I modified Shonkasika’s verb paradigm a bit. I made the aorist (a sort of gnomic and present habitual) and the past habitual members of a full-fledged habitual/gnomic aspect, bringing the total to four: simple(unspecified), habitual, perfect, prospective. The habitual will have two possible regular formations: the most common and currently productive way is a suffix …
Synthetic Progressive Form
I changed Shonkasika’s progressive form from a periphrasis (an adverbial participle + a be-verb) to a synthetic form. Unlike the other verb inflections, which are suffixes, this one is a prefix: je- before consonants and jey- before vowels. This prefix can occur alongside just about any tense-aspect-mood form, although it is most common with the present, past, and perfect …
New Minor Noun Declensions
I created a couple of minor declensions for Shonkasika nouns. Instead of forming its indefinite dual in –bre and its indefinite dual in –bi like most animate nouns, a few animates form them in –ndre and –ni respectively: thoges, thogendres, thogenis ox, two oxen, oxenhiros, hirondres, hironis chicken, two chickens, chickenspodis, podindres, podinis child, two …
Irregular verbs revisted
In an effort to create some justified ‘regular’ irregularity, I’ve been working on Shonkasika’s older, non-productive way of forming the future tense. Shonkasika used to form a ‘hypothetic/potential’ verb form by ablaut of the final vowel in the verb stem before the personal endings. Over time, this form was reinterpreted as a future form. An …
Personal Pronouns now have duals, too!
I added dual forms to the personal pronouns of Shonkasikas. Most add -bre to the plural stem to form the dual. The 3rd person inanimate pronouns take -ri. This pattern mimics nouns. I believe other pronouns and determiners will also have dual forms. Adjectives and verbs do not have dual forms. Dual nouns and pronouns …
Read the full post →“Personal Pronouns now have duals, too!”
New duals
I made some changes to Shonkasika’s definite duals, and the definite plurals of inanimate nouns: For example:rida (a) potatoridari two potatoesridarza the two potatoes; both potatoesridasai the potatoes
Lexember 31
Since today is my birthday, here goes Shonkasika’s day 31: ronyawostro /ro.ɲa’wo.stro/ n. cel. anniversarykhochü /’xo.t͡ʃy/ n. neut. birthkhochüboz /xo’t͡ʃy.boz/ n. neut. birthdaychütenuz /t͡ʃy’te.nuz/ v. be born
Shonkasika Updates I
It’s been a long time since a post. I will try to update more frequently so I can keep up with changes via the blog. Here’s what I worked on today: I've work on both grammar and vocabulary today, so far!I changed the suffixes that form the middle and reciprocal voices to -da and -du …
Shonkasika nouns
Wow! It’s been almost a year! I’ve still be working on Shonkasika (formerly Shonkasikas). I have made extensive changes to the morphology and syntax and have been slowly working on the lexicon. For the first time, I have a conlang with 6 noun genders. They are classified by final stem vowel and the noun’s animacy …