Questions tagged [morphology]
Questions concerning the study of the forms of words, their internal structure, and how they are formed from one another through processes like inflection, derivation, and compounding.
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How to reconcile the large number of similarities between my languages' morphemes
All of the languages I've made so far are placed on the same continent of my conworld, and it's a different continent from where humans evolved, so they would have had to migrate into it. For ...
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Is placing the preposition before the verb natural?
Disclamer: I have a very limited knowledge about linguistics, so the things I'm talking might be completely nonsense.
In German we can form new verbs by attaching prepositions (?) to it:
schlagen → ...
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From what could I derive a morpheme that explicitly marks a noun as being a phrase head?
I have a number of languages I want to combine into a macrofamily, and one thing they have in common is nouns that ending the the pattern *-(V)nVm, e.g. *-n-om in a PIE-esque language, -unum in an ...
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What is a plausible lexical source for the remote past?
I've always had a huge focus on utter realism, so I require lexical sources for all of my morphology. In my most recent project, the Thakina ['tʰa.ki.na] family. The proto-language has four tenses: ...
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Which categories of inalienable possession have conlangs expressed?
In many natlangs a grammatical distinction is made between alienable and inalienable possession. Inalienable possession is used for things which are in some way conceptualised as being inseparable ...
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What verbs should be irregular in a naturalistic conlang?
I've read that the most commonly used verbs in a language are almost always irregular, and for the most part the irregular forms of verbs can be traced to an archaic form being preserved in the ...
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What words would naturally evolve tri-consonantal roots?
I determined to create a conlang with tri-consonantal roots (I call them tri-cons for short). My question then arose, "what words would naturally have a tri-con?" Verbs and the nouns derived ...
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The pros and cons of having the same word be a noun, verb, and/or adjective at the same time?
I have this burgeoning principle of "let all words be in a base form such that the base form means the abstraction behind a noun, verb, and adjective". Then you realize a word into one of ...
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How large must my consonant inventory be in order for nonconcatenative morphology to work?
In my quest to create a language for some fictional characters of mine, I came across nonconcatenative morphology like triconsonantal roots. If I wanted to employ this in my conlang, how many ...
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What are some different ways to use applicatives?
I'm most familiar with "applicative" meaning a specific way of rearranging the arguments of a verb. For example, the -el- suffix in Lingála adds a direct object to a verb, the person who ...
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How to decide if you should create complex words, or multiple words?
I am thinking of examples like these (in English and Vietnamese from Google Translate):
creationism: thuyết sáng tạo
create: tạo
creatable
creatively
When do you make it one word, and when do you ...
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What are necessary elements to morphologies that rely upon syntax in 2D?
I've seen several approaches to non-linear 2D syntax for written languages. Circular arrangements of glyphs (ring, spiral and axial), clumping-assemblages (akin to Maya glyphs, etc).
Are there ...
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Evolution of irregular declensions and conjugations from reconstructed proto-languages
In designing an artificial dialect of the Greek Language, most words and inflections have predictable patterns with a well-guessed/documented evolution which show the origin of the word's roots and ...
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How do conlangs/natlangs have prefixes suffixes and not get them jumbled up?
When thinking how to build a conlang system of prefixes/suffixes, I get stuck right at the beginning: how do you prevent clashes within the prefix/suffix/base system?
By that I mean the following. Say ...
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Is it possible to have consonant followed by Uvular sound
I am thinking of creating a language that has a sound system a little similar to Latin, with a guttural feel like German. The people who are going to speak this language are harsh and sound annoyed at ...
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How important/useful is it to derive words from smaller parts in a conlang?
In a similar light to How do conlangs/natlangs have prefixes suffixes and not get them jumbled up? , what is the use or purpose of deriving words from smaller parts in a conlang, generally speaking? ...
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Finding Sentence Structure in VSO
I'm making a Conlang, and this conlang uses a Verb-Subject-Object Sentence Structure. I'm trying to convert part of the poem "The New Colossus" into the Conlang, but I'm stuck trying to ...
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Strategies for marking boundaries between potentially discontinuous top-level clauses
What are some strategies for making boundaries between top-level clauses obvious?
I think the most straightforward strategy is some kind of collection of sentence-final particles, but I'm curious ...
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Syllabic restriction/word boundaries set by IPA? Or it is decided by language creator
When creating syllables we basically require an onset, nucleus, and a coda. Now, usually, all language have an onset, and the coda is fairly optional. Before creating a phonetic system, we first ...
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History of world language
If we look at world history—I am speaking a little vaguely, since it is not possible to be completely accurate. The human race began from a single region, as you can see in the bottom image.
What ...
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How could the future "Kesh" language from the book "Always Coming Home" by Ursula K. Le Guin develop from modern languages?
In the book Always Coming Home, by Ursula K. Le Guin, the author created the future Kesh language and Aiha alphabet. Does anyone with an anthropological or etymological background and experience with ...
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Are there any successful conlangs using information density as a design goal?
I'm interested in the idea of a conlang which could be used to create extremely information dense statements - such that, for example, a single word could be built up from morphemes to express a ...
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What is a realistic *upper bound* on the complexity of nominals that can be incorporated into a verb?
Some languages feature noun incorporation. Here's an example from Lahkota from the Wikipedia article on incorporation. I suspect the difference in meaning is similar to the man chopped the wood vs the ...
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How much ambiguity for argument roles is possible without sacrificing comprehensibility?
For the purposes of this question, I'm specifically interested in marking theta-roles of verb arguments and possessive constructs, i.e. the things prototypically marked by case in languages that have ...
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What is reduplication used for in natural languages?
According to WALS Feature 27A, 278/368 languages surveyed have productive full and partial reduplication. Chapter 27 gives the following example of partial reduplication in Pangasinan:
báley "town" -&...
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How can I add irregularities to a morphological paradigm?
So, I'm trying to make something with a naturalistic feel, even though the current phonetic system distinguishes about 38 phonemes... Let's say I'll tackle this later.
I have issues with grammar... I ...
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State-based analogue to distributive case
I am developing conlang that has grammatical cases system for nominals that for each spatial case there is state-based case.
In Finnic languages grammatical cases that denote states occur, examples ...
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Is it possible to make a declension system that DOESN'T limit what nouns can end in?
This has always been a conundrum for me. I like how grammatical case frees up word order, but hate how it puts a limit on what nouns can end in. Years ago someone told me of a natlang that uses 6 ...
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Are suffixes in Ido agglutinative?
I was thinking what is the correct way to say "Little princess" in Ido.
(EN) Little princess - Little (indicates the "size") Princess (descendant of some royal crown and that descendant is female).
(...
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How to naturally evolve verbs into adverbs or dependent clauses?
Currently I have a very simple proto-language which I'm trying to evolve. For example:
slishi hu ho shofli shofli pfufi tushi
repair person tool fish.V fish.V succeed cause
Person ...
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By what means might the roots "let" and "ly" mean the same thing in a naturalistic conlang?
I apologize for how this question may be perceived. I am casually learning linguistics with no curriculum. I can understand that this question may have many possible answers, but I am not quite sure ...
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How to reanalyse collectives in High Valyrian?
Note: For the purposes of this question, please do not assume that the Tongues of Ice and Fire Wiki is correct1 unless it references somewhere else.
The High Valyrian [grammatical] number page of the ...
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Language with nominal TAM and no verbs: Ergative or tripartite?
I'm working on a language with nominal tense–aspect–mood (TAM), i.e. inflecting nouns instead of verbs. So, a sentence like "the woman sees the man", could be roughly translated to something like "the ...
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How can I explain the origin of the dual number in my Slavic-influenced East Nordic conlang?
The language I am creating is derived from East Norse and heavily influenced by Slavic. It has a quite complex grammatical structure - for example, it has not only taken over the two additional cases ...
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Is there a practical lower limit to the number of morphemes required in a language?
Many conlangers have tried (and occasionally succeeded in) creating oligomorphemic¹ languages. What are the most minimalistic successful attempts?
From this, can we extrapolate a lower bound?
¹also ...
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What language uses the most amount of phonemes?
I'm constructing an auxlang/artlang (temporarily named Syn).
The Syn is (being) designed to interface with any known human language, with a wildly uniform set of simplistic, unambiguous symbols.
I ...
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Free word building in Interlingua
There is even a Wikipedia article on Free word building in Interlingua stating that it is feasible to apply derivational affixes in Interlingua productively even when none of the so-called control ...
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Is a naturalistic language without countable nouns possible?
Is a naturalistic language without count nouns possible, thus having only mass nouns? This would mean having many words for things with water: a sea, an ocean, a bottle of water, a puddle, etc.
What ...
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Use of string reversion in conlangs
I came across the Esperantido Universal where reversion of stems (e.g., mega "big" ⁒ gema "small", -a is the adjective ending) is used to denote antonymy. Are there other conlangs using this unusual ...
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Consider an isolated, close-knit community; which characteristics is their language likely to have?
For the sake of concreteness, let's say my low-tech conculture is living in a few villages on a smallish island in the middle of the ocean (Pitcairn Islands comes to mind).
Basically, this would ...
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Are Esperanto's part of speech endings actually beneficial?
I was wondering if they really serve any practical advantage.
For one, what they mean depends on what the innate part of speech of the root is, which isn't marked except through the part of speech ...
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Are there any grammatical aspects which do not have parallels in natural languages?
In Describing Morphosyntax, Payne uses a number of diagrams for visually explaining aspects and what they say about actions relative to time.
Payne outlines the following, all of which occur in ...
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What are common origins of accusative case markers?
What are the primary way(s) accusative case markers can develop?
The primary way of development of oblique case markers seems relatively straightforward, with attachment of adpositions (which can ...
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How can we define words? [closed]
Even though the question seems trivial, it's still a hotly debated topic (as far as I'm aware). For example, in the Oxford Handbook for Polysynthesis, Fernando Zúñiga says:
Recent literature (e.g. ...
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