Category: Learn/Brainstorm/Try

Goal: Explore options for active/passive distinctions Note: Find a strategy that is appropriate for your syntactic alignment. Tip: The focus here is on a valency-reduction strategy. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Another type of inflection that can occur with verbs is passivization. This inflection is special, though, because it actually changes the valency of a transitive verb…

Goal: Explore options for negating verbs Note: Brainstorm potential lexical sources for a negator in your language. Tip: The negator can be an affix, particle, or auxiliary. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Today’s focus is on exploring options for negating verbs. You have a variety of options for negation strategies, such as creating an affix that attaches…

Goal: Consider options for marking non-finite verb forms Note: Focus on the infinitive (to create) and active participle (creating). Tip: One (or both) of these forms may be the bare verb. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Consider whether you want to specifically mark the infinitive form of a verb (e.g. to speak, hablar, sprechen) and, if so,…

Goal: Brainstorm options for tense/aspect Note: Languages often prioritize either tense or aspect in their verb inflections. Tip: T/A may interact with other inflections. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Specifically, today’s brainstorming session is about tense and/or aspect. While you can end up having ways to express both in your language, languages often prioritize either tense or…

Goal: Decide if you want index markers co-occurring with verbs Note: This may include subject-verb agreement or bipersonal marking. Tip: Redundancies help ensure efficient and effective communication. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Verbs can occur with index markers that reflect some aspect of one (or more) of their arguments. Examples of these markers include subject-agreement inflections (i.e.…

Goal: Explore options for verb classes Note: Classes can be based on transitivity, valency, and/or semantics. Tip: Verbs may inflect differently depending on their type. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Before making decisions about what kinds of inflections you want to occur with your verbs (e.g. subject agreement, tense marking, etc.), first consider whether you want all…

Goal: Brainstorm ideas for indefinite pronouns Note: Examples are any, one, many, all, few, some. Tip: Think about their lexical sources, too. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try In the coming week, you will be prompted to create a series of indefinite pronouns. Examples of these kinds of pronouns are any, one, many, all, few, and some. In…

Goal: Decide if you want demonstrative pronouns Note: These forms may differ from demonstrative modifiers. Tip: Consider your pronoun system as a whole. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Demonstrative pronouns differ from demonstrative modifiers in that they stand alone. In English, the modifier and pronoun forms are identical, so it’s difficult to see any difference when “those”…

Goal: Brainstorm ideas for personal pronouns Note: Languages typically have first- and second-person distinctions, at the least. Tip: These may be old forms with no sources. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Personal pronouns is a series of pronouns that indicate grammatical person. The table below describes the basic referents of personal pronouns for singular and plural forms—that…

Goal: Explore options for demonstratives Note: You can have different levels and types of distinctions! Tip: Connect the options to ideas for lexical sources. Work focus: Learn/Brainstorm/Try Demonstrative forms are often distance-oriented or person-oriented, and, in the majority of natlangs, demonstratives have a two- or three-way distinction. (Some languages only have one demonstrative form without…