Derivation of the Day: tëtúmot

For Kílta, tëtúmot sauce, via intensive reduplication of the verb tuëmo pound, and the object noun suffix -ot.

Korka vë tëtúmot në kwilë chesëtin no.
(wal)nut ATTR sauce TOP too salty be.PFV
The walnut sauce is too salty.

Korka is by default a walnut, but is used in other nut terms generically.

Quantitative Verse References

Over time I've collected a few references to quantitative verse forms from different poetic traditions. The primary feature of these systems is that syllable weight is the defining measure of verse, rather than patterns of stress or syllable counting.

• Greek Verse
• Vedic Metre in its Historical Development
• Poetries in Contact: Arabic, Persian, and Urdu (this is great!)
• Somali Prosodic Systems
• Metrical structure and sung rhythm of the Hausa Rajaz
• Introduction to Tamil Prosody
• The meter of Tashlhiyt Berber songs (added July 2020)

I'm sure there are some traditions I'm missing.

I've never successfully created a poetic system for one of my conlangs. Though Kílta has vowel length, it looks like syllable counting will be the way to go for it, but there are still plenty of experiments to work out.

Kílta

After several years of slow work, I think Kílta is far enough along that I don't mind other people seeing the documentation: Kílta (PDF via Dropbox).

The thing I'm most pleased with this is that the dictionary is so large, and has so many examples. I've been on a pro-examples kick for quite a few years, but this is the first language I've worked on where nearly every word has an example sentence, often more than one. As of the day I write this post, Kílta has:

• 1158 headwords
• 166 sub-headwords (idioms, light verb constructions, etc.)
• 1592 definitions on the above
• 1924 examples for everything

That said, there are still a handful of words I didn't bother to give examples to, but as I notice them and non-idiotic examples present themselves I'll add them. The main benefit to a good example is that it helps nail down the semantics more clearly. If I really cannot come up with an example that clarifies the meaning at least a little, I'm liable to skip it a bit, though some examples created for other words may end up in a definition, even if it isn't terribly clarifying.

A good chuck of Kílta's semantic development is created with a desire to avoid obviously compositional meaning. So, in addition to the many examples, a good number of "idioms," there are sections on conceptual metaphor, as well as the introduction of a small bit of vague supernaturalism which permits even more idiom construction. Check out the definition of virka stomach for an example of me having fun developing idioms. Once you create one or two of these, more suggest themselves over the years.

For most of Kílta's life I have kept a very short and almost always dull diary in the language. This is an amazing tool for grammar and lexical development. But you have to be prepared to write a lot of tedious things at the start, or you'll just overwhelm yourself. Talking about the weather can, with a little grammatical imagination, be a great testing ground for: conjunctions and other sequencing constructions, thinking about tense, thinking about coreference, thinking about those parts of discourse that expose a speaker's feelings about what they are saying, report clauses, counterexpectation, etc., etc.

Lexember 31st: unëho, "be satiated"

The final word for the 2018 Lexember season is unëho /ʔu.ˈnə.xo/ be satiated. It is most used with expressions of consuming, generally as a converb,

Ha në sanët unëho.
ha në san-ët unëh-o
1SG TOP eat-CVB.PFV be.satiated-PFV
I've eaten enough.  Or, I'm full.

Ton në ilët unëho tul?
2SG TOP drink.CVB.PFV be.satiated.PFV Q
Have you had enough to drink?

But it can be used alone,

Ronuin në vurun unëho më.
aristocrat TOP when be.satiated.PFV NEG
Aristocrats are never satiated.

Singular nouns with the topic marker në can be used to refer to a class.

Lexember 30th: tëlpeka, "oven, furnace"

Today's word, tëlpeka /təl.ˈpe.ka/ oven, furnace, is related to the word tëlpo to cook.

Tëlpeka mai chan si salki re.
oven LAT dish ACC put.IMP PART
Put the dish into the oven.

Ën tëlpeka në asíkal si atenkëlat harno tul.
ën tëlpeka në asíkal si atenk-ël-at harn-o tul
this furnace TOP metal ACC melt-CAUS-INF be.able-PFV Q
Can this furnace melt metal?

There is a lot of interesting lexical typology, metaphor, and idiom around cooking, but I haven't yet concocted any connections from those to this word.

Lexember 29th: pepa, "omelette, frittata, kuku"

Today's word, pepa /ˈpe.pa/, refers to any savory dish that involves dumping a bunch of stuff into eggs and then either frying or baking it. So, omelette, frittata, the Persian kuku, etc.

Kispëtin pepa si tëlpi rum.
having.pistachios omelette ACC cook.IMP PART
Let's make a pistachio kuku.

Pistachio Kuku is an actual Persian dish.

Grammatical reminder: an imperative followed by rum is an optative, which is also used as a hortative.

Lexember 28th: vísa, "goat"

Today's word is vísa goat.

Vísur në kovura si sanirë vukai!
goat.PL TOP everything ACC eat.IPFV PART
The goats are eating everything!

The final particle vukai marks a state of affairs the speaker is unhappy about.

You can use the term to refer to a person who is being inappropriately oversexual, somewhat answering to (American) English "dog," except it isn't exclusively male, and refers more to contextually inappropriate behavior than a deeper or permanent aspect of someone's personality.

Vísa ë, micha víni rum.
goat VOC mind be.still.IMP PART
Calm down, dog.

The combination of the imperative with the final particle rum makes an optative. So, "let (your) mind be calm."