1443rd Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

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Hapi

kaóxìì-íh kì-patía-ha=à ahíkixii sòi-a=kóa kì-kaxá-a-xapa

jaguar-ERG 3sPOSS-catch-NMZ=LINK deer:DIM want-2/3=DECL 3sPOSS-eat-NMZ-PURP

‘The jaguar wants to catch the little deer in order to eat it.’

Notes

  • sòi 'to want' takes an NP as an O argument, so the verb needs to be nominalized using the general nominallizer -(h)a.
  • purpose clauses are also formed using that nominalizer, which then precedes the purposive marker -xapa.
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1441st Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

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Hapi

íí háá papah tiihtá-a=koa pohaoh-haixá híó papáh sóóha-i ài-a=kóa ótí-ki-haixá

3sINAN:A EPIST dog's.name.ABS surpass-2/3=DECL tastiness-SEMBL but.DS Barbas.ERG do.like.this-ITR do-2/3=DECL cute-NMZ:ADJ-SEMBL

‘It is probably tastier than barbas but less cute.’

Notes

  • I think I've never translated a comparative before in Hapi, so let's talk about that. The basic relative superior quantitative constructions (eg. Susan is taller than Peter) is formed using the verb tiihtá, 'to surpass', with the comparee and the standard of comparison (in this case, 'it' and 'Barbas' respectively) as core arguments and the parameter of comparison ('tastiness' and 'cuteness') as oblique argument, which is in this case marked by the semblative case marker -haixá.
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1440th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

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Hapi

tà xi-kíípaá-a

1sO NEG.IMPV-fight-2/3

‘Don't fight with me.’

Notes

  • not much to say here, but I might explain some stuff about Hapi imperatives. Inspired by Jarawara, an Arawá language from Southern Amazonia, Hapi distinguishes three types of imperatives. There's the proximal positive imperative tà-, the distal positive imperative hi- and the negative imperative xi-. All three of those go into the 'mode' slot of the verb stratum. In this context, proximal and distal imperative refer to the deixis of the expressed event, e.g. "do it here/now" for proximal and "do it in some distant time or place" for distal imperatives. In this example, the negative imperative xi- is employed to yield a negative reading of the imperative
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Typological Paper of the Week #2: Coordinating Constructions – An overview

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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.

Coordinating Constructions: An Overview (Haspelmath)

Today's topic is coordinating constructions. These are constructions in which two coonstituents are linked together and have the same status; an example for coordinating constructions in English would be 'my dog and my cat'. While this might seem very boring at first, there are many typological properties that coordinating constructions can exhibit. More on that in the paper! Now for today's prompts:

  • How does your language handle coordination? How does it work?
    • Does your language exhibit asyndetic, monosyndetic or bisyndetic constructions?
    • What semantics are covered by syndesis in your conlang?
  • If your language doesn't have coordination at all, how do you express the meaning typically conveyed by coordinating constructions?
  • Are conjunctions in your language category-sensitive? Is there any syncretism with * respect to those conjunctions?
  • Do your language's conjunctions exhibit polysemy, ie. have got some more usages and meanings than a simple coordinating semantics?
  • And finally, are there any syntactic processes like extraction or ellipsis that affect the function of conjunctions in your languages?

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!

1439th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

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Hapi

pihi=á tà-háa-a tà-ihxoì-a koí kì-tóíh-a-xapa

girl=VOC IMPV-go-2/3 IMPV-clean-2/3 hut 3SG:POSS-be.tidy-NMZ-PURP

‘Girl, go now and clean the hut in order for it to be tidy.’

Notes

  • since this is an example containing an imperative, let us talk about Hapi imperatives. Inspired by Jarawara, an Arawá language from Southern Amazonia, Hapi distinguishes three types of imperatives. There's the proximal positive imperative tà-, the distal positive imperative hi- and the negative imperative xi-. All three of those go into the 'mode' slot of the verb stratum. In this context, proximal and distal imperative refer to the deixis of the expressed event, e.g. "do it here/now" for proximal and "do it in some distant time or place" for distal imperatives.
  • this is also an example for a sequential SVC. More on that in an upcoming reddit post of mine!
  • Hapi expresses purposive meanings using nominalizations + the marker -xapa. The verb stem is first nominalized by the suffix -(h)a, and subsequently receives a possessive prefix which is concordant to the subject of the purposive clause. Finally, the purposive suffix -xapa is attached.
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1438th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

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Hapi

tàah pahíki-xí hása xóóh ihxoì-xí=kóa pàah-hóo paixàì kì-xàa-ha-tah

1sA submerge-REC.PAST loincloth FRUST.TRANS wash-REC.PAST=DECL river-LOC dirty 3SG:POSS-be-NMZ-PERL

‘I washed the shirt in the river in vain, because it was (still) dirty (afterwards).’

Notes

  • In this example, a discontiguous SVC is present. The chain of verbs is interrupted by hása as the verb object and xóóh as a particle. If you want to know more on SVCs in Hapi, good, because I will post something about them soon: 😉
  • In Hapi, to form an adverbial subordinate clause, the verb is nominalized and then receives a clause-specific morpheme. For temporal adverbial clauses, this is the locative marker -hóo, for purposive adverbial clauses it's the purposive marker -xapa and for causal clauses, as in this case, it's the perlative case marker -tah.
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1437th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

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Hapi

tài xáoh-soa koìh káh+xo-xí hioà-xí=kóa

DEM.PROX crab-PL 3PL:A held.up+down-REC.PAST be.tied-REC.PAST=DECL

‘As for the crabs, they held them down on the floor, tying them together’

Notes

  • to be quite honest, there's not much to add here. One notable morphosyntactic feature might be the switch-subject serial verb construction, in which the object of the first verb is the subject of the second verb. This context may be formalized as follows: O₁ = S₂/A₂
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Typological Paper of the Week #1: Understanding and explaining applicatives

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Good evening, afternoon, or morning to you, people of r/conlangs. Today I bring with me a new activity called the Typological Paper of the Week. In this weekly activity, I will present a linguistic paper that could be useful to your conlanging process. Additionally, I will present a few prompts to spark discussion in the comments. There will also be the possibility for you (yes, you!) to submit a paper that you find cool/have read recently/seems useful to conlanging itself in the form below. I've talked enough now, let's move on to today's paper:

Understanding and explaining applicatives (Mithun)

Today's topic is all about applicatives. Now you may ask, 'but what are applicatives?'. Applicatives are derivational processes which add an oblique non-core argument to the set of core arguments. Don't get it? Read the paper, and thou shalt be enlightened. As promised, now for today's prompt:

  • Does your language have applicatives?

    • If not, what are some other valency-modifying processes?

    • If yes, how do they behave, what do they do? Are there any constraints on what they can't do? What kind of applicatives are there? (e.g. benefactives, instrumental, directional)

  • Does your language have other means of expressing the categories that could be marked by applicatives?

Submit your papers here!

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

1436th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

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Hapi

hao hóh-óh sa-xí=kóa saatóh-táa kói-soa==ó xah hóhi-xí póói-xí=kóa==ó sáá=àiho tàa-xí=kóa

DEM.DIST man-ERG cut-REC.PAST=DECL some-CL:banana banana-PL==SEQ 3PL.O take-REC.PAST come-REC.PAST=DECL==SEQ eat=VDIM AUX-REC.PAST=DECL

‘That man cut some bananas, took them and came (here) and ate a little.’

Notes

  • this example showcases the function of a sequential verb construction. In this type of multiverb construction, all participating verbs take the sequential clitic ==ó. This yields a meaning of subsequent events that are seen as separate units. If a series of events is seen as one singular event, it would probably be expressed using a serial verb construction.
  • the verbal diminutive auxiliary àiho is an affixing auxiliary, which means that the lexical head is prefixed to it, while most of the inflection is taken up by the auxiliary verb tàa.
  • this is a prime example of the discourse perseverance of the recent past marker -xí. Since all events in the narrative fall into the scope of the recent past, ie. all events have occurred between immediately and up to three days prior to speech time, the marker appears on every verb in the complex.
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