More Conlangs

[qiihoskeh]

I haven't been getting much done, except work on a couple conlangs: a romlang and yet another new sketch (not Nasqi, for those who have been following). Some features of the new project:

• There are variables which determine the referents for 1st and 2nd person, and for the topic.
  
• There is also a variable for the temporal point of reference.
  
• There are special words which modify the values of these variables.
  
• Conventional tense isn't used, but there are a number of aspects.
  
• There are a lot of moods. One reason for this is:
  
• Any word involving perception or mental processes implicitly refers to the 1st person and is manifested as an evidential mood affix.
  
• There is an intraliminal, or quasi-existential-quantifier, to which moods can be attached when one wants to mention perception of an entity rather than a situation. The basic meaning won't be abstract "existence" but "within the bounds of knowledge".
  
• Focusing is done by using particles delimiting a focus zone, which may be interrogative, negative, or affirmative.
  
• Within an interrogative zone, all implicit references to 1st and 2nd persons (but probably not explicit ones) are swapped.
  
• The same basic word can function as different parts of speech depending on what kind of affixes it has (verb vs. noun mainly). This is nothing new for me.
  
• A word, whether used as verb or noun, takes either 1 or 2 arguments. If a verb, the arguments can be phrases.
  
• What's interesting is that both the noun form meaning "same entity as the verb's 1st argument" and the verb form meaning "the 1st argument is 3rd person, non-topic" are identical, the affixes being null.
  
• For words with inalienable possession, the 2nd argument is the possessor. In general, the 2nd argument is the one that's usually more animate, so it will be used for agents rather than patients.
  
• There is also a clitic making a phrase into an anaphore (or possibly a cataphore).
  

I'd better stop now -- no need for a complete grammar here!

This was inspired by all the recent discussions on Pirahã, even though it's hardly anything like Pirahã. Only the intraliminal idea might be borrowed; a lot of the other features contrast.

I'll probably post an improved version of this at conlangs at some point.