General Information

tryddle

On this page I will upload posts of various sorts, all relating to conlanging. As of now, you will find the following two types of posts here:
'Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day' posts; this subreddit activity (henceforth abbreviated as 5MOYD) challenges the user to translate a sentence of variable complexity. While I try to translate and post every 5MOYD, I sometimes take larger breaks from conlanging itself. In these breaks, I usually don't do any translations, although I might post some older 5MOYDS in other languages here.
'Typological Paper of the Week' posts; this is my own activity on the subreddit, and I will post these every Saturday, here and on the subreddit. In this challenge I present a typological paper which might be interesting to your conlanging, because it may cover topics you haven't really thought about yet.

Note that I sometimes lack the time to write these posts simultaneously to when they're posted on reddit. However, if that's the case, I try to upload these retroactively. So you might see a 5MOYD pop up several days after I actually posted it on reddit.

Typological Paper of the Week #63: Routes towards the irrealis

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Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Routes towards the irrealis (Sansò)

This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate and presents how various languages evolved their irrealis mood. In this week's TyPoW you will not only be able to talk about your mood markers' diachrony, but also how they work without any respect to their development, i.e. in a synchronic fashion. Now onto today's prompts:

  • How does your language express irreality or other semantic categories commonly encoded by irrealis mood?
    • What other moods are there in your language? How are they marked morphologically?
    • How are your conlang's moods used in discourse? What are their pragmatic implications?
  • How did your irrealis moods develop over time? Did any of the paths mentioned in the paper find their way into your language?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #62: Adverbial Subordinator Prefixes

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Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Adverbial Subordinator Prefixes (Dryer)

This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate, and talks about languages which mark adverbial subordinate clauses using prefixes. Just like the English subordinating conjunctions "because", "although" or "while", these languages have dedicated prefixes to express said semantics. In this week's TyPoW you can tell us about how your conlang handles adverbial subordinate clauses, and whether it uses prefixes for that as well! Now onto the prompts:

  • How does your language mark subordinate clauses in general?
    • How does your language mark adverbial subordinate clauses? Does it use prefixes, as described in the paper, or something else?
    • Are there any interesting syntactic transformations that apply to subordinate clauses in your language?
  • How did your language's adverbial subordinator markers evolve? Are they undergoing changes right now?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #61: The Cross-Linguistic Function of Obligatory ‘do’-Periphrasis

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Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

The Cross-Linguistic Function of Obligatory ‘do’-Periphrasis (Jäger)

This paper, submitted once again by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate, talks about how various languages handle 'do'-periphrasis, as in English 'I did not eat the apple.' The author of the paper classifies those languages into four different types that differ in that each one of them applies periphrasis in a different manner. If you want to learn more about this typology, check out the paper! Now onto the prompts:

  • How does your language handle 'do'-periphrasis? Which type does your language belong in, if any?
    • Is there any morphological material that requires 'do'-periphrasis?
    • Is 'do'-periphrasis conditioned lexically?
    • Does 'do'-periphrasis mark any grammatical information in itself? E.g. interrogativity or imperativity?
  • Describe how your language's "equivalent" of 'do' behaves semantically and syntactically!

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #60: ‘Natural concepts’ in the spatial topological domain — adpositional meanings in crosslinguistic perspective: an exercise in semantic typology

tryddleLeave a comment

Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

'Natural concepts' in the spatial topological domain — adpositional meanings in crosslinguistic perspective: an exercise in semantic typology (Levinson & Meira)

This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate, and talks about how adpositional meanings ("on the table", "in the house", "under my bed", etc.) are expressed in various languages. The study is conducted based on a sample of nine languages from a diverse set of language regions all across the world. In this week's TyPoW you can get some inspiration from the paper, and then tell us how your conlang handles adpositional meanings! Now onto the prompts:

  • How are adpositional meanings encoded? Prepositions, postpositions, relational nouns?
    • How is the semantic space of adpositional meanings divided? Tell us e.g. which preposition encodes which topological relation!
    • If your language has adpositions, are they used in any other way besides adpositional phrases?
  • If you considered diachrony while creating your language, are there any interesting grammaticalization processes with respect to adpositions or relational nouns?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #59: Negation without negators

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Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Negation without negators (Miestamo)

This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate and presents a survey of multiple languages which all feature a peculiar property, viz. the expression of negation by means of omitting morphological material that is present in the affirmative clause. An initial example is from Old Kannada (Dravidian, India): no:ḍ-uv-eṃ see-FUT-1SG "I will see", no:ḍ-id-eṃ see-PST-1SG "I saw", no:ḍ-eṃ see-1SG "I do / did / will not see". In this TyPoW you can tell us how negation works in your language, and if "Zero Negative" constructions (as they are called in the paper) are a thing in your language! Now onto the prompts:

  • What negation strategies are there in your language?
    • Is negation symmetric or asymmetric? How are negative clauses derived from affirmative ones?
    • How do negative constructions act syntactically? Are there any restrictions on where one negation strategy might (not) occur?
  • Does your language feature Zero Negative constructions as described in the paper? Does your language differ from the findings of the paper?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #58: Hypothetical manner constructions in world-wide perspective

tryddleLeave a comment

Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Hypothetical manner constructions in world-wide perspective (Martínez)

This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate and discusses how various languages handle hypothetical manner constructions, such as the ones introduced by "as if" in English. There are several strategies regarding how languages deal with those constructions, which are presented in the paper. Those range from free adverbial conjunctions, to constructions employing a noun meaning 'thing'. In this TyPoW you can talk about how hypothetical manner constructions work in your conlang!

  • Which strategy depicted in the paper does your conlang use?
    • If your conlang's mechanism doesn't fit in any of those categories, how is hypothetical manner encoded?
  • Describe the diachrony of these constructions in your conlang!

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #57: Ideophones in Japhug

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Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Ideophones in Japhug (Rgyalrong) (Jacques)

This week's paper was submitted by u/wmblathers, and while it is not really a typological paper, it is very interesting nonetheless. There has been a TyPoW on ideophones before, but that was almost a year ago, so I thought it might be appropriate to reuse that topic. Ideophones are pretty damn cool, and inflecting ideophones are even cooler. This paper presents how Japhug (Rgyalrong, Sino-Tibetan) handles its ideophones, and today you can talk about how your conlang handles them! Now onto the prompts:

  • Does your language feature ideophones?
    • Are there any phonological restrictions on ideophones? Sounds or sound clusters that only appear in these words?
    • How do your ideophones behave morphologically? Is there any ideophone inflection, like in Japhug?
    • How are ideophones used syntactically? Where do they appear?
    • How do ideophones act in discourse?
    • Is there any notable derivational morphology for ideophones? E.g. deideophonic verbs, as in Japhug?
  • Does your language have any other interesting sound symbolism or onomatopoeia?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #56: Red, black, and white hearts: ‘heart’, ‘liver’, and ‘lungs’ in typological and areal perspective

tryddleLeave a comment

Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Red, black, and white hearts: 'heart', 'liver', and 'lungs' in typological and areal perspective (Urban)

This week's paper was again submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate and talks about how different languages handle their terms for 'heart', 'liver' and 'lungs'. While there are some interesting typological observations in the paper, I leave it to you to read about it; it's fascinating, and I don't want to keep you from discovering it yourself! So, in this TyPoW you'll be able to talk about how your language handles those three designations, as well as other body part terms. Here are the prompts:

  • Describe how body parts and specifically the aforementioned three organs are referred to in your language!
    • Are there any colexification patterns regarding those terms in your language? Are 'heart' and 'liver' referred to by the same word?
    • Are any of these designations expressed by morphologically complex terms? If so, describe the patterns behind it!
  • If you considered diachrony while creating your language, describe how body part terms evolved over time!

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #55: Answers to Polarity Questions — A Typological Study

tryddleLeave a comment

Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Answers to Polarity Questions: A Typological Study (Moser)

This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate and talks about how different languages form replies to polar questions such as "Did John arrive?". There are several strategies to answer such questions, such as by means of echoing the utterance, using a discourse particle such as "yes" or by repeating a constituent of the question. Thus, you will be able to talk about how your conlang handles these things. Now onto the prompts!

  • How are questions to polarity questions formed?
    • Try to depict your conlang's answer system in a schema as the one on p.10!
  • Are there any interesting pragmatic implications with some of these mechanisms?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!

Typological Paper of the Week #54: Apprehension as a grammatical category in Ngumpin-Yapa languages

tryddleLeave a comment

Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today's Saturday, and that means it's time for another typological paper! Once again, there will be some prompts for you to discuss in the comments.

Apprehension as a grammatical category in Ngumpin-Yapa languages (Browne & Ennever)

This week's paper was submitted by u/PyrolatrousCoagulate and discusses the phenomenon in Ngumpin-Yapa languages (Pama-Nyungan, Australia) in which apprehension, i.e. the possibility of an undesirable outcome to an event or entity, is marked grammatically. This is not a typological paper per se, but it shows that there are many possibilities for certain semantics to become grammaticalized, which in turn will probably be very interesting for us conlangers! Now let's move onto the prompts:

  • Does your language mark apprehension grammatically?
    • How does apprehension marking work in general?
    • What locus of exponence do apprehensive markers take in your language? Do they modify the noun as case morphemes, are they mood inflections, non-inflecting particles or something entirely else?
    • Are there any secondary functions your apprehensive markers can take? Any homophony with other markers?
    • How do apprehensive markers behave on a discourse level?
  • If not, how does it express apprehension in various contexts?

Remember to try to comment on other people's languages

Submit your papers here!

So, that's about it for this week's edition. See you next Saturday, and happy conlanging!