Langam

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Author(s):Veoler
Homepage:–
Background:This is an incarnation of the main conlang I have been working on since 2005, where semantic exquisiteness (which for me includes complete regularity and "deep synthesis", i.e. moving semantics from the root to the morphology) is the main design criteria.
Greeting:
Vocabulary size:NA
From earth:unknown
Permalink:/language/langam/
Averageness:57/100, 73 of 127
Number of features:127
Tags:agglutinating, transfixation, synthetic, right-branching, hypernymy, a priori
Editable by all:no
Added by:Veoler ●1 ●2
Managed by:Veoler ●1 ●2
Added:2009-03-06 15:17
Last change:2009-11-05 22:25

Features:

Phonology

Consonant Inventories WALS Average
Vowel Quality Inventories WALS Average (5-6)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio WALS Average
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives WALS In both plosives and fricatives
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems WALS None missing in /p t k b d g/
Uvular Consonants WALS None
Glottalized Consonants WALS No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants WALS /l/ and lateral obstruent
The Velar Nasal WALS No velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization WALS Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels WALS None
Syllable Structure WALS Moderately complex
Tone WALS No tones
Fixed Stress Locations WALS Penultimate
Weight-Sensitive Stress WALS Fixed stress
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems WALS No weight
Rhythm Types WALS Trochaic
Absence of Common Consonants WALS All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants WALS None

Morphology

Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS Ablaut/concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS No case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb WALS 12-13 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause WALS Head marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases WALS Dependent marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology WALS Inconsistent or other
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology WALS Strongly suffixing
Reduplication WALS No productive reduplication
Case Syncretism WALS No syncretism
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking WALS Not syncretic

Nominal Categories

Number of Genders WALS None
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems WALS No gender
Systems of Gender Assignment WALS No gender
Coding of Nominal Plurality WALS Plural stem change
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality WALS All nouns, always optional
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS Person stem + nominal plural affix
The Associative Plural WALS No associative plural
Definite Articles WALS Definite affix
Indefinite Articles WALS No indefinite, but definite article
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns WALS Inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection WALS No person marking
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives WALS Four-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives WALS Different inflection
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives WALS Unrelated
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS No gender distinctions
Indefinite Pronouns WALS Generic-noun-based
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns WALS Differentiated
Person Marking on Adpositions WALS Pronouns only
Number of Cases WALS No morphological case-marking
Asymmetrical Case-Marking WALS No case-marking
Position of Case Affixes WALS Case suffixes
Comitatives and Instrumentals WALS Differentiation
Ordinal Numerals WALS One-th, two-th, three-th
Distributive Numerals WALS No distributive numerals
Numeral Classifiers WALS Absent
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers WALS Formally different
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes WALS No possessive affixes

Nominal Syntax

Obligatory Possessive Inflection WALS Absent
Possessive Classification WALS Two classes

The second class: Nouns that are derived from bivalent verbs take their objects when in the construct state. "father" in the phrase "my father" is an example, since the noun is derived from the verb "is father of"; and "my" is simply "I/me", not a genitive. Other examples are "eater" in "meat eater", "watcher" in "birdwatcher", and "hand" in "my hand" which all are in the construct state. You could say "my hand" with the preposition mentioned below instead of with the construct state, but that would semantically be vaguer and would pragmatically imply that the hand wasn't part of the body inhabited by your mind.

Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses WALS Genitives and relative clauses collapsed

A single adjectival preposition serves as both relativizer and genitive adposition.

Adjectives without Nouns WALS Marked by suffix

Chapter 61 on WALS uses a semantic definition of "adjective". If it had been a morphosyntactic definition instead, then I would have answered "not without noun". The "adjectives" that occur without nouns as their heads are in fact nouns or verbs or adverbs themselves. The suffixes are part of speech inflections.

Action Nominal Constructions WALS Sentential
Noun Phrase Conjunction WALS 'And' different from 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction WALS Identity

Verbal Categories

Perfective/Imperfective Aspect WALS Grammatical marking
The Past Tense WALS No past tense
The Future Tense WALS No inflectional future
The Perfect WALS No perfect
The Morphological Imperative WALS Second person number-neutral
The Prohibitive WALS Special imperative + special negative

The prohibitive is marked with a single transfix that occupies the same morphological slot as the imperative. The "special negative" is an inherent part of that transfix.

Imperative-Hortative Systems WALS Neither type of system
The Optative WALS Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility WALS Verbal constructions
Epistemic Possibility WALS Verbal constructions
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect WALS None

Word Order

Order of Subject, Object and Verb WALS VSO
Order of Subject and Verb WALS VS
Order of Object and Verb WALS VO
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb WALS VOX
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS Prepositions
Order of Genitive and Noun WALS Noun-Genitive
Order of Adjective and Noun WALS Noun-Adjective
Order of Demonstrative and Noun WALS Noun-Demonstrative
Order of Numeral and Noun WALS Noun-Numeral
Order of Relative Clause and Noun WALS Noun-Relative clause
Order of Degree Word and Adjective WALS Adjective-Degree word
Position of Polar Question Particles WALS Initial
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions WALS Not initial interrogative phrase
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause WALS Initial subordinator word
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS VO and Prepositions
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun WALS VO and NRel
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun WALS VO and NAdj

Simple Clauses

Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases WALS Neutral
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns WALS Neutral
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking WALS Accusative
Expression of Pronominal Subjects WALS Obligatory pronouns in subject position
Verbal Person Marking WALS Both the A and P arguments
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking WALS No person marking
Order of Person Markers on the Verb WALS A and P are fused
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' WALS Double-object construction
Reciprocal Constructions WALS Distinct from reflexive
Passive Constructions WALS Present
Antipassive Constructions WALS Oblique patient
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions WALS Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes WALS Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS Symmetric
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS Non-assignable
Polar Questions WALS Question particle
Predicative Possession WALS 'Have'
Predicative Adjectives WALS Mixed

Complex Sentences

Relativization on Subjects WALS Pronoun-retention
Relativization on Obliques WALS Pronoun-retention
'Want' Complement Subjects WALS Both construction types exist
Purpose Clauses WALS Balanced/deranked
'When' Clauses WALS Balanced/deranked
Reason Clauses WALS Balanced/deranked
Utterance Complement Clauses WALS Balanced/deranked

Lexicon

Hand and Arm WALS Different
Finger and Hand WALS Different
Numeral Bases WALS Other base

base-4 or base-12

Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories WALS 6
Number of Basic Colour Categories WALS 8-8.5

And they are: black, grey, white, red, yellow, green, blue, and purple

Green and Blue WALS Green vs. blue
Red and Yellow WALS Red vs. yellow
M-T Pronouns WALS No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns WALS No N-M pronouns
Tea WALS Others

Other

Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks WALS Other or none

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