Conlanging III: Words, Finally

Previously: Conlanging I: First Contact, Conlanging II: Contology, Hart's Nominex

Minor posts: Some affixes, mostly derivationalEvidentiality And Supposability

It's been a year since I've worked on my conlang for the Xenants and I think I'm ready to give them some words and bound morphemes. In the past, I worked on a lot on grammar and conceptual semantics, but now it's time to get this thing done. Lexicography. Lexiconning. Lexicoinage. Wordsmithing. Whatever.

:: Quick Review Of Language Features

: Speakers

The language doesn't have a name yet, but it's spoken by crystalline insectoid aliens called Xenants.

: Parts of Speech

The language of the Xenants has conjunctions, verbs, nouns, and lots of affixes (prefixes and suffixes). There are no stand-alone articles, adjectives, or adverbs.

: Phonology

Xenants bilaterally have two complex sound producing organs (we'll call them "mouths" here, but there's a different organ for ingestion that could also be called a mouth). They can produce sounds from mouths simultaneously, independently. Their sounds are highly percussive: Xenants don't have vowels or voicing, and they can't even whisper.

Xenants have the following sounds in their root vocabulary of affixes, nouns, verbs, and conjunctions:

O o (pi pu): the bilabial clicks ⟨ʘ⟩.
I i (ci cu): the dental clicks ⟨ǀ⟩.
T t (ti tu): the voiceless alveolar plosives ⟨t⟩.
Z z (zi zu): the voiceless alveolar affricates ⟨t͡s⟩.
X x (xi xu): the voiceless postalveolar affricates ⟨tʃ⟩.
K k (ki ku): the voiceless velar plosives ⟨k⟩.

All of those are distinguished into high and low forms (represented with capital case versus lowercase in the short 1-character transription, and represented by the vowel in the long romanization). Humans might be able to emulate the high and low forms by palatalization and rounding, respectively, and the vowel in the romanization help with that. The forms with the height specified are called consonants. If only the manner and place of articulation are specified, but not the height, then we're talking about an "articulant". A bilabial click for example, is an articulant to the Xenants, not a consonant.

The high and low forms are not related semantically, anymore than English "god" and "cot" are related semantically. Different sounds, different words, different meanings.

The names for the articulants (e.g. "the voiceless velar plosives") reference human anatomical features like teeth ("dental") and lips ("bilabial") that humans can use to approximate the Xenant sounds. There hasn't yet been any anatomical investigation of Xenant anatomy to figure out what organs are actually producing those sounds.

The Xenants also have two consonants used for saying numbers:
# . (ri ru): the aspirated voiceless alveolar taps ⟨ɾ̥ʰ⟩.

I haven't done anything with them yet, but I think the Xenants might also use these sounds non-linguistically. 

Sh : the voiceless palato-alveolar fricative ⟨ʃ⟩.
S : the voiceless alveolar sibilant ⟨s⟩.

A Xenant syllable consists of a consonant in one mouth, and silence or a consonant in the other mouth. Silence is transcribed with an underscore "_" in the short transcription and with an apostrophe "'" in the long romanization. Xenant syllables are called "half-syllables" if one mouth is silent, and "full-syllables" otherwise. Simultaneously produced syllables are written in sequence in both the short transcription scheme and the long romanization, so that "Xt" is a single syllable written short and "xitu" is the same syllable written long.

: Word Order

None. There is no required or suggested word order in the Xenant language. A given Xenants might have an artistic preference for a certain word order, perhaps introducing concepts in a given order for the sake of poetry or dramatic storytelling, but that's all. To be fair, there's a lot of synthetic morphologic structure within words, to the extent that it's more like Xenant words correspond to English phrases and the free Xenant word order is more like a free English phrasal order, but that's not unusual for natural synthetic languages either.

: Phonotactics

For the most part, the Xenant language is designed so that Xenants don't have to speak the same articulant in one mouth on two successive syllables ("stuttering"). This held true throughout the entire language until recently when I decided on words for phrasal conjunctions.

Let's have an example: we've already seen the syllable "xitu". If a Xenant were presented with this syllable twice in a row, it might say the first xi in its left mouth and the second xi in its right mouth, and likewise the consonant "tu" would alternate mouths. Almost every word and morphological construction pattern in the language is designed around giving Xenants options like that to swap sounds left and right to avoid stuttering. And maybe I should fix the conjunctions to avoid stuttering also. We'll see.

That's it for review. Now for some new words!

:: Phrasal Conjunctions

Conjunctions are the roots of Xenant discourse. They link together all the other simple sentences. They will be single syllable words, and the syllables will all have doubled consonants (i.e. shared articulants and shared height). There are twelve such syllables and here they are with their twelve corresponding conjunctions:

First, logical and causal conjunctions:

"OO": AND
"oo": BUT
"II": AND-OR
"ii": EITHER-OR
"TT": IF-THEN
"tt": AS-SO

. Next, conjunctions of relative temporal reference (tensive and aspectual conjunctions):

"ZZ": BEFORE
"zz": AFTER
"XX": SINCE
"xx": UNTIL
"KK": WHILE
"kk": WHEN

.

By themselves, there's no phonotactic problem with these words as shown above, but conjunctions don't occur bare: they incorporate morphemes ("indexical proforms") that are used to reference the simple sentences over which the conjunctions operate. An indexical pro-form incorporated into a conjunction can point to a verb at the root of a simple sentence or to a conjunction with its own arguments. The sequence of syllables after this incorporation can violate the phonotactic constraint against stuttering. For example, if the incorporated morpheme has a Z, then you can't stick on the conjunction BEFORE ("ZZ") without stuttering. Not ideal.

I'm not super happy with that violation, but I wanted to do something important with the doubled consonant syllables and using them as function-words like conjunctions feels good. Also, I'm really happy with the set of 12 conjunctions here as a complete set that fits in the fixed space of 12 doubled syllables, so for now I'll shrug off the phonotactic violation and content myself with the knowledge that it doesn't happen more than once per word? Or I could add a new sound to the language just for conjunctions, maybe, to give an bilateral alternation option. Or .... I'll figure something out.

First thought: conjunctions are two syllables long now, and the second syllable has (a high alveolar tap and silence). I haven't used that syllables anywhere else in the language, and we'll see later together that it's a pretty logical way of announcing that indexical proforms are coming next in the word. So now the conjunction AND would look like "OO#_". Honestly, this only feels slightly better than violating the stutter rule. I'll keep thinking.

! How about a hyphen pronounced as a silent beat? Silence denotes word separation, except after conjunctions, where it denotes a hyphen. Yeah. I can deal with that. Problem solved.

:: Verbs

The Xenant language only has two root verbs. They're both half-silent syllables:

"O_": EXIST
"I_": CAUSE

. I might get rid of CAUSE at some point, but it's here for now. And that's okay. It's good, even, maybe. Existence, the universe, is a great directed acyclic graph of causal interactions; the two verbs are both very ontologically fundamental. I don't feel bad about having both, even if the language might be more impressive with just one or the other. It wouldn't be better, I don't think, it would just be more constrained.

Root verbs get lots of affixes to become complex words that basically correspond to simple sentences in English, so you'll often see me calling affixed verbs "phrases" or "simple sentences", but such a sentence is really just one word for the Xenants. Also, if you read my previous posts, you'll see me called affixed nouns "verb phrases", because they're like English phrases and they're verbs to the Xenants, but they're not verb phrases in the sense that they don't have a subject. Oops. Misleading. I might go back and edit that out.

:: Numbers and indexical proforms

Xenant numbers were described and spelled in "Conlanging I", but let's review them here. Xenants use base 12. The integers 0 through 11 are: "O#", "I#", "T#", "Z#", "X#", "K#", "o#", "i#", "t#", "z#", "x#", "k#", where the sharp sign represents a high aspirated voiceless alveolar tap.

The duodecimals 0/12 through 11/12 are: "O.", "I.", "T.", "Z.", "X.", "K.", "o.", "i.", "t.", "z.", "x.", "k.", where the period represents a low aspirated voiceless alveolar tap.

The Xenants have a positional number system just like ours, but they use #-numerals ahead of the duodecimal point and .-numerals after the duodecimal point. Also, they don't have a duodecimal point. So, e.g., "O#I#T.Z." looks like 

(1) (2) (3/12) (4/12) 

in sequence, but positionally it means

1*(12^1) + 2*(12^0) + 3*(12^-1) + 4*(12^-2)

, better known as 

12 + 2 + 3/12 + 4/144 = 14 and 40/144ths

. I haven't figured out how to represent negative numbers yet or anything more exotic, but we'll get there in time.

Positive integers are really important in the Xenant language, which has a completely free word order. Integers are used pronomially (referring to nouns) and pro-verbally (referring to simple sentences that are semantically-headed by verbs) and pro-conjunctively (referring to conjunctions) and these integers are incorporated into verbs and conjunctions, and that's how the Xenants show relationships between words, instead of using sequential syntax. These integer proforms are also indexical: a number 1 incorporated into a verb references the 1st noun in the sentence. A number 3 incorporated into a conjunction references the 3rd verb or conjunction mentioned in the sentence. In total, conjunctions reference verbs and other conjunctions, and verbs reference nouns.

Incorporation is just concatenation, if that sounded complicated. A conjunction IF-THEN that references verb 1 and verb 2 might just look like: IF-1-THEN-2. Easy peasy. Except they would write it short as "I#-TT-T#", maybe, I'm still not sure about the morpheme order, and also there wouldn't be dashes, I just thought you might like some help with parsing.

If you're having trouble pronouncing that, try the romanization: ciri-titi-tiri. If possible, try splitting it up as a Xenant would do; say ci-ti-ti in your dominant mouth and ri-ti-ri in your non-dominant mouth. I believe in you.

:: TAME Verbal affixes (Tense, Aspect, Mood, Evidentiality)

I haven't said much about how verbal affixes are spelled. In previous posts, I decided that nominal affixes would be two syllables long, and in particular, nominal prefixes would be a half syllable followed by a full syllable (-hf), and nominal suffixes would be a full syllable followed by a half syllable (-fh). Furthermore, those full syllables should have distinct articulants, i.e. they should come from the set ["OI", "OT", "OZ", "OX", "OK", "Oi", "Ot", "Oz", "Ox", "Ok", "IT", "IZ", "IX", "IK", "Io", "It", "Iz", "Ix", "Ik", "TZ", "TX", "TK", "To", "Ti", "Tz", "Tx", "Tk", "ZX", "ZK", "Zo", "Zi", "Zt", "Zx", "Zk", "XK", "Xo", "Xi", "Xt", "Xz", "Xk", "Ko", "Ki", "Kt", "Kz", "Kx", "oi", "ot", "oz", "ox", "ok", "it", "iz", "ix", "ik", "tz", "tx", "tk", "zx", "zk", "xk"]. I'll often refer to these as "boundary syllables". This is a huge space of affix morphemes and there's definitely room to fit all the verbal and nominal affixes I could want in it. But also, as I'm imagining what Xenant sentences will look like, I'm seeing that the verbs, when fully affixed and incorporated, are really really long in comparison to the nouns and conjunctions, and I'd like to try shortening them a little, if possible. So maybe I'll make the TAME verbal affixes be half syllables, and all other verbal affixes (i.e., adverbial and adpositional affixes) will look like the two-syllable nominal affixes.

Picking half-syllables for the TAME affixes would be a lot easier if I felt confident in which ones I wanted, and easier still if I were sure about how many (half-syllable) verbs the language should have. Here's my first stab at it:

: Tense suffixes for verbs:

(past): "k_"
(present): "x_" (default, usually unmarked)
(future): "z_"

: Aspect suffixes for verbs:

(perfective): "t_" (default, usually unmarked)
(continuous): "i_
(inceptive): o_
(terminative): K_

: Mood suffixes for verbs:

(realis): "X_" (default, usually unmarked)
(counterfactual): "Z_"
(generic/gnomic): "T_"

.

And I guess I'll skip the evidential affixes for lack of space, even though my evidential affix system was so fucking good:

Perceptive: noticeably
Weak perceptive: seemingly
Ductive (Deductive/Inductive): logically/reasonably
Weak ductive: theoretically, speculatively, hypothetically
Quotative: reportedly
Weak quotative: allegedly, anecdotally

. Maybe those will be two-syllable affixes. Yeah. Maybe. ... Nah, I'll put it in another language.

Let's try an example!

Let's say that some object (indexed with the number 1) really existed in the past, and we want to talk about it's existence at the time as an ongoing state or process, not an event. All together that's [exist] [#1] [tense=past] [aspect=continuous] [mood=realis]. We have words and/or morphemes for all of those parts! In particular, they correspond to [O_] [I#] [k_] [i_] [∅]. So "it was existing'" is rendered as "O_I#k_i_". I'm not sure about the morpheme order, and I'm especially unsure where the indexical pronoun numbers will incorporate, but still, we have the parts! Yay!

Here's the same word spelled long: pi'-ciri-ku'-cu'.

:: Nouns

In the Xenant language, root nouns with no affixes will start and end with boundary syllables, i.e. full syllables that don't have the same articulant. If I use just one boundary syllable for very general nouns, then it's still starting and ending with a boundary syllable, so that's how I'll start. Here are some general nouns paired up completely randomly with different boundary syllables. 

Entity: ot
Material: Zx
Element: zk
Chemical: Tk
Silicate mineral: Kz
Non-silicate mineral: OX
Material form: Xi
Inanimate natural object: OI
Rock: tk
Artefact: it
Organism: IZ
Organism part: tz
Agent: Ix
Social group: TX
Composition: IX
Massed Cognitive Endurant: Ot
Counted Cognitive Endurant: Ik
Directed part: Tx
Shape: Ox
Place: xk
Time period: ik
Polar Perdurant: ox
Massed Manner Perdurant: XK
Counted Manner Perdurant: Xo
Absolute spatial stative dimension: ix
Relative spatial stative dimension: Zk
Absolute abstract stative dimension: iz
Relative abstract stative dimension: To
Absolute spatial dynamic dimension: Kt
Relative spatial dynamic dimension: oz
Absolute abstract dynamic dimension: ZX
Relative abstract dynamic dimension: IT
Formal unit: OT
Informal unit (collection): Oz

And just for my own use, here are the boundary syllables that I haven't used as noun categories / ontological phonosthemes: ["OZ", "OK", "Oi", "Ok", "Io", "It", "Iz", "TZ", "TK", "Ti", "Tz", "Zo", "Zi", "Zt", "Zk", "Xt", "Xz", "Xk", "Ko", "Ki", "Kx", "oi", "ok", "tx", "zx", "xk"].

There's still room for many more general nouns like that, if I want to expand things, and I do. But for now, we can speciate those general nouns into specific nouns. For example, organism, "IZ", could speciate into organism roles such as familial relations, e.g. (parent child ancestor descendant mate sibling) or into organism types like (bacterium plant animal). I'd like to start with the familial relations. How about a half syllable "x_" in the middle to say that we're speciating into familial organism roles and then a random boundary syllable at the end will give us a big space for all the relations to have their own words.

Parent : IZx_Kx
Child : IZx_IZ
Ancestor : IZx_Xz
Descendant : IZx_ix
Grandparent : IZx_Xk
Grandchild : IZx_ot
Mate : IZx_ZX
Sibling : IZx_ok
Cousin : IZx_Tz
Nibling : IZx_To
.

Now let's speciate organism parts! I'll speciate separately for different biological kingdoms. The Xenant planet has intelligent large motile things which we could call animals, perhaps. Animal body parts will get "O_" as a middle half syllable.
  

The general noun "organism part" was "tz". Let's now introduce: 

Brain : tzO_ik
Leg : tzO_Zk
Thorax : tzO_Zi
Abdomen : tzO_zx
Anus : tzO_ZX
Foot : tzO_OX
Throat : tzO_Ki
Tooth : tzO_Ik
Stomach : tzO_TX
Head : tzO_OI
Mouth : tzO_Tx
Maw : tzO_Ot

Xenant mouths are for talking and Xenant maws are for ingesting.

The general noun "composition" was "IX". Again let's stick a second boundary syllable on there directly in order to speciate:
Word : IXZX
Name : IXXo
Sentence : IXXt
Message : IXKi
Record : IXZk
Aphorism : IXoi
Rule : IXXK
Contract : IXOz
Design : IXIx
Language : IXOT
Algorithm : IXIT
Program : IXtx
Game : IXZt
Explanation : IXot
Prediction : IXIk
.

I had such a hard time coming up with words in the past and now they're all coming out at once. It feels good, man. I think the Xenants use the same word as a program, IXtx, to mean a model, as in "we have a model of the problem". And they use the same word for an algorithm, IXIT, to mean a method/strategy/technique, as in "this my method of chopping root vegetables". I was tempted to say that the word for an explanation or the word for a prediction should also be used for a program execution or a simulation, but maybe that's a type error - the latter two are perdurants (at least, if not also endurants by polysemy), and we'll treat them separately later. However, the word for an explanation, IXot, is the same for hypotheses and theories. Also, the word for prediction, IXIk, isn't limited to a future context: it's also used for estimation in the present and post-diction.

I tried coming up with some English common-names for plants of the Xenant homeworld. I think their words probably won't be noun+noun and adjective+noun combinations like these, but I couldn't just say "there are 100-ish Xenant plants and they all have short gibberish names". They might have plants like ...
acid root
ant bane
ant-bird berry
antlion bite
antlion eggs
antlion grass
aphid bush
aphid-bird berry
bird grass
bitter suckle
blow berry
box leaf
braid wood
broad leaf
brush wood
chick foot
chick grass
cold moss
collar stem
cone flower
dead vine
dimpled stem
doodlebug wood
dwarf bud
fast vine
feather flower
fiber wood
fin leaf
fine seed
flat vine
flea seed
float berry
float seed
foot leaf
genital weed
gold root
grass flower
ground berry
hair stem
hard bean
heart flower
heat bush
hemolymph root
iron root
itch weed
larva bane
larva nettle
lion-bird berry
long bloom
lower-mantle cone flower
luck bush
magma grain
magma tree
mound cover
mound weed
needle flower
needle fruit
nickel wood
oil bean
oil tree
pheromone fruit
pin leaf
poison berry
poison tuber
poison wood
potassium berry
pungent root
rock flower
round leaf
sand fruit
sap flower
sap stalk
screw bean
sessile seed
sharp weed
silica wood
silver wood
sinking spinel
small flower
soft bean
soft leaf
soft weed
spice berry
spiky worm seed
stimulant plant
sting suckle
sweet tuber
sweet wood
sword leaf
tall stem
thorium berry
thorium nectar
three ants
throat vine
tooth flower
tuber wood
uranium berry
valley flower
wandering poison
weeping flower
wild root
worm wood
.
They'll all get Xenant words eventually. Ooh, maybe I can make short gibberish plant names for use in conversation and then long names like those above for use in poetry.

I mentioned that the Xenants are crystalline. That's not fully true. The hard parts of their bodies are mostly crystals, but they've got semi-liquid silicones and silanes as a medium for most of their biochemistry. Still, they have lots of words for minerals. Many more words than I can fit into two full syllables, or even a full syllable, a half syllable, and another full syllable. I could make all minerals three syllable words, but not all minerals are of equal importance to the Xenants, and things of common importance should be assigned shorter words. So I think I'm stuck with a situation where minerals XY and XYZ won't necessarily be related, except that they're both Xs. I'm not going to bore you with their words for minerals, but I think that XY versus XYZ thing I just said is an important fact about the language, and I wanted to document why I'm making that choice. It's because there are a ton of minerals. If you *do* want to read all about minerals, I have a semi-categorized list of ~194 minerals that are important here on earth, and the Xenants probably have words for similar things to those, although skip the ones with carbon, and maybe the hydrated minerals would be replaced with anhydrous versions, and the Xenants would also have many more minerals that are rich iron, magnesium, and zinc. and also some more minerals rich in chromium, vanadium, manganese, cobalt, and copper.

No, I'm better than that. Here are some silicate minerals that Xenants have words for (which are also likely to occur in the upper or lower mantle of the earth):

Tectosilicates:
KzTx: stishovite (tetragonal SiO2)
Kziz: coesite (monoclinic SiO2)
Garnets:
KzOZ: almandine (cubic Fe3Al2(SiO4)3)
KzIX: pyrope (cubic Mg3Al2(SiO4)3)
KzTz: spessartine (cubic Mn3Al2(SiO4)3)
KzIo: andradite (cubic Ca3Fe2(SiO4)3)
KzTK: grossular (cubic Ca3Al2(SiO4)3)
Kzix: uvarovite (cubic Ca3Cr2(SiO4)3)
KzXt: majorite (cubic Mg3(MgSi)(SiO4)3)
Pyroxenes:
Kzzk: aegirine (monoclinic NaFeSi2O6)
KzTo: jadeite (monoclinic NaAlSi2O6)
KzTk: hedenbergite (monoclinic CaFeSi2O6)
Kzzx: diopside (monoclinic MgCaSi2O6)
KzOi: clinoenstatite (monoclinic MgSiO3)
KzTZ: clinoferrrosilite (monoclinic FeSiO3)
Olivines:
KzIK: forsterite (orthorhombic Mg2SiO4)
KzIx: fayalite (orthorhombic Fe2SiO4)
Spinel-group silicate minerals:
KzOt: ringwoodite (cubic Mg2SiO4)
Kzoi: ferroringwoodite (cubic Fe2SiO4)
Ilmenites:
KzZK: ferro-Akimotoite (trigonal FeSiO3)
Kzot: magnesio-Akimotoite (trigonal MgSiO3)
Silicate perovskites:
KzXk: davemaoite (cubic CaSiO3)
Kzxk: bridgmanite (orthorhombic MgSiO3)
KzTX: ferro-bridgmanite (orthorhombic FeSiO3)
Miscellaneous neosilicates:
KzOT: zircon (tetragonal ZrSiO4)
.
.

The Xenants also have words for non-silicate minerals, including:  
Oxides:
periclase: cubic MgO
wüstite: cubic FeO
magnetite: cubic Fe3O4
hematite: trigonal Fe2O3
maghemite: cubic Fe2O3
pyrite-FeO2: cubic FeO2
bunsenite: cubic NiO
xenantite: orthorhombic Ni2O3
corundum: trigonal Al2O3
cassiterite: tetragonal SnO2
cuprite: cubic Cu2O
uraninite: cubic UO2
rutile: tetragonal TiO2
Non-silicate spinel-group minerals:
spinel: cubic MgAl2O4
hercynite: cubic FeAl2O4
magnesio-ferrite: cubic MgFe2O4
trevorite: cubic NiFe2O4
chromite: cubic FeCr2O4
magnesio-chromite: cubic MgCr2O4
Non-silicate perovskites:
FeAlO3-bridgmanite: orthorhombic FeAlO3
AlAlO3-bridgmanite: orthorhombic AlAlO3
.
.
"No diamond (cubic C), James?", you ask me. I'm not sure. Not yet. It's fun to think of a world without carbon.

I'd really like to include some more nickel minerals. These are all rare on the surface of the earth and I'm not sure about their existence/abundance at greater depths:

nickeline: hexagonal NiAs
gersdorffite: cubic NiAsS
pecoraite: monoclinic Ni3(Si2O5)(OH)4
népouite: orthorhombic Ni3(Si2O5)(OH)4

And these are also rarely found on the surface, but they have possible substitutions in their formulas, whereas I've only been giving names to end-members of solution series, so they'll probably all get separated into a pure nickel mineral and a pure non-nickel mineral:

nickeliferous goethite: orthorhombic (Fe,Ni)O(OH)
nickeliferous akaganeite: monoclinic (Fe,Ni)O(OH)
falcondoite: orthorhombic (Ni,Mg)4Si6O15(OH)2·6H2O
pentlandite: cubic (Fe,Ni)9S8
.

Finally there are some iron-nickel alloys commonly found in chondrite meteorites with definite crystal structure but indefinite or non-integral stoichiometry. I'm going to pretend that the stoichiometry is one-to-one and call these ones minerals also:

taenite/kamacite: cubic FeNi
tetrataenite: tetragonal FeNi
.
Xenants have words for those too. Cool.

There are lots of other minerals that are familiar to me from the surface of earth, but I don't know if they're likely to be prevalent within a rocky planet, so by default I'll make them 3 syllables long. Honestly, the very first one on this list, acanthite, is a very good theoretical candidate for something the Xenants might know; it contains silver, which is a dense metal, and sulfur, which must be present in some significant quantity in the mantle or it wouldn't be so strongly associated with volcanism. But I've never read about acanthite in a source on mantle geochemistry, so for now, it gets three syllables.   

acanthite: monoclinic Ag2S
albite: triclinic NaAlSi3O8
alum-K: cubic KAl(SO4)2.12H2O
alum-Na: cubic NaAl(SO4)2.12H2O
alunite: trigonal KAl3(SO4)2(OH)6
analcime: cubic NaAlSi2O6.H2O
anatase: tetragonal TiO2
andalusite: orthorhombic Al2SiO5
anglesite: orthorhombic PbSO4
anhydrite: orthorhombic CaSO4
anorthite: triclinic CaAl2Si2O8
antarcticite: trigonal CaCl2.6H2O
anthophyllite: orthorhombic Mg7Si8O22(OH)2
aragonite: orthorhombic CaCO3
arcanite: orthorhombic K2SO4
arsenopyrite: monoclinic FeAsS
atacamite: orthorhombic Cu2Cl(OH)3
augelite: monoclinic Al2(PO4)(OH)3
autunite: orthorhombic Ca(UO2)2(PO4)2.10-12H2O
azurite: monoclinic Cu3(OH)2(CO3)2
baryte: orthorhombic BaSO4
beryl: hexagonal Be3Al2(SiO3)6
bischofite: monoclinic MgCl2.6H2O
bobierrite: monoclinic Mg3(PO4)2.8H2O
boehmite: orthorhombic AlO(OH)
borax: Na2B4O5(OH)4.8H2O monoclinic
bornite: orthorhombic Cu5FeS4
brochantite: monoclinic Cu4(OH)6SO4
brookite: orthorhombic TiO2
brucite: trigonal Mg(OH)2
brushite: monoclinic CaHPO4.2H2O
calcite: trigonal CaCO3
celestine: orthorhombic SrSO4
cerussite: orthorhombic PbCO3
chalcanthite: triclinic CuSO4.5H2O
chalcocite: monoclinic Cu2S
chalcopyrite: cubic CuFeS2
chloroapatite: hexagonal Ca5(PO4)3Cl
chrysoberyl: orthorhombic BeAl2O4
cinnabar: trigonal HgS
clinochrysotile: monoclinic Mg3Si2O5(OH)4
clinozoisite: monoclinic Ca2Al3(Si2O7)(SiO4)O(OH)
coffinite: tetragonal USiO4
colemanite: monoclinic CaB3O4(OH)3.H2O
covellite: hexagonal CuS
cristobalite: tetragonal SiO2
diaspore: orthorhombic AlO(OH)
dioptase: trigonal CuSiO2(OH)2
dolomite: trigonal CaMg(CO3)2
enstatite: orthorhombic MgSiO3
epidote: monoclinic Ca2Al2Fe(SiO4)(Si2O7)O(OH)
epsomite: orthorhombic MgSO4.7H2O
esseneite: monoclinic CaFeAlSiO6
ettringite: trigonal Ca6Al2(SO4)3(OH)12.26H2O
euclase: monoclinic BeAlSiO4(OH)
fluorite: cubic CaF2
fluoroapatite: hexagonal Ca5(PO4)3(OH)
galena: cubic PbS
ghiaraite: triclinic CaCl2.4H2O
gibbsite: monoclinic Al(OH)3
glauberite: monoclinic Na2Ca(SO4)2
glaucophane: monoclinic ()Na2(Mg3Al2)Si8O22(OH)2
goethite: orthorhombic FeO(OH)
graphite: hexagonal C
greenockite: hexagonal CdS
grunerite: monoclinic Fe7Si8O22(OH)2
gypsum: monoclinic CaSO4.2H2O
halite: cubic NaCl
halloysite: monoclinic Al2Si2O5(OH)4
hanksite: hexagonal Na22K(SO4)9(CO3)2Cl
hausmannite: tetragonal Mn3O4
hemimorphite: orthorhombic Zn4Si2O7(OH)2.H2O
hoelite: monoclinic C14H8O2
howlite: monoclinic Ca2B5SiO9(OH)5
hydroxyapatite: hexagonal Ca5(PO4)3F
hypercinnabar: hexagonal HgS
ilmenite: trigonal FeTiO3
jarosite: trigonal KFe3(SO4)2(OH)6
kaolinite: triclinic Al2Si2O5(OH)4
kyanite: triclinic Al2SiO5
langite: monoclinic Cu4(OH)6SO4.H2O
lawsonite: orthorhombic CaAl2Si2O7(OH)2.H2O
leucite: tetragonal KAlSi2O6
litharge: tetragonal PbO
lizardite: trigonal Mg3(Si2O5)(OH)
magnesite: trigonal MgCO3
malachite: monoclinic Cu2(OH)2CO3
manganite: monoclinic MnOOH
massicot: orthorhombic PbO
mesolite: orthorhombic Na2Ca2(Al2Si3O10)3.8H2O
metacinnabar: cubic HgS
microcline: triclinic KAlSi3O8
millerite: trigonal NiS
mirabilite: monoclinic Na2SO4.10H2O
molybdenite: hexagonal MoS2
monetite: triclinic CaHPO4
nacrite: monoclinic Al2Si2O5(OH)4
nahcolite: monoclinic NaHCO3
natrolite: orthorhombic Na2Al2Si3O10.2H2O
natron: monoclinic Na2CO3.10H2O
newberyite: orthorhombic MgHPO4.3H2O
niter: orthorhombic KNO3
nitrocalcite: monoclinic Ca(NO3)2.4H2O
orpiment: monoclinic As2S3
orthoclase: monoclinic KAlSi3O8
otavite: trigonal CdCO3
pennantite: triclinic Mn5Al(AlSi3O10)(OH)
petalite: monoclinic LiAlSi4O10
portlandite: hexagonal Ca(OH)2
prehnite: orthorhombic Ca2Al(AlSi3O10)(OH)2
pyrite: cubic FeS2
pyrochroite: trigonal Mn(OH)2
pyrolusite: tetragonal MnO2
pyromorphite: hexagonal Pb5(PO4)3Cl
pyrophyllite: monoclinic Al2Si4O10(OH)2
quartz : trigonal SiO2
realgar: monoclinic As4S4
rhodochrosite: trigonal MnCO3
riebeckite: monoclinic Na2Fe5Si8O22(OH)2
rutherfordine: orthorhombic UO2(CO3)
sanidine: monoclinic KAlSi3O8
scheelite: tetragonal CaWO4
scorodite: orthorhombic FeAsO4.2H2O
sepiolite: orthorhombic Mg4Si6O15(OH)2.6H2O
siderite: trigonal FeCO3
sillimanite: orthorhombic Al2SiO5
sinjarite: tetragonal CaCl2.2H2O
smithsonite: trigonal ZnCO3
soda niter: trigonal NaNO3 
sodalite: cubic Na8(Al6Si6O24)Cl2
spodumene: monoclinic LiAl(SiO3)2
staurolite: monoclinic Fe2Al9O6(SiO4)4(OH)2
stibnite: orthorhombic Sb2S3
stilbite-Ca: monoclinic NaCa4(Si27Al9)O72·28(H2O)
stilbite-Na: monoclinic Na9(Si27Al9)O72·28(H2O)
strengite: orthorhombic FePO4.2H2O
strontianite: orthorhombic SrCO3
struvite: orthorhombic (NH4)MgPO4.6H2O
sylvite: cubic KCl
syngenite: monoclinic K2Ca(SO4)2.H2O
talc: monoclinic Mg3Si4O10(OH)2
tenorite: monoclinic CuO
tephroite: orthorhombic Mn2SiO4
thenardite: orthorhombic Na2SO4
titanite: monoclinic CaTiSiO5
tremolite: monoclinic Ca2Mg5Si8O22(OH)2
troilite: hexagonal FeS
trona: monoclinic Na3(CO3)(HCO3).2H2O
turquoise: triclinic CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8.4H2O
ulexite: triclinic NaCaB5O6(OH)6.5H2O
uranophane: monoclinic Ca(UO2)2(SiO3OH)2.5H2O
vivianite: monoclinic Fe3(PO4)2.8H2O
willemite: trigonal Zn2SiO4
witherite: orthorhombic BaCO3
wollastonite: triclinic CaSiO3
wulfenite: tetragonal PbMoO4
xenotime: tetragonal YPO4
zoisite: orthorhombic Ca2Al3(SiO4)(Si2O7)O(OH)
.
A dozen of those have carbon. Oops. 

I've mentioned that I prefer to use end-member minerals in preference to solution-series, but here are are some famous minerals with substitutions that the Xenants might also have names for:

actinolite: monoclinic Ca2(Mg, Fe)5Si8O22(OH)2
andesine: triclinic (Ca, Na)(Al, Si)4O8
anorthoclase: triclinic (Na, K)AlSi3O8
augite: monoclinic (Ca, Na)(Mg, Fe, Al, Ti)(Si, Al)2O6
biotite: monoclinic K(Mg, Fe)3(AlSi3O10)(F, OH)2
chabazite: triclinic (Ca, K2, Na2)2[Al2Si4O12]2.12H2O
chamosite: monoclinic (Mg, Fe)5Al(Si3Al)O10(OH)8
chondrodite: monoclinic (Mg, Fe)5(SiO4)2(F, OH)2
clinochlore: monoclinic (Mg, Fe)5Al(Si3Al)O10(OH)8
clinoptilolite: monoclinic (Na, K, Ca)2-3Al3(Al, Si)2Si13O36.12H2O
cordierite: orthorhombic (Mg, Fe)2Al4Si5O18
cummingtonite: monoclinic (Mg, Fe)7Si8O22(OH)2
ferrosilite: orthorhombic (Mg, Fe)2Si2O6
hornblende: monoclinic Ca2(Mg, Fe, Al)5(Al, Si)8O22(OH)2
hypersthene: orthorhombic (Mg, Fe)SiO3
illite: monoclinic (K, H3O)(Al, Mg, Fe)2(Si, Al)4O10[(OH)2, (H2O)]
labradorite: triclinic (Ca, Na)(Al, Si)4O8
lazulite: monoclinic (Mg, Fe)Al2(PO4)2(OH)2
lazurite: cubic (Na, Ca)8(S, Cl, SO4, OH)2(Al6Si6O24)
lepidolite: monoclinic K(Li, Al)3(Al, Si, Rb)4O10(F, OH)2
monazite: monoclinic (Ce, La)PO4
muscovite: monoclinic KAl2(AlSi3O10)(F, OH)2
palygorskite: monoclinic (Mg, Al)2Si4O10(OH).4H2O
phlogopite: monoclinic KMg3(AlSi3O10)(F, OH)2
pigeonite: monoclinic (Ca, Mg, Fe)(Mg, Fe)Si2O6
rhodonite: triclinic (Mn, Fe, Mg, Ca)SiO3
scorzalite: monoclinic (Fe, Mg)Al2(OH, PO4)2
sphalerite: cubic (Zn, Fe)S
thorite: tetragonal (Th, U)SiO4
topaz: orthorhombic Al2SiO4(F, OH)2
vesuvianite: tetragonal Ca10(Mg, Fe)2Al4(SiO4)5(Si2O7)2(OH, F)4
wavellite: orthorhombic Al3(PO4)2(OH, F)3.5H2O
whitlockite: trigonal Ca9(Mg, Fe)(PO4)6PO3OH
wolframite: monoclinic (Fe, Mn)WO4
wurtzite: hexagonal (Zn, Fe)S
.
And now you know 250 of my favorite minerals. I sure hope they in the minerrological community come up with better names for pyrite-FeO2 and the end-members of the bridgmanite series soon.

Let's speciate material forms next. Xenants have 18 short words for them.

XiOt: gas in solid solution (interstitial hydride)
XiIT: gas in solid suspension (sponge)
XiTx: liquid in solid solution (amalgam)
Xitz: liquid in solid suspension (gel)
XiXt: solid in solid solution (solid)
XiKz: solid in solid suspension (aggregate)
Xiix: gas in liquid solution (seltzer)
XiZo: gas in liquid suspension (foam)
XiOx: liquid in liquid solution (liquid)
Xiit: liquid in liquid suspension (emulsion)
XiOZ: solid in liquid solution (syrup)
XiZk: solid in liquid suspension (sol)
Xiox: gas in gas solution (gas)
XiOT: gas in gas suspension ()
Xiot: liquid in gas solution ()
XiIz: liquid in gas suspension (mist)
XiIt: solid in gas solution ()
XiOI: solid in gas suspension (smoke)
.
The entries with empty parentheses don't have short English names, probably because they don't exist. I think the word for a solid in solid suspension, XiKz, "aggregate", probably deserves further speciation, but I'm not sure whether the descendant words will have two or three syllables, and if three syllable, then whether they will start with XiKz. Words like sand and powder and ...

:: Sentences and conversations:

Here's a cute idea. I've said that Xenants use lexical indices as an infinite family of incorporated proforms, and that the indices count from the start of a sentence, but I've never defined where a sentence ends or how the Xenants mark it. Maybe the indices should instead be specific to the conversation, so that a second Xenant can use the same proforms as the first one to refer to the same concepts. And then if you want to start over counting, you say something like "Zero!" and the conversation starts fresh. Even more Xenantishly, they could say, "Every word exists as zero suddenly.".

:: Adverbial, adpositional, and derivational, verbal affixes

Affixes are prefixes and suffixes and infixes. I think all my verb affixes are going to be suffixes, but we'll take them one at a time.

: Adverbial suffixes

I've cleaned up my set adverbial suffixes from Conlanging I. They are now:

* Progress and speed: (increasingly | decreasingly), (suddenly | gradually)
* Frequency: (never | constantly) (once | repeatedly) (rarely | frequently)
* Telicity: (intentionally | unwillingly | stupidly | unintentionally)

The affix with the English gloss "repeatedly" that contrasts with "once" can be used for a single repetition or many, so another possible gloss for the affix would be "again". 

The Xenants think of the adverbial suffixes of telicity as lying in a two dimensional space:

* Forethought (+), Choice (+): Intentionally
* Forethought (+), Choice (-): Unwillingly
* Forethought (-), Choice (+): Stupidly
* Forethought (-), Choice (-): Unintentionally

. They don't have a word "accidentally" that can be used just as well for things you did stupidly as for things that you did unintentionally. "Stupidly" might sound a little jarring to you; it certainly does to me. You might wonder if instead, maybe we could give the suffix a polite English gloss like "imprudently"? But no. The Xenants are jarring. They call each other stupid and they mean it.

I guess I need to make morphemes for these suffixes now! Suffixes in the language usually have the two-syllable form (-fh), where "f" is a full syllable with sounds in both mouths, followed by "h", a half syllable for which one mouth is silent. The full syllable is also a "mixed" or "boundary" syllable, i.e. the two mouths aren't saying the same consonant, since those syllables with shared consonants are only used for conjunctions. This lets the Xenants avoid stuttering.

The suffixes of Progress and Speed will all have OZ for their full syllables:

OZO_: Increasingly
OZK_: Decreasingly
OZz_: Suddenly
OZT_: Gradually

Frequency suffixes will have "IZ" for the full syllable:

IZT_: Never
IZX_: Constantly
IZi_: Once
IZx_: Repeatedly
IZZ_: Rarely
IZo_: Frequently

. And the telic adverbial suffixes will start with "TZ'": 

TZX_: Intentionally
TZi_: Unwillingly
TZz_: Stupidly
TZK_: Unintentionally

. Cool. None of these suffixes are required to be present and none of them take arguments. You just slap them on to the end of verbs, as many as you want, in whatever order you want, though the order of application might change the meaning, especially when composed with other suffixes. Semantically, they modify everything that's come before them. So in comparing, "exist-suddenly-as-a-child" and "exist-as-a-child-suddenly", the first one might mean to come into existence knock-kneed and upright but immature, while the second one might mean to become a child after having previously been an adult. Those are both weird impossible situations, but sometimes Xenants need to write about weird impossible situations, like in literature.

Fair warning: if you add on antonymic suffixes in a contradictory way, like to say that something happens at once both gradually and suddenly, a Xenant listener might attack you, unless you're very young and very close kin.

: Adpositional verbal affixes

Xenants have two kinds of adpositional verbal suffixes: spatial and thematic. And the spatial affixes also come in two types: locative or directive. And I'm not sure about any of them.

- Thematic Adpositions

Let's start with the thematic adpositions. When I say "thematic" I'm gesturing at thematic roles, like "agent", "patient", "instrument", "recipient", which live in the realm of semantics, and they're closely related to syntactic nominal cases, like the "nominative" and the "ergative". In practice, I don't know much about thematic roles or syntactic nominal cases, but it seems to me that they're often introduced with prepositions in languages that don't mark nouns for case, and that's basically how Xenants introduce them also. The difference is that the prepositions are suffixes on verbs that take arguments, and the arguments are numerical references to nouns, counted from their position in the sentence. My thematic affixes are suffixes (postpositional rather than prepositional), but I don't yet feel confident in what they will be. In decreasing order of usefulness, I've mainly considered:

* Similative : "as"
* Possessive: "with"
* Pertinitive: "about"
* Instrumental: "by (means of)"
* Benefactive: "for"
.

To say that a given book is old, a Xenant would say "the-book an-old-thing exists-1-as-2", or any rearrangement of those three words, with the numbers changing to match, e.g. "exists-2-as-1 an-old-thing the-book".

In practice, I think the first three thematic affixes ("as", "with", "about") will usually go on the EXIST verb and the other two ("by", "for") will mostly go on the CAUSE verb, but doing otherwise wouldn't necessarily be ungrammatical.

I've given the pertinitive suffix a one word English gloss of "about". Originally I used it in situations where an English speaker would say "pertaining to", and "about" is pretty close to that and shorter. I also find myself using it in cases where an English speaker would say "w.r.t." / "with respect to" or "in the context of". I'm not super positive that all four of those quoted glosses are close synonyms. Maybe one of the meanings should be factored out for semantic regularity.

I'd considered some other (pro | anti)-benefactive thematic suffixes, with glosses like "in spite of", "so that", "in order to", "lest", but I'm leaning against including them now. They don't seem all that useful, and when I want to express things like that, I'd rather do it with multiple verbs linked by conjunctions.

I'd really like to use "that" as a thematic affix, in sentences like "he existed with a belief that (x)" or "the article existed with a claim that (x) " or "I exited with a desire that (x)". But its not clear to me that "that" is being used as a preposition there. Linguistics call it it a "complementizer" for introducing a sentential complement, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not a preposition. I think it probably isn't a preposition, but the fact that linguistics have another name for it doesn't contribute to that. The best alternative I'd come up with to using "that" as a thematic affix was using uncommon nouns like "positive information" and "positive desire". "He existed with positive information about (x) (being the case)" or "He existed with positive desire about (x) (being the case)". Not great, right?'

Another problem with using "positive X" constructions that I've just noticed, besides that I'm resorting to using new weird nouns to say normal things, is that the sequential application of affixes doesn't correspond to sequential modification of meaning. In "he existed with positive desire about x", we're reading the "about x" like it's is modifying "positive desire", because that makes sense, but if affixes modify everything that came before them, then it should be modifying "he existed with positive desire". His positive desire wasn't about x, but rather his existence with positive desire was about (x). Does that ....change anything? I'm so tired. Maybe expressing this should be done using two existence simple sentence, like "A positive desire existed about X (being the case)" and "he existed with 1".

This is super important. The ability to make sentential complements is basically equivalent to the ability to quote language within language. And quotation, the ability to talk about language, is almost as basic as the existence of language. I need this.

Okay, new idea, which might actually be an old idea from Conlanging I, as I can't remember everything I've written. I've talked in other posts about derivational affixes that can turn sentences into perdurants, like "the dog exists with a tail" becomes "the state of the dog existing with a tail". With this derivational affix, we could start with the English sentence "He believed that the dog had a tail." and transform it to something more Xenantish like "He existed with a belief and the belief existed as (the state of the dog existing with a tail)." But we can do better! Let's have a derivational affix that turns sentences of the language into quoted sentences. Then we can say "He existed with a belief and the belief existed as (the dog exist with a tail)-sentence". I like that way more. Beliefs exist as sentences. I stand by that. And desires, on the other hand, they exist "for" perdurants, benefactively. "He desired to be free." becomes "He existed with a desire" for the first part and "the desired existed for (he would-exist-as a-free-thing)-state". This is good. I feel like I've brought out semantic features that would have been hidden if I'd just used "that" willy-nilly.

So let's create some morphemes for the for thematic/adpositional suffixes. They seem pretty adequate now that I've got an idea of how to combine them with derivational affixes to compose sentences where English would use sentential complements. I'm still not super confident that I'll stick with the exact five suffixes that I mentioned above, but I doubt the final set will have more than six members.

Let's use "iz" for the full syllable. Also, the gloss "by" for the Instrumental thematic suffix always sounds wrong without tacking on the parenthetical, in oder to give us "by (means of)", so let's use a different gloss. "Through" sounds okay. "He caused the storm to exist through machinery." Stuff like that.

izZ_: Similative suffix, "as"
izt_: Possessive suffix, "with"
izx_: Pertinitive suffix, "about"
izi_: Instrumental suffix, "through"
izO_: Benefactive suffix, "for"

The Xenants really like organizing things into opposites and these aren't organized like that, which is sad, but maybe I'll have an insight down the line that will let me redo this Xenantishly. In the mean time, they're too useful not to use.

- Spatial Adpositions

We've had thematic adpositinal verbal suffixes, which look like prepositions. There are lots of other prepositions, and a lot of them look like the conjunctions we've already covered, the logical, the causal, and the temporal. The remainder of the prepositions are pretty much spatial (orientating and/or directive). Also the word "of" is a big important remaining preposition. We'll get to "of" later. There will be a whole section on genitive nominal relations.

There's a commonly drawn distinction in linguistics wherein languages are said to have verb-framing versus satellite-framing based on whether the location/path of a motion verb is directly encoded in the verb or whether it get stuck into a separate particle, like a preposition. Germanic languages generally have satellite framing using prepositions (go in, go out). Romance languages generally have verb-framing, with different verbs for different motions and no preposition needed (enter, exit). English has a mixture of both due borrowings of Norman French into Old English. Romance languages have a habit of using a second gerund of a verb in an adverbial manner after a directive verb to specify a manner ("he exited running").

The Xenant language, of course, encodes both the path and the manner separately from the root verb (CAUSE or EXIST), when it encodes them at all. Slobin calls languages like this "equipollently-framed", which is a delicious word and almost as much fun to say as "Slobin". What affixes do the Xenants use for location and direction?

Xenant spatial suffixes come in two sets of six suffixes. All of them take an argument, which we'll call a reference object. Members from the first set are used when we're not considering any boundary of the reference object,

(near-to | far-from)
(parallel-to | perpendicular-to)
(with | opposite)
.

The second set of six suffixes basically share their semantics with the fist set element-wise, except that they're used when the reference object is a boundary or has a boundary, and also they suggest but don't require contact with the boundary.

(within | outside-of)
(around/along | through/across)
(astride | against)

. In the second pair of antonyms, "(along | across)" are my English glosses for the suffixes when the reference boundary is long/linear and "(around | through)" are glosses for the suffixes when the reference boundary is not, but the Xenants use the same suffix in either case.

Those two sets are used by Xenants to talk about fixed position and orientation. To talk about motion, Xenants usually just tack on the verbal modifiers "(increasingly | decreasingly)", so that e.g. motion (toward | away from) a reference object is expressed as being (near to | far from) it -increasingly. Likewise entrance and exit can be expressed as being (within | outside of) something -increasingly.

Time to invent some great new morphemes! It's mighty morpheme time.

tkK_: near-to
tki_: far-from
tkt_: parallel-to
tkz_: perpendicular-to
tkZ_: with
tkk_: opposite

IoK_: within
Ioi_: outside-of
Iot_: around/along
Ioz_: through/across
IoZ_: astride
Iok_: against

The half syllables are the same element-wise between the unbounded frame and the boundary-contact frame. Also, the unbounded frames have the same full syllable (tk) and the bounded frames have the same full syllable (Io). Other than that, there's no structure, i.e. (with | opposite) are antonyms but their half syllables were chosen semi-independently / randomly without replacement.

I could have given all 12 spatial affixes the same first syllable, since there are 12 half syllables available to distinguish them, but I like this better. It shows more structure and it gives me space in case I want to add more spatial affixes.

: Derivational verbal affixes

Derivation changes a word in a deeper way that inflection, often by changing the word's part of speech. I've already talked about two (verbal to nominals) derivational affixes in this post: one that makes affixed verbs / simple sentences into perdurants (i.e. nouns X about which we can say "it happened during X) and one that quotes an affixed verb / simple sentence so that language can reference composed language, e.g. when talking about what someone said. Those two are all I care to make at the moment. Here they are in the Xenant language:

zxk_: (makes a perdurant from an affixed verb)
zxO_: (quotes an affixed verb)

The Xenant language has a huge inventory of nouns, so there aren't a ton of situations where you need to make up nouns from other parts of speech, but these two are good examples.

I think that's it for verb affixes! They were all suffixes! Surprise! What should we do next? Speciate more verbs? Nah, not just yet. Let's dive into nominal affixes! I hardly touched on that in previous posts. This will be new ground.

I'd like to pause for a second and say that it was just within this post that I solved conjunctions, adverbial affixes, and spatial adpositions, and I did an amazing job. They are really Xenanty now. It's entirely possible that "Xenanty" will enter the English language just because I did such a good job on these, and I am to be commended.

:: Nominal affixes

: Determiners

Determiners will be nominal prefixes. We haven't done any prefixes yet, so the choice of sounds is completely free. They'll have the "hf-" syllable pattern, with a half syllable followed by a full syllable.

- Articles, Quantifiers, Distributive Determiners

Xenants don't have possessive determiners for now. Maybe they don't have a concept of possession. Someone is in control of things at a moment and that's as close to ownership as they get. They do have articles and quantifiers, which I'm presenting at once because I've never really understood the difference. The same articles and quantifiers are used on mass nouns, singular count nouns, and plural nouns. I've gotten a few so far, grouped them into pairs, and given them functional titles as best as I can: 

Small (non-existential) definite quantifier: No/None-Of
Large (universally-existential) definite quantifier: All/All-of-the

Small existential indefinite quantifier: A/An/Some/Some-of/At-least-one
Large existential indefinite quantifier: Most/Most-of/All-but-some

Small median indefinite quantifier: Little/Few/Little-of
Large median indefinite quantifier: Much/Many/Much-of
.

I think "little/few" allows for the possibility of referencing zero things, but "a/some" doesn't. "Some" means at least one. The (few | many) pair is more confusing to me than than the other quantifiers. I don't know that it guarantees anything definite about the number or proportion of referenced items. I think they're relative to an expected/typical or perhaps adequate quantity, so I've called them "median" quantifiers.

Let's make up some morphemes. Let's stick all of these on the same full syllable "Oi".

t_Oi: No
k_Oi: All
X_Oi: Some
o_Oi: Most
z_Oi: Few/Little
Z_Oi: Many/Much

The Xenants don't have a word for "the". They also don't have dedicated prefixes that correspond to the English distributive determiners "Any" or "Each/Every". To say "I don't like any of these dogs", you just say "I like none of these dogs.". To say "I want to hug each of these dogs.", you just say "I want to hug all of these dogs.". Speaking of "these" dogs, ...

- Demonstrative Determiners

Xenant demonstrative determiners come in (proximal, medial, distal varieties) and also (singular, plural) varieties. The full-syllable for them is "Ik".

t_Ik: proximal singular (this) X_Ik: proximal plural (these) k_Ik: medial singular (that) x_Ik: medial plural (those) Z_Ik: distal singular (yon thing) o_Ik: distal plural (yon things)

. I think Xenants use singular and plural for mass nouns like substances when they're distinguishable. If some of your gold is slightly more dense, Xenants will say "these golds" rather than "this gold".

I think the Xenants might also use the proximal / medial / distal distinction idiomatically to refer to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons. The sentence "We speakers are talking to you listeners about their crimes." will be rendered by a Xenant more like "These speakers are talking to those listeners about the crimes of yon people.".

The closest thing Xenants have to a first person singular pronoun is the three syllable word t_IkIx, which means "this agent", although that word also has non-idiomatic usage for referencing a proximal agent. Like you can talk about "this dog" without calling yourself a dog, you see.

...

I don't like that. I want something else. Let's see what we can brainstorm. How about a distinction between reflexive, proximal, and medial?

t_Ik: reflexive singular (itself)
X_Ik: reflexive plural (themselves) k_Ik: proximal singular (this) x_Ik: proximal plural (these) Z_Ik: medial singular (that) o_Ik: medial plural (those)
.

No, that's not good either. To say "the man killed himself", Xenants just reference the man twice, they don't mention a man and then mention him reflexively. So ... So screw it. Let's remove number information from the demonstrative determiners, add in three possessive determiners and then have number be expressed separately.

t_Ik: proximal (this/these)
k_Ik: medial (that/those)
Z_Ik: distal (yon thing(s))
X_Ik: proximal (my / our)
x_Ik: medial (your)
o_Ik: distal (their)

.

Actually, this still isn't better. To talk about yourself, "this agent" still sounds better than "my agent", so to talk about other people, it seems regular to keep saying "that agent" instead of "your agent" to talk about the listener in a conversation.

...

Oh, hey, whoa, Xenants wouldn't mark nouns for grammatical number (e.g. using affixes), because changes of grammatical number will change a noun's ontological type, and Xenantish nouns tell you their ontological type with the first prefix of the root. "One dog" is an organism, "two dogs" is a set of organisms. I need an ontological type for collectives, and then a genitive construction to say "collective the members of which are type dog". That sounds a little unwieldy, but it's what the Xenants would do. There isn't any point having ontological phonesthemics if we're not going to respect it. 

Unless if when they say something that sounds to us like "one dog" they mean "a set containing one dog"?

...

New idea. All Xenant nouns are uncountable mass nouns, like furniture and luggage and fauna. When they write something we translate as "one animal" it's semantically more like "one piece of fauna". Um..... To sick to think things.

- Interrogative Determiners

Xenants don't have interrogative determiners like "what", "which", "whose". They also don't ask questions. They're good at making threats though. That's one way they get information out of each other. 

- Cardinal Numerals

If I'm putting quantifiers like ("no", "all", "some") on nouns as affixes, it makes sense to also put on numbers like (1, 12, 144). The Xenant's way to say "144 dogs" is "144-dogs".

What if you want to talk about multiple dogs, without specifying the exact number or their (proximal, media, distal) relation to you. How do Xenants do that? I don't think they do. If you want to talk about dogs generically, like "Dogs are loyal.", that's what the generic/gnomic mood in the TAME verbal suffixes is for; "Dog(s) exist-generically as a loyal thing". Ah, but what if you want to say "half of the dogs" and not "half of the dog"? Then you have to specify how close it is to you. Sorry, bod. I know it's not very English, but this language isn't English.

: Genitive Suffixes

The word "of" in English has lots of functions. Even when we just talk about it linking nouns, it does so in many different ways. "Book of gold" is made of gold, "Book of Mormon" is written by Mormon, "book of the month", et. cetera. I'll call them all genitives. When other people are talking, I usually think of ownership, composition, and parthood as the prototypical genitive relations, but there are tons of noun-to-noun relationships, and I'll call them all genitive here

Here are some noun-to-noun relationships of common importance that I'd like the Xenants to be able to express.

Origin, Family, and Composition:

* X that is from Y.
* X that was made by or by means of Y.
* X that is a part or member of Y
* X that is made of Y.

Function and Purpose:

* X that is used on Y
* X that makes Y.
* X that destroys Y.
* X that seeks or collects Y.

Situational association:

* X that is used by Y.
* X that belongs at Y.
* X that affects Y.
* X that contains or is laden with Y.

I keep on going back and fourth as to whether it's okay to have two variables X and Y like above. The other option is to just have X be "thing" and Y is the only variable. A little more concretely, I'm waffling between genitive affixes of the form "X that has Y" versus "Thing that has Y". Even more concretely, I'm wondering whether I want affixed nouns to look more like "Box that has holes" versus "Thing that has holes".

Let me explain a little bit. If the genitive suffixes have one variable, Y, then I can turn "gold" into "a thing made of gold" and express "gold book" with a sentence like "a-book exists-as a-thing-made-of-gold". If the genitive modifies a base noun X and incorporates a reference to a noun Y, then I can say "some-gold a-book-made-of-1", which is like a compound noun, sort of.

With two variables, it feels like I'm sneaking in verbs, like "affects" and "seeks" and "makes", and I don't want nouns to relate to each other through those. Nouns relate to nouns through verbs, and the language's verbs are "exist" and "cause".

On the other hand, indexical numerals already incorporate into conjunctions and verbs. It's symmetrical/regular for them to also incorporate into nouns. Also also, I wanted the base noun's first syllable to tell you the word's ontological category, like how the Xenant words for "parent", IZx_Kx, and "grandchild", IZx_ot, both start out with the organism phonostheme, IZ. If I use the one variable version of the genitives, then gold, a substance beings "thing made of gold", an artefact, which breaks the ontological phonosthemics. So at the moment, I'm leaning toward two variable genitives, even though they feel a little impure.

I'm going to give each of the three sets of genitive affixes their own full consonant, but I've rearranged them like twelve times and nothing every feels very systematic, so the current groups probably aren't right and will hopefully change in the future when I figure out a better organization scheme.

There's no reason not to use the same boundary syllables in an affix that we've used in root nouns, and with these ones, I'm going to be a little cute. I'm going to use "xk" to start morphemes for the members the Origin/Family/Composition set, which is also the Xenant word for "place". I'll use "it" to start the morphemes from the Function/Purpose set, and "it" is also the Xenant word for "artefact". I'll use "ox" as the full syllable for the genitives of situational association, and "ox" is also the Xenant word for "event". I feel like I might be inviting people/Xenants to make nominal interpretations of the other affixes by doing this, which is bad, and also it's it of character for the language since it's cute and Xenants aren't cute .... buuuuut I'm still doing it.

And here we are: 12 genitive affixes for making compound nouns:

xkz_: that is from
xkO_: that was made by or by means of
xkk_: that is a part or member of
xko_: that is made of

itI_: that is used on
itO_: that makes
itK_: that destroys
itk_: that seeks or collects

oxI_: that is used by
oxZ_: that is found at or belongs at
oxK_: that affects
oxt_: that is laden with

. Cool. 

I'm having a little trouble remembering which full syllables I've used for suffixes and prefixes. Let's take stock:

Adverbial suffixes: (OZ, IZ, TZ)
Thematic adpositional suffixes: (iz)
Spatial adpositional suffixes: (tk, Io)
Verbal to nominal derivational suffixes: (zk)
Quantifying prefixes: (Oi)
Demonstrative prefixes: (Ik)
Genitive suffixes: (xk, it, ox)
.

It's totally fine for a suffix and a prefix to have the same full syllable, it just hasn't happened yet. The morphemes "hf-" and "-fh" simply don't have the same meaning, for any values of "f" and "h".

:: Adjectival nouns

The language of the Xenants doesn't have adjectives, but it has lots of nouns for binary/antonymic dimensions. I think the binary dimensions come in eight families. I'm not sure if they have multiple words for the dimension, coming both from the high end of the scale and the low end of the scale, e.g. whether they have words for both "emptiness" and "fullness" or just one of the two. Here are the eight families with some common/important members listed, but not their antonyms.

* Spatial stative, absolute: unity openness emptiness size length width height straightness sharpness smoothness
* Spatial stative, relative: presence coverage distance inversion neatness alignment

* Abstract stative, absolute: complexity rarity normality uniformity newness
* Abstract stative, relative: relevance dependence sufficiency necessity value equivalence compliance attractiveness completeness

* Spatial dynamic, absolute: activity radioactivity hotness intensity mobility speed tension tightness heaviness actinopacity viscosity noisiness turbulence
* Spatial Dynamic, relative: powerfulness stability fragility hardness rigidity

* Abstract dynamic, absolute: autonomy intelligence consciousness healthiness liveliness maturity
* Abstract dynamic, relative: functionality sensitivity preparedness harmfulness knowledgeability confidence attentiveness productivity efficiency

"Actinopacity" means "particle radiation stopping power". The Xenants are nuclear radiotrophs and they think that concept should be described in one word, not four.

Yeah, let's make dimension-words for both ends of the spectrum. That's Xenantish for two reasons: 1) Xenants like opposites and symmetries and regularity, and 2) they rely on a large inventory of nouns to express themselves given their small closed classes of conjunctions, verbs, and maybe affixes, so more nouns are generally welcome. Also, writing down both antonyms might occasionally make it clearer to you, my dear reader, which dimension I'm trying to point at. Also also, it takes a lot of thought and motivational opportunity for me to make progress on language design features like "dimensions should come in these eight clusters", and once I've done that design work, I'm going to get out as many words out of the design constraints as I can.

* Absolute spatial stative dimension: ix
ixik: unity
ixOX: division / separation
ixix: openness
ixtx: closedness
ixTK: largeness
ixZi: smallness
ixOK: length
ixXo: shortness
ixoz: width
ixXi: narrowness
ixOT: height/depth
ixZk: lowness/shallowness
ixIZ: straightness
ixTi: deviation/deflection
ixtz: sharpness
ixTX: dullness
ixZt: roughness
ixZX: smoothness

* Relative spatial stative dimension: Zk
ZkOX: presence
ZkTi: absence
Zkox: coverage
ZkIk: bareness
ZkTo: emptiness
ZkIx: fullness
ZkOt: distance
ZkOT: nearness
ZkOz: inversion
ZkTZ: uprightness
ZkZt: neatness
ZkOZ: disorganization
Zktz: alignment
Zkik: misalignment

* Absolute abstract stative dimension: iz
izZt: complexity
izTi: simplicity
izIZ: rarity
izTK: commonness
izox: normality
izxk: unusualness
izXz: uniformity
iziz: diversity
izKi: newness
izZx: oldness

* Relative abstract stative dimension: To

ToIt: relevance
ToIo: irrelevance
ToKz: dependence
ToIK: independence
ToZK: sufficiency
Toiz: insufficiency
ToIZ: necessity
Toit: inessentiality
ToXo: value
ToXt: worthlessness
ToOz: equivalence
ToTZ: inequivalence
ToZi: compliance
ToTi: non-compliance
ToIk: attractiveness
ToOX: unattractiveness
ToOZ: completeness
ToXi: incompleteness

* Absolute spatial dynamic dimension: Kt
KtOk: activity
KtTo: inactivity
Kttz: radio-inactivity
KtKx: hotness
KtZK: coldness
Ktox: intensity
KtXt: mildness
KtIX: mobility
Ktix: immobility
KtXo: speed
Ktzx: slowness
KtZo: tension
KtIZ: looseness
Ktoi: compression
KtIK: expansion/noncompressedness
Kttk: heaviness
KtTi: lightness
KtIo: actinopacity
Ktot: actinoclarity
KtKo: viscosity
KtKz: fluidity
KtOt: noisiness
KtXz: quietness
KtIk: turbulence
Kttx: fluid-lamination

* Relative spatial dynamic dimension: oz
ozXK: powerfulness
ozIo: feebleness
oziz: stability
oztz: instability
ozOZ: toughness
ozTk: fragility
ozKi: rigidity
ozit: flexibility
ozZX: hardness
ozIz: softness

* Absolute abstract dynamic dimension: ZX
ZXIk: autonomy
ZXIZ: heteronomy
ZXIK: intelligence
ZXOt: stupidity
ZXXo: consciousness
ZXZi: unconsciousness
ZXzk: health
ZXKt: sickness
ZXZo: liveliness
ZXiz: death
ZXtk: maturity
ZXIX: neoteny

* Relative abstract dynamic dimension: IT
ITOK: sensitivity
ITOi: insensitivity
ITzx: knowledgeability
ITTz: ignorance
ITOt: confidence
ITOz: uncertainty
ITTx: attentiveness
ITZx: inattentiveness
ITOX: functionality/capability
ITOT: non-functionality/incapability
ITTZ: efficiency
ITKo: inefficiency
ITot: harmfulness/destructiveness
ITKt: safety
ITIx: productivity
IToz: non-productivity
.

There is no nominal genitive affix for linking regular nouns with the properties/dimensions they exemplify. If you want to say that a person produces a lot of art, you say "person productivity art 1-exists-with-2-pertaining-to-3". For the absolute adjective classes, you can just say things like "1-exists-with-2". For the relative adjective classes, Xenants expect another verbal argument, like "-pertaining-to-3"

...

:: Perdurants

Holy crow, this language is so close to done, and it keeps mostly getting better and not worse, which is not like most things I do. Super happy. I just need to talk about perdurants, and then roles, and then flesh out/speciate the remaining phonosthemes a little, and then a section on Xenant writing systems, and then a section on their aphorisms, and then their creation myth, and then rewriting all of this so it looks more like a professional reference grammar, and then posting it literally everywhere online, including your mom's DMs.
 
If you can talk about things happening during a noun, that noun is a perdurant (in contrast to an endurant that fully exists at a given time). Things like weddings, famines, spaceship launches, and sneezes. More generally, states, events, processes, and activities.

Lots of perdurants are polar: they come in opposite pairs. Things can happen during someone's absence or their presence. Things can happen during an opening or a closure. Things can happen during a degradation or an improvement. I came up with a tidy list of important polar perdurants in Conlanging II, and we'll look at the evolution of that shortly.

Lots of other perdurants don't come in pairs. For example, noise and silence might be antonymic perdurants, but specific bodily sounds like (burp, cough, hiss, hum, laugh, shout, sigh, slurp, snarl, snore, snort, yelp) generally don't have opposites. I'd like to call these "manners" (of sound production) or manner perdurants. We'll treat them differently in the language that the polar perdurants. 
There are other manners, like manners of contact and manners of motion. Indeed, sounds are produced by motion and contact, so manners of sound production are kind of a special case of those. Social perdurants and cognitive perdurants also often don't have opposites, We'll talk more about all of them shortly.

Back to polar perdurants. About 85% of the polar perdurants I want to talk about can be easily expressed using just the two verbs, the adverbial affixes, and the polar dimensions that we just defined in the last section. The Xenants could still have separate short words for the perdurants, but I really want to see if I can be a little more clever and express all 100% of the polar perdurants by combining other language features. I think that will help me to make the other features a little more complete. And then if I still want separate words for the polar perdurants, I'll be able to define them all in the language, like a sample from a Xenant dictionary.

Mmm, not much progress with the last 15%. Let's just try expressing the rest in a dictionary-like way.

You can talk about things happening during activity and during inactivity, so those are perdurants. They were also polar dimensions, so that's easy:

activity-(perdurant) := some-entity activity-(dimension) exist -continuously 1 -with 2

And here it is spelled out:

activity-(perdurant) := X_Oiot KtOk O_i_I#izt_T#zxk_

 . I get a little sad when see the language spelled out with the short transcription. It just looks like line noise. The long romanization is much better:

activity-(perdurant) := xi'picuputu kitupiku pi'cu'ciricuzutu'tiri

It looks, you know, vaguely Austronesian or something.

...

I don't want to write them all out. Expansion/growth means existing increasingly with size. Taking means causing something to start not existing with a processed object. (Burying | excavation) mean causing something to start existing (within | outside of) the ground. Xenants can talk about restraining versus unbinding in terms of causing something to exist with (mobility | immobility), and they can talk abut (capture | release) in terms of causing something to exist with (autonomy | heteronomy). The perdurants of (introduction | phaseout) might just be expressed as (cause to exist -inceptive-aspect | cause to exist -terminative-aspect). There are just tons and tons of perdurants that can be expressed with the verbal affixes and the polar dimensions - so many that it might be more interesting to talk about the ones that can't.

The pairs of (hostility | hospitality/pleasantry), (assistance | attack), (cooperation | competition) are all quite social and I think the first two pairs might be worth combining completely, but I don't know how to express them. We have "with | against" among the verbal affixes, but those were spatial/directive frames and using them here would be metaphorical, which isn't like the Xenants. We do have a benefactive thematic affix, and also in the past I've contemplating using a negating verbal operator or an anti-benefactive thematic affix. If we use the anti-benefactive, then maybe "competition" means existing against someone's interest within the context of a contest, and "hostility/attack" means existing against someone's interest through / (by means of) force, and just plain old isting against someone's interest could get a gloss like "interference". I'm quite happy with that. 

Um...speaking of the negating verbal operator, I don't think I ever talked about it in this post. I talked about it a lot in Conlanging I and Conlanging II. The verb CAUSE was also a verbal operator for a while. But I've only used it once in this post implicitly, so maybe it's not all that important - the implicit use was saying that taking mean "to cause something to start not existing with a processed object" which in my head looked like [CAUSE "not(EXIST 1 -with 2)"] or something like that, where the quotes are making the enclosed part a perdurant noun, like "loss". Now, however, I'm wondering if I can do without the NOT operator. Like, we could add in opposites for all the thematic suffixes: Anti-benefactive, Anti-possessive, Anti-instrumental, Anti-similative, Anti-pertinitive. They don't sound very useful, but the first two have already showed up so who knows? I had said before that I wasn't super happy with how the thematic suffixes weren't nicely organized, e.g. into antonymic pairs. Maybe adding in the antonyms is exactly what a Xenant would do. Let's think about when they would/could be useful.

* Anti-benefactive: To exist in a manner that is detrimental or opposed to the interests of X. To act in the disinterest of X. To stand as an obstacle in the way of X's achievements. One word English gloss: "versus".
Competition := exist 1 -versus 2 -about/w.r.t. a contest.
* Anti-possessive: To exist without possession of X. Not not have X. One word gloss: "without".
Loss =: exist -initially 1 -without 2.
* Anti-instrumental: To exist without the use of X. To perform through means other than X. One word gloss: "excepting". This isn't great. I don't want adverbial affixes to be glossed with verbs. What else is there? "Notwithstanding", ..."lacking", ...."without" works fine, but I've already used it ...
Coping =: exist -continuously 1 -with pride -excepting success.
Floating = exist -continuously 1 -over 2 -excepting contact.
* Anti-similative: To exist as something other than X. To be unlike X.
...
* Anti-pertinitive: To exist without pertinence to X. To exist exist in a context unrelated to X. To be about something other than X.
...

Kind of dumb. Anothe pair of perdurants I hadn't categorized was (victory | defeat). Things can happen during those, and they're kind of opposites, yeah? Using the anti-benefactive, we could say something like

exist -terminatively 1 -versus 2 about/w.r.t a contest.

exist -terminatively 2 -versus 1 about/w.r.t a contest.

. In the first affixed verb, party 1 has a victory and party 2 has a defeat;  in the second verb, party 2 has a victory and party 1 has a defeat. It's kind of tricky, because the English perdurants happen together/dependently, rather than exclusively, but the ambiguity of who the perdurant is happening to clears up in the Xenants version - they would instead have opposite words like (a victory(-for-the-self)  | a defeat(-for-the-self), which are exclusive.

I had a little trouble categorizing (leisure | work), which seem kind of antonymic. I think leisure is for yourself while work can be for yourself or for someone else or for a project, et cetera, so the antonymy isn't perfect. Also, it's tempting to say that leisure involves pleasure while work involves pain, maybe as the instrumental means, but the feeling that goes with work isn't exactly, pain. We could say that leisure means causing yourself to exist with inactivity for your own sake while work means causing yourself to exist with activity for the sake of something unspecified? But sometimes people do work or leisure compulsively, and "CAUSE" kind of seems like it's suggestive of the telic -Intentionally affix, while compulsive action is should be marked with the -Unwillingly affix. Hm...... Okay, so I don't know exactly how to define leisure and work, but so far the language is capable expressing all the candidates I've come up with, so my failure to categorize (leisure | work) doesn't indicate that the language is lacking, just that my concepts are vague and not perfectly antonymic     

There's another pair of perdurants I had trouble with expressing, but again I don't think it's due to a expressive shortcoming of the language. Forgetting is a perdurant. And the opposite of forgetting is remembering, yeah? But also forgetting is the opposite of learning, isn't it? And if we code forgetting as losing information ,then perceiving is a third way to gain information, so that's kind of antonymic. I think the Xenants would jut have words for the event of "gaining information | losing information)", and then perceiving, learning, and remembering will be manners of gaining information, perhaps expressed as something like (through sense organ | gain through sense organ and thought | gain through memory). 

There were some perdurants pairs that didn't confuse me, like

(division/separation | unification/fusion/merger)
(disconnection/detachment | connection/attachment)

. but then when I got to categorizing the perdurant "multiplication", I saw that "division" had already been used. And the thing is, when objects multiply, they number of objects increases, but when two numbers multiply, the number of numbers decreases. So there are two different multiplication concepts. Xenants should have one pair of perdurants that expresses "become (more | less) numerous", and also a pair for numerical multiplication. And here's the thing! I think the (division/separation | unification/fusion/merger) pair is suitable for numerical multiplication! Five times three is a unification/fusion/merger of five and three! And I'm also fine with some kind of (addition | subtraction) pair that works on sets and also works on numbers. That doesn't feel metaphorical to me, like I'm using one domain to describe another - it just feels right, like the underlying logic/dynamic is common. So the Xenants have words for (multiplication | division) and (addition | subtraction)  that can be used on numbers as well as non-numbers. We're still missing two famous elementary arithmetic operators - (exponentiation | log-taking/logarithmization). It seems like those two only work on numbers, which is a little sad, but I can deal with it.

In previous posts I thought I might express arithmetic with the simulative affix, like "cause 3 and 5 to exist as a product". I think that's still a good option, but the act of doing so is now called a (whatever word Xenants use for the perdurant of ) unification/fusion/merger. Brilliant!

The last pair of polar perdurants I had trouble expressing was (encryption | decryption). I think we can express that by ....

...

:: Categorical Perdurants

...

:: Nominal affixes for systematic names

I've said that the Xenants have ontological phonosthemes for elements and chemicals, but I haven't given any words for elements or chemicals. One way to write elements that I'd considered in the past is to put an affix on a number, like 1-ium is hydrogen and 12-ium is magnesium. This isn't Xenantish because it puts the ontological type in an affix instead of in the root. If we use genitive affixes, we can say "twelve element -of-atomic-number(1)" for magnesium. This is also convenient for naming nuclides/isotopes, which the Xenants need to be able to talk about since they're radiotrophs. For example, "ninety-two two-hundred-thirty-five element -atomic-number(1) -mass-number(2)" is a systematic way of naming the primordial uranium nuclide on their planet. The Xenants can also  have short non-systematic names for elements, which speciate the element phonostheme in the usual way, just like how English calls element 8 "acid maker" and element 19 "pot ash element" and element 77 "purple element" because of its color in a flame test.

I don't have any strong opinions about how to name chemicals systematically yet. Maybe Xenants use something not so dissimilar from SMILES, the simplified molecular-input line-entry system, but less abbreviated and more regular.

...

:: Hard Words and Soft Roles

There are a few hundred more words that I want to include in the language, and some of them are quite hard to categorize ontologically, maybe because they're roles rather than sortal concepts. Not all, maybe not even most, but some. The page response for me is really latent as I right this, maybe because this post is too large? I think I'll make a new post because the lag is kind of unbearable. See you in the next one, sweetness.

:: Writing System

Maybe Xenants burrow into rock and write in spirals around the tunnels that they dig. To read more of a story, you have to dig deeper. Also, a reader can anticipate plot changes by smelling the pheromones left by previous readers. There's a surprising part up ahead!

...

:: Definitional Aphorisms

:: Babel Story

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