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Eccentric Iconoclast Captain
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 Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 7:25 am
I have been having majour trouble putting clauses in this language (Madoshk). I can't really make anything that I've tried so far work, so I'm looking for ideas. And I mean clauses of all varieties.
In this very, very verb-based language, there are suffixes for the accusative, prefixes for the dative, all changing depending on the gender and viewpoint of the noun. To pluralise the accusative or the dative standing alone, you change the nominative vowel which is before the accusative suffix to its other form, and to pluralise the dative when used with the accusative, you change the dative vowel to said form. surprised
It's hard to explain, but it works amazingly well.
Tenses are optional, and tied in with the nine grammatical moods; infinitive, indicative, imperative, conditional, general, potential, subjunctive, energetic and dubitative. The imperative is odd because it can't be used with tense markers (one of my languages already has a past imperative, I don't need another one), but it can be mixed with the energetic mood to make it more...energetic. These are put at the beginning of a clause.
Nouns are never pluralised because the verbs already tell you about their pluralisation status. In possessive constructions, the initial non-genitive marking vowel has a pluraliser (usually the letter i) added to it to mark the pluralisation status of the noun that possesses it, unless the possessor is not specifically named, in which case the genitive prefix changes.
The standard word order is VSO, sometimes morphing to OVS.
With the more in-depth cases (instrumental and so on), one tacks yet another prefix on the noun (genitive always comes first, though) that serves such a role. Yet another thing ends up in the verb, between the nominative and accusative. So "danato" ("I make it" - danayn' also covers "to do," but there it uses the dative) becomes "danatemo" - "I make it with that neuter object." And "danatamo laipradem" means "I made it with her help."
surprised
This is, so far, a really difficult language, and I need help.
I'm considering doing something similar to Aquenandi, where I use clause markers - so saying "I gave it to the woman who helped me (make it)" would come out something like "ras azbon'ate na arpradale yana, so I would use the dative preposition when the relative clause is dative. I could use another preposition to mark the accusative, I guess. surprised
But that would need some ironing out as well.
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Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 4:07 pm
Umm...This may sound like a stupid question but...what's a clause?
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Eccentric Iconoclast Captain
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Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 8:33 pm
Hermonie Urameshi Umm...This may sound like a stupid question but...what's a clause? Uh... Look it up. mad D
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 2:48 pm
So.... What exactly are you asking help for here? eek
I know it has something to do with clauses, but I'm not really sure what kind of help you're looking for.
Um. If grammatical mood indicators come at the beginning of a clause, couldn't you simply use those to always mark clauses? Just make a neutral or general mood required so that it doubles as a reliable clause marker for when there is no other mood expressed.
Is this anywhere near what you're looking for?
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Eccentric Iconoclast Captain
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 4:40 pm
Xeigrich So.... What exactly are you asking help for here? eek I know it has something to do with clauses, but I'm not really sure what kind of help you're looking for. Um. If grammatical mood indicators come at the beginning of a clause, couldn't you simply use those to always mark clauses? Just make a neutral or general mood required so that it doubles as a reliable clause marker for when there is no other mood expressed. Is this anywhere near what you're looking for? I'm having issues with dependent clauses. surprised I've got the relative clauses figured out, and I think I've got the rest of them, but I'm going to have to do a lot of experimentation to make sure that they work. ;?
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:41 pm
Alright~
Let me get this straight... Do you not understand how dependent clauses in general work, or are you just having a problem with implementing them in your conlang?
How do your independent and relative clauses work? I'd need to know this before I can offer any relevant advice for forming a third clause type. I'm assuming you'd want the dependent clause to be at least somewhat related to independent or relative clauses. I'll give it a shot anyway...
A dependent clause shouldn't be too hard if you've already got those other two down. A dependent clause could work just the same as an independent clause, only it's introduced or otherwise indicated by a subordinating conjunction (as in English). Maybe you could change some word order or something.
If you're not using subordinating conjunctions, or if you want to do it completely differently from English, then it shouldn't be too hard to just adjust it accordingly. Not all languages have different ways of expressing different types of clauses.
Just to clarify (for us or anyone else who is confused)...
Independent Clause:
I own the book and I like to read.
Dependent Clause:
I own the book because I bought it.
Relative Clause:
I own the book that you are reading.
In Anzer Pex, I think I've basically eliminated the importance of any kind of clause as the other "clauses" are treated as continuations of noun phrases or similar. Instead of "that you are reading" being a clause, you would consider "book that you are reading" a solid noun phrase. The third example from above would be veta-is mo-i kotos kuta-is ne'r va-u, transliterated as "own I book reading are you."
Also, possibly most importantly, you should remember that any clause that is not an independent clause is a dependent clause. Dependent clauses include other clause types such as relative, declarative/interrogative content, and small clauses. So technically, by figuring out relative clauses, you've kind of already figured out regular dependent clauses.
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Eccentric Iconoclast Captain
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 9:07 pm
I understand how they work, but I'm having issues implementing them. ;P
And what I meant that I had gotten the relative clauses down but not the rest of the dependent ones. Relative clauses are rather different, I think. They're formed completely differently in Russian.
So, using the phrase I posted first...
"ras azbonate" means "I gave it to her."
"ras azbonate na yana" means "I gave it to the woman."
"ras azbonate na arpradale yana" means "I gave it to the woman who helped me" - I use the dative marker (na) and then I jump into the verb "she helps me."
"ras azbonate ma arpradale kata" means "I gave the thing that she helped me with to her."
"ras azbonate ha arpradale" means "I gave it to her and she helped me.
But then the going gets trickier somehow. I don't know how to explain it.
I'm currently having issues with the word order in the accusative relative clauses too, but that's mostly because I'm indecisive and/or chronically sleep-deprived.
An independent clause is VSO, for the record.
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 12:40 am
I take it "ras" marks the past tense? Thus "azbonate" by itself would simply mean "I give it to her"?
Also, am I getting these right?...
-te ... to her
-le ... to me
yana ... woman
kata ... thing? with?
ma ... that?
"ras azbonate na arpradale yana"
"the woman who helped me" should be a relative dependent clause by English conventions, but you use a dative marker and a verb rather than a relative pronoun... It seems like this sentence transliterates to something like "gave I it to her (dat) helped woman me." So... marking the second verb as dative refers it back to the subject of the first verb (I/me)? It seems like this should mean "I gave it to her; the woman helped me." This would be more like two independent clauses, but the way your second verb kind of "depends on" the first one might make it plain dependent... surprised
"ras azbonate ha arpradale"
In English, this would just be two independent clauses joined by a conjunction. "I gave it to her. She helped me." is just the same.
"ras azbonate ma arpradale kata"
This one is confusing me. Transliteration might be "gave I (it/thing) to her (ma/that?) helped she me (kata/with)"? This seems like a relative clause.
I gave to her the thing that she helped me with.
"I gave the thing that she helped me with to her." (your version)
"I gave to her the thing that she helped me with." (my version)
"I gave to her the thing with which she helped me." (English correct version?)
Now, lets just try to form a basic dependent clause...
"I gave it to her because she helped me."
I would recommend something like "ras azbonate (because) arpradale", where (because) is replaced with some conjunction but I'm confused with the "ras" business, and my English-thinking mind says that there should be a "ras" in front of any verb in past tense (assuming I was right and "ras" indicates past tense). Otherwise, it says "I gave it to her because she helps me" which has a considerably different meaning. How would you say "I gave it to her because she will be helping me"??
Also, if you are using a dative marker to form a relative clause (?), then maybe you'd use some other case marker to form a plain dependent clause? There's so many ways I can think of doing this... It's really just as simple as saying "if you do it like this, then it means this, but if you do it like that, it means that."
I think your problem lies in how you put the burden of EVERYTHING worth saying all on the verb. An honorable endeavor, but definitely insane (of course~ XD Never said that's a bad thing). I would like to point out that one of the reasons grammatical case exists is to denote what purpose a noun or pronoun serves. By taking this from the noun and giving it to a verb which may interact with several other nouns, you can no longer tell what case a noun is in... unless word order is inflexible or you add in extra grammatical case modifications to the noun. In that case, though, you might as well not bother with grammatical case on the verb, since you can already tell by word order or case declension. I see that adding grammatical case on a verb adds meaning like noting that "this verb is going to have a direct object" or something, but that's really kind of unnecessarily superfluous.
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Eccentric Iconoclast Captain
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:09 am
"Ras" marks the indicative past tense. If you wanted to make it the energetic past tense (for instance), you'd say "yeras," and if you wanted the imperative you'd say "oy." (if you want an energetic imperative, it's "yeroy.")
The "ar" at the beginning of "arpradale" means "to me," and the "az" at the beginning of "azbonate" means "to her." If you a guy was saying the same thing and saying it about a guy, he'd say "ras ozbonute na orpradule yaum." The first vowel in such verbs indicates gender, and the first consonant indicates person. If I was saying "I gave it to you," I'd say "ras ožbonate."
The "e" at the end of them indicates a neuter direct object; in this case, "kata." The L and T that you saw before it indicate person, again; L is the third person, T is the first. The "a," for the record, means that it's a female subject. For a guy, it would change to "u."
yana ... woman
kata ... thing
ma ... the direct object marker, rather like the Japanese を.
"Ras" is used at the beginning of a sentence and applies to the entire sentence unless following clauses take place at different times.
I'm thinking of forming those dependent clauses by saying "ya" between clauses. "Ya ras arpradale yana azbonate (em)" would mean "I gave it to her because she helped me (because it's a dependent clause, "because" might be understood from context so you could leave the "em" out.)
The stuff that I'm doing with the relative clauses does make sense; I've tested. It's so completely far from English that I really can't explain it well, though.
There are prepositions that denote what the noun's use in a sentence is; na and ma, for the most part, but there's also sa (with), la (at or in) and so on.
Saying "ras azbonate na arpradale" would also work, but it's more like saying "I gave it to her who helped me." Basically, putting "na" before the verb marks the subject of the modified verb as being the dative relative to the independent clause's verb, if that makes any sense.
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:07 pm
So, in "arpradale" and "azbonate," the actual verb parts are just "pra" and "bo"?
One thing that's confusing me is the gender attached to the verb, and how apparently "who's saying what" changes it. I still say that there's waaaay too much stuff tacked onto the verbs, even if it's a nifty concept.
I'd say just go with the "ya" thing. Like I said before, if you say "this is so" then that is so~
Also, I personally don't like depending on context (cough Japanese), so I'd recommend keeping something in unless it's really not necessary. If it's not a pain to say or include, why not just leave it in?
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Eccentric Iconoclast Captain
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 9:36 pm
Xeigrich So, in "arpradale" and "azbonate," the actual verb parts are just "pra" and "bo"? One thing that's confusing me is the gender attached to the verb, and how apparently "who's saying what" changes it. I still say that there's waaaay too much stuff tacked onto the verbs, even if it's a nifty concept. I'd say just go with the "ya" thing. Like I said before, if you say "this is so" then that is so~ Also, I personally don't like depending on context (cough Japanese), so I'd recommend keeping something in unless it's really not necessary. If it's not a pain to say or include, why not just leave it in? Apparently, the verbs are a LOT like the ones found in Basque, down to the final T denoting the subject. So say the people on the ZBB. mad D The "prad" and "bon" are the stems. It's not really depending on context as much as include it when the sentence needs clarification.
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Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 9:38 pm
If you don't like contextual stuff, you must hate Aquenandi. mad D
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Eccentric Iconoclast Captain
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