Truth and Bird Baths

Because of my diary method of conlanging, I regularly have to create fairly mundane vocabulary for things I haven't yet talked about. That can sometimes lead to unexpected places. I recently wanted a phrase for "bird bath" for Kílta. I decided I was probably going to get that word out of something related to a word for "pond," in particular an artificial sort of pond/lake thing. But I didn't even have a word for that ready to go. So, I created a word for "pond" — paipa — and then I wanted to talk about a beaver pond as one of the examples. Naturally, I didn't already have a word for beaver. I'm even less likely to talk about beavers than I am bird baths, but here I am today, with a word for beaver — kiulon (which means something like "tree-associated red-brown guy") — and I still haven't gotten to "bird bath." Maybe today.

This sort of fairly routine vocabulary is where most of my creative time goes. Sometimes, though, concepts without simple English words get my attention. I've documented a few of them in Segments issue #4. Recently I have been exasperated by the lack of good words to describe things surrounding generative AI, in particular the "language" models, like ChatGPT. The core aspect of these that is so vexing is that they are bullshit machines. I am using "bullshit" here in the Harry G. Frankfurt definition, which defines B.S. as "speech intended to persuade without regard for truth." That is, these models have no meaningful relationship with questions of truth or falsity. ChatGPT just produces a stream of characters that is statistically likely given the prompt. Similar models are known to not always cope well with negation, for example, which is a fairly important thing to get right if you want to talk about the real world reliably. I will end my rant on these models here, and rely on what I've said so far to set the stage for some recent new vocabulary.

As you might imagine, I've been wracking my brains to come up with ways to talk about "true" vs. "false" in a situation where those concepts aren't particularly related to the real world, but are located within the weight matrices of these AI models. It's always nice if new words can be developed on existing models or metaphors, and, luckily, Kílta already has the word húrusakin "theory/worldview internal," an adjective for words, ideas, etc., which won't necessarily make sense to people unfamiliar with a particular theory or worldview. This is a compound of húr "border, boundary" and saka "idea, thought, notion." This immediately suggested húrutásin and húrusikkarin for contextually bounded ideas of "true" and "false," from already existing tásin "true" and ikkarin "false" (itself derived from ikko "to lack").

While the starting place for these words is my vexations when trying to talk about ChatGPT and related tools, these words, húrutásin and húrusikkarin, have application in other areas. We can use them to talk about true vs. false in computer programs, for example, or in any other sort of modeling technology or methodology. Something might be true in one system of formal logic, but not in another. Similarly, some more totalizing worldviews might have judgements about true and false that are at variance with the worldviews of others. These words will let me talk about truth judgements in particular systems that may or may not correspond to other systems, or my own ideas about the world (Kílta is somewhat optimized to make it easy for me to editorialize about things).

Covert Grue

There is extensive literature on basic color terms. Since Kílta is a personal language for speaking in the modern world, it has a fairly wide color vocabulary, and does distinguish blue and green (pikwautin, ralin), unlike a grue (green-blue) language which unifies those colors under one term.

One thing I've done in Kílta, inspired in part by the articles in The Aesthetics of Grammar: Sound and Meaning in the Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia (Jeffrey P. Williams, editor), is to pay a lot of attention to how words are intensified. English of course has plenty of intensifying collocations — hopping mad, deeply concerned, etc. — but in Kílta there are quite a few intensifiers which only intensify. They have no independent meaning, and are often (apparently) root words.

A new intensifier I recently added is mó. It is only used with hichínin black, pikwautin blue, and ralin green. So, even though Kílta is not a grue language, I've hidden a grue tendency in the use of this intensifier.

Ummul në mó ralin no.
forest TOP deep green be.PFV
The forest is a deep green.

Mó hichínin mika në ël si alincho.
deep black stone TOP 3SG ACC shun
The jet black stone slipped from her grasp.

I extended mó in one other direction. Even though it is rather adverb-like, I permit it with kinta night to mean something like in the dark of night, for in a temporal adverb sense.

Ha në mó kinta otta si cholat oto vukai.
1SG TOP deep night sound ACC hear.INF fall.PFV DISAPPR
I happened to hear a sound at darkest part of the night.

Covert boundaries can be a useful way to think new things through.

Unknown Riches, Episode 3

I recently created a word for trout, mirëlcha /miˈɾəltʃa/ (no etymology). I probably don't need very many example sentences for food-related words — their usage is generally pretty clear — but examples for every new word is a habit now. I knew almost instantly that the phrasing of the obvious sentence was going to encode a distinction English doesn't make easily.

Ton në mirëlcha si chuvët akkalo tul?
2SG TOP trout ACC hunt-CVB.PFV capture-PFV Q
Did you catch any trout?

The center of the matter is the converb form of the verb chuvo pursue, hunt. In my part of the world, at least, people don't usually catch trout by accident, but have gone out specifically for trout. So, this sentence is able to encode that the speaker thinks the person they're talking to was out for trout, not just fishing in general. If I left out chuvo, the sense of the question would suggest that the trout was caught by chance, not the specific goal of the fishing.

By making Kílta primarily a V-language (according to the typology of Talmy), I set myself up for a pattern where events can regularly be decomposed a bit, with co-events or "activating events" encoded as converbs. Sometimes this leads to nuances that aren't simple to express in my native language, which is always fun.

Sending a Message

I have an ever-growing backlog of concepts for which I want to create new Kílta words. It gives me all the stress you expect from a todo list. One benefit of the delay, however, is that I regularly think up better derivations, or better nuance, if I have time to let a concept percolate a while before I commit to it.

One concept I've been thinking about is a way to indicate if a state of affairs communicates some other message. For example, if someone stops answering your phone calls, that says something. Often we can rely on Grice and experience to help us figure out when other messages are being communicated by someone's actions, but I wanted a way to be a bit more explicit about it. This sat on my todo list quite a while, and then just yesterday a good way to handle this presented itself: an auxiliary with a converb.

The verb ráno means signal, make a sign, as well as point out.

Eman në tátiën mai ráno.
child TOP dog LAT point-out.PFV
The child pointed at the dog

But yesterday it occurred to me that my send a message sense matches with this nicely. Now, a general converb followed by ráno marks that the state of affairs also communicates some other message.

Ha kë mës mítët ráno.
1SG DAT NEG speak.CVB.PFV signal.PFV
She didn't talk to me (which makes some other point, too)

Often an overt translation of this into English is going to be a bit clunky, but I've got growing pile of those in Kílta, too.

In any case, rather than creating a new clause-final particle or entirely new lexeme, I've just added to Kílta's substantial battery of auxiliary verbs.

Kílta Lexember 31: lamerun "in due course, in good time"

It's the last day of Lexember, so a time expression.

lamerun /læˈme.ɾun/ in good time, in due course, in/at the right time < lamerin round, plump, ripe + -un temporospatial suffix

The adjective lamerin covers a wide range of meaning, but one primary sense is that of culmination after a waiting period. Thus, ripe, plump, right time, etc. The suffix -un derives adverbs of place or time. It's not incredibly common.

Ton në lamerun katihëstat no re.
ton në lamerun katih-ëst-at n-o re
2SG TOP in.due.course understand-INCH-INF be-PFV PTCL
You'll understand in due course.

Here's another example of Kílta using the inchoative where English would be content with a simple verb. I could, I suppose, translate this "you'll start to understand in due course," but a lot of the time it's clunky to capture Kílta's inchoative too fastidiously in the English.

Lorátin Naram mëli rum!
Happy New Year!

Kílta Lexember 30: omulutta "earthquake"

I'm not entirely thrilled that today's word comes out looking a bit like breakfast, but these things happen sometimes.

omulutta /o.muˈlut.ta/ earthquake < om earth + lúto move + -ta nominalizer

Kílta has two entirely different stems for English move, one transitive, one intransitive. I've used the transitive one here, focusing on the effect (the earth moves things), rather than the merely describing the event in isolation.

Luikin omulutta vima si tuëmo.
heavy earthquake city ACC pound.PFV
A terrible earthquake struck the city.

This is exactly the sort of example sentence I like best, if I can pull it off — it gives two collocational usage hints. First, a bad earthquake in Kílta is luikin heavy, and second, the verb for earthquake destructive activity is tuëmo pound.

Kílta Lexember 29: tetila "joint, knuckle; inch"

I already had the word tetila with just the meaning joint. I've decided to extend the meaning to knuckle — a common enough polysemy — and through that to also mean inch (the measurement).

Tetila has no etymology. You can specify knuckle if you have to by using ol hand:

Pácha si chokët, ol vë tetilur kwalo.
table ACC hit.CVB.PFV, hand ATTR joint.PL hurt
After I hit the table my knuckles hurt.

To measure precipitation (the occasion for today's Lexember efforts), a secondary predicate construction is used:

Hëru tetilur mai mechuhítat no re.
hër-u tetil-ur mai me(ch)-uhít-at n-o re
8-PL joint-PL LAT CIS-snow-INF be-PFV PTCL
It will snow eight inches here.

Time and measurements are my hardest time learning natural languages, and not my favorite part of language invention. I'll get to the metric system eventually.

Kílta Lexember 28: oléla "gloves"

More winter weather vocabulary today.

oléla /oˈleː.la/ gloves

This is an eccentric reduplication starting from ol hand. A few pieces of paired clothing get not entirely predictable forms like this.

Samma vë oléla në vurël no?
fur ATTR gloves TOP where be.pfv
Where are the wool gloves?

Even though I've taken up weaving as a rage-absorbing hobby during The Covidities, and have added weaving vocabulary to Kílta, I hadn't yet committed to a word for wool. The polysemy I picked, from the already existing samma fur, is a common one. Two words settled with one example sentence.

Kílta Lexember 27: káhutiëha "bureaucracy"

Nearly all Kílta words are internally generated, either from derivation of existing vocabulary, or generated from scratch using my word shape generator. I do have a few borrowings, though, and those are confined to two main domains: places, especially country names; and very ancient cultivated plants and foods, with a few ancient technologies. Most of the borrowings that aren't contemporary place names come from languages of the ancient Near East, such as Sumerian via Akkadian, and some Egyptian. A few terms from from the Silk Road, for which I usually turn to Sogdian. Monta or something like it for dumplings, for example, shows up all along the silk road.

Today's word starts with káha paper, which is from Sogdian:

káhutiëha /kaː.xu.tiˈə.xa/ bureaucracy < káha paper + tiëha authority, power, rule

Tiëha is a usual compound element for -cracy words.

Iminachin káhutiëha katama si útauno.
RED-big bureaucracy workplace ACC dominate.PFV
A huge bureaucracy dominates work.

A representative of the bureaucracy is of course káhutiëhil a bureaucrat, the original word with the agent noun ending -il tacked on.

Finally there is káhutiëkkis, a piece of bureaucracy, piece of bureaucratic work, which could be paperwork or one of the many procedural rituals that warms the hearts of the process-oriented. A light verb construction with salko put, place generates the meaning assign someone a bureaucratic task:

Hiëmma si tirëtiu, nalaiku káhutiëkkisá si salko.
hiëmma si tir-ëtiu, nalaik-u káhutiëkkis-á si salk-o
revenge ACC give/1-PURP.CVB.PFV, further-PL bureaucratic.task-PL ACC put.PFV
To get revenge, he gave me more bureaucratic tasks.

There are a few arguments in the English translation that aren't explicit in the Kílta. Because the verb tiro give is only used when the recipient is a first person argument, that sets up the reasonable interpretation for the rest of the sentence.

Kílta Lexember 26: aroccha "boots"

Another seasonally appropriate word for people living in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.

aroccha /aˈɾot.tʃa/ boots, by default the full pair; no etymology

I entertained a few etymologies (relating to: foot, leg, to wrap), but nothing was satisfying, so I ultimately decided on an altogether new word.

Mechuhítirë so! Aroccha si relësti re.
me-uhít-irë so! aroccha si rel-ëst-i re
CIS-snow-IPFV ASSEV! boots ACC carry-INCH-IMP PTCL
It's snowing! Put on your boots.

The particle re is used to make imperatives less face-threatening.

Except for an attributive to maybe define the purpose or other qualities of them, there doesn't seem to be much call for special vocabulary around boots.

Kílta Lexember 25: ësta "gift"

Kílta has two separate roots for give, one when the recipient is the first person (me, us), one when the recipient is the non-first person (you, him, her, it, them). When terms are derived from a give word, though, the non-first person recipient one, ëcho, is the one used.

ësta /ˈəs.ta/ gift, present; bribe < ëcho give + -ta nominalizer (with some sound changes)

Emanur në rëtu ëstur si niëmo.
child.PL TOP much.PL gift.PL ACC receive.PFV
The children got many presents.

The usual give verbs, ëcho and tiro, can be used for giving a gift, but the light verb expression ësta si salko (lit., "put/place a gift"), is also regularly used, especially if the gift is not a physical object. With dative for recipient, ablative for the gift.

Ha në ël kë vúkur si ësta si salko.
1SG TOP 3SG DAT silver.PL ACC gift ACC put.PFV
I gave her some money (as a gift)

The adjective luikin heavy is used for a big gift that possibly incurs reciprocal social obligation, and lapin empty for a "small token," a minor gift.

Given the appropriate context, ësta also means a bribe.

Válekos në ëstur së si niëmirë hír.
sinecure-holder TOP gift.PL also ACC receive.IPFV PTCL
The sinecure-holder was of course also taking bribes.

The clause-final particle hír indicates that the statement follows naturally from what has come before.

Kílta Lexember 24: sussorë "woolgathering, abstracted, absorbed"

A simple but useful adverb today:

sussorë /susˈso.ɾə/ woolgathering, abstracted, absorbed, no etymology

This is almost always used with a posture verb (sit, stand, lie, hang), whether as a predicate or an attribute.

Ton në huchë sussorë sunko tul?
2SG TOP again wollgathering stand.PFV Q
Are you woolgathering again?

Ha në sussorë rinërin mauta si auttët, auníta si chaso.
1SG TOP wollgathering sit.PCPL.PFV cat ACC touch.CVB.PFV, startle ACC do.PFV
I touched the abstracted cat and startled him.

Kílta uses participles for things like relative clauses, "the cat that was woolgathering."

Kílta Lexember 23: lurusanil "parasite"

Another charming word today:

lurusanil /lu.ɾuˈsæ.nil/ parasite < lur breath, "energy" + sano eat + -il agent noun 

The breath, lur, in Kílta is also used idiomatically to refer to one's personal energy. Usually this is for the personal feeling, but I've grabbed it here for a more general sense.

Maras në lurusanilá si kacho tul?
kitten TOP parasite.PL ACC suffer.PFV Q
Does the kitten have parasites?

Kílta prefers kacho suffer to possession when referring to parasite infestation.

The adjective is lurusanohin parasitic.

Lurusanohin ús mácha si chuvët, akkalët, errelo.
lurusanohin ús mácha si chuv-ët, akkal-ët, er-rel-o
parasitic wasp spider ACC hunt-CVB.PFV, capture-CVB.PFV, TRANS-carry-PFV
A parasitic wasp hunted, captured, and carried away a spider.

Kílta Lexember 22: mënsekwa "restroom"

More household vocabulary today:

mënsekwa /mənˈse.kʷa/ restroom, bathroom < mënso wash, clean + -e/ikwa room/building suffix

An altogether transparent derivation.

The verb nuto means impel, urge, set in motion. It's used in the detransitive form, with a middle-like sense, to express the need to visit a restroom:

Ha në mënsekwa mai nutiso.
ha në mënsekwa mai nut-is-irë
1SG TOP restroom LAT impel-DETR-IPFV
I have to go to the bathroom.

In normal daily usage, absent other context, just nutiso by itself means the same thing.

Kílta Lexember 21: kwailëmës "sadist"

Kílta has a family of derivations centered on -ëmës "caretaker, cultivator." The word for doctor (or veterinarian) is esëmës, from es health. Today's words start with that:

kwailëmës /kʷaɪ̯ˈlə.məs/ sadist < kwailo hurt + -ëmës "caretaker" derivation

Kwailëmësá útan si ontirë.
sadist.PL matter ACC conduct.IPFV
Sadists are running things.

The light verb expression útan si onto is a fixed idiom meaning "run things."

The standard adjective derivation for -ëmës nouns is -ëmarin. For both the noun and the adjective form, the intensifier word is ívin (adv. ívui) savage.

Ívui kwailëmarin íhamal si ruiso.
savagely sadistic law ACC bind.PFV
They passed a deeply sadistic law.

Kílta Lexember 20: kuima "snail"

I realized that I didn't have a word for snail, which, I'll admit, isn't a word I use a lot, but sometimes you need to translate a conlanging meme.

kuima /kuˈi.ma/ snail, no etymology

Kuimur rëtu sotur së ën tuimata nen vëcho.
snail.PL many kind.PL also this swamp LOC remain.PFV
Many kinds of snail live in this swamp.

A word I do use more often, however, is slug, which is just lapin kuima a naked snail.

Lapu kuimur në ekiccha si sanár vëcho vukai!
naked.PL snail.PL TOP cabbage ACC eat.CVB.IPFV remain.PFV PTCL
The slugs keep eating the cabbage!

A converb + vëcho is a light verb expression that means continue to, keep on, etc. The post-verbal particle vukai indicates the speaker's displeasure about the situation. 

Kílta Lexember 19: ósa "form, shape"

More from my terrible backlog:

ósa /ˈoː.sa/ shape, form < onna build, fashion + -sa a "non-productive" nominalizer

This takes the attributive/possessive particle vë to indicate a particular shape, and prefers vurpin what kind of to just plain vurin which when asking about shape.

Ën mika vë ósa në uchin no.
this stone ATTR shape TOP strange be.PFV
The shape of this stone is peculiar.

Like many attributes, it is carried rather than simply had,

Mium në vurpin ósa si relo?
toy TOP what.kind.of form ACC bear.IPFV
What's the toy's shape?

I've decided to push on the meaning a bit for a few compounds to refer to states of matter. I almost never talk about that, but since I'm here and the idea occurred to me, I might as well add them:

ahëkósa - gas ("wind-shape")
matusósa - liquid ("water-shape")
saispósa - solid ("wood-shape," where wood is often "matter")
luëkusósa - plasma ("fire-shape")

I am not going to worry about Bose-Einstein Condensates for now.

Kílta Lexember 17: líkkis si salko "feed"

Today is another phrasal creation, made up of words that already exist.

In the existing Kílta corpus there are already a very small uses of the word sanëlo, which is just the causative of sano eat, for feed, but I don't like it. I've decided that sanëlo is confined to industrial or mechanical feeding, as well as experimental settings where we might say we're feeding (culturing) bacteria or whatnot. Force-feeding a prisoner, or as a form of torture, would also use sanëlo. For normal feeding:

líkkis si salko feed < líkkis food + salko put, place; with the dative for the recipient

Ton në ké mautur kë líkkis si salko tul?
2SG TOP already cat.PL DAT food ACC put Q
Have you fed the cats yet?

Every once in a while, you have to do this sort of lexical retconning when something that seemed like a good idea at the time turns out later to not be what you want. The light verb expression here is more in the spirit of the language.

Kílta Lexember 13: issét "footpath, sidewalk"

Basic vocabulary again today:

issét /ˈis.seːt/ footpath, sidewalk < issa road, way + -ét lexical diminutive

Kílta has normal diminutives which can be used freely on anything, as well as fossilized diminutives which only occur as (non-productive) word derivation elements, sometimes without the non-diminutive root being used in the language at all.

Avur në issét nen erniënto.
avur në issét nen er-niënt-o
1PL TOP footpath nen TRANS-depart-PFV
We left on the footpath.

Uhítot si issét li úri avësso.
snow ACC sidewalk ABL just.now remove.PFV
I just removed snow from the sidewalk.

Kílta Lexember 12: chítas "regret, remorse"

Today's word has a modestly interesting etymology, but it kicked off a bunch of new polysemy for some adjectives:

chítas /ˈtʃiː․tas/ regret, remorse < chíto bite, chew + -as abstract nominalizer

Part of the motivation for this is that chíto also means sting when insects do it.

As is normal with emotion nouns, the verb relo bear, carry is used when one's experiencing it. I use the ablative li for the matter about which one has regrets, and the dative kë for a person who has been wronged.

Mannur në nirika li chítas si relo më.
3PL TOP war ABL regret ACC carry.PFV NEG
They don't regret the war.

Ëlá në atta kë chítas si relo.
3PL TOP father DAT regret ACC carry.PFV
They have regrets about their father.

Regrets have standard lexical collocations, generally adjectives, like: sincere, deep, etc., so I needed to cover that a bit. For a sincere regret, I just chose tásin true. That word is also used to mean something like equal to the task, which is more the sense I was drawing on here.

For other intensity terms I went back to the original meaning of chíto bite, and went with nútokin strong for deep regrets. Kwimin weak can mean mild regret, but more carries the sense of insincere regret. I'm not going to give examples of all of them, but one should give the flavor:

Nútokin chítas ël si sikwa mai nuto.
strong regret 3SG ACC house LAT impel.PFV
Deep regret(s) sent him home.

Nuto covers urge, set in motion, impel, etc.