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Conlang Year, Day 285 prompt

Goal: Make a plan for expanding quotative constructions

Note: Consider how you will add adverbial elements or noun modification.

Tip: “Heavy” quotatives may behave differently than “light” ones.

Work focus: Organize/Plan/Structure


Today’s goal is to figure out ways your language might allow for additional modification in quotative constructions, such as adverbial elements (e.g. adposition phrases, adverbs, or even non-finite clauses) or nominal modification (e.g. relative clauses). You may decide that your quotative constructions are relative rigid and require multiple clauses if additional modification is necessary. Or you may want to allow quotatives to get quite complex.

If you do allow more grammatically complex quotatives, you might consider if heavy quotatives (e.g. quotatives with additional modification) behave differently than lighter ones (e.g. quotatives with only a speaker and verb). For instance, a heavier quotative may occur in a different position relative to the reported speech or may have different internal structure (e.g. the quoting verb may occur in a different position than it otherwise would).

Make a plan for how you want to move forward.