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[Owlbread]

The problem is you'd end up with quite a few rules there unless we use prefixes or suffixes or something again.

Or
We could decide to make every verb end in consonant in the nominative. Then add something regular to it to make it a noun.
Consonant ending verbs seem to be a rule already.

PS:This was a creative night. Hopefully others will like the case system.

Indeed, most nouns in Dwarfish end with consonants. I haven't found any word in Dwarfish thus far that doesn't, in fact.

It's great fun making up insults in Dwarfish with what we currently have.

"Ulorkroz akmabdug azdrosh" - "I drank your ale"
"Urzatkroz akertun azdrosh" - "I will stab your eyes"
"Urdebuthgurtun akunol azdrosh" - "Demons will eat your soul"
"Urarrosnomtun akdrosh mol(?) dum azmamgoz" - "May the gods throw you into the mouth of a dragon"
"Zurgastdrosh aktig aglibash azmonom" - "Cleave a shite with a paper axe".
"Undrosh ererfath azreked azanglinem" - "You are a corpulent, red-faced sack of butter"

You'd end up with colloquial or slang Dwarfish sounding quite guttural and harsh while literary Dwarfish would sound almost early Romance-like, or maybe like Proto-Celtic or Proto-Norse or something.

[SealyStar]

So here are a couple of suggestions so far


a) bloody daggers = rabul uristun (the English way)

b) bloody daggers = uristunrabultun

c) bloody daggers = uristun rabultun

d) bloody daggers = uristrabultun (Nonseq?)

e) very bloody dagger = rabulrabulurist

f) very bloody daggers = rabulrabuluristun (Owlbread?)

How about "rabuluristun", one word?

[Owlbread]

How about "rabuluristun", one word?

Yes. If you follow proposition f) you would end up with that, meaning "bloody daggers".

I liked un-ban

Yes. To be or not to be.

My proposition for "yes" and "no" was "uth" and "bath".

Although its meaning is still up for debate, I loved this Proto-Norse inscription on an ancient spear from Wikipedia:

The first part is read as:

    ek erilaz āsugīsalas muha haite, gagaga

Interpreted as "I, the nobleman (erilaz) of Āsugīsalaz, am called Muha, ga-ga-ga!", where "ga-ga-ga" is some sort of ritual chant or battle cry

It just makes me think of Dwarves. Gagaga!

[dwarfhoplite]

Owlbread, how do you form other tenses than present tense?

With these examples I want to ask if we agree with word structure. (and do I understand )

We really love their bloody daggers =  Koroz-tun      aval-aval-koroz-tun      az-beroz-tun    ak-urist-rab-il-tun
                                                     we                 we really love            their                 bloody daggers

We have a lot of love for their bloody daggers = Koroz-tun   ak-aval-il   ibal-ibal-koroz-tun    am-urist-rab-il-tun   az-beroz-tun
                                                                   we          love            we have a lot         for bloody daggers     of theirs
Is that correct?
I used -il suffix to make verb "aval" a noun. Perhaps we could use the same suffix to make adjectives nouns
hunger = hungry-il
Or we could do the opposite and form adjectives and verbs from nouns
You can suggest a better suffix if we decide to go this way.

[Nonsequitorian]

I feel like we'll be using "tun" a whole hell of a lot with all the plurals having tun at the end. I guess I could deal with that for personal pronouns or verbs, but for both it just sounds like ton of tun.

I think we're all agreeing on adj noun mashups (and thusly I think adverbs are just adjectives on verbs), but we haven't decided on where the adjective goes. I personally like them going at the end, because then you know what you're talking about before you describe it. I know that doesn't come up much in english or whatever germanic language you speak, but you also don't often mash the adjective into the word.

I'd like to see adjectives go on the end.

[dwarfhoplite]

I'd like to see adjectives go on the end.

Me too.

There is half the -tun of that of plural if the subject is in singular.
Besides, you don't need the pronoun since verb itself is in person, so it's one -tun less.
I discovered that 'blood' is 'nazush' and 'bloody' is 'nashon'. I'm still using the -il suffix.

I love their bloody daggers = (Koroz) avalkoroz azberoztun akuristnazushiltun
I have a lot of love for your bloody dagger = (Koroz) akavalil ibalibalkoroz amuristnazushil azdaroz
I love the idea of love = akavalil avalkoroz

If I have a lot of love, is the love in accusative? I think there is some error in the "I have a lot of love.." sentence
I really like where we're going. We should do verb tenses and prepositions next.

[Nonsequitorian]

Yeah, love would thus be accusative.

[Owlbread]

You are entirely correct in your examples, dwarfhoplite. Your command of Dwarfish grammar is admirable, and I agree with your -il suffix. I also agree with nonsequitorian in that love, in that particular way of saying "I have a lot of love", would be accusative. Have in that sense (there are several ways of saying that you have something in Dwarfish) takes the accusative, unlike many languages where it takes the nominative. Furthermore, I think adjectives should go on the end also, although I think colours could take that "of red" construction.

I started to write out a huge proposition for the verb tenses, but I started to run into problems because of my own lack of understanding of grammatical terms and distinctions and such. You'll see where I start to hit brick walls.

Present Tense

Un - To be, continuous form (present tense)

Unga - To be, one-off form (present tense)

Abod - To strike

Ber - earth

Present Continuous

Unabodkoroz akber - Be strike I (accusative)earth - I am striking the earth

Unabodaroz akber - Be strike you earth - You are striking the earth

Unabodberoz akber - Be it strike earth - It is striking the earth

Unabodkoroztun akber - Be we strike earth - we are striking the earth

Unabodaroztun akber- Be you (plural) strike earth - you (plural) are striking the earth

Unabodberoztun akber - Be they strike earth - they are striking the earth

Present One-Off

Ungabodkoroz akber - Be (one-off) strike I earth - I strike the earth

Present *general?*

Abodkoroz akber - Strike I earth - I strike the earth

Abodaroz akber - Strike you earth - You strike the earth

You get the picture there.

Past Tense


Ul - To be, continuous (past tense) i.e. "was"

Ulga - To be, one-off (past tense) i.e. *no english equivalent*

Continuous Past

Ulabodkoroz akber - Was strike I earth - I was striking the earth
Ulabodaroz akber - Was struck you earth - You were striking the earth

One-off Past

Ulgabodkoroz akber - Struck I earth - I struck the earth

And so on and so forth.

Future Tense

Ur - To be, continuous (future tense) i.e. "Will be"

Urga - To be, one-off (future tense) i.e. "Will"

continuous future

Urabodkroz akber - I will be striking the earth

one-off future

Urgabodkroz akber - I will strike the earth

My problems are things like - How can I have a continuous and a one-off version of "was?" How does "I do this" differ from "I am doing this"? Is "I do this" actually a form of the future continuous or... damn, my head is exploding.

[dwarfhoplite]

My problems are things like - How can I have a continuous and a one-off version of "was?" How does "I do this" differ from "I am doing this"? Is "I do this" actually a form of the future continuous or... damn, my head is exploding.

I don't quite understand the issues you are addressing.

I don't understand the difference between present one-off and "general".

Is "I love to strike the earth" same as "I love the idea of striking the earth" or "I love striking the earth" ?
aval-koroz   ak-ber-abod-il

[Owlbread]

My problems are things like - How can I have a continuous and a one-off version of "was?" How does "I do this" differ from "I am doing this"? Is "I do this" actually a form of the future continuous or... damn, my head is exploding.

I don't quite understand the issues you are addressing.

I don't understand what's the difference between present one-off and "general".

How would you say "I love to strike the earth"?
amalkoroz abod akber ?

Amavalkoroz abod akber would be my current suggestion.

The "general" thing is what is confusing me. "I read the book" can mean a number of things in English (remember, read in this sense is present) including:

I read the book once.
I read the book continuously i.e. over a period if time, like "I listen to tapes"

Do you see my point?

[dwarfhoplite]

I understand that, and that in spoken language the actual meaning doesn't always agree with the tense
"He's doing it" can mean "he is just about to do it/he will do it"

We could just ignore very complicated problems for now. We still need perfect and pluperfect tenses.
I suggest that we do all tenses and prepositions first, and then discuss how we could express different things. Perhaps the solution appears right before our eyes later.

I suggest that we will combine many similar-meaning prepositions, for the sake of simplicity.

on and above
under and beneath
towards and to
over and across
Somehting like that, you get the idea.


Also, I thought about the "reflection pronoun" or whatever(myself, yourself himself). I think we don't need those. We could just use accusative or "with" preposition
:
I love myself = avalkoroz akkoroz
we love ourselves = avalkoroztun akkoroztun
"She loves me", I think to myself = "avaldaroz akkoroz", zotkoroz ("with" koroz)

PS: I bet Nonseq loves both tuns and rozes.

[Inarius]

I'm sure i'm not alone : I don't understand anything of what was said :p
Or nearly.

But I'm sure that you should formalize more your propositions, in ordre to make it CLEAR.
Just a system about verb and/or adjective formation. With rules.

[Scoops Novel]

So, how coulod this be implemented? How complex is it possible for language, and more importantly discussion, to get? Will we have to rely on an element of randomness, or will the AI be just that good?

[Nonsequitorian]

PS: I bet Nonseq loves both tuns and rozes.

Oh yea, bitch, I love me a tun of rozes. MMm yeah.

[dwarfhoplite]

I didn't formalize it because it is ton of work to go through the list of possible prepositions. I proposed the concept of it to be discussed.

To summarise what we have now:

Pronouns:
As it is, there is no gender to pronouns (masculine/feminine)
singular 1st person = koroz
singular 2nd person = daroz
singular 3rd person = beroz
plural 1st person =  koroztun
plural 2st person = daroztun
plural 3rd person = beroztun


Verbs:
Verbs conjugate in tense, person and in count, two last of which mean that it is not always necessary to use the subject pronoun.
To tell the person of the verb, the pronoun is used as a suffix. To emphasize the verb, the verb body is simply repeated.
we love = aval-koroztun
we love a lot = aval-aval-koroztun

To tell the tense of the verb we use prefixes.
As it is, there are the "general form" and the "continuous form".

present tense general: -unga    (I strike the earth = ungabodkoroz) note that the other "a" disappears.
present tense continuous: -un   (I'm striking the earth = unabodkoroz)

imperfect tense general: -ulga
imperfect tense continuous: -ul

perfect tense general: ?
perfect tense continuous: ?

pluperfect tense general: ?
pluperfect tense continuous: ?

future tense general: -urga
future tense continuous: -ur
 

Adjectives
Adjectives are placed at the end of the word that the adjective is describing.
To emphasize the adjective, it is repeated (much like verbs).
In plural words the plural suffix "-tun" is placed after the adjective.
The "-il" suffix is used to make adjectives from nouns (blood = nazush) (bloody= nazush-il)

bloody dagger= urist-nazush-il
very bloody dagger= urist-nazush-il-nazush-il
bloody daggers= urist-nazush-il-tun

Grammatical cases
This is probably the biggest difference from English. I'm just copying Owlbread here.
The "case ending" as they're often called could actually be "case prefixes" in Dwarfish, so you could have:

nominative: *none*
accusative: -ak
dative: -am
genitive: - az
vocative: -af
instrumental: -ag

I also recommend using the dative for the indirect object i.e. "I give the book to you", "book" is the direct object and takes the accusative and "you" take the dative because you are the indirect object. That's what they do in German anyway, and I think it really frees up the sentence structure.


Examples

Accusative:
They love bloody daggers: beroztun avalberoztun akuristnazushiltun

Dative:
They sing a song to them: beroztun osalberoztun akosal amberoztun

Genitive:
The book of lies: thikut azostun

Vocative:
Urist!: Afurist

Instrumental:
Geshud walks with Monom: berdangeshud agmonom