Deep Dive Into Grammar Conjugating Verbs and Declining Nouns - PowerPoint Presentation

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Deep Dive Into Grammar

Conjugating Verbs and Declining Nouns

Welcome To the Deep DiveI created this because the other PowerPoint was already way too long, but I really wanted to provide more explanation for these different aspects of grammar.

Please note, I strongly do not recommend you put all of these things into your conlang, especially if you are trying to develop a naturalistic language or an auxlang. No human, and most human like sapient aliens/fantasy creatures, would be able to speak a language that did all of this.

Now, if your conlang is going to be spoken by robots, or genetically engineered future humans, or super advanced aliens, okay. I still recommend you not overwhelm yourself. If you’re creating an engelang with the express goal of “I want a language that does ALL the things!” then I wish you good luck. Let’s dive in.

TenseTense places the action of the sentence in time. The simplest, most vanilla option is nothing. A language can function without a tense system. Speakers can elaborate to show when something happened. “Tomorrow, I go mall.” “I eat an apple twenty minutes ago.” “I sleep now.”

That’s not grammar. In this tense free language, those words would not be required. “I go mall,” “I eat an apple” and “I sleep,” would be perfectly grammatical sentences in this tense free language. Context will let listeners know what the speaker means.

Going from that, you can have one tense. What it signifies would depend on what verbs (or nouns) default to in the speaker’s sense of time. If the base word is present, the signifier could indicate past or future. The base word could be past, future or just sit out of time (infinitive). Next, you can have two tenses, what they are again depending on your default verb.Beyond that, you can mark tense as finitely as you want, and in any direction. A language can split the past in four different ways (general past, distant past, a year or more ago, recent past) and the future in two different ways (near future and general future) Splitting up the present is less about tense, so let’s move on.

Quickie Conlang Example - TenseNo tense Lanu toh

bata = the girl kick the ball (could be past, present or future, elaborated as needed)Past tense (verb defaults as present, future elaborated as needed )

Lanu toh bata = the girl kicks the ballLanu tohpan bata = the girl kicked the ballPast tense and future tense (verb defaults to present)

Lanu toh bata = the girl kicks the ballLanu tohpan bata = the girl kicked the ballLanu tohne bata = the girl will kick the ballSix tenses (3 futures, 2 pasts. Present is default)Lanu toh bata = the girl kicks the ballLanu tohpan bata = the girl kicked(sometime in the last year) the ball Lanu tohpel bata = the girl kicked(over a year ago) the ballLanu tohkwe bata = the girl will kick (tomorrow) the ballLanu tohshen bata = the girl will kick(a long time from now) the ball

Lanu i toh bata = The girl will kick (long after all of us are dead) the ball (indicated with a particle)

AspectAspect at it’s most basic means complete (perfect) and not complete (imperfect). A language can default to either of these. Aspect also marks ongoing aspect, habitual aspect and gnomic aspect. Gnomic aspect expresses a general truth, neither complete nor incomplete, just something that is.

Aspect can be marked by itself or be marked along with tense to express unique meanings.

Quickie Conlang Example - AspectThese are not as easy to translate to English Perfective –

Lanu tohse bata = The girl did kick the ball (it just happened right this second)

Imperfective -Lanu tohre bata = The girl does kick the ballOngoing Lanu tohrun bata = the girl is kicking the ballHabitual

Lanu toh hali bata = the girl often kicks the ballCombos!Past Perfect (past perfect form in English means a past action has an affect on the present; it could mean other things in other languages) Lanu tohpanse bata = the girl (successfully) kicked the ball Past Imperfect Lanu tohpanre bata = the girl was kicking (and did not finish) the ball (i.e. when I saw she was kicking the ballFuture Perfect Lanu tohnese bata = the girl will kick (hopefully) the ball (the perfect here expresses the desire that the action will happen, something that a future perfect tense could mark. I don’t know of any languages that do this, but it sounds neat.)

MoodMood expresses an attitude toward an action. Indicative (declarative) – a statement of factInterrogative – a questionImperative – an orderSubjunctive – an expression of uncertainty, hope, or desire. In some languages, subjunctive might have to be used if the speaker can’t be certain of what they’re saying, i.e. if they are saying a person is feeling a particular emotion.

There are several others, but they get less distinct.

Quickie Conlang Example - MoodDeclarativeLanu isi toh

bata – the girl kicks the ballInterrogativeLanu

ke toh bata – Did the girl kick the ball? Toh bata lanu – Did the girl kick the ball? (questions can be formed in a lot of different ways)Imperative Para toh bata

! – Kick the ball!Subjunctive Lanu san toh bata – The girl might kick the ball Lanu san bashri – The girl appears sad

Reflexive and Quickie Conlang ExampleThe reflexive indicates the subject and object are the same, i.e. the subject is performing an action on themself. In languages that use reflexive, some actions will require it, while others leave it as an option.

Lanuon mesh – the girl is herself angering

Lanuon toh- the girl herself kicks

Gender, Number and PersonAll the things covered on previous slides could be shown on either the noun or verb. The topics on this slide and the next one focus on distinctions related to agreement between and among words, as well as grammar.

Gender – A language with gender will have some aspect of agreement, most often between nouns and adjectives, but it can occur between nouns and verbs, or fall on articles, prepositions, or other parts of speech. Number – Contrasting from gender, a language can mark plurals, but not bother with plural agreement. Some languages don’t mark plural at all, some distinguish only between singular and plural (or singular and collective) and some make even more distinctions. Dual, trial and paucal are common distinctions in natural languages. Any of these can factor into agreement with articles, adjectives, verbs and other parts of speech.

Person - This aspect falls on pronouns. All languages have the basic pronouns I/me (1st person), you (2nd person), and he|him/she|her/it (3rd person). So at least three person pronouns, and possibly more in languages that mark gender and/or number. As with nouns, agreement can be expressed between pronouns and verbs, adjectives and other parts of speech.

Quickie Conlang Example – Gender, Number and Person As a refresh on our mini conlang:lanu – the girl toh – kick

bata – ballNow we’ll add:Mak – tall bau

- red chiu – 3rd person animate ila – 3rd person inanimate ado – 3rd person other Gender agreement (nouns and adjectives)Maku lanu toh baua bata = the tall girl kicks the red ballGender agreement (nouns and verbs)

Lanu tohu bata = the girl kicks the ballNumber Agreementilanu tohish bata = the girls kick the ballNumber and Gender Agreement (nouns, verbs and adjectives)Makush ilanu tohish bata = the tall girls kick the ballPerson Agreement Chiu tohim bata = she/he kicks the ballAdo tohin bata = she/he kicks the ball

Syntax MarkingThe next few slides will address grammar normally marked on nouns, but, as I’ve said, there’s no reason these things can’t be marked on verbs.

Grammatical case is how words in a sentence relate to each other semantically. Not all languages mark these distinctions, but all speakers of human language understand them, and most languages will have some way of conveying these meanings, either with affixes or particles. Case marking tends to occur in a hierarchy. Put simply, languages tend to mark nominative/accusative before they mark ergative/absolutive, which they tend to mark before they mark genitive case, which they tend to mark before they mark dative case, which they tend to mark before they mark locative case, and so on.

Again, just a general tendency, not a firm rule. And this specifically refers to case. If a language doesn’t use case they still have some way of indicating if a thing belongs to someone, or whether a thing is on a table or leaving the table. So what does that mean?

Basic CaseNominative – the basic form of a subject, the agent of the verb.Accusative – the basic form of an object, the patient(s) of the verb.Ergative/Absolutive – ergative is the subject of a transitive verb, while the absolutive marks intransitive subjects and transitive objects; *side note* ergative languages often shift to nominative/accusative marking in certain constructions.

Genitive – marks a word, usually a noun, that is modifying another noun. Possessive case is a subset of genitive case.

Dative – marks the object of a ditransitive sentence, aka the recipient. She gave the boy a letter

Quickie Conlang Example – Basic CaseNominative/Accusative lanuwa toh batal

= the girl kicks the ballErgative/Absolutive (notice that girl in the first, and ball in the second are marked the same)lanual toh

= the girl kickslanuwa toh batal = the girl kicks the ballGenitive batan lanu = ball of the girl Kalanun Wola = people of the countryDative lanual dav

patos bata = the girl gave the duck a ball (indirect objects could be left unmarked, marked as accusative or take a different case marking altogether)

Location - Other Case MarkingsLocative – expresses movement away from somethingLanu toh

bataik = the girl kicks away the ballInstrumental – indicates an action was carried out with a nounLanu

toh bata pederi = the girl kicked the ball with (her) footCommitive – corresponds to the preposition “with” in the sense of “in the company of”Lanu hur batare = the girl ran with the ball

Can I just use ad-positions?Of course! High order case marking corresponds with the role of ad-positions, and even languages that have a staggering number of cases (18), still make use of prepositions.

Keep in mind that ad-positions are not particles, at least not yet. They carry more semantic weight than particles, and often have other meanings and uses beyond their ad-positional role.

And if you want to do all of the stuff we just went over on your verbs, than you want coverbs. They function in a similar manner to case marking and ad-positions, but attach or satellite around verbs.

EvidentialitySome languages grammaticalize how the speaker learned the information they are sharing. An evidential language can simply require the speaker to state whether or not there is evidence of their claim.

Or speakers might be required to explain exactly how they got their information. Subcategories include:Witness/

nonwitnessFirsthand/secondhand/thirdhandSensory Inferential Reportative Assumed

Quickie Conlang Example – Evidentiality Lanu toh bata ezi

= the girl kicks the ball (I have proof)Lanu toh

bata on = the girl kicks the ball (I witnessed it)Lanu toh bata lef = the girl kicks the ball (I heard about it)Lanu toh bata jus = the girl kicks the ball (she’s always kicking that ball around so I assume that what’s she’s doing)

These don’t always translate well into English, but they can convey a lot of meaning depending on the conventions of the language.

Can I Have All of This in My Language?Well, I can’t stop you. But unless your goal is to create the world’s most burdensome engelang, you will get frustrated trying to figure out ways to mark all of this. I mean, even if that is your goal, I’m afraid you’ll still get frustrated. And bored, which is the death of any conlang

My recommendation. Pick a few things, decide how they’ll be marked and go from there. You can always add more later.