The Dailies. April 30

The Dailies. April 30

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Did you work on your language today? Create any new rules of grammar or syntax? New progress on a script? New words in your lexicon?

On the other hand, do any excavating or reading or enjoying stuff you’ve already created? Do you have any favorites to share?

How did you conlang today?

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6 thoughts on “The Dailies. April 30”

  1. So added two more kinship terms:

    • soyet, affectionate soyi • soft cousin, which refers to either a parent’s sibling’s child or a clan peer, that is a marked member of the same clan within the same generation as oneself
    • giref, affectionate giri • tempered cousin, which refers to either a parent’s sibling’s child or a clan peer, that is a marked member of the same clan within the same generation as oneself
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    1. This is great! Does this mean you have the basic kinship words now, or are you still missing some? Did you have one for hard cousin already?

  2. Today I translated The North Wind and the Sun into Jafren, though it’s not entirely final and because I don’t have much vocabulary it’s only a gloss (and so the exact semantics will surely change).

    1. DECL LORE PAST PROG argue north wind AND sun strengths-ESS REL QUO have 3p-PL strengths.
      • The north wind and the sun argued their strengths.
    2. DECL LORE PAST PERF come traveler REL LORE wore traveler warm cloak.
      • A traveler who wore a warm cloak came.
    3. DECL CONS PAST PERF 3p REL CONS disrobe traveler cloak 3p-CAUS strength MORE.
      • They agreed that whoever the traveler uncloaked because of is stronger.
    4. DECL LORE PAST PROG blow north wind hard-ESS REL LORE NOT could blow north wind MORE hard BUT CNSQ PAST PROG wrap traveler cloak tight-ly 3p-AVE.
      • The north wind blew as hard as it could but the traveler wrapped their cloak more tightly to avoid it.
    5. DECL LORE PAST cease north wind blow-GER.
      • The north wind stopped blowing.
    6. DECL LORE PAST shine sun warm-ESS.
      • The sun shone warmly.
    7. DECL CNSQ PAST disrobe traveler cloak next-TEMP.
      • The traveler immediately took of their cloak.
    8. DECL CNSQ PAST PERF admit north wind strength-ESS REL CONS sun strength MORE.
      • The north wind thus admitted the greater strength of the sun.

    PERF is perfect aspect, not perfective (perfective is the default and has no marking). ESS is essive case, which says something is a property of something else. LORE, QUO (quotative), and CNSQ (consequential) are evidentials. Consequential indicates that a statement follows from the preceding one.

    I decided that there is to be no grammatical possession at all, instead you just use a relative clause. For instance, the first line could be translated more literally as “The North Wind and the Sun argued strengths (they have the strengths).” There will probably be a lexical distinction between alienable and inalienable possession though, and that “have” would be the inalienable kind, but there’s not an unambiguous English inalienable possession verb that I could think of. Also, the copula is not used for comparisons. You simply string the subject together with the comparative predicate with no verb.

    If I can figure out how MIDI files work, I could try producing some samples, but I know almost nothing about MIDI, and I have too much of a headache to be able to learn something totally new right now.

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