Time in Bryatesle, Dairwueh and Sargaĺk, pt I: Times of Day

None of the languages of these two families have in regular use any numbers-based way of talking about particular times, although lengths of time are provided in numeral form.

We can find the common BDS system in all three of these languages,and when we look at Ćwarmin in a later post series, we will find that it too has adopted it but has some hold-outs from the ĆŊ system.

Words denoting particular times of the day in Bryatesle include the following list. The 'main' time spans, that any time of a day can be referred to as are in bold.

enys - dawn
vinas - morning
kunyb - early day
misk - midday (when the sun is at its highest, part of kunyb)
gemgas - late day
rimp - evening
xudsyn - sunset
tal - night
aink - a time during which both the sun and moon are visible, comes in two forms: ainkela vinasëta and ainkela rimpity, morning and evening sun-moon overlaps.
ehul - any dark time when the moon is not visible
srus - 24 hour period, counting from the usual time to go to sleep during the season
xsin - any aforementioned, bolded division of the day is a xsin. These can be counted, e.g. three or four xsin would be a measure of a span of time. These are obviously rather imprecise, and in more scientific contexts, a xsin is a sixth of a diurnal cycle, thus making the night be about two xsin long in such contexts. Otherwise, night is often counted as a single xsin.

All of these are unanalyzable roots in Bryatesle, but at least a few go back to compounds or derived forms in proto-DBS. We find cognates in Dairwueh:

inis - dawn
uniŋa - morning (u-inis + genitive)
kombod - early day
ameš - midday
xoŋod - late day
libod - evening

Not all terms are cognates, however:

koswə - night
kešer - a time in the evening during which both sun and moon are visible
muləm - a dark time when the moon is not visible
glest - any aforementioned bolded subdivision of the day; operates like the bryatesle xsin, but lacks plural forms - its case forms are the same in singular and plural.
curn - sunset

Sargaĺk, being spoken in a rather arctic region, has great differences in the spans of light and dark during summer vs. winter. To avoid a very cramped day-time during the shortest time spans, for a while (two months, roughly), the cognates of kunyb/kombod and gemgas/xoŋos moves to the night side, and can be prefixed with the adjective 'dark'. This prefix is mainly used when talking of such a time in other parts of the year, and one can also prefix the adjective 'light' to denote the regular version.

Sargaĺk also has some cognates, several of which form triplets with Dairwueh and Bryatesle:

neš - dawn
wuneštse - morning
geməgə - late day

As for cognates exclusively with Bryatesle, we find

ərip - evening
t'ol - night

 and with Dairwueh, we find

k'isjən - a time during which both sun and moon are visible
nulwu - a dark time with no visible moon

Unique to Sargaĺk are

svərc' - sunset

A twenty-four hour period is formed by compounding neš and svərc, giving either svərc'neš or nešvərc', with no real semantic distinction between the two.

Reconstructions

Since I've basically sort of done a really terrible thing and not derived these through any sound changes, but instead just run with it and hope for the best, ... these may change in the future. This also leads to me just posting a few random speculative roots.

enys - inis - neš
*nəš
the e-/i- prefix in Bry and Dai probably originate with some kind of intensifier. *š > s is widespread in both Bry and Dai, *s > š does not happen unconditionally in Sar.


vinas - uniŋa - wuneštse
*uinjoš
*ui → vi in Bry, *ui → u in Dai, and ui → wu in Sar.
-tse and -ŋa are nominalizing suffixes.

kunyb - kombod
*konəb
o > u is common in Bry; bry y often comes from *ə. Dai often reduces trisyllabic roots to two by reducing the middle one, and here, -od probably is cognate to the word 'bud', time, thus having an intermediate *konəbbud

rimp - libod - ərip
*t'^lip
whenever Dai /l/ corresponds to both Sar and Bry /r/ it usually originates with *t'^l. The Sar ə- is probably the same intensifier as the e-/i- prefixes we find in Bry and Dai. Bry has probably randomly inserted the nasal. As for -bod, see the previous entry.

misk- ameš
*misk
sk → š in many positions in Dai, but at a rather late stage. a- is probably the same as i- in inis, but turns into /a/ before labials word-initially.

kešer - k'isjən
*k'eisier | *k'eisiən
k' → k universally happens in Dai, s → š /_iV happens widely in Sar.

tal- t'ol
*t'ol? *t'^lo
t' → t is unconditional in Bry, K^lV → kVl happens sometimes in open syllables, accounting for the difference from the outcome of *t'^lip

 muləm - nulwu
*mulɣm

xudsyn - xoŋod
*xoŋd
-dsyn appears in some particular times of some particular days in Bryatesle, viz. vedvedsyn - the time the sun is at its highest on an equinox, tadsyn - the time the sun is at its nadir on the midsummer solstice, mistsyn - the time the sun is at its zenith on the midwinter solstice.

Detail #387: A Separate 'Possessive-Like' Case

Let us consider something that is a special case of the genitive, only distinguished for a limited set of lexemes - maybe pronouns, maybe proper nouns, maybe family terms, etc.

I would call this the "Group-inclusion genitive", and it would be parsed as marking that the possessor is a member of the group (or possibly also vice versa, but the opposite direction of inclusion does not interest me for the topic of this particular post.)

I shall use .GiG as an abbreviation for this case.

my.GiG family → my family / the family I am in
your.GiG village → your village / the village you live in

Now, let's consider a further extension of this: we could maybe combine this with the first person plural pronoun as follows:

my.GiG us → exclusive 1pl
your.GiG us → inclusive 1pl

 alternatively

? our.GiG us → inclusive 1pl

It is my firm bet that blogger's html engine will make the examples above collapse into fewer lines than they should cover despite there being explicit html line breaks in the html source for this post. Here's to hoping against hope that it doesn't.

Of course, such a use of possessive pronouns and personal pronouns could work out even without a particular 'group inclusion genitive' existing, but here, one idea just inspired another.

This could also serve to reduce the need to distinguish, say, colleagues from employees: my.GiG workers = (me and) my colleagues, my workers = my employees.

An interesting thing could be not having the .GiG imply that the group membership extends to the particular statement, e.g. "my.GiG workers are kind" would not necessarily mean that I too am, just that the other members of the group to which I belong are. This could of course maybe be distinguished by means of congruence? If the first person is included, first person congruence is required, if the first person is excluded from the statement, second or third person congruence is required. (And then of course, this distinction will fail whenever in a position where no congruence is available on the verb, so maybe this would just be, say, distinguished for subjects and objects.)

Detail #386: Limitations on Volition Marking

Let's consider a weird situation whereby for some reason, theory of mind is, through evolution - both cultural and biological - altered rather fundamentally, and volition marking becomes exclusively used in three contexts:

1. First person
2. Second person interrogatives
3. Reported speech

How this situation would come about is beyond me, but who knows, maybe at a certain stage technological could enable this, and some weird group might pursue some weird ideological or sociological goals and achieve them, and after ages of isolation - with certain technological solutions being ubiquitously  present throughout the society - the brain and language both have reached a point where this is a stable setup.

Let's consider what kinds of verbs this might conflate:

dive vs. be submerged
bathe vs. be wet
fall asleep vs. faint
etc

Now, this isn't as much a strictly grammatical idea, but I've never said this blog is only about grammar (though the reader would be forgiven for thinking so). This idea is more about the structure of the vocabulary. It's about structuring the vocabulary in such a way that words whose main semantic difference is one of volition, and only distinguishing this meaning by any marking  in a limited set of contexts. However, this also permits - nay, even demands - marking the distinction in contexts where we wouldn't. Verbs like

think
say
eat
wake up
read

etc.

Ćwarmin: Sometimes Mandatorily Passive Verbs

Ćwarmin has a set of verbs which require passive forms whenever some requirements for the subject is violated. These requirements come in three main types, two of which relate to the animacy hierarchy. This requirement seems to be related to the inverse alignment of Ŋʒädär, but not an inherited cognate - rather, it may be due to convergence with Ŋʒädär.

1. Absolute Animacy Hierarchy Restrictions

The verb 'kill' only permits animate subjects, but can take non-animate agents, and thus has an absolute restriction on the hierarchy restriction - basically, there is a line drawn across the hierarchy which limits it. With inanimate agents, the passive is required, and the agent is in the general ablative case.

A typical example of this would be the verb 'kill', which cannot take a proper inanimate subject, so e.g.

*ilmis arbaŋ-utus kerb-i-ś
*winter killed the herd

arbaŋ ilm-erəś kerb-eśp
the herd was killed by the winter

*nəlve iś kerb-i-ś
an arrow killed him

i nəlv-erəś kerb-eśp
(s)he was killed by an arrow

Another would be 'utter/express/signal/...', which basically is the same verb as 'exhale', hifnəs.

*ədnist marćost-uc hifn-i-ś
silence expresses agreement

marćost ədnist-erəś hifn-e-kn-eśp
agreement is expressed through silence (note: -e-kn- is really the applicative morpheme -ken-, and the reason the applicative is used here has to do with the argument structure of hifn-, which really means something like 'breathe'; consider the -ken- similar to a prefixed preposition or adverb, only, it does not appear in the active forms of the verb all that often).

All  of these need to be rendered in the passive (or applicative) to be grammatical in Ćwarmin.

2. Relative Animacy Hierarchy Restrictions

With many verbs, a less animate noun cannot be subject with a verb whose object is more animate. These include any verb indicating fights (ampac, nenŋel, ćasćar - all signifying fighting), causing movement sideways or upwards (hegec - push, hegtəm - pull, salkum - lift, raise, kunkun - to shake to-and-fro, vabžum - pull in by rope, liŋbəl - to move a significant distance by pulling, žal - to carry),...

The main difference here from the previous class is that low-ranked nouns can be subjects, provided the object has lower or equal rank. Thus,

ćiriŋ kosdan-uc salkum-i-ś
the tripod lifts the tent fabric

onkup estnet-uc hegədm-i-ś
the weight pulls the rope

are permitted, but not

*onkup vond-uc hegədm-i-ś
the weight pulls the horse

which would require

vond onkup-araś hegt-eśp

3. Lexically Specified

This is an odd, but limited bunch.

mamnan -  to put a child to sleep

Only the mother of the child can be the proper subject, any other agent must be oblique.

ŋačćur  - to wear a piece of clothing

The restriction here is related to tense rather than to subject or object - non-present and non-imperative must be passive.

biəkin - to endure

Passive whenever the object is not indefinite.

luzǯar -  to praise

passive whenever the object is inanimate.

Detail #385: Lexically Determined Chirality of Locations

Chirality refers to 'handedness'. Normally, left and right are relative terms, but we find, even in English, a pair of terms that in some way are defined as a variation of "left" and "right", but in some sense these are determined by reference to a type of location.

This type of location is 'a boat', and the terms, of course, are port and starbord. Several other languages have a similar pair, e.g. Swedish babord and styrbord. These are helpful because on a ship, you may need unambiguous terms referring to directions with regards neither to the current orientation of the speaker, or the listener, or to the cardinal directions.

Now, what if in some types of locations, a culture had a fixed left and right, with regards to some specific type of geographical feature, and the terms for left and right in those contexts, if not further specified (e.g. by possessive pronouns) are taken to be in relation to the geographical feature.

An example would be valleys - a valley might have its left be the left side as seen when looking downstream a river in the valley. If the valley lacks a river, some other means would be necessary.

Inraj Sargaĺk: Spatial Deixis

Inraj Sargaĺk differs from most surrounding languages by its system of spatial deixis; it has two flavours, "very close to both speaker and listener", and "everything else". The "middle deixis" of Sargaĺk, ʒur, has come to signify an inanimate distal deictical determiner.

ʒa - this here, in both of our reaches
ʒu - this here in my xor your reach, or that over there, inanimate
ʒi - this here in my xor your reach, or that over there, animate

As an aside, we find a more complex somewhat similar system in the Lamen language, a mainland isolate in geographical vicinity to the Inraj archipelago (in terms of easily navigable routes).

The Lamen system consists of

ksa - this, in both of our reach
gzət - this, in both of our reach, inanimate

tra - this/that, in the reach of one of us
zrət - this/that, in the reach of one of us, inanimate

eksa - he/she/it, over there, animate
gəksət - it, over there, inanimate

Whether the underlying similarities are due to genetic relation or sprachbund phenomena is not clear. (Obviously, Inraj Sargaĺk is not related to Lamen, but its substrate might be?) 

Detail #384: Long-Range Negation Congruence and Probabilistic Grammars

Let us consider a language like Finnish (or almost English), where negation is done by an auxiliary. In this language also, the main verb takes a special form (in Finnish, the connegative, in English, the 'infinitive' or the 'active participle', to the extent we would call those 'special' :/ ).

Now, the main point here is that in English and Finnish, the form you expect are different for positive and negative statements:

he sits vs. he does not sithän istuu vs. hän ei istu

In English, for present progressive or whatever it's called, this breaks down:

he is singing vs. he is not singing

Let's however assume a language like Finnish, where this distinction is more clear-cut and present almost throughout the language. Now, we can of course imagine certain non-negative adverbials that weaken a statement triggering the negative form, giving us things analogous to

he barely workhe seldom thinkhe scarcely turn up

where barely, seldom and scarcely essentially become lightly negative auxiliaries.

Now, that's just one of the milder ideas of where such pseudo-negation might turn up. Another could be embedded negation bleeding outwards:

she tell him not to buy bitcoin

she know that he wasn't at work

We could also have negation bleeding downwards:

she doesn't know that he work in finance

We could of course make a probabilistic grammar for this, and that's a topic I think could be worthwhile for conlangers to consider - modelling the rules of a grammar in terms of probabilities.

Let's use p(x) for the probability for such 'mistaken' congruence, i.e. a connegative verb form with an actually 'positive' meaning. p(x) is then a function, where x is some way of representing this input. x is then, perhaps, the distance between the 'outer' verb and the 'inner' verb.

We may give some simple function for this, say, x is at most 75%, and is squared for each unit distance added.Thus, f(x) = 0.75^x

We could then start by considering, for instance, different subject as a difference worthy of one unit. Every single constituent between the verb and the subclause (or non-finite verb phrase) could be one unit, two units if the constituent is heavy. Either of the verbs being telic adds a unit of distance, but both being telic only adds 1.5 units. The object of the outer verb being the same as the subject of the embedded verb removes 0.5 units.

Of course, we could add special cases - certain verbs whose congruence has become 'linked' and so if these two verbs appear, the probability for mistaken congruence is unusually high, or somesuch. I am deliberately leaving the idea a bit vague here - I only want conlangers to think of grammatical rules in probabilistic terms while also presenting a certain grammatical idea that also fits as a suitable topic to represent probabilistic grammar a bit vaguely with.