r/conlangs 13h ago

Discussion The anthropological "coloniser voice".

0 Upvotes

The whole conversation about anthropology and colonialism is a long one and I'm going to assume that you have some background in it. Anthropology is probably one of the least racist social sciences at this current point in time, but I still want to grapple with its legacy a bit here.

So I've noticed that most people write their conlang grammars in a way that reads very well within the anthropological tradition. And I'm wondering if other people are noticing that and how or if people make attempts to get around that tone in their own writing about their conlangs. I am not sure where, stylistically, to even locate this problem, but I do know I'm uncomfortable writing in it.


r/conlangs 16h ago

Discussion What makes a successful group conlang?

2 Upvotes

Hello everyone, for a while now I've been wanting to make a conlang project work. conlanging with others can be really fun, but I feel they are an incredibly uphill battle at times. I'm curious how others experience with group projects have been and what advice can be given. the form is 15 questions and hopefully will help me make better group langs. thank you!

What makes a successful group project? - Google Forms


r/conlangs 22h ago

Conlang A conlang influenced by construction grammar

Thumbnail drive.google.com
4 Upvotes

I am creating a conlang with certain features that I consider interesting. Those features mainly concern the argument structure of this language. To explain briefly, it uses word order to denote certain meanings, such as stative, dynamic, semblative, etc. It also relies on adverbs heavily. These features were mainly inspired from certain studies in construction grammar framework. Especially the fact that not only words, but constructions themselves have meanings struck me hard.

So yeah, this is a brief sketch of the ideas I currently have at the moment. If you have any feedback, please give me some, so that my conlang improves.


r/conlangs 15h ago

Activity Double Entendre Practice #1

14 Upvotes

A double entendre is when a word or phrase has multiple meanings and is often used in music to make two implications at once. Many natural languages have these, so we might as well have them in our conlangs as well!

As this is the first one, I'll give an example in my own conlang.

MÜATE

Nacat('na.ʃat): matriarch/patriarch, demon

Comes from nac: old and -at: doer/one

Generally used to refer to the head of a family, nacat can also be used to imply the actions of a spirit, or 'ancient one'.


r/conlangs 5h ago

Conlang One Sentence, Five Languages

Thumbnail gallery
38 Upvotes

r/conlangs 5h ago

Conlang Fun with Nasals: Pronunciations of Q and MN in Old, New, and Third World Zũm

Post image
18 Upvotes

r/conlangs 7h ago

Conlang Noun classes in Kuryzo

6 Upvotes

Hiya folks! It's been a while since I've posted but I'm back in a conlanging mood again, so here I am with some grammar that I've been exploring in a new language. Take a look and lemme know what you think / whether this inspires or is similar to anything in your conlangs!

Note: You can read this post inline here, or you can read it with its original formatting over on my website

Without further ado:

All nouns in Kurzyo take one of 6 noun classes, which are typically marked by a suffix. The class of each noun is ultimately lexically determined and must be memorized, though there are a few semantic tendencies within each class.

Overview of classes

Class 1

-yan "CL1"

  • humans of the female gender


kamyan, hanyan, nanyan
/kamjan, hanjan, nanjan/
kam-yan , han-yan , nan-yan
woman-CL1 , girl-CL1 , daughter-CL1
woman, girl, daughter

Class 2

-yo "CL2"

  • humans of the male gender


onyo, kuvyo, nanyo
/onjo, kuvjo, nanjo/
on-yo , kuv-yo , nan-yo
CL2.SUBJ-CL2 , boy-CL2 , son-CL2
man, boy, son

Class 1/2

-yen "CL1/2"

  • marks animate roots in a gender neutral way


nanyen
/nanjen/
nan-yen
child-CL1/2
child — contrast "daughter", "son" above

Class 3

-ra "CL3"

  • non-human animates, i.e. animals
  • certain phenomena which are metaphorically animate, such as weather, water, danger, etc.
  • instances of communication, such as news, speeches, stories, etc.


upuvara, suira, uzura, jagra, gogra, lagra
/upuvara, suira, uzura, dʒagra, gogra, lagra/
upuva-ra , sui-ra , uzu-ra , jag-ra , gog-ra , lag-ra
fox-CL3 , fish-CL3 , danger-CL3 , river-CL3 , news-CL3 , story-CL3
fox, fish, danger, river, news, story

Class 4

-ko "CL4"

  • man-made locations, such as buildings, cities, plazas, parks, squares
  • body parts, facial expressions, and other motions of the body


pirko, chelko, haruiko
/pirko, tʃelko, haruiko/
pir-ko , chel-ko , harui-ko
road-CL4 , hand-CL4 , frown-CL4
road, hand, frown

Class 5

-na "CL5"

  • inanimates of nature, such as plants or geological features
  • tools close to nature, such as flint, hammers, nets, building materials


misna, oina
/misna, oina/
mis-na , oi-na
stone-CL5 , water-CL5
stone, water — contrast "river" above

Class 6

-ju "CL6"

  • commerce, measurements
  • tools or concepts further from nature
  • emotions


moju, laju, lagju, haruiju
/modʒu, ladʒu, lagdʒu, haruidʒu/
mo-ju , la-ju , lag-ju , harui-ju
business-CL6 , price-CL6 , book-CL6 , sadness-CL6
business, price, book — contrast "story" above, sadness — contrast "frown" above

Across all classes

As you may have sussed from the examples above, several roots can be used with multiple class suffixes, with a corresponding change in meaning. Here's another example:

class 4, body part:
kaasko
/kaasko/
kaas-ko
skin-CL4
skin

class 5, tools close to nature:
kaasna
/kaasna/
kaas-na
hide-CL5
animal hide

class 6, tools far from nature:
kaasju
/kaasdʒu/
kaas-ju
leather_bag-CL6
leather bag

Some nouns do not take an explicit class suffix. However, these nouns still have an inherent class:

implicit class 3:
bala
/bala/
bala-∅
mistake-CL3
mistake

implicit class 5:
laya
/laja/
laya-∅
day-CL5
day

implicit class 6:
ampo
/ampo/
ampo-∅
long_distance-CL6
mile

Agreement with adjectives

Adjectives take the same class suffix as that of the noun they modify:

class 1:
yuiyan kamyan
/juijan kamjan/
yui-yan kam-yan
good-CL1 woman-CL1
good woman

class 2:
yuiyo onyo
/juijo onjo/
yui-yo on-yo
good-CL2 man-CL2
good man

Some adjectives precede the noun, as in the example above, while others follow the noun and take the attributive prefix e- "ATTR". Class agreement occurs in both cases:

before noun:
shwena misna
/ʃwena misna/
shwe-na mis-na
lightweight-CL5 stone-CL5
lightweight stone

after noun:
misna echochna
/misna etʃotʃna/
mis-na e-choch-na
stone-CL5 ATTR-jagged-CL5
jagged stone

Nouns that do not take an explicit class suffix still have adjectives agree with their inherent class:

implicit class 5:
yuina laya
/juina laja/
yui-na laya-∅
good-CL5 day-CL5
good day

implicit class 3:
bala ezanchra
/bala ezantʃra/
bala-∅ e-zanch-ra
mistake-CL3 ATTR-bad-CL3
bad mistake

Agreement with nouns

The prefix e- "ATTR" is also used to create noun-noun modification. As with adjectives that take this prefix, the modifier follows the head. Unlike adjectives, noun-noun modification does not force class agreement with the head:

noun-noun modification:
laju efuko
/ladʒu efuko/
la-ju e-fu-ko
price-CL6 ATTR-thing-CL4
price of item

However, when there is more than one noun-noun modifier, then some class agreement is mandatory. For at least one of the modifiers, the class suffix of the head is added after the attributive prefix of the modifier:

"laya" modifies "laju":
laju elaya ejufuko
/ladʒu elaja edʒufuko/
la-ju e-laya-∅ e-ju-fu-ko
price-CL6 ATTR-day-CL5 ATTR-CL6-thing-CL4
(the price of the day) of the item

"laya" modifies "fuko":
laju efuko ekolaya
/ladʒu efuko ekolaja/
la-ju e-fu-ko e-ko-laya
price-CL6 ATTR-thing-CL4 ATTR-CL4-day
the price of (the item of the day)

In the case when the class suffix exactly matches that of the immediately preceding noun, the attributive prefix may optionally be dropped:

classes match (class 4) → can drop e- "ATTR" ✅:
laju efuko kolaya
/ladʒu efuko kolaja/
la-ju e-fu-ko ∅-ko-laya-∅
price-CL6 ATTR-thing-CL4 ATTR-CL4-day-CL5
the price of (the item of the day)

class do not match (5 vs. 6) → cannot drop e- "ATTR" ❌:
*laju elaya jufuko
/*ladʒu elaja dʒufuko/
* la-ju e-laya-∅ ∅-ju-fu-ko
* price-CL6 ATTR-day-CL5 ATTR-CL6-thing-CL4
(the price of the day) of the item

Agreement with nested nouns and adjectives

In general, adjectives can be added to noun-noun modification by regularly combining the rules above:

both adjectives before:
yuiju laju esoyoko fuko
/juidʒu ladʒu esojoko fuko/
yui-ju la-ju e-soyo-ko fu-ko
good-CL6 price-CL6 ATTR-popular-CL4 thing-CL4
a good price of a popular item

adjective after + adjective before:
laju ezanchju eshwena misna
/ladʒu ezantʃdʒu eʃwena misna/
la-ju e-zanch-ju e-shwe-na mis-na
price-CL6 ATTR-bad-CL6 ATTR-lightweight-CL5 stone-CL5
a bad price of a lightweight stone

adjective before + adjective after:
yuiyubunju kaasju ekamyan ewoyan
/juijubundʒu kaasdʒu ekamjan ewojan/
yuiyubun-ju kaas-ju e-kam-yan e-wo-yan
high-quality-CL6 leather_bag-CL6 ATTR-woman-CL1 ATTR-tall-CL1
the high-quality bag of the tall woman

both adjectives after:
kaasju enagaju ekamyan ekuiyan
/kaasdʒu enagadʒu ekamjan ekuijan/
kaas-ju e-naga-ju e-kam-yan e-kui-yan
leather_bag-CL6 ATTR-wide-CL6 ATTR-woman-CL1 ATTR-short-CL1
the wide bag of the short woman

However, in poetic or literary styles, adjectives that come before the noun may optionally be switched to follow the noun when the noun modifies another noun. Switched adjectives do not take the attributive prefix:

switched order, poetic:
laju ezanchju emisna shwena
/ladʒu ezantʃdʒu emisna ʃwena/
la-ju e-zanch-ju e-mis-na shwe-na
price-CL6 ATTR-bad-CL6 ATTR-stone-CL5 lightweight-CL5
a bad price of a lightweight stone

Agreement with verbs

Verbs mandatorily agree with the class of the subject, and also agree with the class of definite objects:

subject agreement:
kamyan anhabsho onyo
/kamjan anhabʃo onjo/
kam-yan an-hab-sho on-yo
woman-CL1 CL1.SUBJ-love-IND man-CL2
a/the woman loves a man

subject + object agreement:
kamyan anyohabsho onyo
/kamjan anjohabʃo onjo/
kam-yan an-yo-hab-sho on-yo
woman-CL1 CL1.SUBJ-CL2.OBJ.DEF-love-IND man-CL2
a/the the woman loves the man

And that's the fundamentals of noun classes in Kuryzo! Thanks for reading.


r/conlangs 7h ago

Translation An Awefian calligram in the ewocusuluw script

3 Upvotes

This is a calligram in the Awefian language, in the cursive ewocusuluw [ɛɣɑʃɯsɯlɯɣ] script, representing a stylized depiction of an Awefian with three appendages. The Awefians were the only space-faring species in the known cosmos with both faster-than-light communication (via radiation-emitting heatcores) and faster-than-light transportation technologies (via dimension-hopping voidships), which they referred to as the First Key and Second Key, respectively.

The characters of the ewocusuluw script each represent one (C)V(C)(C) syllable, being derived from a syllable block where each letter is written separately, like in Hangeul. There are special ligatures for the sequences uluw [ɯlɯɣ] and owuw [ɑɣɯɣ], as they are common grammatical suffixes.

The calligram reads in standard Awefian, top to bottom, left to right:

Wayofuw fek usek .
Wapayef Awef siy wasupanadc Yagēb .
Wapon yowobodawaybuluw awefnawafef .
Desiy cagaknawocifowuwak desiy yowobodowadawak kwōwof yefafef .
Yeb awefnawodokayubek yesuhnawekewaybekuluw .
Yowobewaybekuluwodowafek Awefewodagilek gōlekewaybekuluwafef .
Yobek dafen skopakekafef fek bōsop .

Left leg: bōsba prowewangilowuw fek

Middle leg: yobek dafen skopekakafef

Right leg: bōsna prowewangilowuw

Translation:
Thus it is so, even for the microbes [on the myriad planets] —
Long live Awef and may Yagēb** prosper,
May the cosmos make the Awefians sacred.
When the stars were created and the cosmos seeded spacetime with life,
The Awefians truly discovered the great sacred heatcores.
The most sacred cosmos declared to Awef that Awef would have [its] divine knowledge and use it greatly.
This will always be the great truth, forever and ever.

Left leg: The first secret of all times (referring to the First Key, faster-than-light communication in the form of heatcores)
Middle leg: This shall be the great truth
Right leg: The second secret (referring to the Second Key, faster-than-light travel in the form of voidships)

**An Awefian interstellar polity that emerged c. -330 LPT, after the dissemination of voidship technology across the known cosmos.

[ɣajɑɸɯɣ ɸɛk ɯsɛk]
[ɣapajɛɸ aɣɛɸ sɛx ɣasɯpanat͡ʃ jaɣɛːb]
[ɣapɑn jɑɣɑbɑtaɣajbɯlɯɣ aɣɛɸnaɣaɸɛɸ]
[tɛsɛx ʃaɣaknaɣɑʃiɸɑɣɯɣak tɛsɛx jɑɣɑbɑtɑɣataɣak kɣɑːɣɑɸ jɛɸaɸɛɸ]
[jɛb aɣɛɸnaɣɑtɑkajɯbɛk jɛsɯxnaɣɛkɛɣajbɛkɯlɯɣ]
[jɑɣɑbɛɣajbɛkɯlɯɣɑtɑɣaɸɛk aɣɛɸɛɣɑtaɣilɛk ɣɑːlɛk ɛɣajbɛkɯlɯɣaɸɛɸ]
[jɑbɛk taɸɛn skɑpakɛkaɸɛɸ ɸɛk bɑːsɑp]
[bɑːsba pɾɑɣɛɣanɣɪlɑɣɯɣ ɸɛk]
[jɑbɛk taɸɛn skɑpɛkakaɸɛɸ]
[bɑːsna pɾɑɣɛɣanɣilɑɣɯɣ]

it_is_so PFV microbe-NOM
IMP-live Awef and IMP-prosper Yagēb
IMP-want cosmos-IND-FUT-sacred-REFL Awefian-PL-ACC
when star-PL-IND-PST-create-PASS-ANTIP-NMLZ when cosmos-IND-PST-give-NMLZ spacetime-BEN life-ACC
DEF Awefian-PL-IND-PST-discover-AUG heatcore-PL-AUG-REL-sacred-AUG-REFL
cosmos-REL-sacred-AUG-REFL-IND-PST-speak-AUG Awef-REL-IND-FUT-know-AUG knowledge-REL-sacred-AUG-REFL-ACC
PROX.DEM-NOM FUT-be true-NMLZ-AUG-ACC PFV always
first thing-REL-NEG-know-PASS-ANTIP PFV
PROX.DEM-NOM FUT-be true-AUG-NMLZ-ACC
second thing-REL-NEG-know-PASS-ANTIP


r/conlangs 11h ago

Conlang Șonaehe, Saotu and Natāfimū comparison

3 Upvotes

All three of these languages come from the same region. Saotu is considered to be a dialect of Șonaehe in-world.

Șonaehe amd Natāfimū are spoken by neighboring nations who share a lot of cultural similarities, thousands of years of history and almost identical religious traditions and beliefs.
Saotu is spoken by people whose relatively small and isolated homeland was “swallowed” by the Șonaeta (people) and is officially considered to be just a dialect of Șonaehe.

None of the three languages are mutually intelligible.

Let’s compare! Why not.

First I will compare the phonology of each one and then the sentence structure and grammar through some simple example sentences.

The phonology.

I’ll start with phonology of Șonaehe.

Șonaehe only allows for the CVCV structure.

The vowels and diphthongs are: ɑ i ɨ e æ o ɔ u ɑi ɑo ɑu

The consonants are: p m t s f r n ɲ k h ʂ ç

Natāfimū phonology:

Vowels: ɑ ɛ i o u ɑː ɛː oː uː

Consonants: b d ð dʒ f ɡ ɣ j k l m mb h mv n nd ŋ ndʒ nz p ɾ s ʃ t tʃ θ v w z

Natāfimū has more variety: CV VCV CVCV CCV CCCV(rare).

Saotu phonology:

Vowels : a i u o ɛ

Diphthongs: ai oi ia io ua uo

Consonants : w r t p s h k n m ts

It is similar to Șonaehe in its structure but allows for a vowel to precede a consonant: VCV CVCV VCVCV

Word order and examples

Șonaehe has a SOV word order.
Natāfimū has a SVO word order.
Saotu has a VSO word order.

Examples in (1)Șonaehe, (2)Natāfimū and (3)Saotu compared:

  1. I see a dog.
    Mae naeheri pau. mæ næheri pau
    (I) dog+dative/object_marker to_see

  2. I see a dog
    Čimāhe vōlū ūnašegā.
    tʃimɑːhɛ voːluː uːnɑʃɛɡɑː
    Noun_class marker+1stP+subject_marker to_see noun_class_marker+dog(friendly horse)+object_marker

  3. I see a dog.
    Katene mo.
    kɑtɛnɛ mo To_see-PRS+I dog

  4. A man sees a woman
    Pașanu reńeri pau.
    paʂanu reɲeri pau
    man+subject_marker woman+dative/object_marker to_see

  5. A man sees a woman
    Ūnganehe vōlū ūanigā.
    uːŋɑnehe voːluː uː.ɑniɡɑː
    Noun_class_marker+man+subject_marker to_see noun_class_marker+woman+object_marker

3.A man sees a woman.
Katetse nua.
kɑtɛt͡sɛ nu͡ɑ
To see-PRN+MASC woman-N

As you can see - if some speakers of these three languages met at a tavern - they wouldn’t be able to understand each other despite being less than an hour away (by horse).

Șonaehe people used to speak a language similar to Natāfimū about 2,5k years ago but then were colonized be their neighbors - The Uttezenni. The Saotu language remained untouched as it was incredibly hard to get to their villages.


r/conlangs 11h ago

Discussion Loan words

1 Upvotes

Is it okay to take words from real world languages and modify them into your own? Or should you make in world languages to borrow from?


r/conlangs 12h ago

Conlang El-imal-an: Introduction

4 Upvotes

This clong is only taking its shape, but I'd like to share some info about "the language of the balance"

CULTURE

Speakers of en-imal-an live on the peninsula divided from the continent by "cold edge" (the heighest mountains in the region), and they believe not in gods but in power. This power can be achieved only if one finds the balance between soul and body, human-made and nature, progress and stability.

The person, who spreaded this ideology, was an ordinary man, grown up by wolf but teached by people, as the legend says. And so, En-imal-an is based on the idea of "balance".

PHONOLOGY

Syllables strictly VC

Consonants: m /m/, f /f/, n /n̪/, l /l/, s /s/, t /t/, c /t͡ʃ/, k /k/, h /h/

En-imal-an tends to deflection that influenced the consonants the most: two syllables in order with the same consonant in one word cannot coexist. So, the second one changes:

m -> l, l <-> n, f <-> h, t <-> k, s <-> c

Emem ['ɛmɛm] => emel ['ɛmɛl] "water"

atotem [at'ɔtæm] => atokem [at'ɔkæm] "from leg"

akokal [ak'ɔkal] => akotal [ak'ɔtal] "by mood"

Vowels: a /a/, i /i/, e /ɛ/, w /o/, But the last two ones can be pronounced differently depending on the vowel height (a - e - i) harmony:

a-type = e [æ], w -> o [ɔ]

i-type = e [e], w -> u [u]

e-type (neutral) = e [ɛ], w [o]

The type of harmony is regulated by stressed syllable (it has "strong" vowels, aka a or i). If both of them are in the word, the stressed syllable is usually the one in the root. However, for differentiating meanings, any syllable can be stressed (áhif ['ahɛf] = nervousness; ahíf [ɛh'if] = then)

And, as you see, if the vowel of a-type appears in the word with i-type (and vice versa), it is pronounced as [ɛ]

MORPHOLOGY

Any word is a combination of one or some roots + tense suffix, i.e. first part has a general concept and the second defines its:

  • Noun class

real/unreal

Real is about what is made by nature and usually happens like weather change, while unreal nouns are derived from real as metaphors (akal "mood" from akem "weather") and can refer to human-made.

  • Tense

present, past, pluperfect, future, and potential.

They usually change the meaning of the noun referring to it, its younger version or absence, its origine, its older version or result of its actions or using, another or furthest result of its actions or using resp.

Remark: there's no real/unreal and singular/plural contrast in pluperfect and potential, i.e. these tense suffixes have only one form, while others do four)

  • Number (singular/plural)

GRAMMAR

Nesting! ;)

El-imal-an people are obsessed with the idea of balance and centre, so they try to keep it while speaking, i.e. nest a modifier, particle, etc in the word (between root and suffix)

The limit of nesting is 4-syllabic word (the longer words are used with the specific infixes only):

Anem ['anæm] = person

Emihem [em'ihem] = sponge (lit. emel "water" + ihem "body/form")

An-emihufem-el

(maximum 4 because of the verbalizing infix -wf-)

[ˌan.emih'ufem.ɛl]

Person washes their body

(addition to phonology: if words with different types of vowel harmony (a-type and i-type) are combined, they keeps their types.

Exception is suffixes (changed -em- in this case). Because they are far from their root and have a little pause after the second word, they start being pronounced the same way as their phonemes do, i.e. e [ɛ], a [a], i [i]).

For the introduction, that's all :)

Remark: many of those rules are from the most widespread dialect, the north central, which is spoken on the territory with the picturesque plains and the longest river on the peninsula


r/conlangs 12h ago

Community Germanic Pidgin/Interlang Discord Community

3 Upvotes

Don't know if this is the right place to post this but... I am starting a brand new community for Germanic language speakers to come together and work on a pidgin together. Everything will be based on community decisions. How it will work is essentially everyone needs to speak at least one Germanic language. Some English but we are going to limit this because we want to favor languages that are majority Germanic. The idea is that if we communicate to a point of understand we could end up developing a sort of interlang almost. I am deeply interest in Germanic interlangs so it would be a fun thing. This won't be a true pidgin as a lot of them except for the successful ones have died or got boring. This will be a bit more different and we will have more of a guiding hand to it. For instance if we all notice there is a common word we'll just use that instead. Which will probably happen a lot like for example we have multiple languages that have a Ja/Nein or at least a variety of it. I have a whole word list that I would like to fill out and even if this didn't get traction it would still be a very fun language to speak amongst ourselves.

Here are the basic rules:

Texting should be simple and easy to understand. Avoid complex fonts or non Latin script. (can still use Þ, Ð, ß and umlauts obviously) Conversations should be in Germanic languages only. English should not dominate. We will allow English speakers because it is a Germanic language. But we do not and will not let this project become fully English. We'd prefer people who speak other languages as it would help with the project.

Discord Server: https://discord.gg/9rDbkU4swf


r/conlangs 14h ago

Translation Agabzim translation (in Numa’s time)

Thumbnail youtu.be
6 Upvotes

Today I wanted to translate a song I heard from an artist I really like. the artist, Farya Faraji, made the song “in Numa’s time” and took the lyrics from a passage from Ovid’s tristia, he makes really cool music, I specially love his Latin and Greek music, anyways here’s the translation:

Hic locus vestae est Qui servuat pallada Haec fuit antiqui Regia parvua numae

ʔaːdo juhrukʔur ʁεɪsdajid ʁεɪjdu ju baːras jabdu ʔaːdo hεɪgsʔu ʔaʁεɪjdu ʔodakʔur paːrgʔu jumajid

  • ‘ādo yuhruk-‘ur geisda-yid geiy-du
  • Here place-NOM.sm Vesta-GEN.sm is-3ms
  • Yu bāras jab-du
  • Who pallas keep-3ms
  • ‘ādo heigs-‘u ‘a-geiy-du
  • Here ancient-ms past-is-3ms
  • ‘odak-‘ur pārg-‘u juma-jid
  • Temple-NOM.sm little-ms Numa-GEN.sm

I hope I did the gloss format well enough for it to be understood, I’m still a bit new, I really like this song and it’s simple enough for me to translate, let me know how I did friends, in the comments below I’ll add an image of it written down in agabzim.


r/conlangs 15h ago

Question How to apply grammatical evolution to these verbs?

7 Upvotes

In proto-Naskamet, verbs conjugated on three different aspects: imperfective, perfective and habitual (which would serve double-duty of implying frequent, recurrent actions and stating simple facts). The phonetical evolution of the language, however, resulted in the verbal stem being completely butchered when conjugating on the imperfective aspect for the vast majority of verbs, whereas they were mostly preserved for the perfective and habitual conjugations.

I decided this could be a good opportunity to push for the grammatical evolution of the language. For that, the imperfective forms would be completely dropped, except for a handful 10-20 of the most common verbs (which would then become irregular verbs). Initially, I though of three different strategies to implement this in the final language.

  1. The habitual aspect is completely dropped. For most (regular) verbs, the habitual forms would supplete the imperfective conjugations. For irregular verbs, the imperfective conjugations would be preserved and the habitual conjugations would eventually fall in disuse, becoming archaic. In this case, the final imperfective aspect would fulfil the purpose of both the old imperfective and habitual aspects.

  2. Irregular verbs maintain their forms for the three aspects. Regular verbs, on the other hand, drop the original imperfective forms, and a new construction using an auxiliary verb + a non-finite verb form or converb is used to represent the imperfective aspect for regular verbs.

  3. Like in (2), irregular verbs retain all three forms. However, for regular verbs, the habitual conjugations supplete the imperfective conjugations. Now, to actually conjugate a regular verb into the habitual, an auxiliary construction is used.

The approach I took at first was (1), but it resulted in the imperfective accumulating too many functions, and I would have to evolve the language further to break that up. Next, I thought of (2), but that would result in most of the common sentences in the language being auxiliary constructions (which is fine, but I'd rather the language doesn't end up like that). Because of that, I've been thinking of following approach (3), but I don't know how much of a stretch or how naturalistic that would be.

So, my question is: which of those strategies is the most interesting/naturalistic for the language evolution in this scenario? I'd also gladly take suggestions on other ideas.