Proofreader(s) Needed for Conlang Project

[JohnE]

My first conlang is nearly "complete," and I'm writing a descriptive grammar, and I need a proofreader or two. You don't have to know a ton about linguistics, and you don't have to actually learn the language. I just need help to make sure it's clear and understandable, isn't missing anything important, and doesn't have any typos (in the English parts).

I can send just a chapter or two at a time if that's easier. Reply or PM me if you're interested. Thanks.

[Osama bin Bambi]

I would love to read your conlang, John!

[JohnE]

Yay! Here's a link to the current draft:

http://www.cloakanddaggerdesign.com/Files/OltengoGrammar-draft.pdf

It's pretty simple as conlangs go, and it's my first time writing a grammar, so any feedback you can give me is appreciated.

[shykid]

I'll  go over it too and give you some feedback in a little while.

From what I can see already, the page layout and formatting looks very snazzy and professional!

[JohnE]

What I lack in conlanging skill I make up for in graphic design!

[shykid]

This isn't bad at all for a first conlang (or a conlang at all for that matter)! I like it. I really like the verb system because it makes aspectual distinctions that English doesn't mark, and it does not distinguish between the simple/gnomic and progressive aspects, which is an uncommon distinction that English borrowed from the Celtic languages. Conlangers seem to have a tendency to copy the English system (which is cross-linguistically bizarre) or the system of whatever their native language is, especially first-time conlangers, but you do a good job avoiding this.

Page 1 has a couple of minor typos: "powerful warriors, tigers to make a caste of laborers and farmers to suuport that army, and leopards to make a race a household servants for themselves." There's an extra "u" in "support," and shouldn't that second "a" be "of"?

Page 2: Very nice conscript! Phonology looks good. You should mark the length distinction of the vowels on your IPA vowel chart: you can mark long (small) vowels with "ˑ", extra-long (large) vowels with "ː", and leave short (extra small) vowels unmarked. The contrast between /a/ and /æ/ confused me until I got to the next page, since that contrast would be weird without an additional distinction in length.

Page 4: Is there any particular language you modeled this stress pattern after? Just curious. It looked complicated and odd at first (though this isn't a human language), but it actually feels natural when I tried saying the words.

Page 6: Technical term for this is "generic plural," but eh, what's good enough for Tolkien is good enough for me.

Page 7: Technical term for the "compound" form is "partitive."

Page 8: I'd call the regular pronoun forms the "nominative case" and the L forms the "oblique case" because that seems to be how they function.

Page 14 has a minor typo: "Predent" = "Present."

Page 16 has a couple of typos too: "Pasive Participle" = "Passive Participle," "Conjucation Root" = "Conjugation Root." Also, I'd add a few more irregular verbs. Cross-linguistically, basic verbs strongly tend to be somewhat irregular except in isolating and strongly agglutinative languages: the copula and existential (both "to be" in English, but they to be separate in non-Indo-European languages), to do, to go, to come, to have, to get, to take, etc.

I gotta go run some errands now, but I'll look over the rest of it when I get back.

[JohnE]

Wow, great feedback so far. Thanks for clearing up some the terminology. That's one of the many things I'm still learning.

With the vowels, the main phonemic distinction between large and small is a difference in sound, rather than length. I think you're right though, that the large vowels are generally pronouncd longer than the small, so I might add that to the IPA listings.

The patterns of stress were mostly based on me pronouncing words the way that felt natural, realizing I was stressing some words differently than others, and trying to come up with a set of rules that described what I was doing. The only exception is that I naturally want to stress all two syllable words on the first syllable, whether the vowels are separated by a consonant or not. I changed it to make it more consistent.

[JohnE]

Any more feedback, anyone?