I'm currently learning some syntax and our topic was on this today so I was wondering if anyone could explain it in easier terms, what the difference between nominative and ergative systems is syntactically? I understand the morphological difference but for some reason when I look at it syntactically, I get confused all over again. Please help a poor soul thanks:")

I've read the Ergative-absolutive article on Wikipedia a few times, and also the LCK, but I'm not really getting it. So, talk to me like I'm a dummy and explain what the difference is, and why I might want one or the other in a conlang. Please.

Thanks, everybody, for the replies. /u/Adarain helped me understand S(ubject), A(gent) and P(atient) after seeing it and not "getting it" from other sources, but I wouldn't have gotten it without everybody else explaining the case marking. So thanks!

I'm TRYING to study Basque (pray for me), and I've found these cases to be shockingly unnatural as an English speaker of course. I understand grammar very well and I understand the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs perfectly. Let me make a scenario for my question....

Sentence: "I eat the cow"

What case would "I" be in, as well as "the cow" in an ergative / absolutive language (specifically basque). Also, what would the case be for the subject of an intransitive verb?

Hi there! I am looking at an Ergative/Absolutive language, but am not sure where/what configuration the DP is getting Case? In Acc/Nom language, the Acc is from the V in a head-comp configuration, and the Nom is from the T in spec-head configuration?? Thanks!

Can you please provide some examples of how English in the ergative case might look like?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative-genitive_case

As the name of the case implies, it is a combination of the ergative and genitive cases. However, the few sources I can find only mention it offhandedly and have no examples on how it works (all I found were about the Mayan languages.) Could anyone explain how such a case would work? Sorry if this is the wrong sub.

I am evolving my conlang from a proto-language. In the proto-language, case was only distinguished in pronouns, and the only cases were nominative and accusative. Now, in the descending language, I am going to add cases to all nouns, and I want to have an Ergative case. Would it be unnatural if nouns showed ergativity but pronouns were nominative-accusative? Or would it make more sense if the usage of the pronouns switched to match nouns? Or, since the language is already nominative-accusative, would this just be an unrealistic innovation?

The suffix -zu is being added to the end of nouns in the accusative/ergative.

Hi all, I'm finally getting down to working on my two elfish languages and their grammars. Today, I'm going to cover the innovation of split ergativity and "conjugated nouns". The latter topic involves a lot of contraction and suffix fusion that can be somewhat ideosyncratic, so I'm not going to cover it from an in-depth phonological perspective.

Furthermore, I'm not going to give an example noun for each declension class. I'd be here all night, and nobody wants to look through a massive wall of tables.

The Rise of Split Ergativity

In both dialects of Proto-Elfish, the Common Humanoid instrumental case develops into an absolute case. At first, it was used in intransitive sentences as a "predicative" case, apparently by way of analogy with the accusative case in transitive sentences. During a short transitionary period, an intransitive sentence would have a nominative subject and an absolute predicate.

Within a very short timespan, this case disagreement would be resolved as the nominative subject would be shifted over to the new absolute case. In the new system, intransitive sentences would employ the absolute case, while transitive sentences would employ the old nominative-accusative alignment.

Verbalizing a Noun: the Essive-Absolute

Now, I can't think of a more appropriate name for this construction, so feel free to suggest one if you know of it. The history behind this construction goes like this: many nouns belong to declensions with an alternating -o/e- in their stem, and in the absolute singular case end in -ō. It was eventually conflated with the thematic verb suffix for the 1^(st) person singular active indicative. This, when taken together with the Proto-Elfish habit of employing a null copula, resulted in a system where the subject noun of intransitive sentences would be conjugated as if it were a verb, carrying the meaning of "to be" alongside its nominal root.

For example, the noun άλφος /álɸos/ ("elf" in High Elfish), in the essive-absolute 1^(st) person singular indicative construction άλφω /álɸɔː/ means "I am an elf." The noun would then conjugate through the normal thematic pattern (e.g. άλφες "You [sg] are an elf", άλφετι "he/she is an elf", etc.).

EDIT 2: I'm starting to reconsider the terminology here. Rather than call it a tripartite or split-ergativity system, I'm thinking to just call it a "stative noun" or something to that effect. While it's grammatically a verb

Hello everyone!

Vannantian is a human language of my conworld which has fairly retained most of her mother tongue's features. One of the main features in Vannantian is animacy: all nouns fall into one of these two primary categories (or in both, sometimes). In turn, animate nouns can be masculine, feminine or neuter (also some neuter nouns function as common-gender nouns).

Lately, I've been researching and learning about ergativity and now I can't decide whether I'd like Vannantian to be an accusative language or an ergative language. Since ergative languages focus on emphasizing intentionality/will, I thought this may fit in a language that focus strongly on animacy.

There may be a way to combine ergativity and animacy in order to create a complex nominal case system that encompasses life/movement with intentionality, agency and passivity. Sadly, I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable enough about ergative languages to develop such system without flaws or beginner mistakes.

Can you shed some light on this so I can produce a good nominal system with the aforementioned features?

Also, I have in mind that Vannantian verbs use different forms for animate or inanimate nouns, but I'm not sure this is a proper idea.

Thanks!

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I'd like to read about split ergativity case patterns. Say a verb-final language is ergative-absolutive in some context and nominative-accusative in some other:

• ERG ABS verb / ABS verb

• NOM ACC verb / NOM verb

Now I don't think any language actually has four markings for each two argument in each two context, right? I feel like I'm lacking terminology here (if someone knows better terms, let me know), so let's distinguish the four case roles above, the abstract structural notion of fulfilling a given role in a context that demands either ergative or nominative structure, from the instantiated case markings of a language, the actual endings/adpostitions/word-orders that mark the cases. Neither sense is equivalent to capital-C Case. I doubt any language has four case markings corresponding to the four case roles.

I think in Georgian the Nominative and the Absolutive case roles are case-marked the same:

• 1 2 verb / 2 verb

• 2 3 verb / 2 verb

or ERG => 1, ABS => 2, NOM => 2, ACC => 3

I guess a third notion has to be distinguished here: the case nomenclature is how a language's case is called. If a language's case has many functions, sometimes grammars will choose only one of them to name the whole case. In Georgian the case role accusative with case marking -s has the case nomenclature of "dative". This should not get in the way of analysing the first two kinds of "case": traditional grammars uninformed by linguistic typology, influenced by Latin, and confronted with case markings with many roles, could choose case nomenclatures that fail to live up to modern linguistic theories. It would be prudent to not pay too much attention to the traditional names of cases.

So I'm interested in what sorts of patterns exist between the four case roles and their case markings. Are there languages where the nominative and ergative roles are marked the same, as well as the accusative and absolutive, leaving the distinction between ergative and nominative contexts only marked on intransitive verbs? What patterns exist?

Thanks.

In my language Aoaxrai (WIP), I've put a system of noun cases and three of these cases I chose are the Aversive, the Evitative and the Pegative case:

The aversive is the case that indicates an avoidable object by disgust. It's marked by adding -sia/-šia:

tšixna-house

tšixnašia-"nasty" house

The evitative is the case that indicates an avoidable object because it could be dangerous. We add -voma:

tšixnavoma-"dangerous" house

And the Pegative indicates a giver. An agent who does the action of giving.

aoval-the (giver) man

However, the last one is a hypothetical grammatical case that maybe only appears in the Tlapanec language. In general, it doesn't exist in any natural language.

My conlang's still in working, but I wish to maintain these cases (at least the pegative).

What about your conlang, have you added some hypothetical cases, the pegative case or even a case that you have invented?

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I was always told that ergative languages were hard because of the ergativity, and I find another things even harder for a non-native, when I was talking about the others people always kept saying that ergativity was the hardest part there. What do you think about?

(Also see the first part of this introduction that deals with the phonology and morphology)

Revelation of the Night Sky (An audio sample from the Maruuteo scriptures)

The single most distinctive feature of Maruutla is that its grammatical relations cannot be described using such terms as ‘subject’, ‘(direct) object’, 'ergative' or 'absolutive', since all those terms would fail to describe the grammar adequately as there is simply no grammatical test or construction that can identify them in the language. Instead, I will use here the terms ‘affected’ and ‘independent’ to refer to those grammatical relations particular to Maruutla (for lack of better terms), whereas the resulting morphosyntactic alignment will be named ‘Affective Alignment’.

So what does this actually mean? We can start the discussion with the affective case, whose function can be described in the most general terms as a grammatical case that marks the argument deemed most affected, or influenced, by the verb in question. Depending on the predicate, that argument may be the equivalent of either the subject, the direct object or the indirect object in a language such as English. Its default form is /-n/, as in χera ‘spoon’ --> χera-n, but it has two other allomorphs which are /-m/ after /o/, as in let’o ‘light’ --> let’o-m, and /-an/ after a consonant or after the vowel /e/ when following an obstruent, as in yotar ‘friend’ --> yotar-an and matl’e ‘duty’ --> matl’e-an. Here are some examples for how it is used:

(1)
χuroʃ     wa-n       t’ea
hit       1SG-AFF    3SG
'He hit me’
(2)
χuroʃ     ta-n       wae
hit       3SG-AFF    1SG
'I hit him’.
(3)
reeya     wa-n       t’ea
see       1SG-AFF    3SG
‘I saw him'
(4)
reeya     ta-n       wae
see       3SG-AFF    1SG
‘He saw me’
(5)
ʃot’al   laheyo-m    rohote’ʃe
write    book-AFF    teacher
‘The teacher wrote the book’
(6)
leeya   rohoteʃe-an   laheyo
read    teacher-AFF   book
‘The teacher read the book’

As can be seen from examples (1), (2) and (5), the affective case (AFF) looks superficially similar to the accusative case in other languages, where it marks the direct object of prototypically transitive verbs such as χuroʃ ‘hit’ or Ɬo’re ‘break’, as well as the direct object of ca

First: SORRY FOR BAD ENGLISH. My native language is russian, and yet, is stil haven't learnt english well.

Okay.

My language is suffix-based, so there will be no word «Mahar» for Exploded bottle cap at a 90° angle with a slight scratch. I already have suffixes «small» «flowing (like river)» «wide» «human (like, water+this suffix=tear)» «Crushed» «hard» and prefix «under». But i want to make my language beautiful (It's (C)V(C) & all accents are on the first syllable). I have 4 cases: Nominative case, Ergative, Vocative, and Dative. I have some grammatic rules and pronouns. Phonetics are not just QWERTY keyboard-based (letter ъ for glottal stop, like Peъo — I and ь for sh (but for people without Cyrillic keyboard, i made also letter combinations hh & ss)

And i need your advice(s)(and yes i know that wird advice is uncountable): What to do next? Just... What? Maybe, more words? Alphabet is gonna be Latin (with cyrillic variation, not main but variation), so no writing. Maybe, articles? I don't know. Help me please.

The Georgian verb has somewhat of a terrifying reputation, or at least it did to me. What with talk of screeves, versioners, thematic vowels and preverbs, and the standard book being 600 pages long, one can see why I was intimidated. Still, having now read said book, and understood it only partially, I hope to pass on the essential elements to you, as a conlanger, so that you can draw on it for inspiration. Note that, as I say, I have only a cursory understanding of my subject matter, and, as such, this will be only a skeleton of a full description, riddled with problems. If you have a better understanding of the system I would invite you to share that understanding. I will not remark on the diachronics of this system, as I haven't a clue about it (though if you do know about it I would again invite you add what you can).

There are a number of features of the Georgian verb that I won't go into much detail on, as I don't think them particularly relevant to the conlanger. Particularly, versioners appear to me to be a way of marking other arguments than core ones on the verb, and there are a number of voicing tricks and a negation affix. There is also a sort of pluractionality thing. Ok, on to the main event.

The Georgian verb uses polypersonal agreement with up to three core arguments, and nouns are marked for case. Georgian verbs are divided into a number of classes, depending on transitivity. These classes interact with the different series in different ways.

The different tenses, aspects and moods a Georgian verb can take are divided into 3 series, with each one most notably affecting alignment. There are a set of suffixes that may mark the series, called thematic suffixes, but which of those suffixes a verb takes to mark a given series is primarily lexical. As I say however, the primary way of marking is alignment type. The present series uses nominative/accusative alignment in all cases. The aorist series uses ergative absolutive alignment on the nouns. The perfective series uses ergative absolutive alignment on the polypersonal agreement markers.

Each series allows for a number of screeves, which are really just discreet combinations tense aspect and mood. Each distinct screeve is marked primarily by means of preverbs. Preverbs are prefixes with a number of functions, but I feel fairly confident in saying (in the only time I will touch on diachronics here) that originally they were markers of direction. While they now have a number of roles, they o

Do your worst!

ITT. I give a casual analysis of the PL maps and see what their gimmicks are. Ahem:

• The first map is pretty basic, only having what seems to be C3's tileset and mobs. The big gimmick here is the invisible crossbowmen already placed and the lurkers. The former can be dispatched with SA, Scene or Summoners in general or Executioners. The basic layout also has two chokepoints in effect and said bowmen go 1-2 at a time.
• the Second map is Code of Brawl inspired and seems to put in emphasis on CC (granted so does Code of Brawl) and burst damage form on high, having a ring-like array of ranged tiles to place ops like Suzuran, Click, Indigo, Eyja and Carnelian on while having a platoon of Ergates and two Bullies to deal with. There is also a stun bomb in the middle just in case, and Ifrit can also put the kibosh on any that make it to the middle.
• 3rd map seems to have Chapter's 2's tileset...and mix of generic mobs and Siegebreakers. The jet guys will periodically spawn in the middle and try to go west, but the Siegebreakers will instead go north. This might be where Stalkers shine best of the 5 maps, as they can pick them off rather easily, but they can also be dealt with in other ways. The other mobs however will emerge from the east, but having a good laneholder will deal with everything bar maybe the defense crushers. Incidentally, Placing 2 defenders on the North and Ifrit on a neaby ranged tile can also deal with the siegebreakers and half the smaller fish (the other half will go to the bottom instead)
• 4th map is notable as it seems to be based on Chapter 8, specially the present day portion of it rather than Tahlulah's past portion. Which is to say that its basically a zombie apocalypse. The map consists of 4 lanes that converge in the center, with two originium tiles that the mobs will inevitably pass through unless blocked. The extreme ends will have your basic mooks and possessed leaders, the left will have the defenders and the right will have junkmen in addition. However the Centurions are arguably the biggest threat there as they spawn in the lanes closer to the goal and have ranged attacks. Mudrock and Jaye seem to be able to handle those guys well if they are placed betwixt the centurions and the originium tiles. Another option is to have a laneholder directly on the tile with medic support (Tyue seems perfect for that, and Sussuro's S2 can help the other lane). On that note for the CM, I recnelty found out that Mountain and Whislash can bl

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Klojban, an Evolving Conlang: Introduction

With the downfall of r/EvolvingConlang and the rise of like ten others in its place, I firmly believe that a spiritual successor to it must be made. u/EkskiuTwentyTwo, if you want me to delete this, I shall.

Anyways, here is Klojban, named in the same manner as Lojban was to Loglan. Somewhat. It will have more rules than the other "add features by commenting them" conlangs:

• The top three comments will be added instead of just the topmost one
• The phonology must consist of actual phonemes; the grammar and lexicon, though, can be as wild as you want them to be
• The orthography can be changed but it must be done in a separate comment.
• If you want me to append a link to your suggestion, you can do so, but make sure it isn't NSFW or anything
• Words added at the same time as a sound change do not have the sound change applied to them, as they are loanwords.

Previously... (Winning Changes)

By u/Anjeez929 with 2 points:

>I didn't realize you already posted this.
>
>The past auzilliary verbs shorten by one syllable
>
>Theoretical Past: śaha
>
>Mythical past: uha
>
>Very far past: aha
>
>Far past: oha
>
>Near past: śeha

By u/NoCocksInTheRestroom with 2 points:

>add more example sentences

By u/RBolton123 with 1 point:

>ajkan /ajkan/ - (v) to be able to (can)
>
>otu /ɔtu/ - (v) to be obligated to (should)
>
>ajamwili /ajamwili/ - (v) to be willing to (would)
>
>ba /ba/ - (part) question marker
>
>Word Changes:
>
>sikśitasi /sikʂitasi/ becomes sićikasi /siʈʂikasi/ through epenthesis
>
>ekśikituwentitu /ekʂikituwentitu/ becomes ećikituwentitu /eʈʂikituwentitu/ through assimilation
>
>Morphophonology:
>
>/i/ becomes [ʅ] near retroflex consonants
>
>/a/ becomes [ɑ] near /ɫ/

(Bonus Words: owejuf /ɔwɛjuf/ - (n) egg [natural phenomena class]; fainali /fainali/ - (adj) final, finally; aweken /awɛkɛn/ - (v) to awaken, to wake up; awejik /awɛjik/ - (adj) awake, conscious, lucid; traji /tɾaji/ - (v) to try to do; kuros /kuɾɔs/ - (v) to cross, to go across, to traverse; borodero /bɔɾɔdɛɾɔ/ - (n) border, boundary [abstract concepts class])

Phonology

Pilot on me!!

Hi! Let me introduce Barrur, which is my third serious conlang I ever created, and the first to share here.

Lore

Barrur (natively called: Barruru himinnashantank merank (language of Siminna) or just barrur (language/ speech)) was spoken by the Amānamsha people in the northern regions of the Edine continent. The Amānamsha was one of the first civilizations to discover agriculture. They were also great sailors and merchants. They established many colonies all around the coasts of the Jit-sea. After the great flood the civilization fell apart, the people needed to move into the desert. The Barrur language was split into two main branches, and the speakers scattered all over the northern regions of Edine.

Phonology

Barrur has a relatively small phonetic inventory: only 20 consonants and four vowels. Each of them has long and short variants. There are no tones.

^(1) Romanization marked with: <>

^(2) /n/ realized as /l/ between vowels

^(3) /n/ or /m/ realized as [ŋ] before velar consonants

^(4) /l/ is realizes as /d/ at the end of the word

^(5) if a vowel follows /u/ any where in the word, /u/ must turn into that vowel

Syllable structure is CVC, but onset and coda consonants can be omitted.

Stress in Barrur language is very complex. To predict primary stress, we have a list of rules. The first that applies to our word, will determine the place of stress.

1. The syllable before the first double consonants.
   alumm (face), karassh (try), belemm (wise)
2. After the first aspirated consonant.
   ashthun (stand), dankha (leg)
3. The first syllable before h /x/.
   vahsha (half)
4. The first sylla

Hey guys!

This is a follow up to my previous post, where I discussed the phonology and phonotactics of my conlang, Saurian. I want to thank everyone for the support and suggestions. I'm so happy that people find my work interesting and I'm now even more motivated to continue this project.

(link to the original post:https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/qz26w1/saurian_the_language_of_dinosaurs/)

I've made some changes to the phonology though, so I'll try to explain them quickly:

1. Removed the aspirated consonants /t^(h)/, /k^(h)/ ,/qˠʰ/ and /kʟ̝̊ʰ/ and replaced them with ejectives /t'/, /k'/, /qˠ'/. I've also added some ejective affricates like /tɬ'/and /ts'/. The reason for this change is to make the language a bit more unique.
2. Removed all voiced plosives. There is already enough variety with the ejectives.
3. Changed /ʟ/ to /l/ or /ɫ/. I think that /ʟ/ is quite hard to pronounce, especially in clusters.
4. Replaced the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative /ɕ/ and the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate /tɕ/ and replaced them with the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ and the voiceless postalveolar affricate /tʃ/. The reason for this is that I was personally not able to differentiate /ɕ/ from /ʃ/ (and since I want to be able to speak my language, I didn't want to be incorrect every time I tried to pronounce those sounds).
5. Removed the two glottal sounds /ħ/ and /ʜ/, since /x/ and /ʀ̥/ respectively are quite similar to those.

TL;DR here's the new phonology table:

https://preview.redd.it/amgqvrqysc281.png?width=1530&format=png&auto=webp&s=e350edf2c32f5f6da42ae8c7d81bbf418941b620

And also the new clusters:

https://preview.redd.it/h5u45g12tc281.png?width=2641&format=png&auto=webp&s=e5d9df87440dfff93d397586a82153219dda0bbc

Now, let's look at some grammatical features

"Magic levels"

So, here's something about my dino-aliens. Since there are so many different species (theropods, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians and others), each species has its society (ranging from tribal to super-advanced capable of space exploration) and culture; there is only one thing they have all in common, a mysterious force called Yeeleqra (/ˈʎɛːlɛqχa) that they can control only if trained. Every being on ZX-4907-a has Yeeleqra in them, so Saurians classify things by their magic level (basically noun classes). There are four magic levels plus two

Denkiláni has five cases. The first three are the familiar nominative, accusative, genitive trio…and then you get “agentive” and “stative.”

It’s tricky to explain but: Agentive case carries the meaning of a noun imbuing its qualities onto others, while stative implies an outside force acting on the noun for example … Zdálakïrï ‘volcanic rock’ (fire-AGT rock) vs zdálaqurï ‘a rock on fire’ (fire-STA rock)

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

Reference Grammar

I won’t go deeply into the conculture, my worldbuilding is a huge rabbit-hole, but this is the language I’d like to share. Pretty strongly inspired by Afroasiatic languages, it mainly features:

• Biconsonantal verb roots used to derive most nouns
• “Emphatic vowels”, harsh-voiced but able to become strident for emphasis
• Mirativity without evidentiality
• Split ergative case marking coexisting with a sort of polypersonal agreement

The script has yet to be created beyond a general concept, as it’s a logography resembling a mixture of Han characters and Egyptian hieroglyphs in system and aesthetic, and I simply don’t have the time to devote to such a project right now. However, I’m pretty proud of the rest of it and seeking feedback that can still be applied at this late stage.

With that, here’s the longest text I have so far, the opening line of a sort of Nicene Creed analogue for this deeply religious culture’s beliefs. (Edit: the underlines for emphatic vowels won’t show up here, but they’re marked in the IPA at least)

> Nef tsozusht Hafesel, shawyē tahakr kashtē. Kuza ikwam pemahdwu taashay Tezrut shoyuk ayen utyeshrut temandwu, chum sotuk patsyaw alazanjwē, chum yolusht tenaatir adjadzrut shuudwu.

> /nɛf t͡soꜝzuʃt ħafɛsɛl ʃauje taħakr kaʃteꜝ kuza ikwam pɛmaħdwu taːʃai tɛzrut ʃoꜝjuk aꜝjɛn utjeꜝʃrut tɛꜝmandwu t͡ʃum soꜝtuk pat͡sjau alazanʒwe t͡ʃum joꜝluʃt tɛnaːtir ad͡ʒad͡zrut ʃuːdwu/

> I believe in Hafesel, the almighty creator of all things. Above the blowing sands Their light is made visible in the sun’s disk, granting comfort to the just, striking agony on the eyes of the cruel.

I won't be doing that today!

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

Revelation of Smoke (An audio sample of Maruutla)

The most salient feature of genitive constructions in Maruutla is the use of the two opposing possessive particles: suna and riya, which serve the function that in many other languages would simply be covered by a single possessive particle, such as the English ‘of’. In this post I will cover their differing semantics as well as the general grammar behind their usage.

Semantically speaking, suna, which is derived from the verb sunaa (‘own’, ‘belong’) is used whenever the possessed noun constitutes a part of the possessor (i.e. part-whole relationship), or otherwise deemed to be lower than the possessor on any given hierarchy, as in the following examples:

ɬɔːka  suna   k'unam
door   POSS   house
'The door of the house’

tleo     suna     rohoteʔʃe
child    POSS     teacher
'The teacher's son' (lit. child of teacher)

Note that since the child is considered to be derived from the teacher as his or her son, only suna would be appropriate here. On the other hand, riya, which is itself derived from the verb riiya (‘be about’, ‘deal with’, ‘consist of’) is used in the opposite semantic contexts where the head noun subsumes the dependent within it, or when it is deemed to be higher than it on any given hierarchy, as in the following examples:

χaʔeꞭ    riya   saɬay   yaliː
old.man  POSS   hair    white
'A white-haired old man (lit. old man [in possession] of white hair)

mayha   riya   rohoːꞭela
mother  POSS   pupil
'The pupil's mother' (lit. mother of pupil)

Note in the first example that despite the English translation uses an adjectival phrase for such cases where the head noun is modified by a description of a body part, Maruutla would require a possessive particle. In the second example, on the other hand, the presupposed hierarchy treats the head noun ‘mother’ as being higher than her son the pupil, and therefore it must be followed by the possessive particle riya (as opposed to the example “the teacher’s son” above).

Although the use of either suna or riya is generally obligatory in genitive constructions, there are three grammatical environments where their use is either partially or fully blocked: First in fully lexicalized possessive phrases (where the resulting expression may be considered an integral part of the lexicon), the possessive particle is commonly omitted, as in for example:

I guess I'm writing these now. Also, I made the chart more compact

Klojban, an Evolving Conlang: Introduction

With the downfall of r/EvolvingConlang and the rise of like ten others in its place, I firmly believe that a spiritual successor to it must be made. u/EkskiuTwentyTwo, if you want me to delete this, I shall.

Anyways, here is Klojban, named in the same manner as Lojban was to Loglan. Somewhat. It will have more rules than the other "add features by commenting them" conlangs:

• The top three comments will be added instead of just the topmost one
• The phonology must consist of actual phonemes; the grammar and lexicon, though, can be as wild as you want them to be
• The orthography can be changed but it must be done in a separate comment.
• If you want me to append a link to your suggestion, you can do so, but make sure it isn't NSFW or anything
• Words added at the same time as a sound change do not have the sound change applied to them, as they are loanwords.

Previously, on Lucifer... (Winning Changes)

By u/Anjeez929 with 5 points:

>"Haka", a word based on the prefix "hak(a)-", means "Fish and Chips"
>
>My reasoning:
>
>French->French Fries+Fish=Fish and Chips

By u/RBolton123 with 1 point:

>Existing /ɕ/ becomes /ʂ/, still represented with <ś>. Similarly, existing /tɕ/ becomes /ʈʂ/, represented with <ć>.
>
>From there, /x/ becomes /ɕ/, yet again keeping its orthography of <x>, and /dʑ/ devoices into /tɕ/ and is represented with <ģ>.
>
>/n/ word-finally disappears, but it becomes /j/ in liaison if the word is followed with a vowel-initial.
>
>/ŋ/ nasalizes the vowel preceding it. In the case of ńi, it nasalizes the vowel after it i.e. the /i/.
>
>/ɲ/ becomes /nij/.
>
>Lastly, all cases of /ə/ become /a/, represented with <a>, and rhotic vowel harmony is dismantled. I'm sorry to see it go.

I'm just going to make all the vowels in a word that used to have rhotic vowel harmony into /a/ but vowels in prefixes won't turn into /a/ when added to them.

Hey everyone on r/conlangscirclejerk! Did you miss us? Well, in fact! We never left you!

Klojban, an Evolving Conlang: Introduction

With the downfall of r/EvolvingConlang and the rise of like ten others in its place, I firmly believe that a spiritual successor to it must be made. u/EkskiuTwentyTwo, if you want me to delete this, I shall.

Anyways, here is Klojban, named in the same manner as Lojban was to Loglan. Somewhat. It will have more rules than the other "add features by commenting them" conlangs:

• The top three comments will be added instead of just the topmost one
• The phonology must consist of actual phonemes; the grammar and lexicon, though, can be as wild as you want them to be
• The orthography can be changed but it must be done in a separate comment.
• If you want me to append a link to your suggestion, you can do so, but make sure it isn't NSFW or anything
• Words added at the same time as a sound change do not have the sound change applied to them, as they are loanwords.

Previously... (Winning Changes)

By u/NoCocksInTheRestroom with 2 points:

>add almost 30 ways to say cum in toki pona as official vocabulary

New words: "telo" meaning "fluid", "ko" meaning squishy, "walo" meaning "white", "umpa" meaning "sex", "olin" meaning "love", "kule" meaning "color" is "colorful", "pilin" meaning "feeling", "pona" meaning "good", "pali" meaning "to make", "sike" meaning "round", and "palisa" meaning "stick" or "long and hard". Also, "telowalo" meaning "milk"

By u/Anjeez929 with 1 point:

>The first few lines of the Bee movie script as an example!
>
>New words.
>
>-(n)et marks the passive participle
>
>Tana /tana/ - (prep) according to
>
>Sona /sona/ - (v) to know
>
>lawa /lawa/ - (n) laws
>
>tawaso /tawaso/ - (v) to fly ("Flight" and therefore "aviation" is made by nominalizing it)
>
>Majkel /majkel/ - (n) Bee
>
>Redbul /ɾedbul/ - (n) wings
>
>Tu /tu/ - (adv) too (as in too small)
>
>lili /lili/ - (adj) small
>
>haja /ħaja/ - (v) lift
>
>fat /fat/ - (adj) fat (n) fat
>
>korpa /koɾpa/ - (n) bo

There hasn't been a post all year!

We're getting festive now! (Also, I wanted there to be one more suggestion, before I do this, but screw it)

❄️𐁙🎁 𐁙❄️ KᒪOᒍᗷᗩᑎ, ᗩᑎ EᐯOᒪᐯIᑎG ᑕOᑎᒪᗩᑎG: IᑎTᖇOᗪᑌᑕTIOᑎ ❄️𐁙🎁 𐁙❄️

With the downfall of r/EvolvingConlang and the rise of like ten others in its place, I firmly believe that a spiritual successor to it must be made. u/EkskiuTwentyTwo, if you want me to delete this, I shall.

Anyways, here is Klojban, named in the same manner as Lojban was to Loglan. Somewhat. It will have more rules than the other "add features by commenting them" conlangs:

• The top three comments will be added instead of just the topmost one
• The phonology must consist of actual phonemes; the grammar and lexicon, though, can be as wild as you want them to be
• The orthography can be changed but it must be done in a separate comment.
• If you want me to append a link to your suggestion, you can do so, but make sure it isn't NSFW or anything
• Words added at the same time as a sound change do not have the sound change applied to them, as they are loanwords.

🎅 ℘ཞɛ۷ıơųʂƖყ... (ῳıŋŋıŋɠ ƈɧąŋɠɛʂ) 🎅

By u/NoCocksInTheRestroom with 2 points:

> add some christmas decorations

By u/Anjeez929 with 2 points:

> Since this is the 21st post, I will add najnplasten /najnplasten/, meaning "to add 2 to an answer and claim it is the correct answer". Because 9+10=21

🎅 Pԋσɳσʅσɠყ 🎅

1 - Represented by <c> only in the word cloń /kloŋ/

2 - Represented by <y> only in the word yaya /jaja/

3 - Represented by <z> only in the word zako /sakɔ/

Vowel length is phonemic and is represented by an acute.

Vowel Harmony:

• Frontness Vowel Harmony: If a prefix with /u/ or /ɔ/ is added to a word with an open vowel, /u/ becomes /i/ and /ɔ/ becomes /ɚ/ (thus triggering rhotic vowel harmony).

Tones:

• Non-Grammatical (Phonemic) Tones: These were the result of a past sound