问:
What is the difference between tense and aspect?
Many conlangs contain tense, some contain aspect as well or instead, and much of the recommended reading for conlangers assumes that you know what tense and aspect are and what the difference between them is. What actually is the difference, and how would a word or morpheme be classified as a marker of one or the other?</p>

答:
When discussing tense, aspect, and mood, it's important to distinguish a given language's grammatical markers from the abstract concepts being described. Thus, linguists use the words temporal reference and aspectual reference to describe the abstract ideas being described, while the words tense and aspect are reserved for when such reference is marked grammatically.

The simplified explanation for tense and aspect usually given is that tense describes when an event occurs and aspect describes the internal temporal structure of an event. However, this doesn't give a ton of easy answers to "is this grammatical form marking tense, aspect, or both?" Formal semanticists actually have a relatively simple framework for how temporal reference and aspectual reference are defined, the basic concepts of which can be helpful when designing your conlang's own tense/aspect system.

The Neo-Reichenbachian Model

Imagine a timeline:

```<code>Earlier                                  Later
<-------------------------------------------->
</code>```

Now, imagine there are two spans on that timeline (the fact that they're spans is important -- nothing is truly instantaneous). The time when you make an utterance is called the utterance time (or UT), and the time that you're talking about is called the topic time (or TT).

Temporal reference describes the relationship between the TT and UT. Past temporal reference is when the TT precedes the UT; future temporal reference when the TT follows the UT; and present temporal reference when they overlap.

```<code>Past:
    <-------------------------------------------->
                |--TT--|          |--UT--|

Future:
    <-------------------------------------------->
          |--UT--|                  |--TT--|

Present:
                            |--UT--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
                     |-------TT-------|
</code>```

This seems pretty intuitive -- if the section of the timeline you're talking about precedes the time you make the utterance, you'll use the past tense; if it follows it, you'll use the future; and if they overlap, you'll use the present. Simple, right?

But what of aspect? Well, aspectual reference isn't as transparent at that. To describe aspectual reference, we'll need to pick out a third span that timeline -- the time when the event being described actually happened. We'll call this the eventuality time (or ET).

"But wait!" you might object. "Isn't that the same as the topic time? If I'm describing something that happened, surely the time I was talking about is the same as the time that it happened." However, there is a difference, and it's exactly this difference that gives rise to aspectual reference. Consider the English past perfect in a sentence like the following:

Yesterday he had gone to the store.

The English past tense includes past temporal reference, and we've established that this means that the topic time is before the utterance time -- something which is explicitly confirmed by the temporal adverb "yesterday" giving us a more specific topic time. But when does the him-going-to-the-store happen? Probably not yesterday, right? Well, this is because perfect† aspectual reference is when the eventuality time precedes the topic time -- aspectual reference describes the relationship between the eventuality time and the topic time. It for this reason that the past perfect is used by English speakers for the past-in-past.

```<code>Past Perfect:
    <-------------------------------------------->
          |--ET--|    |--TT--|     |--UT--|
</code>```

But you can also have the present perfect, right? Well, let's combine our descriptions of the present tense and the perfect aspect and see what we come up with.

```<code>Present Perfect:
                            |--UT--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
        |--ET--|     |-------TT-------|
</code>```

Here, the topic time and utterance time overlap, which is why you can't say something like "Yesterday he has gone to the store." However, the eventuality time precedes the topic time, so you're describing an event that happened in the past in relation to the present. And indeed, this is how we see the present perfect used in English.

This is far from the most interesting thing aspectual reference can do, however. Let's discuss the popular aspectual references, perfective and imperfect. For those who don't know, perfective and perfect are two different things. Perfective is often described as simply viewing an event as a point on a timeline, and imperfect as viewing it as a span. How do we define this as a relationship between eventuality time and topic time?

Well, a simple way people do it (ignoring a few other related thorny semantic problems that few here will care about) is by defining the perfective as when the eventuality time is contained within the topic time and the imperfect as when the topic time is contained within the eventuality time.

```<code>Past Perfective:
               |--ET--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
        |-------TT-------|        |--UT--|

Past Imperfect:
               |--TT--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
        |-------ET-------|        |--UT--|
</code>```

This results, at least formally, in the same sort of perspective shift we try to intuitively describe as changing the event from a "point" to a "span".

Note that tense and aspect vary between languages a lot, and even related languages can't be counted upon to have the same semantics here. After all, the French passé composé, while very similar in form to the English present perfect, does not share the same semantics (it's more of a perfective). Additionally, while a given language's system of tense and aspect will often combine a tense and an aspect in a certain inflection (such as the perfective past tenses in many European languages), this doesn't mean the two are wed cross-linguistically.

In fact, I hope this answer has given some conlangers the tools to try and invent their own tenses, aspects, or combinations of the two that they haven't themselves encountered cross-linguistically. Be creative!

In short:

Temporal reference is the relationship between the utterance time (when you say something) and the topic time (the time relevant to the discussion at hand).

Aspectual reference is the relationship between the topic time (see above) and the eventuality time (the time when the event being described actually occured).

Tense is the grammaticalization of temporal reference.

Aspect is the grammaticalization of aspectual reference.

Things called "tenses" in natural languages (as well as in conlangs, to be honest) are often conflations of tense and aspect (and sometimes even mood, but we're not here to talk about that).

†When I refer to perfect aspectual reference, I'm actually more specifically describing what is known in semantics as the existential perfect. Perfect forms in English and many other languages include other types of perfect aspectual reference (universal, resultive, etc.) that differ subtly in their semantics, and other aspectual and temporal baggage as well; this is, however, probably not particularly interesting or relevant to most people here at this moment.

Body:
When discussing tense, aspect, and mood, it's important to distinguish a given language's grammatical markers from the abstract concepts being described. Thus, linguists use the words temporal reference and aspectual reference to describe the abstract ideas being described, while the words tense and aspect are reserved for when such reference is marked grammatically.

The simplified explanation for tense and aspect usually given is that tense describes when an event occurs and aspect describes the internal temporal structure of an event. However, this doesn't give a ton of easy answers to "is this grammatical form marking tense, aspect, or both?" Formal semanticists actually have a relatively simple framework for how temporal reference and aspectual reference are defined, the basic concepts of which can be helpful when designing your conlang's own tense/aspect system.

The Neo-Reichenbachian Model

Imagine a timeline:

Earlier                                  Later
<-------------------------------------------->

Now, imagine there are two spans on that timeline (the fact that they're spans is important -- nothing is truly instantaneous). The time when you make an utterance is called the utterance time (or UT), and the time that you're talking about is called the topic time (or TT).

Temporal reference describes the relationship between the TT and UT. Past temporal reference is when the TT precedes the UT; future temporal reference when the TT follows the UT; and present temporal reference when they overlap.

Past:
    <-------------------------------------------->
                |--TT--|          |--UT--|

Future:
    <-------------------------------------------->
          |--UT--|                  |--TT--|

Present:
                            |--UT--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
                     |-------TT-------|

This seems pretty intuitive -- if the section of the timeline you're talking about precedes the time you make the utterance, you'll use the past tense; if it follows it, you'll use the future; and if they overlap, you'll use the present. Simple, right?

But what of aspect? Well, aspectual reference isn't as transparent at that. To describe aspectual reference, we'll need to pick out a third span that timeline -- the time when the event being described actually happened. We'll call this the eventuality time (or ET).

"But wait!" you might object. "Isn't that the same as the topic time? If I'm describing something that happened, surely the time I was talking about is the same as the time that it happened." However, there is a difference, and it's exactly this difference that gives rise to aspectual reference. Consider the English past perfect in a sentence like the following:

Yesterday he had gone to the store.

The English past tense includes past temporal reference, and we've established that this means that the topic time is before the utterance time -- something which is explicitly confirmed by the temporal adverb "yesterday" giving us a more specific topic time. But when does the him-going-to-the-store happen? Probably not yesterday, right? Well, this is because perfect† aspectual reference is when the eventuality time precedes the topic time -- aspectual reference describes the relationship between the eventuality time and the topic time. It for this reason that the past perfect is used by English speakers for the past-in-past.

Past Perfect:
    <-------------------------------------------->
          |--ET--|    |--TT--|     |--UT--|

But you can also have the present perfect, right? Well, let's combine our descriptions of the present tense and the perfect aspect and see what we come up with.

Present Perfect:
                            |--UT--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
        |--ET--|     |-------TT-------|

Here, the topic time and utterance time overlap, which is why you can't say something like "Yesterday he has gone to the store." However, the eventuality time precedes the topic time, so you're describing an event that happened in the past in relation to the present. And indeed, this is how we see the present perfect used in English.

This is far from the most interesting thing aspectual reference can do, however. Let's discuss the popular aspectual references, perfective and imperfect. For those who don't know, perfective and perfect are two different things. Perfective is often described as simply viewing an event as a point on a timeline, and imperfect as viewing it as a span. How do we define this as a relationship between eventuality time and topic time?

Well, a simple way people do it (ignoring a few other related thorny semantic problems that few here will care about) is by defining the perfective as when the eventuality time is contained within the topic time and the imperfect as when the topic time is contained within the eventuality time.

Past Perfective:
               |--ET--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
        |-------TT-------|        |--UT--|

Past Imperfect:
               |--TT--|
    <-------------------------------------------->
        |-------ET-------|        |--UT--|

This results, at least formally, in the same sort of perspective shift we try to intuitively describe as changing the event from a "point" to a "span".

Note that tense and aspect vary between languages a lot, and even related languages can't be counted upon to have the same semantics here. After all, the French passé composé, while very similar in form to the English present perfect, does not share the same semantics (it's more of a perfective). Additionally, while a given language's system of tense and aspect will often combine a tense and an aspect in a certain inflection (such as the perfective past tenses in many European languages), this doesn't mean the two are wed cross-linguistically.

In fact, I hope this answer has given some conlangers the tools to try and invent their own tenses, aspects, or combinations of the two that they haven't themselves encountered cross-linguistically. Be creative!

In short:

Temporal reference is the relationship between the utterance time (when you say something) and the topic time (the time relevant to the discussion at hand).

Aspectual reference is the relationship between the topic time (see above) and the eventuality time (the time when the event being described actually occured).

Tense is the grammaticalization of temporal reference.

Aspect is the grammaticalization of aspectual reference.

Things called "tenses" in natural languages (as well as in conlangs, to be honest) are often conflations of tense and aspect (and sometimes even mood, but we're not here to talk about that).

†When I refer to perfect aspectual reference, I'm actually more specifically describing what is known in semantics as the existential perfect. Perfect forms in English and many other languages include other types of perfect aspectual reference (universal, resultive, etc.) that differ subtly in their semantics, and other aspectual and temporal baggage as well; this is, however, probably not particularly interesting or relevant to most people here at this moment.


问:
How to classify the language of "Uncleftish Beholding"?
The essay Uncleftish Beholding by Poul Andersen is written in a special kind of English without borrowings from Latin, French, and Greek. The gaps in the lexicon are filled with German style compounds (in fact, a lot of them, like waterstuff "hydrogen" or sourstuff "oxygen" are real calques from Dutch or German).

Is this piece of art written in a conlang? Or is it just a funny form the natlang English?

答:
Anglish is neither invented language nor relex nor just a casual / funny "style".

It is, more than anything else, a register. The Cambridge Dictionary says of register: We use the term ‘register’ to refer to particular varieties or styles of speaking and writing. Registers vary because the language is used for different purposes, in different contexts and for different audiences. For example, there is a legal register, a register of advertising, registers of banking and a register of weather forecasting. We commonly recognise registers because of their specialised vocabulary but also because of particular uses of grammar.

Much like how we have registers for differing social contexts ("street talk" or "formal gatherings" or "liturgical worship"), Anglish is simply another register. In this case, I'd argue that the social context is one of distinct national identity vs worldwide loss of identity. Anglish is clearly a distinct variety or style of English --- it is English pure and simple! --- and it is used for the particular purpose of distinguishing English English (Our English) from World English (Everyone's English).

The Anglish Moot goes into some detail here. The Anglish/New English project is intended as a means of recovering the Englishness of English and of restoring ownership of the language to the English people.

In linguistics, a register is simply a "variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting." In the case of Anglish, the purpose is as stated: to communicate using a restored & nativising form of English.

As an artifact, it can't really be called an invented language, because it isn't really a thing "invented". And certainly not in the usually understood sense of the concept of an invented language. For it is already English.

It's not a relex in the conlinguistic sense because it is not a matter of "making up new words" and replacing the English words one for one. (In the linguistic sense, perhaps.) Anglish is a matter, simply, of bringing actual English words, older words, dialect words, disused words to the forefront along with some loan borrowing and calquing from other Germanic languages.

My vote is still for Anglish to be classified a Register of English.

ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0


问:
How do Romance-based naturalistic conlangs deal with the different principal parts of a verb?
The Latin verb has four principal parts (e.g., ducere, duco, duxi, ductum) that are sufficient and necessary to create all inflected forms and derived words from it. As far as I know, no naturalistic conlang attempts to preserve the French passé simple and related tempora in other Romance languages; so we can drop this one. Usually, the differences between infinitives and present tense forms are also levelled out by dropping most of the Romance verbal inflections.

This leaves us with two principal parts, one for the infinitive, present tense and past tense, and one for the past participle (or at least for derivations from the past participle, in case that the participle is somehow regularised).

I remember that Edgar de Wahl even went further in his design of Occidental-Interlingue using a device called de Wahl's rule (the description in the Wikipedia differs somewhat from my presentation) in deriving also the infinitive and the present tense stem from the past particple, so his word for "to lead" is ducter. He isn't 100% consequent, but this adds a lot of regularity to his design.

How do other Romance-based conlangs deal with the principal parts?

答:
I answer first for two of my own invented languages, Kerno and Loucarian. Since the question is now broadened to invented IALs, I choose to add several additional sections: Interlingua, Sabir, Occidental, Romanal, Medial Europan and Lingua Franca Nova. Also, just so one can get a flavour of these languages, I append the Pater Noster in each.

Looking back at some of my old Romance languages, I don't think I paid much attention to the Latin principle parts as a system. As the languages evolve out of Latin and into their more modern selves, the systematic nature might fall apart or accrete new forms.

In Kerno, we can certainly see the survival of at least three principal parts for the regular verbs.

cantam, cantar, cantú (sing)

caru, carer, carú (love)

dormu, dormir, dormú (sleep)

It's not until we meet up with those good old irregular verbs that more principal parts seem to linger:

In the Grammar, there is actually a section that lists the principal parts of the irregular verbs (though for some unknown reason, I didn't call them such):

doc (or doy), dar, dedai, doú

istam, ystar, stetai, ystú

currem, currer, coscorrai (or cocorrai), cursú

llodu, lloder, llosès, llosú

ioc, ir, fu, eú

sentu, sentir, senti, sentú

So, four principal parts surviving.

a Phazeoir Nusteor que bias 'n y ceues;

foreth noef il tew nom;

gouenyes il tew camouils;

foreth fès la teva gouoluntáts

en lâ derra cuomo 'ny ceues;

danos-el osdia le nusteor panèn cuotidièn;

dimeti y nusteor dheuz

cuomo dimitemus ai nusteor dheutoeres;

et ne nus attrayer rhen al tentación,

mays eliveránus des val.

Loucarian takes its inspiration from Sabir and has a similarly reduced verbal conjugation.

amare, amando, amato

clevere, cleviendo, cleveto

ajire, ajiendo, ajito

pejeire, pejiendo, pejito

vidure, videndo, viduto

While not a principal part of the ancestral Reman language, modern Loucarian takes the present/infinitive, progressive/continual & past for its principal parts.

nemet sospeito pôdis IC cata maccareire; etti pejeto IC:

enamverver tim maccareire coudeiere ican:

jenì abba en samayam na

qedd al iccà nomon

sôppere al iccà noummen podeqc festinam

outtato wad al iccà alfas eim en al tir eim en al paradeisiam

cvercare tim adis nasser hotim al jenìm pountim cascoumênem

demetere tim al jenìn nobes eim nas demetere al jenìn namaderam

mire doucere nasser adis peirasmom

mire dê côire tim nasser ad injoudissiam.

Interlingua is an invented Romance IAL. From the I-a grammar article under Verbs, we can see exactly what has been done with Latin's principal parts.

All personal inflexion is stripped off, so there can be no "first principal part" as such. However, the Latin present stem remains largely intact, so the I-a present tense could continue to serve as first principal part.

The infinitive remains distinct.

The old Latin perfect stems have all been obliterated; the I-a past tense is formed upon the Latin imperfect (present stem), so there can be no "third principal part".

The Latin past participle remains in I-a.

One could say the principal parts of an Interlingua verb are:

parla, parlar, parlate

dice, dicer, dicíte

senti, sentir, séntite

Interlingua is not entirely regular as regards its verbal system. There are a few (unofficial) irregulars (thank Goodness!)

The principal parts of esser are:

es, esser, era, essite thus four principal parts.

Nostre Patre, qui es in le celos,

que tu nomine sia sanctificate;

que tu regno veni;

que tu voluntate sia facite

super le terra como etiam in le celo.

Da nos hodie nostre pan quotidian,

e pardona a nos nostre debitas

como nos pardona a nostre debitores,

e non duce nos in tentation,

sed libera nos del mal.

Sabir (also knows as Mediterranean Lingua Franca) was an actual, natural Romance IAL in use within the Mediterranean Sea basin from the middle ages onwards to about the mid 19th century or so.

It is well known for severe reduction & levelling of morphology in general. There are but two principal parts, both surviving from Latin:

parlar, parlato

fazer, fazeto

sabir, sabito

The present tense, imperative and infinitive are all wrapped within the immutable infinitive; the past and past participle are wrapped up within the old perfect participle.

There are a couple odd forms. For example, in the Pater Noster we find noi volir ki nomi di ti star saluti of which I (having no grammar of the language available) can only imagine to be a past participle of saluer. Why the -i termination and why not "salueto", I don't know. Obviously Sabir was not designed to level all irregularity. It evolved naturally and over a long period of time within a broad geographical region. Oddities are bound to survive / arise.

Padri di noi, ki star in syelo,

noi volir ki nomi di ti star saluti.

Noi volir ki il paisi di ti star kon noi,

i ki ti lasar ki tuto il populo fazer volo di ti

na tera, syemi syemi ki nel syelo.

Dar noi sempri pani di noi di kada jorno,

i skuzar per noi li kulpa di noi,

syemi syemi ki noi skuzar kwesto populo ki fazer kulpa a noi.

Non lasar noi tenir katibo pensyeri,

ma tradir per noi di malu.

Occidental is another invented Romance IAL. I really don't know much about it beyond a couple articles I've read online. Even so, we can easily pick out the remaining principal parts from a good sample text:

da, dar, dat

inducte, inducter, inductet

veni, venir, venit

As with Interlingua and Sabir, the morphology of person is eliminated, leaving only a present stem. Also, the perfect stem itself is eliminated. This leaves us three principal parts.

Patre nor, qui es in li cieles,

mey tui nómine esser sanctificat,

mey tui regnia venir,

mey tui vole esser fat,

qualmen in li cieles talmen anc sur li terre.

Da nos hodie nor pan omnidial,

e pardona nor débites,

qualmen anc noi pardona nor debitores.

E ne inducte nos in tentation,

ma libera nos de lu mal.

Romanal was another invented Romance IAL. I have again no reference grammar, but a perusal of a text shows some interesting morphology.

das, dar, dat

Forms like ne nos inducas and dimitta speak of the survival of Latin negative imperative and possibly imperative forms as well. Romanal is well worth the visit for the spiffy verbal conjugation alone!

Patro nostri,

qui est en cieles,

sanctificat estas nomine tui,

advenias regne tui,

fias volite tui,

sicut en ciele, et en terre.

Il pane nostri quotidiani das ad nos hodie,

et dimittas nostri debites,

sicut et nus dimitta debitantos nostri,

et ne nos inducas in tentatione,

sed liberas nos ex male.

Medial Europan was another invented Romance IAL.

It would seem, from the given text, that all distinctions of conjugation have been reduced to but one. We can see that the present tense and infinitive are distinct.

pintit, pintir

Un englo, un franco ed un deuto havit le taske pintir kamele. Le englo voyajit ad Afrike for studiir le kamele in tisui doimie. Le franco gidit al zoologi jarden, ed le deuto pintit on kamelo ex le profunde de sui psyke.

Lingua Franca Nova was also inspired by Sabir. Its verbal system is the most reduced respecting the old Latin principal parts. That is to say, there are no principal parts, the bare verb stem being used for all tenses, in conjunction with temporal particles.

leva

come

boli

Nosa Padre ci es en la sielo,

Ta ce tua nom es santida.

Ta ce tua rena veni.

Ta ce tua vole aveni

sur la tera como en la sielo.

Dona oji nosa pan dial a nos,

e pardona nosa detas,

como nos pardona nosa detores,

e no condui nos a tenta,

ma libri nos de malia.

NB: I deliberately left out Esperanto / Ido because, while their vocabulary is largely paneuropean, its grammar is not Romance. (I've read several sources that claim it is closer to Slavic grammatically.) Also, I leave out Novial for the same reason, only its grammar is much closer to that of English.


答: This has been called "Anglish", a type of constrained writing. As compounding is a productive force in English (ie, it happens frequently and is not limited to an existing set of words), I wouldn't say that this should be considered relexification. A relexification would have a strict set of German style compounds to use, but something that is just constrained writing would allow you to generate alternate synonymous compounds.

Title: How to classify the language of "Uncleftish Beholding"?

Body:
The essay Uncleftish Beholding by Poul Andersen is written in a special kind of English without borrowings from Latin, French, and Greek. The gaps in the lexicon are filled with German style compounds (in fact, a lot of them, like waterstuff "hydrogen" or sourstuff "oxygen" are real calques from Dutch or German).

Is this piece of art written in a conlang? Or is it just a funny form the natlang English?


问:
What are language concepts that could be considered to be based on human anatomy?
I'm in the early stages of creating an alien language for a personal writing project. I'm trying to avoid the aliens' language having properties that human languages do that are somehow linked to our anatomy. One of the most obvious examples of such a feature is a numerical system with base ten due to the number of digits.

What are language concepts that are linked to our anatomy in comparable ways that I should find alternatives for when creating a language for aliens who are not humanoid? Any references for links between our anatomy and such language concepts or features are much appreciated.

答:
Some obvious ones:

Phonetics, be it of spoken or signed language, is obviously constrained by the body of humans - both in the channels (aural, visual) employed and also in how they are employed.

Metaphors often make use of body parts. Spatial prepositions and adverbs are often derived from relevant body parts: front from face, forehead, nose, chest; back from back or butt; up from head… you get the picture. Basically every organ has been referred to as being the cause of emotions etc as well in metaphors.

Words for directions in particular are also somewhat based on human anatomy. We have lateral symmetry (left-right) but an alien could likely have some form of radial symmetry in their bodies, which would make the concepts of leftness and rightness very weird to them. Aquatic beings would also likely have a different concept of directions altogether, probably based more on the orientation of their own bodies than relative to the ground.

Those are the things that come to mind. However, much more importantly, the inner workings of language as a whole would likely be different from a human’s. There are some things in human language that you really wouldn’t assume to be necessary. Just to make two examples:

It seems pretty clear that humans take the raw audio input, break it into segments (phones) then further abstract those phones into phonemes, which are then in turn used to build more complex words. One could just as well imagine skipping the segmentation step and going directly from audio to meaning. There appears to be evidence however that some songbirds also employ what could be considered phonemes in their songs, so perhaps it is to be expected.

Another thing is in syntax: human language does not appear to allow circular dependencies, that is word¹ A modifying word B, which in turn modifies word A again. From my fairly limited understanding of syntax, human sentences can be structured in a tree structure. It seems plausible that an alien language might have more or less freedom, perhaps allowing cyclic graphs in their syntax… or in the other direction, only linear dependence. An example of an alien conlang playing around with this is Europan, which I personally consider one of the most interesting conlangs I’ve ever encountered.

¹or clause


问:
Are constructed languages intellectual property? Do they ever stop being IP, once people use them?
Are conlangs intellectual property? Can they be copyrighted?

The second question is a little more complicated. Does a certain level of public, common usage cause a conlang to become public domain, even when the language was created by a select group?

I know there has been some debate over the Klingon language regarding this, especially since there are a few people who were raised with Klingon as a secondary natural language. But I'm not certain about its legal status.

For the purposes of location, consider the US generally. If a state is needed, in California.

答: I would say yes.  If for example you own the copyright to a dictionary and a grammar guide for words that you made up, then people can only use those words within the "fair use" guidelines of copyright law.  So they could write an original poem using your language without your permission, but would need to provide citations to your copyrighted works.  But no one would be able to read or understand the poem unless they also had access to the copyrighted works, which would quickly stifle any use of the language.  If you want as many people as possible to learn and speak your language, then the fastest way to disseminate the language would be by releasing all materials into the public domain so that they are freely accessible to everyone.</p>


问:
How does mood relate to tense and aspect?
Moods are often intertwined with tense and aspect. In fact, the triad is commonly referred to in linguistics as tense-aspect-mood or just TAM. Aspect and tense are relatively straightforward, but how does mood relates to them exactly?

答:
(For tense and aspect in general, see this answer)

I'll summarize what Mark Rosenfelder says in Advanced Language Construction, pp. 146-156 (some of which referring back to Mood and Modality, F.R.Palmer 2001).

First we start with modality, which is concerned with the status of the proposition, i.e. "how true it is, and whether it's subject to obligations and intentions". In contrast tense (at its most basic degree, ignoring semantic expansion) is interested to whether it happens before or after now, and aspect with overall temporal relation (hence the possibility of contrast between tenses within a given aspect).

Rosenfelder describes Palmer's classification of modals like so:

Factual

Epistemic: speculative, assumptive & deductive

Evidential: reported, sensory & deductive

Deontic

External: obligative, permissive, commissive

Internal: abilitive & volitive

(Most discussions bundle all of the "factual" branch as one "evidentials" category because languages with evidentials tend to have only one of the two sub-branches, which is also why deductive is listed twice without being self-contradictory)

Basically working from that, a mood is what happen when modality bundles up with tense, and there it gets a little messy. Terminologically, Rosenfelder believes that indicative/subjunctive and realis/irrealis systems are separated more clearly by geography (specialists in given language families prefer one or the other) than grammatical reality.

In any case, realis/indicative applies protoypically to real events, irrealis/subjunctive to "less real" stuff. What is included in each category may vary considerably (future events and imperative may categorize in either one, for example, depending on individual languages). Conditionals are irrealis in virtually all systems, but in Indo-European linguistics are traditionally treated as a third mood separate from both indicative and subjunctive.

In practice, moods are often more of a semantic division within the verbal paradigm owing to the lack of a separate marker for them (in most European languages I'm aware of, for example). When an explicit irrealis marker exists, it often takes over separate marking for tense and aspect, that is, there will be no overt marking of the subcategories like future vs. imperative (both only irrealis) or past vs. present (both realis). Manam is such a language (how unusual this is is unclear from Rosenfelder's writing).


答:
The difference is that tense refers to the time an action (or state or phenomenon) happened:

I was slim.

I am fat.

I will be fatter.

while aspect refers to the way an action (or state, or phenomenon) develops along time:

I eat sushi. (habitual)

I am eating sushi. (continuous)

.

I used to eat sushi. (habitual)

I ate sushi. (perfect)

I was eating sushi. (continuous)

.

I will have eaten sushi. (perfect)

I will be eating sushi. (continuous)

I don't know if someone has a complete list of possible aspects, but here are some possibilities:

The action was/is/will be finished (perfect)

The action is/was/will be ongoing (continuous)

The action is/was/will be continually performed (habitual)

The action is/was/will be going to start (inceptive)

The action is/was/will be intermitently performed (iterative)

That's the difference. Now comes the confusion - because that is what languages do, they confuse tense and aspect, in incoherent and incomplete systems that fail to either integrate or clearly separate those features.

One first source of confusion is that many languages operate not only with the simple distinction between tenses as outlined above - past, present, future - but also with dependent and independent tenses. For instance, I may say

I used to eat sushi when Susan introduced me to Javanese food.

I am eating sushi while the president threats nuclear war against North Korea.

I will be eating sushi when they bring the wine.

in which one action is past, present or future regarding the time of the speech (Susan introduced me to Javanese food in the past, the president is threatening nuclear war in the present, they will bring wine in the future) while the other (me eating sushi) happens in the present - not the present regarding the time of speech, however, but the present regarding the other action.

And while this may be a source of confusion by itself, it expands to a further level of confusion because the interaction between dependent and independent action often has implications on the aspectuality of each of them. For instance, I say

I eat sushi. - or

I am eating sushi.

it is understood that these are different aspects: in the first sentence, I am saying that I do habitually eat sushi, not that I have a dish of sushi in front of me. In the second sentence, however, I am saying that I am actually eating sushi in the moment I am talking, so the sentences are not synonim to each other.

But if I say

Go there and stop the president from doing bullshit while I eat sushi. - or

Go there and stop the president from doing bullshit while I am eating sushi.

the phrase "eat sushi" loses its habitual aspect, and turn into continuous, and the sentences are effectively synonimous.

The there is the confusion that Sparksbet remarks, between "tense" as a grammatical form, and "tense" as a reference to actual time. As she says, "tenses" as grammatical forms are used to denote a mix of tense references and aspectual references.

Furthermore, while the tense and aspectual references can be several, their grammaticalization, or lack thereof, is much more constrained. For instance, neither English, nor any other Western European language that I know has verb inflections for iterative or inceptive aspects. They instead use either syntactical devices, or morphological derivation - and those often vary weirdly from lexical item to lexical item. Let's take for instance Portuguese:

Eu como sushi (habitual)

Estou comendo sushi (continuous)

Estou beliscando uns sushis (iterative) (where a different verb is used to make the aspectual reference)

Eu bebo uísque (habitual)

Estou bebendo uísque (continuous)

Estou bebericando uísque (iterative) (where a morphological derivation of "beber" is used to make the aspectual reference)

So, probably no natural language has a coherent tense-aspect system; the fact that some tenses seem to imply some aspects when put in relation to others probably means that, for reasons of economy, grammatical "tenses" will be used irregularly, given internal or even external context.

Could it be possible to build a conlang with a complete and coherent tense-aspect system? Perhaps, but I would say such coherence and completeness are only going to survive as long as the language is not effectively used by a human population.

Title: What is the difference between tense and aspect?

Body: Many conlangs contain tense, some contain aspect as well or instead, and much of the recommended reading for conlangers assumes that you know what tense and aspect are and what the difference between them is. What actually is the difference, and how would a word or morpheme be classified as a marker of one or the other?</p>


问:
How did Tolkien model diachronic changes in his Elvish languages?
Wikipedia explains that Tolkien modelled changes to his Elvish languages, something we'd call diachronic conlanging these days:

Tolkien conceived a family tree of Elvish languages, all descending from a common ancestor called Primitive Quendian. He worked extensively on how the languages diverged from Primitive Quendian over time, in phonology and grammar, in imitation of the development of real language families.

What is a summary of the major changes he modelled? For example, did he describe something akin to the Great Vowel Shift?

答:
I don't know the exact changes Tolkien enacted, but here are a few in no particular order. You can tell they are quite inspired by real world sound changes in Celtic languages, which I'll mark in brackets. A good summary for quenya can be found here.

Aspirates /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ become fricatives /ɸ θ x/

Lots of syncope, especially the second vowel in trisyllabic words

In Quenya /kʷ/ is retained (Irish), while in Sindarin it becomes /p/ (Welsh)

Vowels are reduced or lost finally, especially in Sindarin (Welsh)

Sindarin features i-affection (Welsh)

Various forms of lenition (Irish, Welsh)

Plenty of assimilation in clusters

Quenya features some palatalization with y /j/

Syllabic consonants become non-syllabic

Some sounds such as /ɣ/ and /ŋ/ are lost or merge with other sounds

In Quenya usually /w/ > /v/, while in Sindarin initial /w/ > /gw/ (Welsh)

Hope this answers your question somewhat.


问:
Can features in the physical environment meaningfully affect the development of a local language's phonology?
Imagine that I'm creating phonemic inventories for multiple conlangs, each of which is spoken by a people settled within (or roaming about) a very different physical environment from the others. Assuming that these different civilizations developed their languages completely apart from one another and haven't simply drifted apart from one original root language, is there any consensus that certain phonemes work better or worse in different environments?

For instance, do certain phonemes perform better or worse:

over choppy waters being sailed by a seafaring people?

through a jungle or heavily wooded area populated by a tree-dwelling people?

in a mountainous area frequently traversed by various groups settling near or even on the mountains?

carrying over a vast inland plain or a placid lake?

cutting through the ambient noise of a swamp or jungle (or even a city)?

These are just examples. I'm not specifically asking about any of those scenarios. I just want to make sure that any language I create would be as plausible as possible, down to the very last detail I can think of. Any reliable resources on the subject would be great, but as a complete novice, I haven't been entirely sure what to search for and have come up short on my attempts so far.

答:
There have definitely been serious linguistic theories about environment affecting features like this - the ones I can remember off the top of my head are that certain sound changes in Proto-Germanic were because its speakers had thicker phlegm or something and that tonogenesis is more likely to occur in certain tropical climates. The latter was a relatively recent paper. These are taken relatively seriously by many linguists, but most I've met are highly skeptical. They haven't reached widespread acceptance, so I would certainly not say there's any consensus about it.

That said, if you'd like your conlang to contain certain phonemes because you personally think they'd work better in a certain environment, there's nothing stopping you.


答:
There has also been evidence that suggests that ejectives tend to occur more frequently in areas of higher elevation, perhaps due to their being easier to produce in these regions:

We present evidence that the geographic context in which a language is spoken may directly impact its phonological form. We examined the geographic coordinates and elevations of 567 language locations represented in a worldwide phonetic database. Languages with phonemic ejective consonants were found to occur closer to inhabitable regions of high elevation, when contrasted to languages without this class of sounds. In addition, the mean and median elevations of the locations of languages with ejectives were found to be comparatively high. [...] we offer two plausible motivations for [this correlation's] existence. We suggest that ejective sounds might be facilitated at higher elevations due to the associated decrease in ambient air pressure, which reduces the physiological effort required for the compression of air in the pharyngeal cavity–a unique articulatory component of ejective sounds. In addition, we hypothesize that ejective sounds may help to mitigate rates of water vapor loss through exhaled air. [...] Our results reveal the direct influence of a geographic factor on the basic sound inventories of human languages.

(emphasis mine)

Title: Can features in the physical environment meaningfully affect the development of a local language's phonology?

Body:
Imagine that I'm creating phonemic inventories for multiple conlangs, each of which is spoken by a people settled within (or roaming about) a very different physical environment from the others. Assuming that these different civilizations developed their languages completely apart from one another and haven't simply drifted apart from one original root language, is there any consensus that certain phonemes work better or worse in different environments?

For instance, do certain phonemes perform better or worse:

over choppy waters being sailed by a seafaring people?

through a jungle or heavily wooded area populated by a tree-dwelling people?

in a mountainous area frequently traversed by various groups settling near or even on the mountains?

carrying over a vast inland plain or a placid lake?

cutting through the ambient noise of a swamp or jungle (or even a city)?

These are just examples. I'm not specifically asking about any of those scenarios. I just want to make sure that any language I create would be as plausible as possible, down to the very last detail I can think of. Any reliable resources on the subject would be great, but as a complete novice, I haven't been entirely sure what to search for and have come up short on my attempts so far.


答:
Here is another researcher (Prof. Ian Maddieson) suggesting exactly such correlations:

In a presentation on Wednesday at the Acoustical Society of America fall meeting, Maddieson showed that consonant-thick languages like Georgian are more likely to develop in open, temperate environments. Meanwhile, consonant-light languages like Hawaiian are more likely to be found in lush, hot ecologies.

The complete article even includes a world map showing consonant heaviness per region. Generally speaking there certainly seems to be a relation but the research is not very far into how exactly the impact of surroundings are on the languages.

Other researchers say this is just the beginning of a line of research into how nature rules our speech. "This is the first of its kind, and there are several others coming now. It's becoming increasingly clear that the way we speak is shaped by external forces," says Sean Roberts, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands who was not involved in the study.


问:
Grammar concepts required for every conlang
Is there a method to make sure that a constructed language contains all the necessary grammar concepts, e.g. to make sure that a concept like genitive case or a construct state is present?

For example, is there a list of such concepts available?

答:
The way to make sure a language is detailed enough is by putting it to use. You have to write something in the language that the language was designed for in order to be able to tell if it works. For example, if you're writing an auxiliary language, you might want to see if you can express the Babel text or the Declaration of Human Rights (two popular texts for translation) to see if your language expresses them the way you intended. If you're writing a language for a fictional race, you could translate whatever kind of text that race produces.

No language actually requires a genitive case or a construct state (prepositions are an easy way to get out of either; but a constructed language can never be "wrong" even if it's very ambiguous, as long as the final product suits what you were trying to make). You probably would have decided sometime in the design process the most basic questions, like if the language uses cases. If for some reason you haven't, you will notice that this is missing when trying to write something in the language.

The reason this works is that it's impossible to write sentences without deciding on the essential features of the language. Writing sentences forces you to decide on word order, for example. Using sentences with diverse syntax and morphology can also help to determine if you left something out of the language.


答:
OK, here are some details on classical Quenya and classical Sindarin (based on Helmut W. Pesch, Das große Elbisch-Buch, Bastei-Lübbe 2009)

The phoneme inventory of Primitive Quendian was

```<code>p   t   k
pʰ  tʰ  kʰ
b   d   g
m   n   ŋ
    r,l
        ɣ
w     j
a, e, i, o, u, ai, oi, ui, au, eu, iu
</code>```

An early addition to this repertoire were prenasalised consonants mb, nd, ŋg that developped differently in Quenya and Sindarin.

Sound shifts for Quenya

```<code>pʰ   tʰ   kʰ  -> f   θ   x  (later: θ -> s)
b-   d-   g-  -> v-  l-  Ø
-b-  -d-  -g- -> -mb- -nd- -ŋg-
mb-  nd-  ŋg- -> m-  n-  ŋ-   (later: ŋ- -> n-)
</code>```

The loss of almost all b's, d's, and g's makes Quenya phonological similar to the Finnish language.

Quenya has some old compounds that preserve the pre-shifted state of a root, e.g., for dome > lome "night, darkness" there is an old compund tindome and a newer regular one Aldalome. This adds to the diachronical depth of the language.

Sound shifts for Sindarin

```<code>p    t    k   -> b   d   g
pʰ   tʰ   kʰ  -> v   ð   ɣ (later: ɣ -> Ø)
mb-  nd-  ŋg- -> b-  d-  g-
kʷ  -> p
w-  -> gw-
</code>```

Sindarin also has a lot of lenitations (i.e., in certain contexts the initial consonsonant of a word is changed to some "softer" consonant) inspired by Welsh. The lenitations are different for original b d g and b d g that come from mb  nd  ŋg. Sindarin also has acquired an umlaut y.

EDIT 3: Evolution of initial sp-, st-, and sk-

Both in Sindarin and quenya, consonant clusters with an initial s were simplified in two steps: First, the stop became aspirated and the s was dropped

```<code> sp st sk -> pʰ tʰ kʰ
</code>```

and than the aspirated stops became voiceless fricatives

```<code> pʰ tʰ kʰ -> f θ h
</code>```

In Quenya, also the so-created θ's became s later, such that the net development of Quenya is

```<code>  st -> s
</code>```

EDIT 1: Some more information gleened from the dictionary

Quenya Words beginning with h- derive from Primitive Quendian roots beginning in kʰ-. The initial consonant cluster stʰ was simplified via θ to s.

Some words beginning with  ç- like hyarmen "south; left side" come from roots beginning in kʰj.

Sindarin  has simplified some consonant clusters like kl- kr- via intermediate voiceless l and r but in classical Sindarin those l's and r's are the usual voiced ones (despite being retained in orthography as lh rh).

EDIT 2: The grammatical changes aren't explained in great detail. It seems that Tolkien applied some handwavium here when he states that Quenya was consciously changed for greater clarity. On the other hand, Sindarin has evolved naturally (in Tolkiens internal history) in the woodlands of Middle Earth where everything is interwoven with everything.

Title: How did Tolkien model diachronic changes in his Elvish languages?

Body:
Wikipedia explains that Tolkien modelled changes to his Elvish languages, something we'd call diachronic conlanging these days:

Tolkien conceived a family tree of Elvish languages, all descending from a common ancestor called Primitive Quendian. He worked extensively on how the languages diverged from Primitive Quendian over time, in phonology and grammar, in imitation of the development of real language families.

What is a summary of the major changes he modelled? For example, did he describe something akin to the Great Vowel Shift?

Body:
OK, here are some details on classical Quenya and classical Sindarin (based on Helmut W. Pesch, Das große Elbisch-Buch, Bastei-Lübbe 2009)

The phoneme inventory of Primitive Quendian was

p   t   k
pʰ  tʰ  kʰ
b   d   g
m   n   ŋ
    r,l
        ɣ
w     j
a, e, i, o, u, ai, oi, ui, au, eu, iu

An early addition to this repertoire were prenasalised consonants mb, nd, ŋg that developped differently in Quenya and Sindarin.

Sound shifts for Quenya

pʰ   tʰ   kʰ  -> f   θ   x  (later: θ -> s)
b-   d-   g-  -> v-  l-  Ø
-b-  -d-  -g- -> -mb- -nd- -ŋg-
mb-  nd-  ŋg- -> m-  n-  ŋ-   (later: ŋ- -> n-)

The loss of almost all b's, d's, and g's makes Quenya phonological similar to the Finnish language.

Quenya has some old compounds that preserve the pre-shifted state of a root, e.g., for dome > lome "night, darkness" there is an old compund tindome and a newer regular one Aldalome. This adds to the diachronical depth of the language.

Sound shifts for Sindarin

p    t    k   -> b   d   g
pʰ   tʰ   kʰ  -> v   ð   ɣ (later: ɣ -> Ø)
mb-  nd-  ŋg- -> b-  d-  g-
kʷ  -> p
w-  -> gw-

Sindarin also has a lot of lenitations (i.e., in certain contexts the initial consonsonant of a word is changed to some "softer" consonant) inspired by Welsh. The lenitations are different for original b d g and b d g that come from mb  nd  ŋg. Sindarin also has acquired an umlaut y.

EDIT 3: Evolution of initial sp-, st-, and sk-

Both in Sindarin and quenya, consonant clusters with an initial s were simplified in two steps: First, the stop became aspirated and the s was dropped

 sp st sk -> pʰ tʰ kʰ

and than the aspirated stops became voiceless fricatives

 pʰ tʰ kʰ -> f θ h

In Quenya, also the so-created θ's became s later, such that the net development of Quenya is

  st -> s

EDIT 1: Some more information gleened from the dictionary

Quenya Words beginning with h- derive from Primitive Quendian roots beginning in kʰ-. The initial consonant cluster stʰ was simplified via θ to s.

Some words beginning with  ç- like hyarmen "south; left side" come from roots beginning in kʰj.

Sindarin  has simplified some consonant clusters like kl- kr- via intermediate voiceless l and r but in classical Sindarin those l's and r's are the usual voiced ones (despite being retained in orthography as lh rh).

EDIT 2: The grammatical changes aren't explained in great detail. It seems that Tolkien applied some handwavium here when he states that Quenya was consciously changed for greater clarity. On the other hand, Sindarin has evolved naturally (in Tolkiens internal history) in the woodlands of Middle Earth where everything is interwoven with everything.

ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0


问:
Was Tolkien aware of the Voynich manuscript?
Looking at the Tengwar script designed by Tolkien I feel a certain similarity to the unknown script of the Voynich manuscript: Many characters look very similar to others of the same script, and there is a restricted set of penstrokes used in the characters. Repetition of strokes is used to derive other characters.

So I am wondering whether the Tengwar script could be influenced by the script of the Voynich manuscript. Was Tolkien aware of the Voynich manuscript? Or, to the opposite, was Tengwar already designed before the Voynich manuscript was rediscovered and publically known?

答:
Or, to the opposite, was Tengwar already designed before the Voynich manuscript was rediscovered and publically known?

The manuscript was rediscovered in 1912. Tolkien, according to Wikipedia, started developing Elvish in 1910 or 1911... before the Voynich manuscript was rediscovered.

There is at least one claim that he was aware of it, though, although it would have to be after he had already started developing the languages.

This is a transcript of a message sent to the Voynich mailing list, sent November 13, 2002:

Hello

  I have "lurked" on this list for a while and finally have a comment to offer, albeit a very insignificant one.

I wonder if the fact that Prof. JRR Tolkien apparently had an interest in (or at least knowledge of) the Voynich Ms has been discussed or indeed is of any interest at all?

The thing is, a nagging feeling that I had once seen the VMs many years ago - long before my recent interest was sparked by that piece in The New Scientist - is resolved. I now recall it - and though the persons concerned having died long since makes my little anecdote mere hearsay and in no way veridical, I thought I'd forward it. An old friend, a retired military man with an amateur interest in codes and cyphers, once showed me a couple of not entirely distinct b&w copies of pages from a curious coded manuscript, which I now realise were a couple of folios of the VMs. I was not especially interested in them at the time, I think, but the reason that the incident made an impression was that he said that they had been given to him by Prof JRR Tolkien. At that time I had just discovered and was very much 'into' Tolkien so I was most envious of my friend's knowing him and pressed for details of the great man, though in the end I never achieved my longed-for personal introduction. So I now wonder if there might be any reference anywhere in the mass of Tolkien papers to our VMs, and is this of any possible slight significance? After all, JRRT knew a great deal about languages and artificial scripts of course and if he was interested enough to make and pass on copies to a friend, he might have devoted some time to the VMs himself. And the Voynichese script does have a Tolkien-ish look to it or vice versa: could it have influenced him?

(this was found through a link from CipherMysteries.com)

However, since his development started before the Voynich manuscript was discovered, I'd say that it's... kinda unlikely that he was inspired by it.


问:
What are the defining traits of a Euro-centric conlang?
I know that a Euro-centric conlang is a conlang based mostly on Indo-European grammar, or more generally a conlang that is written from a worldview (conscious or not) that the "normal" language is Indo-European, but what are the traits of a Euro-centric conlang? What are the things that are a dead giveaway that the language is Euro-centric?

It could be a grammatical curiosity specific to Indo-European, or maybe something like a conlang being based around one non-Indo-European language feature as a kind of "gimmick" (although these are just unfounded speculation, seeing as I don't know the answer).

答:
The term "Standard Average European" (SAE) pretty much covers it, and has been around since the 1930s. Haspelmath listed a number of typical "Euroversals" in a portion of the 2001 book Language Typology and Language Universals. These are listed in a more readable-to-laymen way in the wikipedia article on the subject. Haspelmath included as true Europeanisms (that is, features that are part of the SAE Sprachbund) only features that fit the following requirements:

Most of the "core" European languages possess it.

Nearby languages (Celtic, Turkic, etc.) lack it.

Eastern Indo-European languages (Armenian, Iranian, Indic languages, etc.) lack it -- this prevents us from merely calling it a feature of the Indo-European language family as a whole.

It is not found in the majority of the world's languages.

The Europeanisms identified by Haspelmath that fit this criteria include:

Definite and indefinite articles

Post-nominal relative clauses with resumptive relative pronouns

The (transitive) perfect formed with "have" plus a past participle

Experiencers coded as nominative subjects

Passive formed with a participle plus "to be"

A preference for anticausatives over causatives.

Dative external possession

Negation with negative pronouns and positive verb forms (e.g., "Nobody comes" instead of "Nobody won't come.")

Particle comparatives

Relative-clause based equative constructions (e.g., "tan Z como X", "so Z wie X", "as Z as X")

Subject person marking used strictly for agreement (i.e., the verb is inflected for the person/number of the subject but the subject cannot be dropped)

Different forms for reflexives vs. intensifiers

He also identified several other features that were common among this Sprachbund but were not as well-documented as the above, such as the verb fronting of polar interrogatives (i.e., turning "I have done it" into "Have I done it?" to make a yes/no question), an inflectional marker for the comparative, and several others -- these are also included in the linked articles.


问:
What is opposite of "burzum", "darkness", in Tolkien's Black Speech?
I'm aware that burzum means darkness in The Black Speech.

Do we know what the opposite is? How is lightness written?

答:
As @Darkgamma says, we don't know.  The closest we have would probably be ghâsh, which means fire, and one could probably guess that the characteristic of being fire-like would be something like ghâshum, but there is no empirical evidence for that, except that the suffix -um seems to mean -ness, as in burz- (meaning dark) + -um (meaning -ness), put together to form burzum.

That said, ghâshum would literally mean "the characteristic of being like fire," not literally "lightness."


问:
What is the word “li” in Toki pona, grammatically?
In Toki pona, words are never inflected, and many words can act as a noun, verb or adjective in different contexts. The word "li" usually separates the subject from a predicate, and “e” goes before the object (in SVO order). With soweli (animal), moku (eat, food) and kili (fruit), one can say:

soweli li moku e kili

The animal eats the fruit.

This is the usage listed in the dictionary section of the official book, Toki Pona: the Language of Good:

li. PARTICLE (between any subject except mi alone or sina alone and its verb; also to introduce a new verb for the same subject)

But there is another usage, as seen in phrase:

soweli li ijo

Animals are things (ijo means thing).

It seems that this usage increases the ambiguity, because

soweli li moku

can mean both ”The animal is eating” (with moku as an intransitive verb), or ”animals are food”.

What role does the li actually have in this phrase?

答: Li in these examples could be described as a copula - this is the name for a word whose function is to link a subject and predicate.


答:
Besides the traits of Standard Average European given in Sparksbet's answer, another defining feature is the phonology and basis of the lexicon.

Eurocentric conlangs draw their phonology and their words heavily from well-known (and sometimes less well known) European languages. Depending on the preference of the authors, the words are based on Latin or modern Romance, English, Greek, or Slavonic languages. They also inherit a lot of European phonological quirks, e.g., in the selection of allowed consonant clusters both word-initially and inside words.

Features that are absent or rare in European languages (like retroflex consonants, tone, initial use of /ŋ/) are absent from Eurocentric conlangs.

Title: What are the defining traits of a Euro-centric conlang?

Body:
I know that a Euro-centric conlang is a conlang based mostly on Indo-European grammar, or more generally a conlang that is written from a worldview (conscious or not) that the "normal" language is Indo-European, but what are the traits of a Euro-centric conlang? What are the things that are a dead giveaway that the language is Euro-centric?

It could be a grammatical curiosity specific to Indo-European, or maybe something like a conlang being based around one non-Indo-European language feature as a kind of "gimmick" (although these are just unfounded speculation, seeing as I don't know the answer).


问:
How could my to be constructed language reflect a culture of carefulness?
For a role-playing setting, I want to construct an elven language. The society of these elves strongly values being careful, thinking things through, taking one’s time and preventing mistakes. This is not a recent development but has been that way for centuries.

I feel that the language should somehow reflect their culture of being careful and preventing mistakes — somewhat like the Japanese language mirrors the importance of showing respect to the other party with a wide range of respectful address suffixes, respectful grammatical features and a respectful vocabulary.

In what way could I implement my elves’ carefulness and mistake-preventing ideal in their language?

As requested in the comments, here is some further elaboration of what I have in mind.

In cultures, certain behaviour is considered acceptable, certain behaviour is considered well-mannered and other behaviour is considered rude. For example, in Germany coming straight to the point is considered the normal, accepted behaviour while giving white lies is frowned upon to different degrees leading to Germans outright stating what they observe even in other languages in what is elsewhere considered an unfriendly manner.

On the other hand in China, not being able to provide an answer to a question is considered rude so accepted behaviour instead is to provide an answer even if one has no idea if it is true or not. (That is the impression I got from interaction with previous Chinese colleagues.)

In the culture of my elven society, it would be perfectly acceptable and even considered well-mannered to let a deadline pass or let somebody wait in order to perfection a good or a service. On the other hand, providing someone with a flawed product or a not fully thought-through piece of advice would considered disrespectful because one should have taken the time to ensure the error within does not exist. (Such behaviour would be entirely unacceptable in Germany where it is expected for the finished product to arrive five minutes before the deadline.)

A number of common — to them — proverbs would underline this expectation. Maybe something along the lines of ‘the time you lose from a bad result outweighs the gain from finishing quickly’ or ‘even the king will gladly wait for his crown’ etc.

I hope I have made the general idea more clear.

答:
My idea on that would be very close to what you suggested yourself: introducing suffixes / prefixes which would indicate the uncertainty of the word.  For instance, let's suppose that your word for "strong" is hariq, your word for "I sit down" is brumo and your word for "house" is niptug, and the word for "in" or "inside" would be bomp.*

Now I would invent some prefixes, such as ar- meaning "with great certainty," no prefix meaning something along the lines of "a certain degree of certitude, but not absolute certainty," (such as, it is supposed that; it is presumed that) and fun, meaning, "a large amount of uncertainty" (such as "we think" or "it appears possible that")**

Now let us suppose that I want to say that I that I sit down in the house, with an extreme certainty that it was a house that I was sitting in, but the fact that I was sitting or that I am actually inside is assumed to be true, though it could be theoretically disproved.  I would say,

```<code>arniptug bomp brumo
</code>```

In this fictive language,

```<code>funhariq niptug arbomp brumo
</code>```

would mean, "I sit down in a place definitely inside a house which appears to be strong."

Note that these suffixes / prefixes could theoretically be added to any part of speech, or made different for nouns, verbs, adjectives, interjections, etc.

You could also possibly devise a way to make the order of the words show a carefulness about exactly how accurate what is being said is.

* Words invented totally randomly.

** Again, randomly selected; more or less prefixes could be used,
 with different definitions.  This is just an example.

Body:
My idea on that would be very close to what you suggested yourself: introducing suffixes / prefixes which would indicate the uncertainty of the word.  For instance, let's suppose that your word for "strong" is hariq, your word for "I sit down" is brumo and your word for "house" is niptug, and the word for "in" or "inside" would be bomp.*

Now I would invent some prefixes, such as ar- meaning "with great certainty," no prefix meaning something along the lines of "a certain degree of certitude, but not absolute certainty," (such as, it is supposed that; it is presumed that) and fun, meaning, "a large amount of uncertainty" (such as "we think" or "it appears possible that")**

Now let us suppose that I want to say that I that I sit down in the house, with an extreme certainty that it was a house that I was sitting in, but the fact that I was sitting or that I am actually inside is assumed to be true, though it could be theoretically disproved.  I would say,

arniptug bomp brumo

In this fictive language,

funhariq niptug arbomp brumo

would mean, "I sit down in a place definitely inside a house which appears to be strong."

Note that these suffixes / prefixes could theoretically be added to any part of speech, or made different for nouns, verbs, adjectives, interjections, etc.

You could also possibly devise a way to make the order of the words show a carefulness about exactly how accurate what is being said is.

* Words invented totally randomly.

** Again, randomly selected; more or less prefixes could be used,
 with different definitions.  This is just an example.


答:
Expanding on Sparksbet's answer, additional features, from the conlanging point of view as listed by Mark Rosenfelder in Advanced Language Construction (pp. 30-31), that tend to pile up on top of the SAE elements. While many of these are not particularly rare at all cross-linguistically, the overall combination (especially combined with actual SAE features), shines a brighter light on the "Europeanness" of a language:

(italics are my additions)

A phonology that explores little beyond European languages (usually German, French or Spanish with a few sounds swapped or added)

The "standard fantasy phonology" is English consonants + /x/ and (usually) Spanish vowels. Rosenfelder notes in passing elsewhere that English's vowel system is unusual, and most budding conlangers seem aware of that.

Six distinct pronouns with gendered ones for third person only and usually with object forms

Nouns paradigm with only singular/plural forms, and possibly case (usually 5-8)

Adjectives are either invariable or decline like nouns

Verbs conjugating by person (a single one, too) and number, with only three basic tenses (past/present/future) plus maybe a conditional or irrealis/subjunctive.

Modality involves auxiliary verbs

SVO word order + nominative/accusative alignment

Questions and negatives are formed with some sort of particles

The number system is decimal and the kinship system is eskimo

Even SAE languages have significant non decimal elements: dozens and grosses in English, vigesimal elements in French, and Danish...


答:
Darkgamma's reply wasn't wrong, but I think it slightly misses the  question.

One way of ensuring that your conlang is able to convey a certain meaning/feature is to grab a text and start translating it. If there is something in the original text you have trouble translating, try to find a way to work around it with the grammar you currently have OR invent a new construction to deal with it. In order to do the first one well you need a good awareness of your conlang's grammar. Another danger of this method is relexing the original, especially new vocabulary. Third option: Don't have your conlang be able to translate the challenging characteristic/expression of the text you're translating 'genuinely'. F.e. there's alienable vs. inalienable possession in the text you can simply translate it with the standard expression for possession in your conlang (assuming you do not have the distinction in your conlang).

You asked about lists. There are questionnaires used for typology which I think can be helpful for conlanging, but I don't know of anyone who has tried utilizing them. Here you can find a link to a collection of them.

Title: Grammar concepts required for every conlang

Body:
Is there a method to make sure that a constructed language contains all the necessary grammar concepts, e.g. to make sure that a concept like genitive case or a construct state is present?

For example, is there a list of such concepts available?


问:
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 natural languages.

Perfective

[-----] He wrote a letter.

Imperfective

<-----> He writes letters.

Perfect

-----|x He has come from Aqaba.

Pluperfect

---|DC---(now) I had entered a congested zone.

Completive

>-----| She finished working.

Inceptive

[-----> She began working.

Continuative/progressive

>-----> He is writing letters

Punctual

x He sneezed.

Iterative

>-x-x-x-> He is coughing.

Habitual

<-----> He drinks.

Are there other Aspects that do not appear in natural languages which have been invented for conlangs, and could they be represented with a similar visual diagram?

答:
Morotuncanian has some verbal aspects that I rather doubt appear in natural languages of the primary world.

Sedative and Excitative verbal aspects. The former aspect expresses the nature of the action, through time, as calming and steady in nature. The latter aspect expresses the nature of the action, through time, as unsteady or agitated in nature, but not to the point of being considered iterative or incessant.

bollahcctuerayas er som huomuram le ciwamauroyas : aa : bollahccendayas hasto curelloram le ollaloyas.

Youth fidgets whilst age naps.

Or, literally, "Are sitting agitatedly with the earth the younglings while are sitting calmly, majestically towards chair the elders."


问:
What is R'lyehian based on?
In his Cthulhu Mythos, H. P. Lovecraft includes several snippets of the R'lyehian language, including the "Cthulhu chant":

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

We have a vocabulary list available, that gives us a decent taste of the words - for instance, 'ai means speak or call.

Does this bear any resemblance to any natural languages? Do we know the inspiration for the words?

答:
Ostensibly, the transcription we have of R'lyehian is supposed to be a crude attempt to represent utterly inhuman sounds with the Latin alphabet. Most of what I can find on R'leyhian claims that it attempts to be an un-Earthly language: it does not distinguish between parts of speech, for example. It seems likely to me that Lovecraft at least attempted to invent a fully a priori conlang here.

I've found a Quora answer claiming the language "has basic elements of Welsh and German glottals," but it's unclear what exactly that means and where they got that information from.

Title: What is R'lyehian based on?


问:
Greek-based altlangs
The Wikipedia article on Artistic languages says in its current version

What if Greek civilization had gone on to thrive without a Roman Empire, leaving Greek and not Latin to develop several modern descendants?

But in the ongoing text no Greek based altlangs are mentioned.

What are examples of Greek based altlangs?

答:
After a bit of searching, the only remotely Greek-based altlang I've found is Eressilian, which is mentioned only in the above Reddit post. It claims to be the result of the evolution of the Hittite language, after mixing with other languages in the region surrounding Asia Minor. These languages (notably Persian, Arabic, and Greek) mainly contributed loanwords, which were then modified and incorporated. Unfortunately, little information is given, and there's no substantial vocabulary list. The only supposedly "Greek" word given is adelphotés, which - matching sentences word for word - seems to have been turned into elelpulush. I haven't been able to determine its meaning or origin.

Some notes on Eressilian:

The Hittite language was an Anatolian language, which may or may not be "daughter languages" in the Indo-European family. A competing hypothesis is that it is instead a sister language family, developing separately, rather than a branch.

The modern Greek language is a Hellenic language, definitely Indo-European; Persian is also Indo-European, an Indo-Iranian language. Arabic, on the other hand, is an Afroasiatic language, not Indo-European. This means that there any purely Hellenic influence will be reduced.

Eressilian's notable loss of grammatical gender is likely a Persian influence, not Greek.

In short, Greek influence on Eressilian is largely only through loanwords, and is not shown in grammatical structures. It's there, but it's minor.

Title: Greek-based altlangs


答:
TAKE is Το Ἄνευ Κλίσι Ἑλληνική / Greek Without Inflexions. According to Ray Brown, "Graeca sine flexione" ... (considers) what Greek might be like if stripped of its inflexions in the manner similar to Giuseppe Peano's Latino sine Flexione... It should be pointed out that although Giuseppe Peano produced 'Latino sine flexione' as an international auxiliary language, I am NOT making a similar proposal for ΤΑΚΕ!

Outidic is a kind of IAL for the learned, statesmen & merchants alike.

These are both by Ray Brown of Conlang-L.

Èskova Linga

Engadinese is a Greek-Romansch graftlang.

Atlo Greek appears now to be entirely lost.

Rhaetian

There may be others...

Title: Greek-based altlangs

Body:
The Wikipedia article on Artistic languages says in its current version

What if Greek civilization had gone on to thrive without a Roman Empire, leaving Greek and not Latin to develop several modern descendants?

But in the ongoing text no Greek based altlangs are mentioned.

What are examples of Greek based altlangs?


答:
Everything you make up is your intellectual property, but that does not mean you could decide who gets to use it and how. Programming languages are actually quite similar in this regard. We need to distinguish several concepts about a conlang:

name

dictionary

grammar

texts

Inventing and naming the language, effectively means you are entitled to decide what counts as $language and what does not. You probably could even register a trademark for it in some jurisdictions. You cannot stop people from extending the dictionary or deriving a dialect, but they could probably not legally call it $language without your approval. They could still use a slightly different name even incorporating the original one, e.g. "$dialect of $language", and you could do nothing about it. (For instance, Commonmark initially was called Standard Markdown and was renamed after protests from the author of Markdown and coiner of that term, but this happened out of courtesy not out of legal obligations, and variants with names like Github Flavored Markdown or Markdown Extra remain unaffected.)

The dictionary most likely is subject to database laws which differ significantly between jurisdictions and can be rather strange. I remember a case where it was legal to read, manually type and publish a copy of a printed phone register, but the redistribution of a computer scan was prohibited. It's best to treat the word list as public domain.

The grammar is much like an algorithm in mathematics. That means it usually cannot be patented or otherwise protected.

Texts in or about the language are of course still copyrighted intellectual property of their authors. The inventor or maintainer of the language has no say in this.

Title: Are constructed languages intellectual property? Do they ever stop being IP, once people use them?

Body:
Are conlangs intellectual property? Can they be copyrighted?

The second question is a little more complicated. Does a certain level of public, common usage cause a conlang to become public domain, even when the language was created by a select group?

I know there has been some debate over the Klingon language regarding this, especially since there are a few people who were raised with Klingon as a secondary natural language. But I'm not certain about its legal status.

For the purposes of location, consider the US generally. If a state is needed, in California.


答:
I think the question is not well formulated. Mostly because "language concepts" (e.g. tense-aspect-mood systems, animacy, verbal valence, case systems...) reflect the workings of the human mind far, far more than they could ever reflect the human anatomy. Anatomy/biology of course influences massive swathes of semantics, but I don't think anything other than pure phonetics or sign language is influenced by anatomy.

Facial expressions and body language probably belong there, but tend to have a huge cultural element. Position of the ears, for example, is not something humans make (or can make) use of, but maybe elves could.

Some more semantics example:

We make distinctions useful to us at our given size. We cannot tell apart things by smell, or by UV light the way other animals (or measuring instruments) can. We do not tell apart very tiny things by basic names (e.g. ants, mites, sand). If we could sense, say, gravitic variations or psychic energies, we might have entirely different ways to describe position or time.

Time is linear to us, cause precedes effects and so on, we cannot watch again a past event. This obviously affects how language models time and mood. Consider the Observers from Fringe or any other species with a different perception of time. Their possibly utterly alien perception of time may well be the reason their writing is (apparently) indecipherable.

"Fish" is not a proper biological class (and whether marine mammals are excluded from it in common parlance is debatable!) because we don't feel a need to be any more precise about it, but we would have better concepts for it if we were a marine species! Similarly, plants are divided, roughly, into, flowers, lianas, grass, trees and shrubs. This system is not even very efficient for Earth ecology!

Expanding on the UV thing, color words are constrained by our visual capacity, and typically distinguish a surprisingly limited number of basics. Forget the hierarchy part, nonderived terms usually stop around 6-8 words, why? A species with different color perception would do things differently. Mark Rosenfelder spends an entire chapter on this point in his Conlanger's Lexipedia.

As far as number base systems, decimal and vigesimal are most common in humans because we have 10 fingers, and 20 fingers and toes. (although a huge number of bases have been documented, I don't think any languages have a binary or ternary one)

Kinship terminology is based off our own reproductive biology (and our gregariousness). What of a species where the embryo must be incubated in a member of a different species? What about a species where reproduction requires gametes from more than two individuals?

Title: What are language concepts that could be considered to be based on human anatomy?

Body:
I'm in the early stages of creating an alien language for a personal writing project. I'm trying to avoid the aliens' language having properties that human languages do that are somehow linked to our anatomy. One of the most obvious examples of such a feature is a numerical system with base ten due to the number of digits.

What are language concepts that are linked to our anatomy in comparable ways that I should find alternatives for when creating a language for aliens who are not humanoid? Any references for links between our anatomy and such language concepts or features are much appreciated.


答:
Mapping word class jargon from one language to another is a dicy project. Lojbanists decided that they needed to invent entirely new words for word class jargon. That said...

All the toki pona particles (o, li, e, pi, la) act most similar to Japanese particles or English clitics, eg. "the". Clitics bind to a phrase. There are other tests for what counts as a clitic.

They are semantically bleached, do not act like content words. "li" in particular introduces a noun phrase or a verb phrase.

Title: What is the word “li” in Toki pona, grammatically?

Body:
In Toki pona, words are never inflected, and many words can act as a noun, verb or adjective in different contexts. The word "li" usually separates the subject from a predicate, and “e” goes before the object (in SVO order). With soweli (animal), moku (eat, food) and kili (fruit), one can say:

soweli li moku e kili

The animal eats the fruit.

This is the usage listed in the dictionary section of the official book, Toki Pona: the Language of Good:

li. PARTICLE (between any subject except mi alone or sina alone and its verb; also to introduce a new verb for the same subject)

But there is another usage, as seen in phrase:

soweli li ijo

Animals are things (ijo means thing).

It seems that this usage increases the ambiguity, because

soweli li moku

can mean both ”The animal is eating” (with moku as an intransitive verb), or ”animals are food”.

What role does the li actually have in this phrase?


问:
Do toki pona speakers, in practice, permit compounding more than three words?
In toki pona, compounding multiple words together is possible. For example:

tomo: room/box/structure/home

  telo: water/fluid

  tomo telo: bathroom

It also allows compounding three words together:

tomo pi telo nasa: a bar

  kiwen mun laso: blue moon rocks

This is where the official grammar stops, and the official stance is that larger statements are ungrammatical. However, I am wondering if it is common in practice for people to compound more than three words.

Suppose I wanted to say “the broken yellow dome hut.” The official grammar would have me say something in a full sentence:

tomo sike pakala li jelo.

However, despite the rules of grammar, do people ever say:

tomo sike pakala jelo.

Or include other compounds of many words with pi?

(Note: I am not asking whether this is grammatical according to official rules. I am asking whether colloquial toki pona permits this.)

答:
Yes, but when this happens, you have to consider two possibilities:

This is really a content word followed by many, many modifiers

A particle has been omitted.

For the toki pona parse I wrote, I have an arbitrary cut off of something like 5 modifiers.

```<code>telo kala seli jelo waso wawa kulupu soweli jan li suli.
The beasty, familial, powerful, bird-like, yellow, hot, fish water is big.
</code>```

(that doesn't really mean anything, it just makes the parser blow up)

http://tokipona.net/parser/L?i=C

In the corpus of public texts, heads followed by 4 or more modifiers almost never legitimately happen, unless someone forgot a necessary particle.

That said, they are valid, e.g.

```<code>mi jo e soweli lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili.
I have a small...small animal.
</code>```

Body:
Yes, but when this happens, you have to consider two possibilities:

This is really a content word followed by many, many modifiers

A particle has been omitted.

For the toki pona parse I wrote, I have an arbitrary cut off of something like 5 modifiers.

telo kala seli jelo waso wawa kulupu soweli jan li suli.
The beasty, familial, powerful, bird-like, yellow, hot, fish water is big.

(that doesn't really mean anything, it just makes the parser blow up)

http://tokipona.net/parser/L?i=C

In the corpus of public texts, heads followed by 4 or more modifiers almost never legitimately happen, unless someone forgot a necessary particle.

That said, they are valid, e.g.

mi jo e soweli lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili lili.
I have a small...small animal.


问:
Conlangs based on lesser known antique languages
The canon of classical languages studied in Europe comprises Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (and maybe classical Aramaic). Inspired by this answer mentioning a conlang based on Hittite, my follow-up question is: Are there conlangs based on other languages of the antiquity, like Sumerian, Elamite, Akkadian, Hurrian, or Ancient Egyptian?</p>

答:
Eressilian (Hittite)

I wrote the answer you linked, which talks about Eressilian, a conlang based on the Hittite language, supplemented with loanwords from Arabic, ancient Greek and Persian. I talked there about the Greek influence (which is slight, from the information we have); the Hittite roots are of course much stronger. An example passage given by the creator shows Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Hittite and Eressilian:

Hittite

Hūmant+es antuhsa+es arawa+iya+ya annual+iya kraht(Persian)+a hoquq(Persian/Arabic) anda asanzi hassant+ke. Anda mem+iyan+a wajidan(Persian) asanzi har+ke+ya  ēsdu aniya+du adelphotés(Greek)+us katta hūmant+as anda.

Eressilian

Uvẽndesh ãndushesh irawedhadha ãnnuelidha krata ukuk ãnda eshẽnji eshshẽndke. Ãnda mẽvedheva wajidan eshẽnji erkedha ishchu enidhadhu elelpulush kata uvẽndesh ãnda.

I don't have a grasp on the pronunciation of either language, but after attempting to sound it out, the two are quite similar. For instance, the Hittite "antuhsa es" appears similar to the Eressilian "ãndushesh" - both meaning, I believe, "man" or "human".

Goa'uld (Egyptian) (sort of)

This is the "language" spoken by the Goa'uld race in Stargate. It's ostensibly based in ancient Egyptian, drawing from the language and hieroglyphs - appropriate, given that the Goa'uld supposedly ruled Earth as gods, sometimes appearing as the gods of the ancient Egyptians. I keep seeing references to a writing variation called Nakht, which I can't find much information on.

Some (though not much) of the writing uses the Meroitic system. To my (untrained) eye, there don't appear to be a huge amount of similarities (see Meroitic and Goa'uld), but some crossovers show through pretty easily, such as "l"s and "n"s. Those are probably the main Meroitic contributions.

All that said . . . Goa'uld vocabulary is basically made up, and so it's not really a conlang. No attempts were made to keep much linguistic continuity, and so it's not a constructed language as such. There are probably some similarities to ancient Egyptian, but likely not many. I include it here only because its use of some ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs is notable; it appears that an alphabet for the language was indeed constructed.

Irǧeret (Egyptian and Akkadian, with Ugaritic, Arabic and Hebrew influences)

This one seems decently documented by its author. The vocabulary and phonology are derived from Egyptian, although there isn't much vocabulary listed. The organization of nouns - in number and gender - resembles Akkadian. It also contains the Akkadian declensions, with the addition of the dative. In short, the grammar and morphology appears Akkadian, while the vocabulary should be Egyptian. It's an interesting blend.

A note on Proto-Indo-European

A couple of languages have been derived from Proto-Indo-European, the reconstructed common ancestor of Indo-European languages. It's only known indirectly. Therefore, many (though not all) conlangs that are based on it also use words from more recent Indo-European languages. Proto-Indo-European is certainly antique; whether it's "lesser-known" is perhaps another question entirely. That said, it's not a terribly common template, and so I'm listing some Proto-Indo-European languages here for the sake of interest.

Sambahsa:  Sambahsa, an international auxiliary language, appears to be heavily influenced by Proto-Indo-European, primarily through vocabulary. It modifies words from languages ranging from India to Spain, attempting to go back to the languages' common roots.

Atlantean (Proto-Indo-European): Like Sambahsa, Atlantean is Proto-Indo-European in origin, especially when it comes to vocabulary (grammatically, it is quite different). Notably, it was created by Marc Okrand, the man behind Klingon. According to the linked website, Okrand

took Proto-Indo-European roots and then compared them with language families at various points in time from around the world.  Where similarities between words existed, he altered the root or its semantic value to reflect that similarity.  By the combination of the PIE roots and by the adoption of new roots from these world languages, he created a vocabulary.

Given that these languages borrow vocabulary from many descendants of Proto-Indo-European, you could argue that they're not directly based in it. However, the intentional linguistic diversity within the family - and the attempts to base words on common similarities that are attributable to Proto-Indo-European - do seem to make these conlangs its descendants.


问:
How does one express "want to want" in toki pona?
For example, "I do not want to want opium"

For example, this doesn't work, it is a yes-no question!

mi wile ala wile e ijo nasa

     Do I want a drug?

      ? Do I want not-want a drug?

The positive doesn't seem to work either

mi wile wile e ijo nasa

      * I want [in a wanting manner?] a drug.

答:
mi wile ala e     ni:  mi wile e     ijo   nasa.

  I  want not <obj>-this I  want <obj>-thing crazy

The same principle as in "I do not want to drink water."

mi wile ala e     ni:  mi moku  e     telo.

  I  want not <obj>-this I  drink <obj>-water


答:
Culture shows up in languages by a few routes:

Specialized jargon. They might have a lot of specialized words for "carefulness". Láadan is just a bunch of specialized jargon, imho.

Metaphysical obsessions. In most languages, we have to care about these issues like when it happened and the gender of the speakers and we have to care about it in every sentence, even if it isn't otherwise topical. In English, you have to choose a gender or animacy status for a pronoun even if the distinction is irrelevant. Japanese making honorific/politeness markers obligatory is a perfect example. If I ever get around to writing a language, I plan to use this strategy, although, it only works with features that everything has. For example, if I make "edibility" a necessary grammatical marker, I may have to waste a lot of air on "inedible" and "doesn't apply".

Sapir-Whorf. This is all pseudo-science bunk anyhow, so you just assert that this or that feature, say through sympathetic magic makes your speakers this way or that way. German words fit together like a car engine and that is why they make such great cars. You have to form these sentences very carefully, so the people who speak the language must be very careful.

As for the mechanics—these show up as prefixes/affixes to nouns, adjective etc, or lexical distinctions, or a lack of lexical gaps. For example, just having a short simple word instead of needing a paragraph to discuss varieties of "carefulness"

Corpus. A language shows its culture in the corpus of text. If the language has lots of sample text that says, "gosh, we are very careful people," then that is good enough. But anything can be said in any language, so such a language wouldn't be, by corpus, any more "careful" or suited to talk about the "careful life" than any other language.

Title: How could my to be constructed language reflect a culture of carefulness?

Body:
For a role-playing setting, I want to construct an elven language. The society of these elves strongly values being careful, thinking things through, taking one’s time and preventing mistakes. This is not a recent development but has been that way for centuries.

I feel that the language should somehow reflect their culture of being careful and preventing mistakes — somewhat like the Japanese language mirrors the importance of showing respect to the other party with a wide range of respectful address suffixes, respectful grammatical features and a respectful vocabulary.

In what way could I implement my elves’ carefulness and mistake-preventing ideal in their language?

As requested in the comments, here is some further elaboration of what I have in mind.

In cultures, certain behaviour is considered acceptable, certain behaviour is considered well-mannered and other behaviour is considered rude. For example, in Germany coming straight to the point is considered the normal, accepted behaviour while giving white lies is frowned upon to different degrees leading to Germans outright stating what they observe even in other languages in what is elsewhere considered an unfriendly manner.

On the other hand in China, not being able to provide an answer to a question is considered rude so accepted behaviour instead is to provide an answer even if one has no idea if it is true or not. (That is the impression I got from interaction with previous Chinese colleagues.)

In the culture of my elven society, it would be perfectly acceptable and even considered well-mannered to let a deadline pass or let somebody wait in order to perfection a good or a service. On the other hand, providing someone with a flawed product or a not fully thought-through piece of advice would considered disrespectful because one should have taken the time to ensure the error within does not exist. (Such behaviour would be entirely unacceptable in Germany where it is expected for the finished product to arrive five minutes before the deadline.)

A number of common — to them — proverbs would underline this expectation. Maybe something along the lines of ‘the time you lose from a bad result outweighs the gain from finishing quickly’ or ‘even the king will gladly wait for his crown’ etc.

I hope I have made the general idea more clear.


问:
How common is it for the creator of a conlang to be fluent in that conlang?
This was one of my example questions but I now am actually interested in the answer.  I am an amateur conlanger; I have one pretty complete language and a couple in the process.  But I can't construct a sentence in any of my languages without referencing the lexicon and grammar.  How common is it for the creator of a conlang to be fluent in that conlang? (especially for languages that are not meant to be spoken like all of Tolkien's, where there is not a very significant fluent community).</p>

答:
Ignoring that fluency means a wide range of things (reading, writing, conversing, conversing at a college educated level, etc)--

This is really rare. Outside of Esperanto, which as L1 speakers, the number of people who get to the lower levels of fluency is in the low two digits. Klingon, Na'vi, toki pona have up to tens of people who have various levels of fluency. Getting solid data is also really hard, the numbers you see in wikipedia are often wild ass guesses.

As a thought experiment, you can look at how many languages are even potentially speakable, ie. is the specification complete to say most or all possible sentences? Is there a community? Before the internet, this was usually an insurmountable problem, finding anyone who'd want to learn your language. Are there any "poison pills" in the language put there by the designer specifically to discourage humans from trying to use it? (Pedophilia in the conculture and absurdly difficult pronunciations come to mind)

John Henry did a study of this, targeting more recent personal conlangs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HJfOPLXVY