@@andresmandianes2891 No. "I'll be working here" means that, in the future, you will work at that place. "I will used to work here" isn't grammatically correct English, but if it were, it would mean that in the future, you will have stopped working there.
In the United States people want to make English the official language. Originally I proposed that we should make a Native language the official language. Navajo is off the list.
@@GallowglassAxe On that note, maybe we could have a US citizen test that's basically a Navajo language test? Isolationists and indigenous activists could finally get behind the same thing! /s
The infamous "eureka" (I found it!) is actually the Greek perfect of the verb meaning "to search": because once you've completed your searching (perfect aspect), it means you've found what you were looking for.
Yes, and it's a funny thing for English speakers to realize they are the ones who are complicating things by using two different verbs for the concept of searching (find and search) when they are really the same action but just different aspects. Usually English speakers are complaining about languages like Russian doing this with other verbs.
@@iMacxXuserXx485is it the same thing? Let's say "I have searched". That doesn't necessarily mean I've found what I'm looking for, only that I'm done looking.
“PERFECT OF RECENCY” YES! THIS! You have given me the words to express a grammatical difference between American English and British English that I’ve been passively trying for years to understand and explain. We Americans don’t tend to use the perfect of recently. Where a Brit would say “I’ve just seen Opal,” an American (at least this one, from Kansas) would say “I just saw Opal.” To my American ears, saying “I’ve just seen Opal” either sounds like I just saw Opal, but, like... very Britishly... or it sounds like I’ve only merely seen Opal (like the perfect of experience). Perhaps she’s a coworker but I’ve never worked with her or talked to her, I’ve just seen her. (This one only works because of the double meaning of the adverb “just”)
I mean you can say "I will have used to work here" which basically means you don't work here now, but expect to work there in the future, and then even further in the future you expect to not work there anymore
@@Lucy-ng7cw A: didn't you used to work here? B: I will have used to work here. I handed my notice in today It's a humourous mirroring of the structure of the question rather than what would otherwise be said, but it sounds grammatical to me
Navajo represent! :) Still trying my best to learn my nation's language, but it's gonna take a while with all our verb tenses, heh. Thanks for mentioning us, Artifexian! Ahéhee'!
It took me a long time to wrap my head around the concept of aspect. My native language is Swedish which, like German, doesn't have grammatical aspect. I still managed to learn English but could never get the preterite and imperfect right in Spanish. It wasn't until I started taking an interest in Chinese (which is all about aspect) that it finally clicked. Swedish does have a neat trick when it comes to marking the progressive aspect though: just add another verb with a strong inherent progressive aspect. "I sit and watch TH-cam" = "I'm watching TH-cam". "I stand and make food" = "I'm making food".
You'd have relative difficulty learning my conlang then. There is no tense My aspects are: imperfective, Perfective, perfect, progressive, habitual The citation form is the Perfective, while habitual is used depending on the type of verb it is, and changes between dialects. Progressive and Imperfective are pretty normal, but perfect is very hard to understand when it plays a role in semantics
I've always disliked the fact that "used to" can only be used in one form; converting "You used to do that" to a question yields "Did you use to do that" or "Did you used to do that," which both seem wrong even though they're still in the same tense and being used in exactly the same way.
Funny that you mention hiberno-english here. I am a german learning the irish language and usually it seems a german can relate to the grammatical features of Irish more than an english speaker can. However, when it comes to the imperfect, the english translation "used to" is very fitting while the germany language is a bit ambiguous here. (often requires words to specify what kind of imperfect aspect is meant, like "often" or "for a long time")
I think “didn’t you used to do that?” And all its variants should be considered almost correct by now due tho the sheer usefulness of the phrase and its frequency and universality in the language. Also it’s kinda funny because I’ve said used to so many times in my head it’s become this meaningless “yustu” thing to me. It’s kinda like when you realize that in your dialect curtain is pronounced “Kert’n”
Here's an example from my conlang: "I, as the king, am oppressed by parliament" - [oppress-1s-PROG PAS king-NOM-SUB parliament-ACC] - (mitta-s-la le ena-m-ere menisra-i (should be e but it's i after vowels) Mittasla le enamere menisrai
I really appreciate the way you break down languages and actually explain the way they work. I know you had to end the video early, but I think you should do some videos specific to the languages you mentioned here... Mad props for doing such good work.
Actually sir, there doesn't ever have existed any Hitchhiker's references, but this is hardly the time to be conjugating temporal verbs in the past impossible never tense!
My thought with this is it'd make sense if you were talking to an employee of the building you're in, and you used to work there, then quit, and have been rehired but haven't started working yet. Thus, "I will used to have worked here."
the second i saw the navajo example i was expecting to see toxicity on it in the comments but the ones that touch on that seem to be more chill about it, not accepting of it but chill. corrections such as those are the ones that all internet corrections should be like.
@@marcrosen999 You have to use the continuous form of the verb "shiru" in order to express the concept of knowing, otherwise it would be more like "to learn" or "to get to know". The plain forms of Japanese stative verbs express an inchoative aspect (the beginning of a state).
I'm really glad you called out the linguistic terminology for being Like That because all of the way-too-similar terms were making it hard to process it all
Edgar: "Or true auxilliary verbs and periphrasis, like in English." Me: *writes down periphrasis to find a definition later* Edgar: *GIVES DEFINITION* Thanks Artifexian! ^^;
Most of it comes down to terminology. There's a difference between "temporal-activated atonal activity" and "an activity which repeats at certain times"
I've watched the whole conlang playlist in a few days and enjoyed it really much, so take this comment as one big general like. I'd be very happy to hear more from you about the topic, but if not, I want to thank you that you share your hobby with us making high quality videos, that are free and accessible to everyone.
I don't know if this should go to Q&A, or if only a reply comment would be more acceptable, but here it goes: Now, one time when I was swimming recently when I was on vacation in Čanj, I remembered that, when it comes to writing, Korea is the most forward of all nations, because they use a featural alphabetical. So, I thought: "What if every language had their own featural alphabet?". And then, I remembered that, previous summer, in 2017, I got crazy deep into the Oa writing system you developed for your Oa conlang. Then, I got this crazy idea: "Could I, perhaps, take the Oa featural and modify it for my language? Add glyphs, remove glyphs and use some glyphs that in Oa represent a sound my language doesn't have for a similar sound that my language has and Oa doesn't? Before I do anything, I gotta wait for the next Artifexian video to ask Edgar for permission...". And that basically why I'm making this comment now, so I could ask you: May I use and modify the Oa featural for my language?
3:33 Actually German dialects are a bit playful with that. The am-Progressiv can be used to express a current action: "Ich bin am Lernen." or in other dialects "Ich bin beim Lernen." Literally "I'm at (the) learning", which means "I'm currently/right now learning."
That's a difficult question... I'd say I know the basics of most roof dialects (but be aware that they have a gazillion subdialects) and know a bit more about Bavarian, as I grew up with it. But I'm not an expert or anything.
Perfective and imperfective are not the only basic way to divide up aspects, it is the most common in European languages but not the only one. For example, the gnomic and episodic. The gnomic marks the action as being a general truth. The episodic marks the action as being a one-off thing. There are also loads of other aspectual distinctions that doesn't really fit into your aspect tree. Such as: the defective (the action is/was/will be about to occur), the pausative (the action has/will/ is stopping for a while) & the resumptive (the action has/is/ will start to happen again). Other than that, great video.
Ouch, that was not an easy topic to assimilate. I'll certainly need to rewatch that when I come up with verbs for my own conlang. It doesn't help that I'm not exactly familiar with the English grammar terms as I speak French. But I don't think there was any way to make this topic easier to understand, you did a pretty good job at summing it up. Edit: rewatching this now that I've read more about syntax and morphosyntax (and with a proper night of sleep) and it makes much more sense :)
You are one of the two TH-camrs I've seen who has mentioned stuff about Australian languages. Would you ever want to learn one, and if so which one? I'm teaching myself Gamilaraay, Kunwinjku and Yagara.
I was also confused and did not understand why it’s called like that here but did not see it as a reason to stop… I mean… that’s a fine example of how meaning of a new word is obvious from the context, the thing language learners face constantly, they should grasp it…
You can also split perfective. My language splits it into 3 categories. The whole action: Skočiti (to jump) Skočio sam - I jumped The beginning of an action Potrčati (to start running) Potrčao sam ka noj čim sam je video - I started running to her as soon as I saw her And the end of an action Pročitati (to finish reading) Pročitao sam knjigu juče - I finished reading the book yesterday. You can see by the English translation that everything is in the past tense because there can't be perfective present (the same reason as in the video for Russian). Also every verb in English has at least 2 different verbs in my language: poskočiti (to start jumping), skočiti (to jump), preskočiti (to finish jumping).
Edgar, thank you for referring me to the Cambridge series on linguistics. I have a few of those books now and will be reading the specific one that you mentioned here, as well as their book on mood and modality. When I have a spare day. Which hopefully will be soon.
I love your videos! If you take suggestions from comments (which, sense you have a patreon, I'm not sure if you do or not), I would love to see a video on creating alien species or original races or something along those lines.
I think Edgar sort of implies that it's super complex and individual to your world that you've made. And your own tastes. But I think he does go over how certain topics affect and are affected by biology and biochemistry.
I've always wanted to understand the ridiculous world of language-which-is-used-to-describe-language (tense being the very tip of the iceberg) - and I have found these videos incredibly clear and information dense, and am greatly grateful for them! thank you
English seems to occasionally allow stative verbs to take the progressive aspect in specific circumstances, such as in "I am loving these new shoes!" or "He's being a bad sport about it." Does anyone have an explanation for why those constructions are allowed but "I am knowing" isn't? I'm wracking my brain to find a pattern, but I really can't.
Nooo Russian aspect is rational and cool in concept (aside terrible realisation with multiple prefixes and affixes). That is English aspect that is blowing mind with perfect and in the same time have low ability to express subtle meanings))))))))))))
Interesting, as always! BTW - how would time travel affect a fictional conlang where time travel is possible? For example, you contrast "I used to work here" vs. "I will used to work here", which doesn't fit standard English... however, if my present 2018 self is, from my timeline's point of view, standing in front of my 1987 office circa 1985, I could technically say "I will have used to work here six years from now". I'm sure there are simpler ways to convey the facts, such as "I will work here from 1987 until 1990", but not the information/feeling, as in "five years hence, I will have left the job my present self has yet to take".
firstly, 10/10 steven universe reference, and secondly THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING THESE. i'm learning spanish atm and honesly i've got no clue on different verb tenses other than the basic present and preterite of the indicative mood
I feel like "I am knowing" has a very cosmic connotation in English. It uses the durative aspect of 'know', but avoids putting any starting point to the action, implying that the knowledge is totally innate. "I am knowing" is the sort of phrase you'd expect to hear from a god, or some enlightened monk.
It is possible to have Continuous and Progressive aspects, as Continuous describes the state of a noun, and Progressive describes the dynamic quality of an action.
Perhaps in the modern form of my conlang, "I eat" may be the habitual without the marking because I wouldn't just say "I eat right now" in my conlang. Gives it some diversity in the use of aspect and some evolution. Also "I will used to work here" is perfectly logical in my conlang
4:08 The aspectual meaning conveyed by "used to" is not the habitual. It is the usitative (basically a different name for the specifically past tense form of the habitual) this is why it cannot be applied to the future. The future habitual is possible to make (at some point in the future the subject will be habitually performing the action) and the present is also possible (the subject is habitually performing the action). Eg, in AAVE (African American Vernacular English) the phrase "He be workin'" would mean that he is currently habitually working. Just wanted to mention that that is the reason "will used to" doesn't make sense in English.
Note, it is possible for "will used to" to carry meaning but it wouldn't be the future tense it would be some relative tense like past-in-the-future basically "I will used to work here" would mean "At some point in the future, I will no longer work here". The future habitual; however, would mean "At some point in the future, I will habitually work here". They're very different meanings because of the incoded past tense of "used to".
Interesting video as always, Edgar. Especially the portion of lexicon aspect which seems all the more interesting. Still, it is interesting to know what one CAN'T do with either form of aspect rather than what they CAN do since it really forces a wordbuilder to really think And considering how wide a d diverse the aspect subject is due to your mention of the various links in the description, it would probably be best for one to not go too deep into it without a few conlang under their belt. Still, a useful video to ponder.
The Russian’s verbs of motion and only they do have habitual and continuous aspects: ходить (habitual) vs. Идти (continuous) = to go. Both are imperferctive hence both of them have present tense, yet if you add a time-limiting prefix to a habitual verb, it remains imperfective, but if you add it to a continuous verb, it becomes perfective.
Tagalog actually has the contemplative aspect, which tells that the verb is not been done, but the subject is thinking on doing it. MAGLAlakad ako. I will walk. (Walking still hasn't happened, but will happen.) We also have the kaka aspect, Idk the formal term for it but it's like this: KALAlakad ko lang. I just walked.
Activity :state Transitive : intransitive Wiradjuri has one where an activity has been interrupted, then continued. (as in to stop to eat or sleep) such as travelling. ..
An important point: Setting apart tense from aspect is mostly unnatural, but some weird languages do (specially Mayan ones). However, it's completely unacceptable to put the morpheme with the tense between the root and the aspect's morpheme. This is if you want to be naturalistic.
this video is a real gem. but the idea I had for a verb system was have a prefix that starts when the verb started and a suffix for when it ended. this would make all verbs nonintanious.
In Hebrew it’s much easier, we have just four tenses and nothing more, for example, the sentence ״הלכתי לבית הספר״ can be translated to “I was walking to school”/“I have walked to school”/“I walk to school” independ on the context.
I really like the channel. I just wish, as I am a Native American, you would have not used such a stereotypical phrase in the Navajo example to show your point. I know this was not intentional and you meant nothing by it. It just jumped out at me as an interesting choice to use a stereotype like that to illustrate the point. Thank you for the great content and continued education.
He may have been relying on the source material's examples as a result of not knowing any Navajo as picking other sentences may have resulted in incorrect translation as once again he doesn't know Navajo. In that case, you could blame the source material. Or the source's sources. Just a thing to keep in mind. I'm sure Artifexian would never purposely perpetuate a stereotype about a people.
Aaron, I am really sorry about this. I genuinely didn't know that these phrases where stereotypical. Since I don't speak Navajo, these phrases where plucked from the various sources in the description. I didn't even cross my mind to consider that negative stereotypes had made there way into the literature. Please know this was not an intentional move on my part and again I'm sorry it has happened. I will bring this up on my podcast (where I correct any mistakes I make) and will do my best to rectify this. Thank you for pointing this out.
I understand the situation and understand cultural ignorance. I take no offense. I was sure that you did not do this to perpetuate any stereotypes. I assumed it had to do with source materials.
In defense of the literature: linguists have to work with what native speakers say to them. This is: they can't come up with their own sentences since their linguistic knowledge can pollute the sample. The only way we can guide the discourse is through interviews and alike, but still we can't get nice unpolitical, controversial sentences if the speaker goes there. This forces us to work with whatever we hear from speakers, regardless of political sensitivities. It's sad? Yeah. But we can't do anything else.
Huh, isn’t the habitual like: “i work regularly”? And Future habitual would be: “I’ll work regularly”, instead of “I will used to work”. The last one would be Past Future Habitual.
In German you use a different auxiliary verb depending if the main verb is static or dynamic. The fun thing is that the verb "to stay " work like a dynamic verb
Fantastic video ad always! However there’s a spelling error at 4:30 - the 3rd person singular is not “mangiavam” but “mangiava” in Italian. Anyway I really like this video
3:53 LOOOOOOL Why it's so funny?! Correct form would be 'прочитал', but 'ь' ending is using in the internet like reference to this meme - memepedia.ru/ya-sdelyal/
Two questions for your Q&A: What are some languages that make excessive use of polysemous and compound words, perferably in conjunction (e.g. "blue" is "sky-color", "sky" is "up", and "color" is "see". So, "blue" becomes "up-see")? I'm creating a simplistic feeling conlang (granted it's been on the back burner for a while) and wanted to make great use of those features to keep the base word count down. Are there any other techniques that I could use as well in order to cut down on the base word count? Also, in your earlier videos you were creating a conlang while teaching us the concepts. Is there any way you can put that element of your videos back in? I'd like to see your language as it develops and it's helpful to watch an example of a language being built as I learn about the concepts.
Case in Slovak and Czech (and I assume Polish as well) is a bitch in particular, as perfective case is formed with prefixes, but different prefixes are used with different verbs in different contexts. For example, whilst "citat" means to read in general, and "precitat" implies a finished action, there is also "docitat", which refers specifically to the act of finishing a book.
I see iterative as "to x again and again" An example from my conlang Cosiru /tʃosiru/ "We hit eachother again and again" Or in use "we fought eachother"
Technically there is a mess with perfectiveness distinction in Russian: буду читать (will read/will be reading), прочитаю (will read thoroughly), почитаю (will read a bit). There can be more variety for other words. Прочитаю actually looks like a perfective form of present tense, so one can argue that we have no grammatic future tense, but express it through present perfective form for future perfective and, for future imperfective, with the help of a verb "быть" (which cognates with "to be") just as English does with "will". The forms are (ranging through 1s 1p 2s 2p 3s 3p): буду, будем, будешь, будете, будет, будут. And they in turn look like present imperfective forms! Compare to "идти" (to walk) in present imperfective up to е/ё: иду, идём, идёшь, идёте, идёт, идут. Also there's the habitual aspect: читал (did read/was reading) vs почитал (have read) vs почитывал (did read from time to time).
Hey, you skipped "Terminal" in your list of subaspects - at least the video and the audio disagree. Also, would it be possible to subdivide the Perfective?
Cool video as always. Long time subscriber and I was wondering how much you know about deep sea environments like the sulfur vents/brine pools? I had a cool idea about a race of medieval-tech crustaceous people on an ice-shell planet who's culture revolves around the livestock they cultivate around the vents/pools. Does a sci-fi sea life video sound like something you'd do in the future?
I wouldn't say "I will used to work here" but I might say "I will have used to work here." And I don't think it would be just a future habitual, it would be a past in the future habitual.
3:30 German verbs do contain aspect but are treated like tenses. There are four actual tenses (Present, Past, Future I, Future II) as well as the tenses literally called Perfekt and Plusquamperfekt which ist Perfekt in the past. So in German you can't express an aspect and tense together in a verb although Perfekt is considered to be the tense between past ans present and Plusquamperfekt to be back even further than past.
As I understand it the habitual aspect does exist in English. African-American Vernacular English to be specific. As heard for example in the _ehem_ "masterpiece" Break Up by Mario featuring Gucci Mane & Sean Garrett: "See I be driving through your hood, why would you want to break up?"
"I will used to work here" is the rawest way to give your two weeks
yes, especially considering that by using the past tense making it feel like a "future past habitual"
But “I’ll be working here” would convey the same meaning, with the imperfective aspect, wouldn’t it?
@@andresmandianes2891 No. "I'll be working here" means that, in the future, you will work at that place. "I will used to work here" isn't grammatically correct English, but if it were, it would mean that in the future, you will have stopped working there.
I will have used to work here
I’ll’ve used to work here
That Navajo example got dark very quickly
I agree
Considering the unfortunate Native American tendency towards alcoholism...
Fun fact: There is a high rate of alcoholism but also Native Americans have the highest rates of total alcohol abstinence of any racial group.
In the United States people want to make English the official language. Originally I proposed that we should make a Native language the official language. Navajo is off the list.
@@GallowglassAxe On that note, maybe we could have a US citizen test that's basically a Navajo language test? Isolationists and indigenous activists could finally get behind the same thing! /s
All I hear is Artifexian saying words I havent heard before
I'm pretty sure you've heard the word "Interwebs" once or twice :)
Anti-fascist something
Yea,i never heard of the word: "a"
The infamous "eureka" (I found it!) is actually the Greek perfect of the verb meaning "to search": because once you've completed your searching (perfect aspect), it means you've found what you were looking for.
Yes, and it's a funny thing for English speakers to realize they are the ones who are complicating things by using two different verbs for the concept of searching (find and search) when they are really the same action but just different aspects. Usually English speakers are complaining about languages like Russian doing this with other verbs.
@@iMacxXuserXx485is it the same thing? Let's say "I have searched". That doesn't necessarily mean I've found what I'm looking for, only that I'm done looking.
Why INfamous?
“PERFECT OF RECENCY”
YES! THIS! You have given me the words to express a grammatical difference between American English and British English that I’ve been passively trying for years to understand and explain. We Americans don’t tend to use the perfect of recently. Where a Brit would say “I’ve just seen Opal,” an American (at least this one, from Kansas) would say “I just saw Opal.” To my American ears, saying “I’ve just seen Opal” either sounds like I just saw Opal, but, like... very Britishly... or it sounds like I’ve only merely seen Opal (like the perfect of experience). Perhaps she’s a coworker but I’ve never worked with her or talked to her, I’ve just seen her. (This one only works because of the double meaning of the adverb “just”)
you can clarify between the perfect of experience and the perfect of recency by saying "i've only seen Opal"
As an American from the Inland PNW, I can confirm there are some regions of the US that are more split on the issue
I mean you can say "I will have used to work here"
which basically means you don't work here now, but expect to work there in the future, and then even further in the future you expect to not work there anymore
You could but it's super, super marked and definitely not 'correct' English.
@@Artifexian it sounds natural enough though
sounds perfectly natural to me too, just super marked as you say and so unlikely to be used except in a small number of very specific circumstances
Niko L it’s used that’s the problem. Maybe “I will have once used to work here?” Or “I will have used to work here in the future.” Neither feel right.
@@Lucy-ng7cw
A: didn't you used to work here?
B: I will have used to work here. I handed my notice in today
It's a humourous mirroring of the structure of the question rather than what would otherwise be said, but it sounds grammatical to me
Navajo represent! :) Still trying my best to learn my nation's language, but it's gonna take a while with all our verb tenses, heh. Thanks for mentioning us, Artifexian! Ahéhee'!
Duolingo's coming out with a course soon! Can't wait!
Same here, I'm learning my NA language of my ancestors.
What does Ahéhee mean?
@Ashwin M Iyer "Thank you"
Kurt Jordan Ahéhee'!
@Ashwin M Iyer Aoo’ bíighah 👌🏽
It took me a long time to wrap my head around the concept of aspect. My native language is Swedish which, like German, doesn't have grammatical aspect. I still managed to learn English but could never get the preterite and imperfect right in Spanish. It wasn't until I started taking an interest in Chinese (which is all about aspect) that it finally clicked. Swedish does have a neat trick when it comes to marking the progressive aspect though: just add another verb with a strong inherent progressive aspect. "I sit and watch TH-cam" = "I'm watching TH-cam". "I stand and make food" = "I'm making food".
You'd have relative difficulty learning my conlang then. There is no tense
My aspects are: imperfective, Perfective, perfect, progressive, habitual
The citation form is the Perfective, while habitual is used depending on the type of verb it is, and changes between dialects. Progressive and Imperfective are pretty normal, but perfect is very hard to understand when it plays a role in semantics
@@parthiancapitalist2733 Conlangers don't bring up their conlang completely unprompted challenge (impossible)
hahahaha @@smergthedargon8974
I've always disliked the fact that "used to" can only be used in one form; converting "You used to do that" to a question yields "Did you use to do that" or "Did you used to do that," which both seem wrong even though they're still in the same tense and being used in exactly the same way.
Huh! I use the second one all the time. Might just be a Hiberno-English thing though.
In historic texts I've seen "ust to" which makes a lot of sense.
Artifexian
Definitely not. I’m on the east coast of the U.S. The second one is used all the time around here.
Funny that you mention hiberno-english here.
I am a german learning the irish language and usually it seems a german can relate to the grammatical features of Irish more than an english speaker can. However, when it comes to the imperfect, the english translation "used to" is very fitting while the germany language is a bit ambiguous here. (often requires words to specify what kind of imperfect aspect is meant, like "often" or "for a long time")
I think “didn’t you used to do that?” And all its variants should be considered almost correct by now due tho the sheer usefulness of the phrase and its frequency and universality in the language. Also it’s kinda funny because I’ve said used to so many times in my head it’s become this meaningless “yustu” thing to me. It’s kinda like when you realize that in your dialect curtain is pronounced “Kert’n”
I am a linguist by education and I absolutely love this channel.
Coool! Thanks for watching, pal.
Oh ur a linguist? Cool! I'd like to discuss conlanging
Here's an example from my conlang: "I, as the king, am oppressed by parliament" - [oppress-1s-PROG PAS king-NOM-SUB parliament-ACC] - (mitta-s-la le ena-m-ere menisra-i (should be e but it's i after vowels)
Mittasla le enamere menisrai
Love the Steven universe reference
Yeah that confused me for half a second before I remembered SU
x2
I missed it! Where was it?
@@TyeFuchs It starts at 2:45!
I really appreciate the way you break down languages and actually explain the way they work. I know you had to end the video early, but I think you should do some videos specific to the languages you mentioned here... Mad props for doing such good work.
8:56 Gnomic
When an action has been done with playfully malicious intentions by a gnome.
My favorite aspect
So, in an aspect where future im/perfective verbs are mentioned, there are Steven Universe references but no Hitchiker's Guide references?
I've been watching SU recently, it's been on my mind.
I've been wondering if you had seen it or not, cause it has some nifty worldbuilding
Of all the quasi-exposure I've had to the show, this tidbit might actually make me break down and watch it.
Steven Universe fan lol
Actually sir, there doesn't ever have existed any Hitchhiker's references, but this is hardly the time to be conjugating temporal verbs in the past impossible never tense!
I’m going to have to watch your grammar videos again several times when I make my own conlang! Great video as always!
Thanks for the hard work on these vids.
Here's my question for the QA: What do you think about developing different accents for your conlangs?
"Soon, I'll used to have worked here."
Doesn't that work?
Not if you want to get hired.
You added "have", or the perfect aspect, so "Soon, I'll used to worked here." is still wrong
Soon, i will have worked here
My thought with this is it'd make sense if you were talking to an employee of the building you're in, and you used to work there, then quit, and have been rehired but haven't started working yet. Thus, "I will used to have worked here."
the second i saw the navajo example i was expecting to see toxicity on it in the comments but the ones that touch on that seem to be more chill about it, not accepting of it but chill. corrections such as those are the ones that all internet corrections should be like.
Fully agree.
That bit about Hopi is why that mysticism about Hopis having no concept of time came about.
In other words, Whorf was a fool.
Q&A question: If you could introduce one feature from another language into English, what would it be?
I'd introduce the cyrilic alphabet. Just to fuck with people.
Echo Ambiance Good Idea! I'll introduce the overcomplicated Japanese writing system then!
Naturally, at the same time as cyrillic, oh, and the han character for "enzyme"
ah yes kay(f)dan(f)san(t)ap(t)vlir(t)sang(b)es(p)u(t)vom(b)ngag(t)vlim(p)kay(f)sna(f)kay(f)ga(f) bop(t)veg(p)daf(f)shof(b)*om(p)vlim(p)ga(f)vlim(p)ga(f)
Phonetic spelling!
"I am knowing" is perfectly fine in Japanese.
Also in Hindi
@@hustlewithhimanshu8899 wait how??🤔😶
@@shreyanshmohta
Tum jaan rahe ho main kya kah raha hun.
(you're knowing what I'm saying.)
What does it mean compared to 'I know'?
@@marcrosen999 You have to use the continuous form of the verb "shiru" in order to express the concept of knowing, otherwise it would be more like "to learn" or "to get to know". The plain forms of Japanese stative verbs express an inchoative aspect (the beginning of a state).
I'm really glad you called out the linguistic terminology for being Like That because all of the way-too-similar terms were making it hard to process it all
If you're passionate on a certain topic, will you ever make a longer more in depth video on it?
Probably not. There's only so much time I can give to this topic unfortunately.
@@Artifexian This is me personally, but I wouldn't mind a 30 to hour long language video
Matthew Then me neither. I want more. ☺
Matthew Then same
I miss the old background music from right before the cryogenical freezing
I absolutely videos that pack in so much if for this. Thank you for taking the time to be so thorough!
Edgar: "Or true auxilliary verbs and periphrasis, like in English."
Me: *writes down periphrasis to find a definition later*
Edgar: *GIVES DEFINITION*
Thanks Artifexian! ^^;
I am equally fascinated and utterly overwhelmed by the complexity of languages. I wish I could really get my head round this stuff.
Most of it comes down to terminology. There's a difference between "temporal-activated atonal activity" and "an activity which repeats at certain times"
I've watched the whole conlang playlist in a few days and enjoyed it really much, so take this comment as one big general like.
I'd be very happy to hear more from you about the topic, but if not, I want to thank you that you share your hobby with us making high quality videos, that are free and accessible to everyone.
Too good to not comment on.
Love how you really dig the way languages over-complicate things.
I know it's great. Languages are bananas...love 'em. :)
I don't know if this should go to Q&A, or if only a reply comment would be more acceptable, but here it goes:
Now, one time when I was swimming recently when I was on vacation in Čanj,
I remembered that, when it comes to writing, Korea is the most forward of all nations, because they use a featural alphabetical. So, I thought: "What if every language had their own featural alphabet?". And then, I remembered that, previous summer, in 2017, I got crazy deep into the Oa writing system you developed for your Oa conlang. Then, I got this crazy idea: "Could I, perhaps, take the Oa featural and modify it for my language? Add glyphs, remove glyphs and use some glyphs that in Oa represent a sound my language doesn't have for a similar sound that my language has and Oa doesn't? Before I do anything, I gotta wait for the next Artifexian video to ask Edgar for permission...". And that basically why I'm making this comment now, so I could ask you:
May I use and modify the Oa featural for my language?
Sure pal. Go for it. :)
+Artifexian Thanks.
3:33 Actually German dialects are a bit playful with that. The am-Progressiv can be used to express a current action: "Ich bin am Lernen." or in other dialects "Ich bin beim Lernen." Literally "I'm at (the) learning", which means "I'm currently/right now learning."
Moritz Ernst Jacob which German dialects do you know?
That's a difficult question... I'd say I know the basics of most roof dialects (but be aware that they have a gazillion subdialects) and know a bit more about Bavarian, as I grew up with it. But I'm not an expert or anything.
I can add that the am-Progressive (as in "I bi am lerne") is way more common in Alemannic dialects than for example "I lern grad".
Would "learning" be treated as a noun like how we do in English?
"The liking of linguistics" - liking is a noun
Perfective and imperfective are not the only basic way to divide up aspects, it is the most common in European languages but not the only one. For example, the gnomic and episodic. The gnomic marks the action as being a general truth. The episodic marks the action as being a one-off thing. There are also loads of other aspectual distinctions that doesn't really fit into your aspect tree. Such as: the defective (the action is/was/will be about to occur), the pausative (the action has/will/ is stopping for a while) & the resumptive (the action has/is/ will start to happen again). Other than that, great video.
Ouch, that was not an easy topic to assimilate. I'll certainly need to rewatch that when I come up with verbs for my own conlang. It doesn't help that I'm not exactly familiar with the English grammar terms as I speak French. But I don't think there was any way to make this topic easier to understand, you did a pretty good job at summing it up.
Edit: rewatching this now that I've read more about syntax and morphosyntax (and with a proper night of sleep) and it makes much more sense :)
You are one of the two TH-camrs I've seen who has mentioned stuff about Australian languages. Would you ever want to learn one, and if so which one? I'm teaching myself Gamilaraay, Kunwinjku and Yagara.
Woah, that's super cool. Australian Aboriginal languages. Us indigenous have to stick together, JK. I would like to learn one.
This is a gem among excellent videos about grammar.
New video yeee
We need an Artifexian Discord server
Jakub Kalfa YES!!
steven universe references: I sleep
"Navajo has 12 primary aspects" : *homestuck reference alarm bells start going off in my brain*
8:13 It looks like you forgot Terminal in the voice recording and just faded it in together with Prolongative. And you didn't think we'd notice! :P
No I knew well you'd spot it. But it wasn't worth recording the whole audio just for one word.
Checking the "doobly-doo" for references...
I miss the doobly-doo
People were getting confused. I had to stop… :(
I was also confused and did not understand why it’s called like that here but did not see it as a reason to stop… I mean… that’s a fine example of how meaning of a new word is obvious from the context, the thing language learners face constantly, they should grasp it…
completion in the future is possible: "I will have completed the task", "I will have read the book"
Glad to hear about Navajo grammar
You can also split perfective. My language splits it into 3 categories.
The whole action:
Skočiti (to jump)
Skočio sam - I jumped
The beginning of an action
Potrčati (to start running)
Potrčao sam ka noj čim sam je video - I started running to her as soon as I saw her
And the end of an action
Pročitati (to finish reading)
Pročitao sam knjigu juče - I finished reading the book yesterday.
You can see by the English translation that everything is in the past tense because there can't be perfective present (the same reason as in the video for Russian).
Also every verb in English has at least 2 different verbs in my language: poskočiti (to start jumping), skočiti (to jump), preskočiti (to finish jumping).
what languages is that
@@JoelFeila Serbian
so inchoative perfect and telic?
Edgar, thank you for referring me to the Cambridge series on linguistics. I have a few of those books now and will be reading the specific one that you mentioned here, as well as their book on mood and modality. When I have a spare day. Which hopefully will be soon.
I have the bell button clicked. Why did I not receive a notification for this? Thankfully I happened to be checking the page anyway.
Because youtube couldn't care less about me or you or anyone other than massive musicians and late night talk show hosts.
I love your videos! If you take suggestions from comments (which, sense you have a patreon, I'm not sure if you do or not), I would love to see a video on creating alien species or original races or something along those lines.
I think Edgar sort of implies that it's super complex and individual to your world that you've made. And your own tastes. But I think he does go over how certain topics affect and are affected by biology and biochemistry.
This gave me flashbacks to the Preterite and Imperfect sections from Spanish class
I've always wanted to understand the ridiculous world of language-which-is-used-to-describe-language (tense being the very tip of the iceberg) - and I have found these videos incredibly clear and information dense, and am greatly grateful for them! thank you
as soon as he starts describing navajo i start crying. every time
English seems to occasionally allow stative verbs to take the progressive aspect in specific circumstances, such as in "I am loving these new shoes!" or "He's being a bad sport about it." Does anyone have an explanation for why those constructions are allowed but "I am knowing" isn't? I'm wracking my brain to find a pattern, but I really can't.
2015 me making my first conlang: hmmm what if i used all of this
English aspect : *okay*
Russian aspect : *bit hard but maybe I can manage*
Navajo aspect : *brain shuts down*
Nooo Russian aspect is rational and cool in concept (aside terrible realisation with multiple prefixes and affixes). That is English aspect that is blowing mind with perfect and in the same time have low ability to express subtle meanings))))))))))))
everytime you upload a video i watch it like 30 times
Interesting, as always! BTW - how would time travel affect a fictional conlang where time travel is possible? For example, you contrast "I used to work here" vs. "I will used to work here", which doesn't fit standard English... however, if my present 2018 self is, from my timeline's point of view, standing in front of my 1987 office circa 1985, I could technically say "I will have used to work here six years from now". I'm sure there are simpler ways to convey the facts, such as "I will work here from 1987 until 1990", but not the information/feeling, as in "five years hence, I will have left the job my present self has yet to take".
firstly, 10/10 steven universe reference, and secondly THANK YOU FOR EXPLAINING THESE. i'm learning spanish atm and honesly i've got no clue on different verb tenses other than the basic present and preterite of the indicative mood
Moment completed, thank goodness or I'd have to try it again , time to move on to the next moment.
I feel like "I am knowing" has a very cosmic connotation in English. It uses the durative aspect of 'know', but avoids putting any starting point to the action, implying that the knowledge is totally innate. "I am knowing" is the sort of phrase you'd expect to hear from a god, or some enlightened monk.
Also I'm gonna have progressive aspect on activity and state. It seems interesting
Jesus, this was an excellent explanation of lexical aspect. Thank you :)
that haircut! ❤ lookin good artifexian!
It is possible to have Continuous and Progressive aspects, as Continuous describes the state of a noun, and Progressive describes the dynamic quality of an action.
@artifexian
You are aware that perfect is also calsled retrospective right? and it has an opposite of Prospective?
Yes. I didn't want to introduce more terminology AND I want to poke fun at linguistics for a crappy naming convention.
Perhaps in the modern form of my conlang, "I eat" may be the habitual without the marking because I wouldn't just say "I eat right now" in my conlang. Gives it some diversity in the use of aspect and some evolution. Also "I will used to work here" is perfectly logical in my conlang
Man I missed that smooth jazz
Jaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzz! ::waves hands like a 20s Flapper girl::
4:08
The aspectual meaning conveyed by "used to" is not the habitual. It is the usitative (basically a different name for the specifically past tense form of the habitual) this is why it cannot be applied to the future. The future habitual is possible to make (at some point in the future the subject will be habitually performing the action) and the present is also possible (the subject is habitually performing the action). Eg, in AAVE (African American Vernacular English) the phrase "He be workin'" would mean that he is currently habitually working. Just wanted to mention that that is the reason "will used to" doesn't make sense in English.
Note, it is possible for "will used to" to carry meaning but it wouldn't be the future tense it would be some relative tense like past-in-the-future basically "I will used to work here" would mean "At some point in the future, I will no longer work here". The future habitual; however, would mean "At some point in the future, I will habitually work here". They're very different meanings because of the incoded past tense of "used to".
Another great video Edgar 👍
Noticed the multiple SU references.
"I will have been working here" 4:14
although that doesn't have connonations of necessarily stopping
Interesting video as always, Edgar. Especially the portion of lexicon aspect which seems all the more interesting. Still, it is interesting to know what one CAN'T do with either form of aspect rather than what they CAN do since it really forces a wordbuilder to really think
And considering how wide a d diverse the aspect subject is due to your mention of the various links in the description, it would probably be best for one to not go too deep into it without a few conlang under their belt. Still, a useful video to ponder.
This video is a gem.
The Russian’s verbs of motion and only they do have habitual and continuous aspects: ходить (habitual) vs. Идти (continuous) = to go. Both are imperferctive hence both of them have present tense, yet if you add a time-limiting prefix to a habitual verb, it remains imperfective, but if you add it to a continuous verb, it becomes perfective.
Thanks, Edgar! This one was fascinating, especially because I've been attempting to Navajo. I have not been successful. It's MUCH harder than Irish!
You could say “I will have used to work here” and that would be okay. (?)
I just ask that question on discord and some say yes some say no
Tagalog actually has the contemplative aspect, which tells that the verb is not been done, but the subject is thinking on doing it.
MAGLAlakad ako. I will walk. (Walking still hasn't happened, but will happen.)
We also have the kaka aspect, Idk the formal term for it but it's like this:
KALAlakad ko lang. I just walked.
I am loving this video!
I've just seen Opal the other day. What a magical, rare sight.
I remember reading that the Perfect aspect has another name, the Retrospective aspect. Then its opposite is the Prospective aspect.
Yes I have seen this nomenclature before.
Woohoo! Artifexian! Woo! Woo! Woo!
Activity :state
Transitive : intransitive
Wiradjuri has one where an activity has been interrupted, then continued. (as in to stop to eat or sleep) such as travelling. ..
An important point: Setting apart tense from aspect is mostly unnatural, but some weird languages do (specially Mayan ones). However, it's completely unacceptable to put the morpheme with the tense between the root and the aspect's morpheme. This is if you want to be naturalistic.
this video is a real gem.
but the idea I had for a verb system was have a prefix that starts when the verb started and a suffix for when it ended. this would make all verbs nonintanious.
4:08 yes we can, and we do! We've all had one of those jobs where we say "Someday I will forget I worked this job"
In Hebrew it’s much easier, we have just four tenses and nothing more, for example, the sentence ״הלכתי לבית הספר״ can be translated to “I was walking to school”/“I have walked to school”/“I walk to school” independ on the context.
When really looking at Language it really is quite a complicated thing.
I really like the channel. I just wish, as I am a Native American, you would have not used such a stereotypical phrase in the Navajo example to show your point. I know this was not intentional and you meant nothing by it. It just jumped out at me as an interesting choice to use a stereotype like that to illustrate the point. Thank you for the great content and continued education.
Aaron Otto yeah, the references to alcoholism and inhalant abuse aren't a good look
He may have been relying on the source material's examples as a result of not knowing any Navajo as picking other sentences may have resulted in incorrect translation as once again he doesn't know Navajo. In that case, you could blame the source material. Or the source's sources.
Just a thing to keep in mind. I'm sure Artifexian would never purposely perpetuate a stereotype about a people.
Aaron, I am really sorry about this. I genuinely didn't know that these phrases where stereotypical. Since I don't speak Navajo, these phrases where plucked from the various sources in the description. I didn't even cross my mind to consider that negative stereotypes had made there way into the literature.
Please know this was not an intentional move on my part and again I'm sorry it has happened. I will bring this up on my podcast (where I correct any mistakes I make) and will do my best to rectify this.
Thank you for pointing this out.
I understand the situation and understand cultural ignorance. I take no offense. I was sure that you did not do this to perpetuate any stereotypes. I assumed it had to do with source materials.
In defense of the literature: linguists have to work with what native speakers say to them. This is: they can't come up with their own sentences since their linguistic knowledge can pollute the sample. The only way we can guide the discourse is through interviews and alike, but still we can't get nice unpolitical, controversial sentences if the speaker goes there. This forces us to work with whatever we hear from speakers, regardless of political sensitivities.
It's sad? Yeah. But we can't do anything else.
Huh, isn’t the habitual like: “i work regularly”? And Future habitual would be: “I’ll work regularly”, instead of “I will used to work”. The last one would be Past Future Habitual.
In German you use a different auxiliary verb depending if the main verb is static or dynamic. The fun thing is that the verb "to stay " work like a dynamic verb
Fantastic video ad always! However there’s a spelling error at 4:30 - the 3rd person singular is not “mangiavam” but “mangiava” in Italian. Anyway I really like this video
3:53 LOOOOOOL Why it's so funny?! Correct form would be 'прочитал', but 'ь' ending is using in the internet like reference to this meme - memepedia.ru/ya-sdelyal/
Two questions for your Q&A:
What are some languages that make excessive use of polysemous and compound words, perferably in conjunction (e.g. "blue" is "sky-color", "sky" is "up", and "color" is "see". So, "blue" becomes "up-see")? I'm creating a simplistic feeling conlang (granted it's been on the back burner for a while) and wanted to make great use of those features to keep the base word count down. Are there any other techniques that I could use as well in order to cut down on the base word count?
Also, in your earlier videos you were creating a conlang while teaching us the concepts. Is there any way you can put that element of your videos back in? I'd like to see your language as it develops and it's helpful to watch an example of a language being built as I learn about the concepts.
Case in Slovak and Czech (and I assume Polish as well) is a bitch in particular, as perfective case is formed with prefixes, but different prefixes are used with different verbs in different contexts. For example, whilst "citat" means to read in general, and "precitat" implies a finished action, there is also "docitat", which refers specifically to the act of finishing a book.
I see iterative as "to x again and again"
An example from my conlang
Cosiru
/tʃosiru/
"We hit eachother again and again"
Or in use
"we fought eachother"
Q&A: What would you believe to be the ideal vowel-consonant ratio in a language, and how is Oa doing?
Technically there is a mess with perfectiveness distinction in Russian: буду читать (will read/will be reading), прочитаю (will read thoroughly), почитаю (will read a bit). There can be more variety for other words.
Прочитаю actually looks like a perfective form of present tense, so one can argue that we have no grammatic future tense, but express it through present perfective form for future perfective and, for future imperfective, with the help of a verb "быть" (which cognates with "to be") just as English does with "will".
The forms are (ranging through 1s 1p 2s 2p 3s 3p): буду, будем, будешь, будете, будет, будут.
And they in turn look like present imperfective forms!
Compare to "идти" (to walk) in present imperfective up to е/ё: иду, идём, идёшь, идёте, идёт, идут.
Also there's the habitual aspect: читал (did read/was reading) vs почитал (have read) vs почитывал (did read from time to time).
4:06 "I will have used to work here" no?
Hey, you skipped "Terminal" in your list of subaspects - at least the video and the audio disagree.
Also, would it be possible to subdivide the Perfective?
Cool video as always. Long time subscriber and I was wondering how much you know about deep sea environments like the sulfur vents/brine pools? I had a cool idea about a race of medieval-tech crustaceous people on an ice-shell planet who's culture revolves around the livestock they cultivate around the vents/pools. Does a sci-fi sea life video sound like something you'd do in the future?
I wouldn't say "I will used to work here" but I might say "I will have used to work here." And I don't think it would be just a future habitual, it would be a past in the future habitual.
Very well done. I made a Navajo video too but just speaking, no grammatical description.
3:30 German verbs do contain aspect but are treated like tenses. There are four actual tenses (Present, Past, Future I, Future II) as well as the tenses literally called Perfekt and Plusquamperfekt which ist Perfekt in the past. So in German you can't express an aspect and tense together in a verb although Perfekt is considered to be the tense between past ans present and Plusquamperfekt to be back even further than past.
As I understand it the habitual aspect does exist in English. African-American Vernacular English to be specific. As heard for example in the _ehem_ "masterpiece" Break Up by Mario featuring Gucci Mane & Sean Garrett: "See I be driving through your hood, why would you want to break up?"