Day 4 - Words

Constructed Languages

Last Time : Sounds

or

For Today

1.Read “What is Morphology?” by Aronoff & Fudeman

1.Continue work on your own ConLanga. Construct a 100-word Swadesh List

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swadesh_list)b.Identify / create the morphological rules for your language:

i. Nouns: case, gender, number, etc.ii.Verbs: agreement, tense, aspect, moodiii.Adjectives / Determiners : agreement?

Some Key Concepts

What is a word?

Siglitun dialect of Inuktitut (Peterson, 98-99)

1. tuktu ‘caribou’2. tuktuaraaluk ‘little caribou’3. tuktuaraalualuk ‘pitiful old little caribou’4. tuktuaraalualutqiun ‘spare pitiful old little caribou’5. tuktuaraalualutqiunnguaq ‘spare pitiful old little toy caribou’6. tuktuaraalualutqiunngualiqiyi ‘peddler of spare pitiful old little

toy caribous’7. tuktuaraalualutqiunngualiqiyiliaqtuaq ‘He went hunting

peddlers of spare pitiful old little toy caribous’

Some key concepts

Inflectionalvs.

Derivational

Some key concepts

1. Morphemes2. Affixes3. Ablaut (Apophony / Vowel Gradation / Interweaving)4. Suppletion5. Reduplication6. Paradigm

Some Key Concepts

What is a morpheme?

Identify the morphemes in Inuktitut. Inflectional or derivational?

1. tuktu ‘caribou’2. tuktuaraaluk ‘little caribou’3. tuktuaraalualuk ‘pitiful old little caribou’4. tuktuaraalualutqiun ‘spare pitiful old little caribou’5. tuktuaraalualutqiunnguaq ‘spare pitiful old little toy caribou’6. tuktuaraalualutqiunngualiqiyi ‘peddler of spare pitiful old little

toy caribous’7. tuktuaraalualutqiunngualiqiyiliaqtuaq ‘He went hunting

peddlers of spare pitiful old little toy caribous’

Some Key Concepts

What is an affix?

Types of Affixes : Chicksaw

Types of Affixes : Tagalog

Vowel Gradation : Arabic

Some Key Concepts

What is suppletion?

Suppletion

Some Key Concepts

What is reduplication?

Reduplication

1. Doesn’t always have to copy leftwards!

1. Any examples from English?

Some Key Concepts

What is a paradigm?

Paradigm : English, French, Persian, Spanish, Irish, Chinese

Paradigm : Sanskrit

ConLang time

1. You’ll be given some examples of words from conlangs2. Identify:

a. The individual morphemesb. The types of morphemesc. Anything else interesting

Wenja

➢darfata ‘You jump.’➢kaydata ‘You strike.’➢marita ‘You die.’➢gwayfam ‘I live.’➢gwayfamas ‘We live.’➢gwamta ‘You come.’➢gwamam ‘I come.’➢fmaygatan ‘Y’all urinate.’➢gwanarsh ‘They kill’➢marirsh ‘They die.’

Wenja

➢mari-marimas ‘We keep dying’➢dam-damshmas ‘We keep building’➢hu-gwama ‘he has come’➢hu-gwayfata ‘you have lived’➢um gwan ‘kill me!’➢uta kaydarsh ‘may they strike you!’➢aysharsh fmaygam ‘I should pee on them’➢ku gwanam ‘do I kill?’➢kwaysh gwanam ‘should I kill?”➢kwayshtan gwanam ‘should I kill y’all?’

Now, create following constructions:

1. ‘He should have killed you.’2. ‘Keep on building them!’3. ‘Should I have died?’

What types of information was encoded in the Wenja grammatical morphemes?

Esperanto

➢esperi ‘to hope’➢esperas ‘is hoping, hopes’➢esperis ‘hoped, was

hoping’➢esperos ‘will hope’➢esperu ‘hope!’➢esperus ‘would hope’

➢mi esperas ‘I am hoping’➢ni esperis ‘we hoped’➢vi esperos ‘you/y’all will hope’➢li esperas ‘he is hoping’➢ŝi … ‘she …’➢ĝi … ‘it/they …’➢ili … ‘they …’➢oni .... ‘one …’➢il lavis sin … ‘he washed himself’

What types of information was encoded in the Esperanto grammatical morphemes?

Key difference between the two:

1. esperi ‘to hope’2. esperas ‘is hoping, hopes’3. esperis ‘hoped, was hoping’4. esperos ‘will hope’5. esperu ‘hope!’6. esperus ‘would hope’

person/number gained elsewhere

1. warham2. warhata3. warha4. warhamas5. warhatan6. warharsh

‘speak; spoke; will speak’tense gained elsewhere

Lesson for your own ConLang

You don’t have to encode grammatical information through an obligatory morpheme, if you don’t want to.

Dothraki

1. Jano ost hrazef. ‘A dog bit a horse.’2. Hrazef ost jan. ‘A horse bit a dog.’3. Jano lajaki ost hrazef. ‘Warrior’s dog bit a horse.’4. Jano ost qoraes lajakoon. ‘A dog bit warrior’s hand.’5. Kisha jadi krazaajoon. ‘We come from the mountain.’6. Kisha veraki krazaajaan. ‘We are travelling to the

mountain.’

What types of information was encoded in the Dothraki grammatical morphemes?

Since we’re dealing with ConLangs...

Example #1 : Láadan

Evidentiality

Láadan - Sentence-Initial Speech Act Morphemes

cf. Wenja “sentence starters”

Láadan - Sentence-Final Evidence Morphemes

Láadan - Some Examples

1. Bíi le with wa. ‘I am a person.’DECLARATIVE I person (known to me)

1. Bíi ulanin le Láadaneth wa. ‘I study Láadan.’DECLARATIVE to.study I Láadan.object (known to me)

How about...

1. Báa le with wa. ‘_______________’____ I person (known to me)

1. Bée ulanin le Láadaneth wa. ‘______________.’_______ to.study I Láadan.object (known to me)

How about…?

1. Bíi le with wi. ‘_______________’DECLARATIVE I person ____________

1. Bíi ulanin le Láadaneth waá. ‘______________.’DECLARATIVE to.study I Láadan.object

_______________

Example #2 : Heptapod

ConLang Morphology

Take 10 minutes and share the morphology of your ConLang with a partner▪ Which morphological categories must be explicitly mentioned?▪ Do you have any categories that are typologically rare/unheard

of?

For Next Time

1. Now that you have your Swadesh list & morphology, create 10 sentences with the words in your language.

2. Then, record yourself speaking those sentences and upload the audio files to your Canvas shell.