, it seems rather natural to me that different constituents of a sentence will be differently likely to be marked for different types of definiteness, and this could easily lead to different kinds of arguments having very different marking strategies as well as a different number of distinctions.

An obvious example are languages where the object can be marked for definiteness by differential object marking, but other constituents have nothing of the sort. Usually, there is good likelihood that the subject is definite - even more so for the topic, but as topics and subjects often coincide, well, there you go.

A draft of this kind of a system would be something like:

• definite non-subject (2 or 3) topics trigger extra auxiliary verb that only carries congruence and has no semantic content

• definite subjects (2 or 3) trigger congruence in the verb (alternatively, see short sketch #1 for another strategy that could be used here)

• definite objects (3) trigger congruence in the verb and accusative case
• definite objects (2) trigger accusative case
• indefinite objects (1) take neither

• other definite (3) non-topic nouns trigger congruence on adpositions
• other non-topic nouns (that is, (2 or 1) functioning by virtue of case marking as an argument of the verb) do not trigger any congruence strategies
• different definiteness correlates with different case systems, something along these lines:
• 3:     nom - acc - dat - lat - abl - part - gen - instr
• 2:     nom - acc - dat        - abl          - gen
• 1:     nom                  - lat -         abl
• All topics, however, no matter definiteness, use the full (3) case system
• The lative for indefinitive nouns is identical in form to the dative for definite (2/3) nouns.

Other parameters could affect different systems: maybe animates have a different number of levels of definiteness from inanimates or whatever, ... however, something along these lines seems fairly intricate and interesting imho.

Static Fiction

Most fiction that people read is in the form of stories. It would even seem that the story is the prototype for fiction. This is quite obvious, in many ways. However, there are other basic story prototypes, and they don't necessarily exclude one another: the setting, which tells us what to expect of any story within it, the archetype, which is a basic set of patterns a story can be expected to follow; more recently, tvtropes (and I won't do you the disservice of linking there) has categorized and documented - in excessive and sometimes counterproductive detail - archetypes and common variations of them.

Both of those are arguably static fiction. Oh, certainly details in the setting can change - the federation and the klingon form an alliance, the elves depart for wherever, SPECTRE dissolves and is never heard of again, ... but all these are still, in a way, static things about the setting: stories set after stardate so-and-so, in the fourth era, after 197x, ... within a  setting use the updated assumption.

However, more genuinely static forms of fiction do exist. I recall running into a novel that was written and structured like an encyclopedia. I recently tried finding it again, and I am pretty sure it was Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars. I intend to read it soon, and once I have done so, I will post a review here, as I think the form he picked for it might be of some interest for conworlders and conlangers alike.

Nevertheless, a conlang, a map of a world that does not exist, an actual artifact emulating a non-existent culture, or even a non-narrative "paper" emulating the (academic) style of historians, sociologists, theologians, physicists, chemists, astronomers, (even magicians, alchemists and astrologists) of a culture that does not exist could be rather fascinating. The artifact would be intriguing - it is both an object of fiction and a work of art.

For me, language is the most interesting kind of speculative non-narrative fiction, but even then, it is not the only kind that could be of interest.

The long-term project: more draft-stage ideas

On with the isolating conlang I have been planning. At some point soon, there will probably be a post related to it that violates one of the main rules I have for this blog, though: "no phonology drafts".

As mentioned, this will be an isolating language, so there is not much in ways of morphophonology that can be enabled by clever phonological things, but some sandhi-like processes still could be interesting.

I want to avoid the standard Chinese-like sound that one would expect from a conlang, and even avoid tones. However, a detail that I want to incorporate is having bisyllabic verbs have high pitch accent on the first syllable when perfective or inchoative, and low pitch accent on the second syllable when habitual. This would not be recognized in most prescriptive grammars of the language, though.

The language has a congruence-like thing with topics and subjects, where sometimes, a pronoun may appear after the verb:

TOPIC₁ (SUBJECT₂) VERB PRONOUN₁ (OBJECT₃)

The subject often is the topic, but only in those cases will the pronoun agree with the subject in some manner. The manner of congruence is often noun-class based (but at times, the doubling pronoun may be a demonstrative that does not distinguish the same amount of noun-classes).
Now, a special quirk is, if the topic is a postpositional phrase with a pronoun, the preposition may be left alone at the onset of the sentence, and the pronoun appears in the congruence position:

GAP₁ POSTPOS (SUBJECT₂) VERB PRONOUN₁ (OBJECT₃)

In sentences with no verbs, the location of the congruence pronoun is less obvious, but statistically it appears somewhat more often in such sentences than in sentences with a verb.

This also prompts a discussion of the pronominal system of the language. The pronouns come in two forms: emphasized and subdued. These are basically results of stress-related sound changes - the subdued forms are strongly reduced: talokt (we, masculine), teu (we, masculine), reɣin (those), ran (those). 

The post-verbal topic/subject congruence spot invariably has the reduced form. When appearing as a subject, a topic or fronted focus, a pronoun always is in the emphasized form, otherwise it mostly appears as a subdued form. If confusion as to whether a pronoun is coreferential with the topic or not, the emphasized form is preferred.

Detail #37: Pragmatics and double negation

To rip off what probably actually happens in a load of actual languages:

Let the resolution of whether repeated negation cancels out or not be determined by pragmatical cues.

Detail #36: Duals and transitives

In a language where subjects and objects originally weren't that strictly distinguished, could it be possible for a dual verb to express both the situation where two subjects perform an action together, or the situation where one noun acts on the other? Thus, you'd get "I see you" as "see.1 dual", possibly with some other marker indicating which is the genuine subject: "is.1sg see.1 dual" vs. "is.2sg see.1 dual", but on the other hand, plural subjects go by the usual route: I see them: "see.1sg them", you and I see them: "see.1du them"

Detail #35: 'anymore', 'anylonger'

Certain indefinite pronouns and comparatives have things in common, and this can be noted in how some languages actually use comparative forms in the latter (anymore, any longer).

Many of the contexts where these are used easily lend themselves to carrying some kind of emotional data:

Are you trying to learn the guitar any longer (mocking, dubious)

 Is there going to be more (curiosity) of that?

Are you going to stay a while longer (hope)?

On the other hand, such emotional markers being present would also tend to indicate that some kind of meaning along those lines is implied.

Hence, a language where indefinites and comparatives both are formed from grammaticalized adjectives or verbs denoting emotional states?