Quiet Words

* Here's the tense, mood, and aspect (TMA) system of the minimalistic conlang:

The TMA markers are single morphemes (maybe words) and they appear before the verb in the order tense, mood, aspect. Whether the time of a verb is definite or indefinite is probably more important than whether it's perfective or imperfective.

The tense markers are:
nu (Prs) absolute present time
pa (Pst) definite past time
fu (Fut) definite future time
If none of these appear, the time is determined by context.

The mood markers are:
po (Pot) potential
ne (Ctf) contrary to fact
a (Imp) imperative (this acts like a prefix)
If none of these appear, the modality is determined by context.

The aspect markers are:
ha (Ret) retrospective
pi (Pro) prospective
If neither of these appears, the aspect is imperfective or perfective.

The tense and aspect markers combine as follows: if both tense and aspect markers appear, the aspect markers act as described above (noting that a verb with <nu> (Prs) is never perfective). However, if no tense marker appears, <ha> (Ret) becomes a past perfective marker, <pi> (Pro) becomes a future perfective marker, and the unmarked form's time and aspect depend on context.

Here's a little bit about "context". Certain auxiliary verbs imply some particular modality: potential or "subjunctive" in probably most cases, contrary to fact after "wish", and otherwise factual or "indicative".

For time and aspect, it's more complicated. In a subordinate situation (adjectival, relative, or noun clause), the time of the verb is relative present, while the aspect could be perfective or imperfective. In a more coordinate situation, the time and aspect are the same as specified for the main verb. If an initial main verb isn't marked for time or aspect, it's usually past perfective.

* I finally had a session with my therapist yesterday. We'll be able to have weekly sessions now.

* I made arrangements to pay off one of my credit card debts today. They were about to go to court, but settled for an affordable amount. It will be quite a while before I have enough saved to settle either of the others, unless I win some money in the lottery.

* My ILC made a surpise visit today, bringing L. with her.

* I've started playing with a minimalistic conlang idea.

The phonology allows for 260 syllables, with one word per syllable. The syllable types are (C)V, (C)VV, and (C)VC, the first being used for function words, pronouns, etc. The onset consonants are /p t k f s h m n l/. The vowels are /i e a o u/. The diphthongs are /ei eu ai au oi ou/. The coda consonants are /r n s/.

I'm trying out a VSO syntax, with the types of content words being verbs, nouns, adverbs and prepositions, and numbers and quantifiers. The VSO syntax allows verbs to be used in adjective position (after nouns) without marking and avoids having to move complement clauses to final position. A copula will be used when nouns and adverbs or prepositions are used as predicates. There will be grammatical voice or alignment inversion markers used with verbs when an object rather than the subject is not expressed or moved to topic position.

I'm still working on listing the function words. Then I have to come up with a list of basic content words.

* I reread The Illearth War and The Power that Preserves.

* I won't be able to attend the Heinlein Centennial in Kansas City. It's the same weekend as the 2nd Language Construction Conference, and then there would be the question of money. Anyway, I know more people going to the conference.

* Tuesday, I stopped work on PolyF to start another still nameless project.

Word order is VSO with adjectives following nouns. This allows the same verb forms to be used both as verbs and as adjectives. There will be prepositions.

There are a fairly large number of noun classes (I don't know how many yet). The class markers are mandatory on nouns and used on verbs for agreement purposes when the verbs aren't in the same clause (assuming complement and adjunct clauses are separate). The class marker of a noun is replaced by another for plurals and to form different nouns. Certain class markers double as case markers; these are added to the word rather than replace the existing class. Verbs will also have 1st and 2nd person pronominal markers as well as the class markers. They'll also have reflexive and inverse alignment markers and relative and indefinite pronominals

While class and pronominal markers are prefixed, aspect, mood, and tense markers are suffixed. The aspects are the usual perfective, imperfective, retrospective, prospective, and tenseless. The moods are the usual indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and optative. The tenses are present, past, and future and are marked differently for the perfective aspect.

Syllables are mostly CV with some CVC and CVV.