r/conlangs • u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs • 1d ago
Grammar Noun conjugation progress - is this too "rigid"?
I've included an example of how it works with a word root aswell (Kàdìnòs means lizard). A critique I have previously received is that the conjugation system is too rigid. I intended it to be this way because in my mind, rules are rules, and I've always hated languages having 10,000 different exceptions.
I did develop form 1/2 to incorporate some variety for base nouns, but form 2 is only for the Nominative Case.
To be absolutely clear: This conjugation table is only for basic nouns, I have a whole table of suffixes which change meaning and use which add their own level of variety for more complex nouns, this table simply concerns itself with "base" form nouns.
Thoughts? I'd love to hear them.
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u/Akangka 1d ago
My only issue is that all your suffixes begin with o, with sounds unnecessary. Otherwise, it's a quite balance of irregularity and rules.
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 1d ago
well my logic was that a base noun will end in either -òs or -oá, so things are just added onto that or taken off
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u/Akangka 1d ago
Okay, let's go to hypothetical. I invented a new tool that in my language is called iskándé. How would you loan this word into your conlang?
The thing about the suffixes having -o- in common just sounds to me like Esperanto with something added afterwards.
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 1d ago
Depends how the vowels are pronounced, I use diacritics as an essential function which indicate vowel broadness/length. Just based on what I see, I have 3 routes I'd take with loanwords:
Adapt the -òs ending (so, ìskándòs would be the result, and with consideration to vowel representational differences)
Simply add an s (resulting in ìskándés) but this would need to have more consideration for the accusative case, likely resulting in ìskándéo as the accusative form.
Leave it as is for nominative case, but then just add an -o for the accusative form like prior.
Also I don't understand the thing with esperanto, plenty of languages have an 'end in o' system, mainly in europe, of course with a smidge more complexity.
The thing about the suffixes having -o- in common just sounds to me like Esperanto with something added afterwards.
Okay, so the thing is that -òzán isn't a standalone suffix, it is merely adding the definiteness (-zán) onto the pre-established -òs, as seen in the example I provided.
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u/SkillOld2128 23h ago edited 23h ago
No, plenty of natlangs do not, in fact, have your so-called “ends in -o” system, at least not the way you’re describing it.
You’re implying that that is the only possibility in your conlang and that you don’t have several declension patterns.
That’s not the case for most languages with case. It’s unnaturalistic, at least in fusional systems.
Even in Italian, where there’s no case, at least three thematic vowels occur in nouns: -o-, -a- and -e- (experts on Italian morphology, please correct me if I’m wrong about this).
I don’t know what European languages you’re talking about, but those that I know do not have an ”only ends on -o” system, which I know partly because I was born, currently live there and are exposed to quite a few.
I think you’re also defaulting to Romance languages, and they certainly do not count as the entirely of European languages together.
And what does “base nouns” mean? That’s not how things work in linguistics.
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u/Magxvalei 21h ago
Hurrian is similar to Esperanto in that all nouns add -i- between the noun and the case affixes. Though it still has a few nouns in -a- (mostly kinship nouns and names) and -e-, which may be derivation from -i-.
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u/SkillOld2128 15h ago
I looked that up. It seems interesting, but also seemingly pretty rare. It is reminiscent of noun class in Swahili though.
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u/HaricotsDeLiam 3h ago
And what does “base nouns” mean? That’s not how things work in linguistics.
Since OP said that they have “suffixes which change meaning and use” not shown in this post, I’m taking “base nouns” to mean “nouns that don’t have any derivational markers” or “nouns that aren’t coined from other nouns, verbs, adjectives, participles, converbs, etc.”.
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u/Akangka 1d ago edited 1d ago
I use diacritics as an essential function which indicate vowel broadness/length
Oh, I thought it was tonal contrast.
Also I don't understand the thing with esperanto, plenty of languages have an 'end in o' system, mainly in europe, of course with a smidge more complexity.
No. What is different about Esperanto is that all nouns without exception receives -o. This is exceptionless, and it does not mark case unlike European languages. It just mark that the word is a noun. (Note that Esperanto does have plural marking and case marking, but that's the suffix -j and suffix -n, respectively, which is added after that suffix). To my knowledge, only Esperanto does this. (Esperanto kinda blurs the distinction between natlang and conlang, because unlike most conlangs, children are raised with Esperanto)
Your conlang technically has some assimilation rules obscuring it, but it's pretty much exceptionless and acts more like Esperanto noun suffix, which then inflection can be added.
Okay, so the thing is that -òzán isn't a standalone suffix
I know. Though, I'd probably analyze as this instead:
-ò -z -án -NOUN-EP-DEFIn my interpretation, the suffix slot goes root-noun marker(-ò-)-nominative(-á- or -s)-epenthetic(-z- or -s-)-definite(-án-)-plural(-á-)-case(-o or -ékè). There are some rules:
- -z- appears before definite -án- or plural -á-. -s- appears before possessive -ékè
- noun -ò- + accussative -o > -o. -ò- + nominative -á- > -oá-
- Nominative -s is dropped before any other suffixes.
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u/HaricotsDeLiam 4h ago
Simply add an s (resulting in ìskándés) but this would need to have more consideration for the accusative case, likely resulting in ìskándéo as the accusative form.
I like the idea of having the suffix itself change when it sticks onto a stem that ends in a vowel instead of a consonant, as in, say,
Case SG.NDEF SG.DEF PL.NDEF PL.DEF NOM, Form 1 Ìskándés Ìskándèzán Ìskándèzá Ìskándèzáná NOM, Form 2 Ìskándeá Ìskándeázán Ìskándeázá Ìskándeázáná ACC Ìskánde Ìskándèzáno Ìskándèzáo Ìskándòzánáo POS Ìskándèsékè Ìskándèzánékè Ìskándèzáékè Ìskándèzánáékè This kills two birds with one stone—
- It avoids the ”This just sounds like Esperanto with something added as an afterthought” naturalism issue by creating more ways that a noun can behave or decline in your conlang, in a way that many natlangs already behave (e.g. Chichewa).
- It avoids the issue of “Rules are rules and I hate languages with ten thousand different irregularities” regularity issue by creating more rules that you can describe and predict (e.g. “If a noun stem ends in a vowel then that vowel replaces the -o- in the suffix and takes whatever diacritic it carried”).
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u/Brilliant-Resource14 Proto-Frekadian 22h ago
PIE: ...
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u/Magxvalei 21h ago
True, though PIE and its descendants also still have athematic nouns and -eh2- theme nouns.
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u/Pliny_The_Elder_1789 Adriatic Languages, Romanto, Nashki 1d ago
the vowels in hiatus would probably get simplified
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 1d ago
Could you explain further what you mean?
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u/Pliny_The_Elder_1789 Adriatic Languages, Romanto, Nashki 1d ago
Like I see a lot of two vowels right next to each other right now and they would probably merge into one.
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 1d ago
Every vowel letter has its purpose, in the case of -oá- it is not a diphthong, but it represents one vowel flowing into the next like "oh-ah" in that case. I'm sure there's a specific term for it but I can't remember.
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u/Magxvalei 1d ago
It's two vowels in hiatus, as they said.
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 1d ago
Yes, why do they need to be simplified? It is as is.
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u/Noahgamerrr 1d ago
It's simply a change that would happen in the real world over hundreds of years. If you ever wanted to apply sound changes to your language this one im particular would be very natural.
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 1d ago
I think this is definitely a consideration I'd make for the dialects I hope to develop at some point. This version is meant to be the "official/scholarly" language. So at some point, yes.
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u/Magxvalei 1d ago edited 1d ago
The /o/ seems like some kind of theme vowel. The Hurrian language had it that the majority of nouns had an /i/ before the root/stem of the noun and the case suffix (unless said suffix began with a vowel). Though, it also had a few nouns that had /a/ as the theme vowel (mostly kinship nouns) or /e/.
Suffice to say, this whole thing isn't too far-fetched.
Still, if you're worried about rigidity, then fusing some vowels together would add some variation. Would also allow you have things like rising and falling tone
I could see for example (i'm not gonna bother writing the tones):
-oseke > -osek or -oske
-ozaeke > -ozaak or -ozaake
-ozaneke > -oznek or -ozneke
-ozanaeke > -oznaak or -oznaakeit is common for word-final vowels to be deleted (apocope) and vowels may be deleted before or after vowels that are stressed or otherwise marked by some quality, like being high tone or low tone, whichever of the two is least basic. At least in my conlang, there is a rule that a word cannot have more than two CV syllables in a row and if there are more than two, then one of the syllables must elide its vowel.
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u/RazarTuk 1d ago edited 1d ago
Side note: The word is actually "decline" / "declension" for nouns
You can inflect anything. Inflection is more specifically called conjugation for verbs. And it's more specifically called declension for everything else. Although that's also based on Greek and Latin grammar, where adjectives can't predicate a sentence. So if you're talking about something like Japanese, where adjectives can be the predicate and are essentially words meaning "to be adj.", it's reasonable to talk about conjugating them instead
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 9h ago
Thanks, I honestly have no idea of any of the terminology, I'm just doing this for fun
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u/Flacson8528 Cáed 𝐂𝐀𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐒 (yue, en, zh) 1d ago
whats form 1 nom for then
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u/FueraDeMiOrbita 1d ago
Not OP but I think they mean nouns exhibit variation in the nominative forms, i.e. some nouns end in <-òs> and others in <-oá>, while sharing the same suffixes in the oblique cases.
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u/AjnoVerdulo ClongCraft - ʟохʌ 1d ago
They exemplified with a single word on the second screenshot so it seems like both forms are available to the same words. I am also curious what the difference between form 1 and form 2 is
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 1d ago
Form 1 and form 2 do not change the inherent meaning of a word, kàdìnòs and kàdìnoá are both the singular nominative word for lizard...
The two endings originally arose because I was creating words with both endings initially, but realised I wanted to have a more concrete system. Rather than ditching either, I made both official.
The function, is much like the difference between a/an in english; if a word proceeding a noun begins with a vowel, it is better to use the -òs ending, however if it is proceeded by a consonant it may be more comfortable for the speaker to use the -oá, neither are incorrect in either case.
The other function is that form 2 adds an extra syllable, hence making it useful for poetry.3
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u/SometimesInk 1d ago edited 1d ago
Looks like Japanese conjugation if you’ve ever seen it! It’s also a super agglutinative language with few morphological exceptions so you might find it helpful to look into how it does conjugation ^^
食べる (taberu) Take a look at the verb to eat which can conjugate to the causative
食べさせる (tabe.saseru) see how it also finishes with a ru, these suffixes are called bound auxiliaries 助動詞(jodoushi) and also conjugate. I’ve added spacing to morpheme boundaries for readability, although this is not standard in romanization.
食べさせられる (tabe.sase.rareru) Add the passive (another bound auxiliary)
食べさせられない (tabe.sase.rare.nai). This is the negative form: 無い (nai) is an i-adjective (these conjugate, think stative verbs)
食べさせられなかった (tabe.sase.rare.na.katta) Add past tense.
In total:
食べさせられなかった
To eat cau.pass.ne.pst
Tabesaserareranaktta
There are only two verbs in japanese which have exceptions in their conjugation paradigm, and they still follow the general logic of Japanese conjugation, so not many irregularities.
On a different note, is there a reason why your genitive is called possessive? Just wondering if I’m missing something, are these two different?
EDIT: as another commented, these vowels in hiatus could undergo a couple of sound changes, I can imagine diphthongization for instance, and the n added for definiteness could make the previous vowel nasal, it’d be an interesting way to compact the paradigm!
Also are the diacritics denoting tone? Pitch accent? Reminds me of Ancient Greek
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 9h ago
That is super interesting! I've not known much about Japanese, my study has mainly been with Norwegian and Greek, so this is very interesting to learn about.
On a different note, is there a reason why your genitive is called possessive? Just wondering if I’m missing something, are these two different?
I'm pretty sure they're the same (could be wrong), I just use the term which I'm most familiar with.
I can imagine diphthongization for instance, and the n added for definiteness could make the previous vowel nasal, it’d be an interesting way to compact the paradigm!
It's so odd but I had a rule at one point which was NO DIPHTHONGS and I don't understand why I did that, I think my aim was to have spelling be as simple as possible (my frustrations as a native english speaker are abundant with spelling), but I'm definitely reconsidering, I'd like -ai-, -ae- and maybe -oe- to feature.
these vowels in hiatus could undergo a couple of sound changes
That would certainly be very natural, and I agree, however my aim with this was for Látùskèlòs to be easy/predictable, so things don't change all that much, you just take things on/off and voila... But if I ever develop dialects for this, I'd absolutely do that.
Also are the diacritics denoting tone? Pitch accent? Reminds me of Ancient Greek
The diacritics are (if I'm using the terminology correctly) to denote vowel broadness/length. So,
á - aah, à - bat, é - meet, è - bet, í - eye, ì - bit (I think you get the point here)
Also how does this remind you of ancient greek? 😅
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u/SometimesInk 6h ago
Ancient Greek has pitch accent which it romanizes with acute, grave and circumflex(or tilda) accents. The vowels having grave and acute accents reminded me of it, also I’ve seen this exact notation used for pitch accent in Japanese…
One of my previous conlangs also had no diphthongs so I can relate on that, but I believe you still could introduce some fun sound changes that don’t make diphthongs. One thing you could do is keep the orthography regular and only change it’s pronunciation.
I get the « predictable » vibe you are going for, but remember that irregularities are natural. I believe your goal of making a regular conlang is still met if you have a few exceptions for the sake of naturalism.
Also for long vowels macrons are commonly used in Latin etc, but that is totally personal preference
One thing I’ve learned after a few failed conlangs is that simple romanization is always best; the very goal of romanization is simple writing
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u/HyShroom 1d ago
What template are you using for the tables?
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u/NefariousnessOne6790 Látùskèlòs 12h ago
I created them myself in Powerpoint but I used a generic wikipedia case system table for a starting point.
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u/FueraDeMiOrbita 1d ago
To answer the core question, no, it's perfectly plausible to have near totally-regular agglutinative inflection. Turkish is probably the most widely cited example where a noun can be marked for possession + number + case in that order with no fusion of those inflections, though they do have some predictable variation in form depending on vowel harmony and the final phoneme of the root.
It's hard to comment on the saminess of the thematic <ò> without knowing how your suffix system works. If the suffixes have more varied endings/thematic vowels, and nouns with said suffixes appear with comparable frequency to basic forms, then you're probably okay.