Backup: Conlanging Notes

August 2017

August 2

Accusative?

Makes no sense. Good member of starting vocabulary.

Ushar ebé. 2-ACC 1-INCL-to do-1-INCL-ACC.

Diachronic Vowel Phonemes

compare actual allophones of vowels

familiar singular -> inclusive plural (ae/é/e) polite singular -> exclusive plural (a/á/e) second + polite third (o/ó/u) third (i/í/i)

singular inclusive, indicates emotional involvement in Samoan

Cheyenne Pronominals

Paper on Cheyenne Pronominals

1. verbs: independent, conjunct, imperative
2. agreement or person-indexing for "verbal affixation of pronominal categories"
3. most referents tracked with pronominals, independent pronouns serve functions other than pure tracking of reference
4. pronominals: first, second, third person prefixes
5. person hierarchy determines prefixal person marking when a verb has two or more arguments
6. Jelinek would classify Cheyenne as a Pronominal Argument (PA) language, as opposed to a Lexical Argument (LA) language, such as English. Cheyenne verbs , like those of other PA languages, only has pronominal, specifically pronominal affix, arguments.
7. impersonal verbs take third person prefix
8. unspecified subject is treated differently in Cheyenne and can act like an agentless passive
9. unspecified subject cannot be indicated by a freestanding noun
10. object pronominal prefixed, verb shaped built from transitive stem for object animacy, then detransitived by using intransitive inflection
11. has possessor prefix on possessed noun similar to pronominal prefixes, also has unspecified possessor for non-freestanding words
12. there are alternates with different pitch levels
13. Cheyenne freestanding pronouns are inflectionally verbs, potentially derived from a copular expression