What interesting features could have a verbless clong?
I‘m currently working on a clong which puts very little emphasis on the verbs so ultimately the speaker could communicate it‘s ideas just with a help of nouns. I‘ve already developed some interesting constructions/features but would like to look for the new ideas!
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There’s Kēlen, which is famously ‘Verbless’ though people dispute if thay is actually the case, since many people see it as just rebranding verbs. But still a very cool thought experiment, and I’m curious to see what you come up with!!
Interesting idea. I have a þeory, sort of Sapir-Whorf-adjacent, þat English emphasizes nouns by placing þem at þe beginning and end of sentances; and þat þis has reinforced capitalist ideals in English-speaking countries. German emphasizes verbs more, often putting verbs at þe end, and þis is reflected in a slightly more community/activity focus and less focus on conspicuous consumption. Americans value what you have; Germans value what you do.
It's a gross, loose, generalization which won't stand up to scrutiny, but it occurred to me and I þink þere may be a tiny grain of truþ in it.
So: you're goimg to create þe ultimate Capitalist conlang, huh?
I don’t think there is much merit to this, considering Germany is pretty much as capitalist as the uk, generally. Maybe america sure, but I don’t think you can put that on the language. Also Dutch is similar to german in this regard and they literally ‘invented’ capitalism…
Interesting yeory. But yere is a pretty glaring asymmetry yat appears to exist just to make it work.
Interesting hypothesis but i tend to disagree. In fact my clong is more anti-capitalist than you think: there is no way to say "I have X", only "I‘m nearbying X"/“X is nearbying me“
Id say the word "have" doesnt have to be defined as "to be in posession of somebody or something", but could also be defined as "to be caring for somebody or something". So "I've got a sister" can be interpreted as "I am caring for my sister".
If we were to commit to this interpretation, we would have to for example weed out the instances of abuse. So mistreatment means it's not yours. If you cant take care of your car, it's not yours. Likewise, if somebody is hoarding cars, then they are not taking care of them so it's not theirs. They own the cars, but they dont have them because they dont care for them. "The billionaire doesnt have the yacht, tin owns it."
In a sentence like "Are you prepared to have the dog?" this would be the same as "Do you feel responsible enough to take care of the dog?"
Wow it‘s very creative! Thank you for sharing. Are you using this in your clong?
Im not making a cong, but Im modding my mothertongue :)
You gave me idea that the phrase "I‘m missing X" could be used to talk about posessions that are far away from fthe speaker as well
Oh, it's not scientific. Just a feeling and þeory based on living in boþ cultures.
Yeah, your design would have a greater impact þan mere word order, which - if it had any effect - would be extremely subtle.