My first encounter with moods in English was when I discovered the fact that it's called "If I were" and not "If I was", despite the fact that "was" is usually the correct inflexion of "to be" in the first-person past tense. However, since it's in the subjunctive mood, it doesn't follow the standard rule.
It helps if you look at sister Germanic languages. Most have simplified their verb conjugations and dispensed with a separate inflected subjunctive mood altogether but German and Icelandic have retained it: Past indicative: I was - ich war - ég var. Past subjunctive: I were - ich wäre - ég væri. Apart from the verb to be, the subjunctive is no longer a productive verb conjugation in English, either, and even that is often ignored in daily speech.
Was for 1st & 3rd singular persons, were for conditionals & everything else. I speak a dialect where were has taken over more than just conditionals for 1st and 3rd persons, and I rarely use was.
English can do the same thing as the Mandarin example: I can go I can’t go (I’m too tired) I can *not* go (if I’m too tired this evening-note the location of the prosodic emphasis) I can’t not go (they need me there)
Yeah Turkish can do this.Let me show you an example: Gidebilirim (I can go) Gidemem(I can't go) Gidemeye*bilirim* (I can *not* go) The last form can't be displayed in one word but here, a translation: Gitmemezlik edemem.(I can't not go)
I don't think it would be formally appropriate in English and it's generally less clear when written, but since I speak Mandarin I do use this feature quite frequently when I speak English. And the way I try to circumvent the "informal" aspect of this feature by using negating prefixes to the verbs if possible.
Same in french. Je peux y aller → I can go Je ne peux pas y aller → I can't go Je peux ne pas y aller → I can not go Je ne peux pas ne pas y aller → I can't not go
@@blaizecramer6052 In which English dialect would it be weird or incorrect? As far as I can tell it's part of the language core, that is to say beyond the governance of dialects.
@@Artifexian Probably dosnt help that im not bi-lingual in any way. So even comprehending how another language is structured seems so alien, let alone how langue itself is structured.
4:30 I feel like there should be a second between permissive and obligative modality, perhaps advisory. Zoe should go. The speaker indicates that it is possible, that it is not necessary, but that it is _not_ insubstantial if she doesn't.
Speaking of Mandarin, there's actually a 3-way dynamic split (instead of just the abilitive / votive he talks about). For example: In all cases, these sentences are glossed "I no *can* play basketball" with a different kind of *can* each time. 我不 *会* 打篮球: I don't know how to play basketball 我不 *能* 打篮球: I physically can't play basketball (maybe my legs are broken, or the court is locked and I can't get in) 我不 *可以* 打篮球: I may not play basketball (someone says it's not allowed) (not a native Chinese speaker, please correct me if I'm wrong)
I believe that the last two modal verbs (能 and 可以) are used interchangeably in Mandarin Chinese; the only difference might be that 能 feels a bit stronger. You also usually don't use 不可以 to signify physical impossibilities (that could be more of a collocation issue), but other than that I'm fine with interchanging 能 and 可以. Speaking of these works and modalities: _(I'll be using "·" to separate words for Chinese)_ 会 may be used to convey two different event modalities: 我·会·打·篮球 conveys abilitive modality, while 我·会·跟·你·打·篮球 [1sg. - modal v. _will_ - with - 2sg. - v.hit - n.basketball] (I will play basketball with you) conveys a volitive one (one can also argue that's commisive, perhaps?). [Note that 可以 works here too (我·可以·跟·你·打·篮球) but is, I believe, strictly abilitive (see 我·可以·跟·你·打·篮球，但·我·不·会·跟·你·打: I can play basketball with you, but I will not)]. In addition, permissive modality can be implied too. 我·能·打·篮球，但·我·不·能·打·篮球 [ -Yes but actually no- I _can_ play basketball (abilitive or volitive?), but I _am not allowed to_ play basketball (permissive)] is valid, albeit in real conversations you tend to make it clear [e.g. using 会 in the fist part to specifically reference ability or willingness, saying _I am not allowed_ explicitly (我·不·被·允许·打·篮球), or pointing out that sb. or sth. has prevented me from playing instead (他·不·让·我·打·篮球)]; interestingly, the other way around (I am allowed to but can't) usually does not make sense. You quickly notices that these modal verbs are used for all different kind of event modality: perhaps Mandarin just don't differentiate specific event modalities... But then again, I think native speakers tend to disregard strict grammar rules, so... Man, I'm really jumping everywhere... Hope these are relevant.
I love this kind of information even though I am entirely hopeless at any language other than English. It's good to know that other people can not only make heads and tails of it, but have it down to a science.
"Jayne may be rich but..." - "No, don't say may! Jayne is definitely rich!" - "No, that's not what I mean! I...um...please just let me finish! So, Jayne may be rich but..." - "Why should I let you finish your argument when your first premise is already wrong?" - "You're not familiar with this figure of speech, are you?" - "What figure of speech?" - "Well, um, how do I explain this? I had this conversation in kindergarten. I have finished school but never learned how to say it. But now, decades later, I see this video and now know what I should have said: "No, I used the word 'may' to indicate presupposed modality and not, as you thought, speculative modality!"
German goes totally nuts on a related field: modal particles. Many of them are identical to usual adjectives, adverbs, etc., but they are so damn powerful. Here are a few examples (adapted from wikipedia's list): ja -> "as we know, but should be stressed or brought up again" eben -> "contrary to what has been stated or implied before, or one might think from common sense" halt -> "contrary to what one might hope", "as has been hopelessly stated before" doch -> "contrary to what has been asked or ordered before" schon -> "unlike what has been claimed" nur, bloß -> "but what...?" aber -> "but what...?", "..., though" vielleicht -> "contrary to what might have been expected" fei (dialectal) -> "contrary to what you might have thought or are doing"
3:27 As someone who got a degree in liberal arts, and therefore learned to speak pomo, I can confirm that they do mark information differently if it was auditorially/orally received than if it was textually received. The moods in pomo are pretty fascinating in general. Like Derrida seems pretty fun, but then Foucault is kinda depressing, and whole Frankfurt School seems perpetually angry. Lots of different moods!
1:11 in my region must can also be used for expressing obligation. For this reason of ambiguity "must" is a less common choice. (Instead saying to have to be or needs to be or should be for obligation. And then we say probably or likely our to bet that or I think that etc to express deduction. "To bet that" is the clearest choice for deductive that I have given.)
Lots of great examples of linguistic features found in natural languages across the world! But love to add the fictional example of Láadan, a conlang that makes pretty extensive use of evidentiality. It has particles that indicate a source as a dream, trustworthy, clueless or even downright evil.
Hungarian does that Mandarin-ish double negative too. Especially in abilitive. For example: Alszok/alszom - I sleep Tudok aludni - I can sleep / I know to sleep Nem tudok aludni - I can’t sleep Tudok nem aludni - I can not-sleep / I can stay awake Nem tudok nem aludni - I can’t not sleep. It’s like an obligation. “I can’t not sleep so I have to.” However, permissive works pretty differently. Alhatok/aludhatok - I can sleep. This can be a permissive or an archaic abilitive. Nem alhatok/nem aludhatok - I can’t sleep. Now, this is always permissive. We can’t say negative abilitive with the inflections on, only with aux verbs. Obligative is even more complicated. Hungarian has a trick with the genitives. The owner in is the nominative while the posession is conjugated in the owners person... i mean grammatically. So in the first and second person sing. and plur. pronouns are facultative. Az (én) asztalom - the (I/me) table-my And we conjugate the infinitive like this and the use a particle: kell. Aludni - to sleep Aludnom - “my to sleep”* Aludnom kell - I have to sleep / I must sleep. *It’s important that it’s “my TO sleep”. “My sleep” would be “(az) alvásom”.
The way I see it, there are two major possibilities for the next video, after part 2 of this of course: -ore deposition, which he has had on the list for a while -producer biology, because hes out of environmental details to talk about Must say, I am very excited for both of these possibilities.
Ok, interesting thought here: My proto-lang could have an olfactory modality. (Non-human species with a stronger sense of smell.) But then a mixed species society emerges, and this olfactory modality gets reanalyzed since human speakers rarely use it. But where could it evolve from there? - An intuitive modality. (I "know" because I just have a feeling in my bones) - A confidence marker. The speaker "smells it" is less certain than seeing it. Like, "It all happened so fast. I smelled Bob throw the first punch, but I wasn't paying much attention until the fight broke out."
Vinhua uses epistemic modality because I'm an English speaker and didn't think of other forms of modality when I was developing it. I think Skulemete will have to have a different system, though, because I realize how boring I was in this regard with Vinkan.
I've been looking forward to this one a long time. Although, I feel a deep bit of personal regret that I bought the Cambridge book on the subject and didn't have time to read it before you shared your drafts on Patreon. Well, I'll read it inevitably anyway. Keep it going, Edgar!
Thanks, John. The Cambridge book has so so so much more nuance in it than I can ever squeeze into these video. Highly recommend reading it through a few times.
Well on the bright side, one can look at it this way: you give a pretty nice overview for someone about to read the book. Sometimes it's nice to have some foreknowledge and an idea of where a manuscript is going before you dive into an academic book.
Interesting video as always, Edgar. The subject of modality sounds interesting enough to add not only flavor to a conlang but potentially useful to add deeper identity to any possible branch to any singular language tree. Though, to be honest, the latter portion of the video on modality extras and hybrids did felt like it went over my head, and would probably require a few more watchthroughs just to get my head wrapped around all those examples. Still, always appreciate these videos.
It's at times like these that I have to remind myself that I want to have a functional conlang at some point in the measurable future. There's just such a ridiculous amount of information that can be built into the very structure of a language that I have to rein myself in on a fairly regular basis. "Save that feature for the next language!" I tell myself, before realizing that I've probably already deferred enough features to make the next language the same bloatfest I'm trying to avoid with this one. Incidentally, have you considered a video on lexigen? Currently that's the slowest part of my language's development, and I'm curious as to what insight a veteran might have on the topic.
Ivan Lovell Find a swadesh list, and make root words for some of those words, make sure to pick ones that would make sense for your languages culture (You dont need a full culture, just kinda think a little about what type of people would speak the language). You don't need an entire swadesh list, and there are multiple ones. Make new words by combining some roots, and then "evolving" them a bit to show changes. This was a lousy paragraph, I have a video somewhere about word building, I just need to find it
Interesting about the negation feature in Mandarin. A conlang I'm working on can negate the main verb _(I'm able to not go),_ the mood _(I can't go),_ and a third type of negation which emphasises that it's not the point the speaker wishes to make, without directly refuting the truthfulness of the statement _(I'm not saying that I can go/My point isn't that I can go)._ I'm curious if this is a feature of any existing natural language or conlang.
coming back to this video every single time I need to brainstorm some conlang conjugation!!! what's most fascinating is, there are a lot of English modal verbs I have learn to use "automatically" in English second language, but I never would have thought every purpose has a distinct name, and that modal verbs cover a variety of puposes. Even weirder, akcnowledging certain tense conjugations of the same modal verbs don't illustrate tense at all, but simply mark the modality grammatically. I also enjoy all the examples of natlang declensing their verbs with exotic modalities, like all the sensory modality markers, completely absent in european languages, that we usually describe will full-fledged sentences. I probably have left a similar comment before, but doesn't matter as long as this video keeps being recommended to other linguistic newbies. cheers!
I think 'abductive' works better than 'deductive' for the kind of modality you're referring to. From what I've gathered in my philosophy classes, deductive reasoning just applies to purely logical reasoning in which you explain a specific case from a general case. Abduction is trying to find the most suitable explanation for a certain situation. Though the terms might be different outside of philosophy (or outside of Dutch, which is the language in which I learned the terms).
This video also shows the difference between will and shall in English, one makes a promise and the other predicts the future and the internal/external motivation of the speaker is different.
I do feel I have to say that Ngiyambaa is not spoken in Arnhem Land let alone the Northern Territory. Ngiyambaa is part of the Wiradhuric branch of the Pama-Nyungan macro language family, and it along with Wiradjuri is spoken around the South-Eastern and Riverine regions, around the middle northern parts of New South Wales. You'll also notice the word "dhagun" meaning "earth" is a common word in many surrounding languages and has cognates in Bundjalung, Yuggera, Gamilaraay and many others. Other than that, I absolutely loved your video.
I am really confused with the second English sentence "Shepard worked hard so that he should become rich". Why? Because I would use "could" or "would" and not "should" since it does not sound right right off the bat, but saying it and looking at it makes me realise that if I put either those two instead of this one, then the sentence would be completely different and the point would have been missed.
There's a way in the German language to ditch the words for hoping, demanding etc. which instead requires particles (adverbs?) to imply the mood. How do they fit in there? "Wäre ich nur reich!" (would be-I-(particle)-rich) - I wish I were rich! "Dass du bloß rechtzeitig zurückkommst!" (that-you-(particle)-in time-come back) - I demand you to come back in time "Dass dir ja nichts geschieht!" (that-to you-(particle)-nothing-happens) - I hope nothing bad happens to you
The first example is a nice reminder of how close a lot of the grammar still is between English and German as it's borderline word for word the same as "Were I only rich", implying the same thing :)
It's all about etymology. As the evolution of language does it's stuff, some languages adopt/gain gramatical mood, and some just don't gain or even lose it.
How are you so good at finding this stuff? I tried to do this very research myself while I was waiting for your next video and didnt come up with anywhere near as much information!
Because of patreon support, I'm able to buy rather expensive academic textbooks. These days I'm getting most of my info from them and have ditched internet sources.
Just managed to make a sample sentence in my protolanguage. It needs A LOT of editing but I feel very accomplished and I've learned most things to know about how to do it from your videos! Thank you so much! Sentence (English): I saw my five big butterflies today. Protolanguage: Bon teh'anewo:e bang kenem sani h'ixene oweshi-teh'anewo:e-ba. As I said, it needs to be edited XD but it's still a protolanguage lol
Is there a general limit on how many moods a language has before it becomes unnaturalistic? Are moods like sounds in the sense that having all of them is messy and unlikely, or do some languages have all or near-all moods incorporated in some form? What about the opposite: could a language exist without any grammatical mood? How would said language work?
In Dutch you can add "ze" after any verb and it would mean something along the lines of: "I wish you good luck doing the thing you're about to do right now." I think that must be a desiderative modality, or maybe an empty object. It's at least very useful.
It's funny that just yesterday I selected the modes of one of my languages. But just the realis and irrealis modes. Everything of this video we're new to me. And it was interesting. In the other hand, a question (a bit too late, but I just begin to worldbuild a planet this month): For the temperature sections of the atmosphere: it's always counting 30, 60 and 90 degrees (when you have to divide by this, of course) independent of the axial tilt (except for know if is prograde or retrograde)? Or for delimit the zones and biomes I have to play with both? Ps: Forgive me if I have some errors on the writing, but I'm not an native english speaker. Ps2: I love your videos. Probably if I finish a book I will have to add you to thanks of it. Because practically every single thing I learn about conlanging and worldbuilding is by you and your videos.
@@Artifexian I blame my public school upbringing and our Euro-centric history classes, but I basically knew of English, French, Spansih, and maybe like Soux and Cherokee. I even live in the Midwest where ever place name is a native word.
Hey edgar, I applied your tips for making ocean currents to my world's map, and I've ended up with a spot where to two ocean currents intersect, a southward bound warm curent and a north ward bound cold current. My world is a retrograde orbit with 7 cells per hemisphere (both currents are in the southern hemisphere). Would this make a whirlpool type of deal, or have I just messdd up
there is just one thing i don't understand, i was taught that moods are things like indicative and subjunctive and conditional and so on. but in 6:10 you give a french and an italian example, both indicative, both future. but you say that its the future that's the mood, i thought future was a tense, a tense in a mood, it could be subjunctive future og indicative future (and so on). can you explain ?
He left out inferential evidential modality (Willet's taxonomy, 1988), which is a type of modality that's both epistemic and evidential (and it's neither sensory nor reported).
At ~4:40 you say zoe is obliged and then later zoe is obligated. As a legal philosopher, there is a HUGE difference between the two in that their source of the obligation is different. See gen: plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-obligation/. Just wanted your thoughts on the distinction and whether it has consequences for your modality structure.
Thomas Francovitch Both have the same meaning paralegally, but only obligated has a legal weight behind it. In this case I think it works. Did I get that right? I could be off
> negate the main verb and/or the verb of the statement Ха! Russian shares the cool Mandarin feature: не могу идти - not can go (unable to go) могу не идти - can not go (able to avoid going) не могу не идти - not can not go (unable to avoid going)
One modality present in Tagalog that I can't find amongst the ones discussed is that of an accidental or unintentional action. 'Napahiga' ako nung umandar yung tren. ---> I 'accidentally/unintentionally lied down on my back' (fell) when the train moved.
WARNING X3 This question has nothing to do with the video. Have you every thought on making a video based on how different things on a planet could effect(or is it affect?) the life? Like how the atmosphere could make how flight would be,or how different liquid would have different ways a creature would swim. Its just a thought though :) You do not have to do it,but if you would like to then theres that idea. I think ot would just help people making creatures with different materials on their fictional planet. And I know you asked us all not to ask "can you make this video" questions,but I really just wanted to ask.
This video is the reason why, if I ever made an artificial machine intermediate translation language, every word, phrase, sentence and character will have to be a complex meta data-laden object which will have all these implicit characteristics of words included from the source, and inherited by the destination otherwise computer translation through multiple languages in succession will never get the correct meanings or nuances.
So....just when I've gotten back up to speed with grammatic mood in Latin and Spanish, and have made the subjunctive make sense in Koine Greek....I sit down and watch this video. I need to go to bed and take care of this headache. A couple of weeks should do it.
Naw, pal. Do it! Go forth and create. Make mistakes. Try again. Rinse repeat. Also, don't feel like you have to use everything I talk about. Choice on or to things that interest you and work those into a basic conlang. Like a beginner lang could be almost exactly like English but it has grammatical moods x, y, and z.
I’m gonna be honest, the title of this video sounds like a title for a jazz album
TheWolfboy180 I would listen to that
Sounds like a cool album to me.
Background music checks out
Probably modal jazz (which is an actual genre)
The theme is that it just cycles through all the different musical modes.
i am unable to can
same
That's sounds like a more formal way to say I can't even
Pepijn de Putter I have lost the ability to even.
if i have a machine to do it for me, then i am able to can
Henceforth, my position to can has ceased
My first encounter with moods in English was when I discovered the fact that it's called "If I were" and not "If I was", despite the fact that "was" is usually the correct inflexion of "to be" in the first-person past tense.
However, since it's in the subjunctive mood, it doesn't follow the standard rule.
Sameee!
It helps if you look at sister Germanic languages. Most have simplified their verb conjugations and dispensed with a separate inflected subjunctive mood altogether but German and Icelandic have retained it: Past indicative: I was - ich war - ég var. Past subjunctive: I were - ich wäre - ég væri.
Apart from the verb to be, the subjunctive is no longer a productive verb conjugation in English, either, and even that is often ignored in daily speech.
Was for 1st & 3rd singular persons, were for conditionals & everything else.
I speak a dialect where were has taken over more than just conditionals for 1st and 3rd persons, and I rarely use was.
English can do the same thing as the Mandarin example:
I can go
I can’t go (I’m too tired)
I can *not* go (if I’m too tired this evening-note the location of the prosodic emphasis)
I can’t not go (they need me there)
Yeah Turkish can do this.Let me show you an example:
Gidebilirim (I can go)
Gidemem(I can't go)
Gidemeye*bilirim* (I can *not* go)
The last form can't be displayed in one word but here, a translation:
Gitmemezlik edemem.(I can't not go)
I don't think it would be formally appropriate in English and it's generally less clear when written, but since I speak Mandarin I do use this feature quite frequently when I speak English. And the way I try to circumvent the "informal" aspect of this feature by using negating prefixes to the verbs if possible.
Same in french.
Je peux y aller → I can go
Je ne peux pas y aller → I can't go
Je peux ne pas y aller → I can not go
Je ne peux pas ne pas y aller → I can't not go
@m nb because, depending on your dialect of English, it can sound weird or incorrect.
@@blaizecramer6052 In which English dialect would it be weird or incorrect? As far as I can tell it's part of the language core, that is to say beyond the governance of dialects.
"You can't take the sky from me..."
Man i never understand a single fucking thing about any of these language videos a second after you have said it..but i cant stop watching every one.
Ye, its dense stuff. :/
@@Artifexian Probably dosnt help that im not bi-lingual in any way. So even comprehending how another language is structured seems so alien, let alone how langue itself is structured.
4:30 I feel like there should be a second between permissive and obligative modality, perhaps advisory. Zoe should go. The speaker indicates that it is possible, that it is not necessary, but that it is _not_ insubstantial if she doesn't.
hehe i'm stealing this for my conlang
hehe, yoink.
Silliness aside, this is a beautiful idea. And valid as heck.
It's called the Hortative iirc
Should is used to express tentative epistemic necessity aka deductive. It's considered the modal-past form of must.
Speaking of Mandarin, there's actually a 3-way dynamic split (instead of just the abilitive / votive he talks about). For example:
In all cases, these sentences are glossed "I no *can* play basketball" with a different kind of *can* each time.
我不 *会* 打篮球: I don't know how to play basketball
我不 *能* 打篮球: I physically can't play basketball (maybe my legs are broken, or the court is locked and I can't get in)
我不 *可以* 打篮球: I may not play basketball (someone says it's not allowed)
(not a native Chinese speaker, please correct me if I'm wrong)
I can only read Chinese so well. Could you transcribe the characters please?
@@sully9767 wo3bu4 hui4/neng2/ke3yi3 da3lan2qiu2. Good luck.
I believe that the last two modal verbs (能 and 可以) are used interchangeably in Mandarin Chinese; the only difference might be that 能 feels a bit stronger. You also usually don't use 不可以 to signify physical impossibilities (that could be more of a collocation issue), but other than that I'm fine with interchanging 能 and 可以.
Speaking of these works and modalities: _(I'll be using "·" to separate words for Chinese)_
会 may be used to convey two different event modalities: 我·会·打·篮球 conveys abilitive modality, while 我·会·跟·你·打·篮球 [1sg. - modal v. _will_ - with - 2sg. - v.hit - n.basketball] (I will play basketball with you) conveys a volitive one (one can also argue that's commisive, perhaps?).
[Note that 可以 works here too (我·可以·跟·你·打·篮球) but is, I believe, strictly abilitive (see 我·可以·跟·你·打·篮球，但·我·不·会·跟·你·打: I can play basketball with you, but I will not)].
In addition, permissive modality can be implied too. 我·能·打·篮球，但·我·不·能·打·篮球 [ -Yes but actually no- I _can_ play basketball (abilitive or volitive?), but I _am not allowed to_ play basketball (permissive)] is valid, albeit in real conversations you tend to make it clear [e.g. using 会 in the fist part to specifically reference ability or willingness, saying _I am not allowed_ explicitly (我·不·被·允许·打·篮球), or pointing out that sb. or sth. has prevented me from playing instead (他·不·让·我·打·篮球)]; interestingly, the other way around (I am allowed to but can't) usually does not make sense.
You quickly notices that these modal verbs are used for all different kind of event modality: perhaps Mandarin just don't differentiate specific event modalities...
But then again, I think native speakers tend to disregard strict grammar rules, so...
Man, I'm really jumping everywhere... Hope these are relevant.
@@sully9767use Wiktionary, the sister project and a dictionary of Wikipedia
I love this kind of information even though I am entirely hopeless at any language other than English. It's good to know that other people can not only make heads and tails of it, but have it down to a science.
What do you mean ? You don't feel like learning other languages ?
"Jayne may be rich but..." - "No, don't say may! Jayne is definitely rich!" - "No, that's not what I mean! I...um...please just let me finish! So, Jayne may be rich but..." - "Why should I let you finish your argument when your first premise is already wrong?" - "You're not familiar with this figure of speech, are you?" - "What figure of speech?" - "Well, um, how do I explain this?
I had this conversation in kindergarten. I have finished school but never learned how to say it. But now, decades later, I see this video and now know what I should have said:
"No, I used the word 'may' to indicate presupposed modality and not, as you thought, speculative modality!"
German goes totally nuts on a related field: modal particles. Many of them are identical to usual adjectives, adverbs, etc., but they are so damn powerful. Here are a few examples (adapted from wikipedia's list):
ja -> "as we know, but should be stressed or brought up again"
eben -> "contrary to what has been stated or implied before, or one might think from common sense"
halt -> "contrary to what one might hope", "as has been hopelessly stated before"
doch -> "contrary to what has been asked or ordered before"
schon -> "unlike what has been claimed"
nur, bloß -> "but what...?"
aber -> "but what...?", "..., though"
vielleicht -> "contrary to what might have been expected"
fei (dialectal) -> "contrary to what you might have thought or are doing"
Doch is wonderful word.
@@Artifexian And I only mentioned one of its many meanings.
@@hallfiry If doch "doch" was an English word.
we use modal particles in portuguese too (e.g: "já", "sim", "né"), but it's very informal.
Gerade, nämlich, sogar, wohl, also, echt, wirklich, zwar, gar, sowieso...
Whew, this video is pretty hard to digest! I will have to revisit it some more times to actually get it
For sure. This is definitely one to rewatch.
3:27 As someone who got a degree in liberal arts, and therefore learned to speak pomo, I can confirm that they do mark information differently if it was auditorially/orally received than if it was textually received. The moods in pomo are pretty fascinating in general. Like Derrida seems pretty fun, but then Foucault is kinda depressing, and whole Frankfurt School seems perpetually angry. Lots of different moods!
Comes for language-building and planet-building
*Gets an English class*
Thank you Artifexian. You once again inspired another element of my conlang.
No probs.
6:25 You mean like "I can't not go"? Been there, done that.
1:11 in my region must can also be used for expressing obligation. For this reason of ambiguity "must" is a less common choice. (Instead saying to have to be or needs to be or should be for obligation. And then we say probably or likely our to bet that or I think that etc to express deduction. "To bet that" is the clearest choice for deductive that I have given.)
I've been waiting for this video for such a long time, glad it's finally here!
And there's another one on mood in the works
Omg hey kobo, it's SpeakerOfAmerican
@@parthiancapitalist2733 Oh hey where you been ?
@@parthiancapitalist2733 yo, here's the new server, let's catch up discord.gg/x95fzN
@@cliff5920 Soup ffs
6:37 "I'm not capable of not going" is usually interpreted as "I must go".
Malcolm, Zoe, Inara, Jayne, Hoban [Wash], Kaylee, Simon, River, Shepard [Book] ... I see your Firefly thing going on here.
I CAME AS SOON AS I HEARD
Me too ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
All the way from London?
*D A M N*
Glad you did. :)
When Artifexian uploads I'm in a good mood.
Lots of great examples of linguistic features found in natural languages across the world!
But love to add the fictional example of Láadan, a conlang that makes pretty extensive use of evidentiality. It has particles that indicate a source as a dream, trustworthy, clueless or even downright evil.
Hungarian does that Mandarin-ish double negative too. Especially in abilitive. For example:
Alszok/alszom - I sleep
Tudok aludni - I can sleep / I know to sleep
Nem tudok aludni - I can’t sleep
Tudok nem aludni - I can not-sleep / I can stay awake
Nem tudok nem aludni - I can’t not sleep.
It’s like an obligation. “I can’t not sleep so I have to.”
However, permissive works pretty differently.
Alhatok/aludhatok - I can sleep.
This can be a permissive or an archaic abilitive.
Nem alhatok/nem aludhatok - I can’t sleep.
Now, this is always permissive. We can’t say negative abilitive with the inflections on, only with aux verbs.
Obligative is even more complicated.
Hungarian has a trick with the genitives. The owner in is the nominative while the posession is conjugated in the owners person... i mean grammatically. So in the first and second person sing. and plur. pronouns are facultative.
Az (én) asztalom - the (I/me) table-my
And we conjugate the infinitive like this and the use a particle: kell.
Aludni - to sleep
Aludnom - “my to sleep”*
Aludnom kell - I have to sleep / I must sleep.
*It’s important that it’s “my TO sleep”. “My sleep” would be “(az) alvásom”.
I really needed this. Modality is so difficult to grasp. Thank you so much
Gonna have to watch this several times to actually get this into my head.
The way I see it, there are two major possibilities for the next video, after part 2 of this of course:
-ore deposition, which he has had on the list for a while
-producer biology, because hes out of environmental details to talk about
Must say, I am very excited for both of these possibilities.
Ok, interesting thought here:
My proto-lang could have an olfactory modality. (Non-human species with a stronger sense of smell.) But then a mixed species society emerges, and this olfactory modality gets reanalyzed since human speakers rarely use it. But where could it evolve from there?
- An intuitive modality. (I "know" because I just have a feeling in my bones)
- A confidence marker. The speaker "smells it" is less certain than seeing it. Like, "It all happened so fast. I smelled Bob throw the first punch, but I wasn't paying much attention until the fight broke out."
Vinhua uses epistemic modality because I'm an English speaker and didn't think of other forms of modality when I was developing it. I think Skulemete will have to have a different system, though, because I realize how boring I was in this regard with Vinkan.
I've been looking forward to this one a long time. Although, I feel a deep bit of personal regret that I bought the Cambridge book on the subject and didn't have time to read it before you shared your drafts on Patreon. Well, I'll read it inevitably anyway. Keep it going, Edgar!
Thanks, John. The Cambridge book has so so so much more nuance in it than I can ever squeeze into these video. Highly recommend reading it through a few times.
Well on the bright side, one can look at it this way: you give a pretty nice overview for someone about to read the book. Sometimes it's nice to have some foreknowledge and an idea of where a manuscript is going before you dive into an academic book.
I'm all about that lowkey firefly reference
Jayne should've been a dead giveaway, but I only clocked it when I saw Simon and River on the same slide haha.
Interesting video as always, Edgar. The subject of modality sounds interesting enough to add not only flavor to a conlang but potentially useful to add deeper identity to any possible branch to any singular language tree.
Though, to be honest, the latter portion of the video on modality extras and hybrids did felt like it went over my head, and would probably require a few more watchthroughs just to get my head wrapped around all those examples. Still, always appreciate these videos.
For sure, it's a dense video. BUT it's only part 1 so hopefully part 2 will help cement things for you.
I can't wait for the next part. I am-DEDUCTIVE so excited.
you're deducing your own excitement from external evidence? wha?
@@nuadathesilverhand3563 Talk about an unbiased observation, am I right?
Fula is spoken in West Africa, not Ethiopia :P
Other than that, great video as always
Dammit, I'm but this in a corrections doc and link it in the description
It's at times like these that I have to remind myself that I want to have a functional conlang at some point in the measurable future. There's just such a ridiculous amount of information that can be built into the very structure of a language that I have to rein myself in on a fairly regular basis. "Save that feature for the next language!" I tell myself, before realizing that I've probably already deferred enough features to make the next language the same bloatfest I'm trying to avoid with this one.
Incidentally, have you considered a video on lexigen? Currently that's the slowest part of my language's development, and I'm curious as to what insight a veteran might have on the topic.
Ivan Lovell Find a swadesh list, and make root words for some of those words, make sure to pick ones that would make sense for your languages culture (You dont need a full culture, just kinda think a little about what type of people would speak the language).
You don't need an entire swadesh list, and there are multiple ones. Make new words by combining some roots, and then "evolving" them a bit to show changes. This was a lousy paragraph, I have a video somewhere about word building, I just need to find it
Interesting about the negation feature in Mandarin. A conlang I'm working on can negate the main verb _(I'm able to not go),_ the mood _(I can't go),_ and a third type of negation which emphasises that it's not the point the speaker wishes to make, without directly refuting the truthfulness of the statement _(I'm not saying that I can go/My point isn't that I can go)._ I'm curious if this is a feature of any existing natural language or conlang.
I`m in a good mood today...
Because Artifexian just uploaded! :D
Hey hey! XD
YAYAYA i was so stoked for this video
*# M O O D*
This video is smooth as heck.
Nice work!
I've got othing smart to share. I'm just happy about the Firefly references :D
I'm happy you clocked them. :)
Dude!
I just checked like an hour ago to see if you'd uploaded and nothing!
Now I get out of class ad I see a notification that you've posted!
coming back to this video every single time I need to brainstorm some conlang conjugation!!!
what's most fascinating is, there are a lot of English modal verbs I have learn to use "automatically" in English second language, but I never would have thought every purpose has a distinct name, and that modal verbs cover a variety of puposes. Even weirder, akcnowledging certain tense conjugations of the same modal verbs don't illustrate tense at all, but simply mark the modality grammatically.
I also enjoy all the examples of natlang declensing their verbs with exotic modalities, like all the sensory modality markers, completely absent in european languages, that we usually describe will full-fledged sentences.
I probably have left a similar comment before, but doesn't matter as long as this video keeps being recommended to other linguistic newbies.
cheers!
I think 'abductive' works better than 'deductive' for the kind of modality you're referring to. From what I've gathered in my philosophy classes, deductive reasoning just applies to purely logical reasoning in which you explain a specific case from a general case. Abduction is trying to find the most suitable explanation for a certain situation.
Though the terms might be different outside of philosophy (or outside of Dutch, which is the language in which I learned the terms).
Ye, it's also worth noting that there are a ton of different terms for these categories. I feel like every source has it's own unique nomenclature.
You had me waiting a long time for this video.
Excuse me, but you missed the PERFECT excuse to use "You SHALL not pass" as an example
I've been waiting so long for this. Moods are so confusing
I know. Mood is muddy.
6:07 French here uses conditional, not future tense. On the other hand Spanish and Italian do use their cognate future tense.
This video also shows the difference between will and shall in English, one makes a promise and the other predicts the future and the internal/external motivation of the speaker is different.
I do feel I have to say that Ngiyambaa is not spoken in Arnhem Land let alone the Northern Territory. Ngiyambaa is part of the Wiradhuric branch of the Pama-Nyungan macro language family, and it along with Wiradjuri is spoken around the South-Eastern and Riverine regions, around the middle northern parts of New South Wales. You'll also notice the word "dhagun" meaning "earth" is a common word in many surrounding languages and has cognates in Bundjalung, Yuggera, Gamilaraay and many others. Other than that, I absolutely loved your video.
Crap forgot to move the red dot. Apologies.
Hey Edgar. You said in a past QnA video that you’d be willing to try a salty liquorice donut if they existed.
Well, they exist in Finland.
::books tickets to Finland::
When Inara popped up I thought I recognised the name from somewhere, but when the man they call Jayne appeared I knew. That's a shiny reference, dude!
Another great video is such a mood
Quality punnage
My conlang uses indicative, potential and optative, it’s a lot of fun diving into it all.
When I watch these videos I feel like there are at least as many categorical classifications than there are items to put in those categories.
this made me understand english modality better than any teacher i know
I love the grammar episodes, they are so interesting
Thanks, pal.
one of your best videos
I'm gonna watch that after my linguistics and descriptive grammar exam. I can't take in even more of this right now xD
I thought verbs would be a wash, now I’m so confused, there’s so much to verbs than I initially gave them credit for
I am really confused with the second English sentence "Shepard worked hard so that he should become rich". Why? Because I would use "could" or "would" and not "should" since it does not sound right right off the bat, but saying it and looking at it makes me realise that if I put either those two instead of this one, then the sentence would be completely different and the point would have been missed.
As a native English linguist, it confuses me too, though that may be because I'm tired. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/should
There's a way in the German language to ditch the words for hoping, demanding etc. which instead requires particles (adverbs?) to imply the mood. How do they fit in there?
"Wäre ich nur reich!" (would be-I-(particle)-rich) - I wish I were rich!
"Dass du bloß rechtzeitig zurückkommst!" (that-you-(particle)-in time-come back) - I demand you to come back in time
"Dass dir ja nichts geschieht!" (that-to you-(particle)-nothing-happens) - I hope nothing bad happens to you
The first example is a nice reminder of how close a lot of the grammar still is between English and German as it's borderline word for word the same as "Were I only rich", implying the same thing :)
9:32 Latin actually only sees the coniunctivus as fear with a negation, so you should have written a "not" in brackets as translation for "ne."
Not according to my sources. That example is lifted verbatim from F.R Palmer's Mood and Modality.
8:15 I know that no one knows, but I'm wondering what actually causes or encourages that man to hit a woman.
What causes some languages to have grammatical mood and modality and others not to ?
It's all about etymology. As the evolution of language does it's stuff, some languages adopt/gain gramatical mood, and some just don't gain or even lose it.
How are you so good at finding this stuff? I tried to do this very research myself while I was waiting for your next video and didnt come up with anywhere near as much information!
Because of patreon support, I'm able to buy rather expensive academic textbooks. These days I'm getting most of my info from them and have ditched internet sources.
Just managed to make a sample sentence in my protolanguage. It needs A LOT of editing but I feel very accomplished and I've learned most things to know about how to do it from your videos! Thank you so much!
Sentence (English): I saw my five big butterflies today.
Protolanguage: Bon teh'anewo:e bang kenem sani h'ixene oweshi-teh'anewo:e-ba.
As I said, it needs to be edited XD but it's still a protolanguage lol
1:43 you could also say "should" instead of "will be"
Sure but 'should' is slightly weaker than 'will'. There are subtly different.
Is there a general limit on how many moods a language has before it becomes unnaturalistic? Are moods like sounds in the sense that having all of them is messy and unlikely, or do some languages have all or near-all moods incorporated in some form? What about the opposite: could a language exist without any grammatical mood? How would said language work?
Finally a new video!!!
In Dutch you can add "ze" after any verb and it would mean something along the lines of: "I wish you good luck doing the thing you're about to do right now." I think that must be a desiderative modality, or maybe an empty object. It's at least very useful.
It's funny that just yesterday I selected the modes of one of my languages. But just the realis and irrealis modes. Everything of this video we're new to me. And it was interesting.
In the other hand, a question (a bit too late, but I just begin to worldbuild a planet this month): For the temperature sections of the atmosphere: it's always counting 30, 60 and 90 degrees (when you have to divide by this, of course) independent of the axial tilt (except for know if is prograde or retrograde)? Or for delimit the zones and biomes I have to play with both?
Ps: Forgive me if I have some errors on the writing, but I'm not an native english speaker.
Ps2: I love your videos. Probably if I finish a book I will have to add you to thanks of it. Because practically every single thing I learn about conlanging and worldbuilding is by you and your videos.
There is actually a Artifexian-video on the topic: "Seasonbuilding 101: Axial Tilt".
I see what you did there. Hoban worked hard that he should become a leaf on the wind...
I think the thing I learned the most from this video is how many interesting native languages there are in North America.
Oh, boy, you have no idea. There's a wealth of linguistic riches present in North America.
@@Artifexian I blame my public school upbringing and our Euro-centric history classes, but I basically knew of English, French, Spansih, and maybe like Soux and Cherokee. I even live in the Midwest where ever place name is a native word.
I think someone is a Firefly fan. You get a like for the subtle references!
Love the videos too!
All the English examples used the names of Firefly characters.
Respect.
Hey edgar, I applied your tips for making ocean currents to my world's map, and I've ended up with a spot where to two ocean currents intersect, a southward bound warm curent and a north ward bound cold current. My world is a retrograde orbit with 7 cells per hemisphere (both currents are in the southern hemisphere). Would this make a whirlpool type of deal, or have I just messdd up
Nice vid! Very informative!
This... wasn't in my inbox, was it? I must have been sicker than I thought this Thursday.
This video is such a mood
6:37
Italian has this too
It's called double negation
there is just one thing i don't understand,
i was taught that moods are things like indicative and subjunctive and conditional and so on.
but in 6:10 you give a french and an italian example, both indicative, both future.
but you say that its the future that's the mood, i thought future was a tense, a tense in a mood, it could be subjunctive future og indicative future (and so on).
can you explain ?
He left out inferential evidential modality (Willet's taxonomy, 1988), which is a type of modality that's both epistemic and evidential (and it's neither sensory nor reported).
6:32 why didn't you add the tone markers for bù?
4:27 but what about when Zooey *is* GO? 🤔
At ~4:40 you say zoe is obliged and then later zoe is obligated. As a legal philosopher, there is a HUGE difference between the two in that their source of the obligation is different. See gen: plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-obligation/.
Just wanted your thoughts on the distinction and whether it has consequences for your modality structure.
Thomas Francovitch Both have the same meaning paralegally, but only obligated has a legal weight behind it. In this case I think it works. Did I get that right? I could be off
> negate the main verb and/or the verb of the statement
Ха! Russian shares the cool Mandarin feature:
не могу идти - not can go (unable to go)
могу не идти - can not go (able to avoid going)
не могу не идти - not can not go (unable to avoid going)
Everything is easy when all of them in this video can be individual words. Native chinese speaker here.
As a non english native, I never expected to understand the meaning of "shall" in a video like this
10:30 now that's a "complex modality" 😂
just like complex numbers have both real and imaginary part(it's a math joke)
One modality present in Tagalog that I can't find amongst the ones discussed is that of an accidental or unintentional action.
'Napahiga' ako nung umandar yung tren. ---> I 'accidentally/unintentionally lied down on my back' (fell) when the train moved.
Please make a video on royalty in worlds
I love the use of the tri-force of grammar 👉😎👉
The names used are very shiny.
WARNING X3 This question has nothing to do with the video. Have you every thought on making a video based on how different things on a planet could effect(or is it affect?) the life? Like how the atmosphere could make how flight would be,or how different liquid would have different ways a creature would swim. Its just a thought though :) You do not have to do it,but if you would like to then theres that idea. I think ot would just help people making creatures with different materials on their fictional planet.
And I know you asked us all not to ask "can you make this video" questions,but I really just wanted to ask.
in that case it would be spelled "affect". "effect" is the noun, "affect" is the verb. hope I helped and your idea is great!
It just occurred to me that English has reported modality when we use air quotes or written quotes.
This video is the reason why, if I ever made an artificial machine intermediate translation language, every word, phrase, sentence and character will have to be a complex meta data-laden object which will have all these implicit characteristics of words included from the source, and inherited by the destination otherwise computer translation through multiple languages in succession will never get the correct meanings or nuances.
So....just when I've gotten back up to speed with grammatic mood in Latin and Spanish, and have made the subjunctive make sense in Koine Greek....I sit down and watch this video.
I need to go to bed and take care of this headache. A couple of weeks should do it.
every time I watch or rewatch one of you language videos I feel less and less confident about making a conlang
Naw, pal. Do it! Go forth and create. Make mistakes. Try again. Rinse repeat. Also, don't feel like you have to use everything I talk about. Choice on or to things that interest you and work those into a basic conlang.
Like a beginner lang could be almost exactly like English but it has grammatical moods x, y, and z.
What about when I say that I “might could” do something, but I know it sounds wrong, but I like it better than the clumsy “might be able to.”