Page 5 of 5 FirstFirst 12345
Results 41 to 45 of 45

Thread: Conlang???

  1. #41
    Guild Adept
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Rome, Italy - New York, USA
    Posts
    417

    Default

    It's interesting how so many conlangs seem to lack an independent "to be" verb. That's the case of mine too, actually. My imaginary people don't even have separate verbal forms, they just have words expressing concepts that can be "declined" (not quite the right term, I guess) in a predicative and in a nominal form (and eventually further modified into adjectives).
    Thus, if by "I am" etc., you simply mean the expression that someone is, they would just say the pronoun, but indeed the point is that they would not think in that way and would not say that at all. Oh, they also don't distinguish between singular and plural in most cases, but rely on numeral adjectives to convey numbers. (Although there is also a related languages which has similar lexicon but a more conventional grammar structure, which I haven't developed yet).

    Thus (not very interesting, in the end):
    I/we (am/are) = É
    You (are) = Dé
    He/she/they (is/are) = Èin

  2. #42

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by feanaaro View Post
    It's interesting how so many conlangs seem to lack an independent "to be" verb. That's the case of mine too, actually. My imaginary people don't even have separate verbal forms, they just have words expressing concepts that can be "declined" (not quite the right term, I guess) in a predicative and in a nominal form (and eventually further modified into adjectives).
    Godspeech is pro-drop too (if that's what you mean).

    Thus, if by "I am" etc., you simply mean the expression that someone is, they would just say the pronoun, but indeed the point is that they would not think in that way and would not say that at all.
    Godspeech may be like that too most of the times. For example, a lord may ask a servant:

    Bemdobrado lamān rejembejaol.
    [ˈbɛmdɔˌbɾadɔ ˈlamaːn ˈɾɛʒɛmbɛˌʒaɔl]
    bemdo-bra-do lam-ān r<ej>embejaol
    know-EVID.BL-TOP say-IMP.BL <INF>intelligent
    Who do you know is intelligent?
    Lit. About (someone) (you) know, tell me who is intelligent.

    To this, the servant may reply:

    Ajēbameuro.
    [ˈajɛbamɛˌuɾɔ]
    a<jē>bam-e-uro
    <HBL>person-SG.DEF.MASC-1.this
    I (am).
    Lit. This person.

    Yet, he simply may reply:
    Amēnji.
    [ˈamɛːnʒi]
    amēn-ji
    ADJ-IND.XPOL
    (I/you/he/she/we/they) am/are/is.

    which is extremely ambiguous.

  3. #43
    Guild Adept
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Rome, Italy - New York, USA
    Posts
    417

    Default

    Actually no, it's quite the opposite of pronoun-dropping. Since words are not declined by either gender or number it is imperative to have explicit pronouns to make anything understandable; even more than in a language such as English.

  4. #44

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by feanaaro View Post
    Actually no, it's quite the opposite of pronoun-dropping. Since words are not declined by either gender or number it is imperative to have explicit pronouns to make anything understandable; even more than in a language such as English.
    Interesting. I chose my language would allow to drop anything, even if it makes it meaningless. In my example above, amēnji meaning (I/you/he/she/we/they) am/are/is, the inflection -ji marks the verbal adjective amēn with indicative mood, extreme politeness, and affirmative. There's no indication of gender or number, so leaving out anything else, makes it highly ambiguous and potentially meaningless, which may be the speaker's intention.

  5. #45
    Guild Member Facubaci's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Argentina
    Posts
    81
    Blog Entries
    1

    Default

    I have a language that I created.

    Singular

    Di – First person, like "I".
    To – Second person, like "you".
    Her – Third male person, like "he".
    Das – Third female person, like "she".

    Me – Used to refer a thing in singular.

    Plural

    Diver – First male person, like "us" in english or "nosotros" in spanish.
    Disas – First female person, like "us" in english or "nosotras" in spanish.
    Tores – Second person, like "you" in english or "ustedes"/"vosotros" in spanish.
    Deher – Third male person, like "they" in english or "ellos" in spanish.
    Dedas – Third female person like "they" in english or "ellas" in spanish.

    Met – Used to refer a thing in plural.


    It is worth mentioning that to assign a gender to a word is used at the end of it one of the following suffixes:

    Er: to indicate that's a masculine word.
    As: to indicate that's a feminine word.

    Example: to the word: mul (thief) you can add: mul"er" to indicate that's masculine (male thief) and: mul"as" to indicate that's feminine (female thief).

    I don't want to do this longer.
    What do you think?

    Cheers.

Page 5 of 5 FirstFirst 12345

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •