Becka's Notes

Post One Here

Today I'm going to deal with word order and nominal grammar (that is grammar relating to nouns) in language one.

Word order in Language One is actually fairly free in that people can understand it no matter what order the words are in because the cases. In spite of this it has a definite tendancy towards Verb-Subject-Object (VSO).

So yes the language has cases.

Cases:

It's a Tripartite Language which means the subject of a transitive verb, the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb all take different cases (this gets even worse in language two which manages to add in features of Active-Stative but more on that when we get there). As a result the language has both a passive and an antipassive voice.

So cases:

• Ergative: The subject of a transitive verb
• Accusative: The object of a transitive verb
• Absolutive: The subject of an intransitive verb (also the unmarked base form of the noun)
• Genitive: Marks nouns that modifies other nouns. Usually possessive.
• Dative: Indirect Objects.
• Vocative: Identifies the person or thing being address

In addition the language keeps wanting to have not one but multiple Locative Cases in place of prepositions - in other words it's trying to ape Finnish which among it's impressive tally of fifteen cases includes six locative cases. I told it no. I may regret this when I get to prepositions.

Noun Class (aka Grammatical Gender):

People may remember Mountain (which I'm still working on) with its ridiculous number of Genders. Language one isn't that bad but it does have four noun classes.

• Spirit - Things possessed of divine essence. Gods, spirits, human beings, magical creatures and things (even ones with no consciousness).
• Physical/Animate - Non-magical animals and plants.
• Material/Inanimate - Non-magical things
• Abstract Concepts

Other Stuff:

• There are markers for dual and plural.
• There are temporal markers for things that don't exist anymore (but used to) and for things that don't exist yet (but will). There may also be markers for things that don't exist yet and are not yet planned to exist but which are desired and things which exist but you wish they didn't. These are not cases because they are seperate from the case marker.

This concludes the nouns. Next Verb Grammar and then maybe some wordage.

Go to Part 3 here

I've decided to use use these worldbuilding questions as part of my worldbuilding process. Starting today with the first section "The World".

Basics:

• Are the laws of nature and physics actually different in this world, or are they the same as in real life? How does magic fit in? How do magical beasts fit in?

The laws of nature and physics work roughly the same as on Earth. The elephant in the room is, of course, Magic which is very real and blatently obvious.

• Is this generally an earth-like world? Is it an “alternate Earth”?

It's a generally Earthlike world but it's not an alternate Earth in the sense of alternate history. More on this in the drill down.

• Are there different human races, whether or not there are non-humans like elves or dwarves? How does the cultural and ethnic diversity of this world compare to the real world?

There are magical races and creatures who are actually descendants of normal creatures mutated by long term exposure to sources of magical energy. What magical creatures exist and how much relation they bear to our mythical creatures is something I have yet to discover.

• How long have there been people on this world? Did they evolve, or did they migrate from somewhere/when else?

They evolved. Even the magical creatures are the product of natural selection selecting for those creatures who could tolerate high levels of magical energy.

• How many people are there in this country? How does this compare with world population? What is considered a small town/large town/city in terms of number of people?

The entire population of the world is about 300 million at this point. The population of the main country at the heart of the empire is about 3 million. The other main country I'm interested in is about the same - maybe slightly lower.

• Where does magic power come from: the gods, the “mana” of the world (as in Larry Niven’s “Warlock” stories), the personal willpower or life force of the magician, somewhere else? Is magic an exhaustible resource? If a magician must feed his spells with his own willpower, life-force, or sanity, what long-term effects will this have on the health and/or stability of the magician? Do different races/species have different sources for their magic, or does everybody use the same one?

The source of magic is complicated. Magic is an energy that can be found in various sources including the lifeforce of magic users, certain gems and minerals and other things. Some of these sources are renewable and some not. Lifeforce as a source is renewable but drawing too deeply can be detrimental to health so magic users prefer some other source for intense spells. However they believe magic comes from the gods which has important cultural implications.

Not Earth at All: 

• How does this world differ physically from earth? Is it the same size (same density, same gravity), same ratio of land/water, same atmosphere, etc.? Does it have more than one sun or moon? Rings? Are there spectacular constellations/comets, etc. visible at night or by day?

Since unnamed Fantasy Setting One and Two both have two moons (mainly because they are alternates of the same world which vary based on who won the war of the gods) I suppose I'd better give The Opal Mask setting a different number of moons. I am undecided if to go with a single lunalike moon or multiple smaller moons. Feedback on this would be cool. I'll deal with the skies when I do the drilldown but I know it has a ring. The land/water ratio, gravity, axial tilt are all roughly the same as Earth (because I'm lazy).

Are there non-human inhabitants of this planet (elves, dwarves, aliens)? If so, how numerous? How openly present? What areas do they occupy?Yes, there are non-human intelligences on this planet. I need to define them more but they aren't traditional elves and dwarfs. Apart from the physical ones there are also a great number of spirits and similar.

• How are the continents laid out? If there is more than one moon/sun, how does this affect winds, tides, and weather generally?

The largest mass of continents are in the northern hemisphere as on Earth (and unlike my other setting where they are in the southern one). The tides depend on what I'm doing with moons but the axial tilt etc is

• How much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?

Amount of land and habitable land is roughly equivalent to Earth. None of the supercontinents are quite as huge as Eurasia so there's slightly less desert and slightly more maritime climates.

• Is the axial tilt and orbit the same — i.e., does the world have the same seasons and same length of year as Earth?

As mentioned above orbit and axial tilt are roughly the same as Earth.
---

Next Section Sunday or Monday. Also the first drilldown post.