Showing posts with label indefinite pronouns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indefinite pronouns. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Detail #293: Indefinite Pronouns and Noun Morphology

Integrating definiteness and the whole indefinite pronoun system with its various functions into noun morphology instead of having things like case could be an interesting approach to noun morphology - it seems to me the order by which conlangers go for noun morphology beyond the derivative morphology is a hierarchy something like
number (maybe fused with gender)
possession marking (head or dependent marking)
other cases (maybe fused with gender)
possessive affixes
definiteness marking
noun class / gender (maybe fused with number)
This is not particularly bad or anything, but we could do something else with nouns than that. Some Native American languages offer us the idea of marking for obviativeness/proximativeness, which interacts with the verb and the more general discourse in interesting ways. Few conlangers make Native American languages, however.

The last in the hierarchy above is gender, which any Bantu-style language would almost necessarily be present.

Now, I've often gone and linked the typological classification of indefinite pronouns that Apollo Hogan wrote way back. To this, we could add some definite pronouns and determiners - demonstratives, maybe articles (if we go so far as to distinguish 'that', 'this' and 'the'; seems 'the' may easily turn superfluous). From this point on, 'the/a/any/some/...' represents whatever system you come up with from that classification.

Incorporating that whole system of 'the/a/any/some/...' into the noun, possibly in combination with possessive affixes (either giving {the, a, any, some, no, every, ...} * {my, your, his/hers, our, ...} or {the, a, any, some, no, every, ...} + {my, your, his/hers, our, ...} could give interesting results. Let's further permit a "light recursion", having the third person possessive suffixes further be marked for a less granular set of distinctions - merge a few of the different 'anies' and 'somes' that you have for that suffix, and maybe forbid certain combinations ('than any X of than any X' seems unlikely to ever be needed, i.e. forbid double indefinite standard of comparison. I find it likely that you'll ever need the possessor to be the indefinite standard of comparison, but you could of course permit having the marking go there nevertheless for whatever reason, or heck, require doubly marking it.)

Since indefinite pronouns often have somewhat overlapping functions (just check the amount of overlap in the example systems section of the link), this gives us a somewhat more overlapping system than the typical case system - which is a nice effect, in my opinion.

Even more interest could maybe be created by having different noun classes divide up this functional space in slightly different ways, maybe even having different numbers of divisions of it.



Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Dairwueh and Bryatesle Indefinite Pronouns

The Bryatesle indefinite pronouns, according to my old grammar for Bryatesle, followed the pattern given below:


(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU(3) I/NS(4) QU(6) IN         A
(5) COND(8) COMP  A 

(9) FC
lermud, lertën, lerbat/lervind, lerden/lertar. White fields where never assigned a pronoun!
I like the ler- series of indefinites, especially as it is closely related to the relative pronouns of Bryatesle but not to the interrogative ones (which creates a nice unusual situation, typologically - although it probably could be explained by recourse to historical developments). Lerden and lertar differ by whether the free choice is 'free choice among some options' or 'free choice with infinite options'. Although I like this series, I am inclined to reject it now in favour of this somewhat simpler and improved series:

(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU () (3) I/NS () (4) QU (6) IN
(5) COND(8) COMP

(9) FC
bale, dury, uka
An extra detail is that dury sometimes stretches in to I/NS, sometimes even as far as (2) SU, but I couldn't be arsed to make a gradient in the background of (3). Another extra detail is that mass nouns tend to take the definite secondary case marking when determined by an indefinite pronoun.

In Bryatesle, all of these can be used both independently and as determiners. They seldom take secondary cases, but when they do so they tend not to mark their primary case at all. Their inflectional stems are bal-, dir-, uk-/mys- (mys- appearing for non-nominative cases in a few dialects).


Dairwueh is somewhat similar:

(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU(3) I/NS(4) QU(6) IN
(5) COND(8) COMP

(9) FC
vael-, nur-, mik-
Here, the blue field sometimes spills over into (6) IN, but more often, red spills into (2) SU, and at times it may reach (3) I/NS. Unlike Bryatesle, these cannot be used independently, and need some extra morpheme in order to be able to stand independently. In most dialects, this is the interrogative pronoun del, which is prefixed to the pronoun: delvael, delnur, delmik.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Indefinite Pronouns in Ćwarmin and Sargaĺk

Again I want to turn your attention to ye merrye conlangre's little typological treatise on indefinite pronouns. It is gold.

With Ćwarmin, we have to use several tables, because the different pronouns overlap each other too much otherwise:
bek'-:

(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU(3) I/NS(4) QU(6) IN
(5) COND(8) COMP

(9) FC
bek' is barely ever used productively in the zone marked with gray. However, a number of fossilized expressions have bek' in that position.

vak'e-:

(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU(3) I/NS(4) QU(6) IN
(5) COND(8) COMP

(9) FC
suv-:, ink'-

(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU(3) I/NS(4) QU(6) IN
(5) COND(8) COMP

(9) FC
Sargaĺk has a slightly simpler system:

(7) DN
(1) SK(2) SU(3) I/NS(4) QU(6) IN
(5) COND(8) COMP

(9) FC
mar-, vur-, jok-. Vur- sometimes reaches into COMP.
In Ćwarmin, the pronouns can be used both independently and as determiners. Sargaĺk does not permit their independent use, but forms compounds with the adjectives 'good', ete, thus getting forms like marete, vurete, jokete. With human referents, it often uses kime instead, obtaining markime, vurkime, jokime. In certain situations, suma, 'saint' can be used, obtaining marsuma, vursuma, joksuma; this can either be a very profound religious expression or very rude.

I am working out a similar set of graphs for Dairwueh and Bryatesle, with the intention of comparing and contrasting these systems through some example sentences.

Friday, April 26, 2013

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?