ThatOneKirbyMain2568

Pretty much what the title says. What's a feature in your conlang that you find especially cool?

Recently, I've been playing around with tense, aspect, and mood in my conlang, Hip'alŭk' [çiˈɸalʊkʰ]. A lot of this will probably change completely as it has in the past, but here's what I currently have.

Lexical Aspects

Before getting into tense and grammatical aspect, it's important to understand lexical aspect (a verb's sorta "inherent" aspect) in Hip'alŭk'.

Verbs in Hip'alŭk' can be split into three lexical aspects:

• Durative verbs involve active change over a duration. Examples include t'ʌt'ʌ ("to run"), kĭ ("to build"), and lŭk' ("to say"). However, durative verbs also include semelfactives (brief, repeatable events) like ɔkɔ ("to cough").
• Instant verbs are instant events with distinct end points (i.e., punctual telic verbs). Examples include har ("to throw") and k'o ("to strike").
• Stative verbs, as the name suggests, describe unchanging states. Examples include era ("to know"), qala ("to be red"), and šly ("to inhabit").

(The difference between semelfactives and instant verbs is what's considered a complete action. With ɔkɔ, a complete action is considered to be any number of coughs and can thus occur over a duration. With har, a complete action is always a single throw and is thus always a single instant.)

Lexical aspect determines which tenses and grammatical aspects a verb can take:

• Durative verbs distinguish between the perfective, continuous, and habitual aspects.
• Instant verbs can't be continuous, so they only distinguish between perfective and habitual.
• Stative verbs don't distinguish aspect.

Tense, Grammatical Aspect, & Auxiliary Verbs

In Hip'alŭk', tense and grammatical aspect are applied via auxiliary verbs. Let's start by looking at durative verbs.

By default, durative verbs are nonfuture continuous:

Öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
[ˈøluk ˈliza ˈqlakɔ]
Öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
eat Lisa bread
"Lisa is eating bread." (or "Lisa was eating bread.")

This can be changed to perfective using the auxiliary verb q'e, "to finish". However, in Hip'alŭk', the present and the perfective don't really mix — after all, if an action is occuring as you're talking about it, it must be ongoing. Thus, q'e just indicates a past perfective:

Q'e öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
[ˈqʰe ˈøluk ˈliza ˈqlakɔ]
Q'e öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
finish eat Lisa bread
"Lisa ate bread."

The auxiliary verb la, "to be" or "to sit", signifies a nonfuture habitual:

La öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
[ˈla ˈøluk ˈliza ˈqlakɔ]
La öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
be eat Lisa bread
"Lisa often eats bread." (or "Lisa used to eat bread.")

With instant verbs, all of this becomes a bit more complicated, as instant verbs can't take the continuous aspect. Thus, an instant verb with no auxiliary is construed as a recent past perfective, with q'e indicating a further past perfective:

Har Antona oku.
[ˈhaɾ anˈdona ˈoku]
Har Antona oku.
throw Antona small_sphere
"Antona just threw a ball."

Q'e har Antona oku.
[ˈqʰe ˈhaɾ anˈdona ˈoku]
Q'e har Antona oku.
finish throw Antona small_sphere
"Antona threw a ball."

Like with durative verbs, la indicates a nonfuture habitual.

And then there are stative verbs, which don't differentiate aspect at all. By default, they're in the present, and q'e brings them into the past tense:

K'leni tik'ĭ.
[ˈkʰleni ˈtikʰɪ]
K'leni tik'ĭ.
glow moon
"The moon glows."

Q'e k'leni tik'ĭ.
[ˈqʰe ˈkʰleni ˈtikʰɪ]
Q'e k'leni tik'ĭ.
finish glow moon
"The moon glowed."

Since there's no habitual with stative verbs, la signifies the perfect tense (yes I'm not counting it as an aspect shut up) — i.e., that the state did and still does hold with present relevance.

La k'leni tik'ĭ.
[ˈla ˈkʰleni ˈtikʰɪ]
La k'leni tik'ĭ.
be glow moon
"The moon has been glowing."

Finally, there's the auxiliary verb t'ʌ, "to go", which indicates a future tense. No aspectual nonsense attached here:

T'ʌ öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
[ˈtʰʌ ˈøluk ˈliza ˈqlakɔ]
T'ʌ öluk Lisa qlakɔ.
go eat Lisa bread
"Lisa will eat bread."

Modal Verbs

There are a couple of auxiliaries that mark different modalities.

First, there's hŭ, meaning "to want". This auxiliary creates an imperative modality with a second-person subject:

Hŭ t'ʌt'ʌ penǃ
[ˈhʊ ˈtʰʌtʰʌ ˈpen]
Hŭ t'ʌt'ʌ penǃ
want run 2SG
"Runǃ"

With any other subject, it expresses a hortative modality, insisting that something happen:

Hŭ t'ʌt'ʌ jype!
[ˈhʊ ˈtʰʌtʰʌ ˈjype]
Hŭ t'ʌt'ʌ jy-peǃ
want run 1PL-1+2
"Let us runǃ"

Second, there's jek, "to ask". As you can probably guess, this is for questions:

Jek t'ʌt'ʌ pen?
[ˈjek ˈtʰʌtʰʌ pen]
Jek t'ʌt'ʌ pen?
ask run 2SG
"Are you running?"

The Subjunctive Mood

One inflection that verbs do get is what I'm tentatively (and lazily) calling the subjunctive mood: -n (or -ne if the verb ends with a consonant). On a surface level, this mood applies a dubitative modality, expressing uncertainty:

Šk'an Dansi oku nö.
[ˈʃkʰan ˈdansi ˈoku ˈnø]
Šk'a-n Dansi oku nö
collect-SUBJ Dansi berry PL.AN
"Dansi might be picking berries."

However, if there's an auxiliary verb, the auxiliary takes the subjunctive, and such makes for a lot of interesting constructions.

For example, take q'en, the subjunctive of the auxiliary q'e. Often, it's just the dubitative past perfectiveː

Q'en šk'a Dansi oku nö.
[ˈqʰen ˈʃkʰa ˈdansi ˈoku ˈnø]
Q'e-n šk'a Dansi oku nö.
finish-SUBJ collect Dansi berry PL.AN.
"Dansi was maybe picking berries."

However, q'en can also be used to create a condition. Since it usually indicates a past perfective, it can be thought of in these cases as meaning "with this being done".

T'ʌ šk'a Dansi oku nö, q'en jype t'ʌ öx ʌk'.
[ˈtʰʌ ˈʃkʰa ˈdansi ˈoku ˈnø ˈqʰen ˈjype ˈtʰʌ ˈøx ˈʌkʰ]
T'ʌ šk'a Dansi oku nö, q'e-n jy-pe t'ʌ öx ʌk.'
go collect Dansi berry PL.AN finish-SUBJ 1PL-1+2 go PREP.COM 3SG.SUPAN
"Dansi will pick berries if you and I go with him."

A counterfactual conditional can be created by applying the subjunctive to both the condition and the result.

Šk'an Dansi oku nö, q'en era hukɔr son jype.
[ˈʃkʰan ˈdansi ˈoku ˈnø ˈqʰen ˈeɾa ˈhukɔɾ ˈson ˈjype]
Šk'a-n Dansi oku nö, q'e-n era hukɔ-r son jy-pe.
collect-SUBJ Dansi berry PL.AN finish-SUBJ know hunger-GER PREP.POSS 1PL-1+2
"Dansi would be picking berries if he knew that you and I are hungry."

Lan is just la but dubitative: either dubitative nonfuture habitual or dubitative perfect depending on the main verb's lexical aspect.

Likewise, t'ʌn is a dubitative future. However, when used in conditionals, it can indicate a possible but unlikely result.

T'ʌn šk'a Dansi oku nö, q'en jype t'ʌ öx ʌk'.
[ˈtʰʌn ˈʃkʰa ˈdansi ˈoku ˈnø ˈqʰen ˈjype ˈtʰʌ ˈøx ˈʌkʰ]
T'ʌ-n šk'a Dansi oku nö, q'e-n jy-pe t'ʌ öx ʌk.'
go-SUBJ collect Dansi berry PL.AN finish-SUBJ 1PL-1+2 go PREP.COM 3SG.SUPAN
"Dansi might pick berries if you and I go with him."

While hŭ indicates an imperative modality, its subjunctive hŭn indicates an optative modality, expressing a strong wish for something to happen.

Hŭn ška Dansi xer oku nö!
[hʊn ˈʃkʰa ˈdansi ˈxeɾ ˈoku ˈnø]
Hŭn šk'a Dansi xer oku nöǃ
want-SUBJ collect Dansi 125 berry PL.AN
"May Dansi pick 125 berriesǃ"

Finally, jekne is relatively rare and usually only used formally. It's used to especially politely ask a question, the subjunctive emphasizing that the request might not be fulfilled and by no means has to be:

Pen Dansi, jekne ška pen oku nö?
[ˈpen ˈdansi ˈjekne ˈʃka ˈpen ˈoku ˈnø]
Pen Dansi, jek-ne ška pen oku nö?
2SG Dansi ask-SUBJ collect 2SG berry PL.AN
"Dansi, would you be so kind as to pick berries?"

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I hope all of this was at least somewhat interesting. Trying to write everything out in an explanation really helps to clarify things and flesh out details. What do you think of all this?

While UI tweaks definitely aren't the top development priority as of now, the header currently feels a bit cluttered and unintuitive. When @ernest does get around to improving it, here are a few changes I suggest:

• Add a number next to the All Content tab like the Threads & Microblog tabs do. This would help make what it does much clearer.
• Add a number to the People tab if possible. Right now, it's not at all obvious that this tab depends on the magazine you're on, and giving it a number like the Threads and Microblog tabs would help communciate that.
• Have something I can click to pull up a list of my subscribed magazines and favorited collections. Maybe include that list with the current channel list button (the one that lets you select between All, Subscribed, Moderated, and Favorites).
• Have a notification bell that you can click to see notifications, like what KES does.
• Replace the Magazines & Collections button with a single tab, which could be called "Explore" or "Browse Magazines". I'd combine this with my suggestions in this post: cleaning up the sort options and just having 3 tabs for magazines, abandoned magazines, and collections.

With Meta beginning to test federation, there's a lot of discussion as to whether we should preemptively defederate with Threads. I made a post about the question, and it seems that opinions differ a lot among people on Kbin. There were a lot of arguments for and against regarding ads, privacy, and content quality, but I don't think those are the main issues. Imo, Threads presents a serious danger to the long-term viability of the fediverse if we become dependent on it for content, and our best bet at avoiding that is defederation.

Let's start with these three statements, which should hopefully seem pretty reasonable:

1. It's dangerous for one entity to dominate the activity pool. If, say, one person's instance contributes 95% of the content, then the rest of the fediverse becomes dependent on that instance. Should that instance defederate, everyone else will have to either live with 1/20 of the content or move to that instance, and good luck getting the fediverse to grow after that. By making everyone dependent on their instance for content, that one person gains the power to kill the fediverse by defederating.
2. Profit-driven media should not be the primary way people interact with the fediverse. Open source, non-corporate instances should be able to grow, and that growth will be stunted if most people who want to interact with the fediverse are deciding to go to corporate, profit-driven instances. Furthermore, lots of people went to the fediverse to avoid the influence of these large corporations on social media, and it should still uphold this purpose.
3. People should enter the fediverse with an idea of its purpose. If someone's on the fediverse, they should be aware of that fact and aware of the fediverse's goal of decentralized media. People should think of the fediverse as every instance contributing to a decentralized pool of content, not other instances tapping in to their instance as the main pool.

Now, let's apply these to federating with Threads:

1. This point alone is more than enough reason to defederate from Threads. Threads has millions more active users than all of the fediverse combined, and it's in much better of a position to grow its userbase due to its integration with Instagram. If we federate with Threads, it will dominate content. And that's not mentioning all of the company accounts on Threads that people have expressed an interest in following. While all of this new activity may seem like a good thing, it puts everyone in a position of dependence on Threads. People are going to get used to the massive increase in content from Threads, and if it ever defederates, tons of people on other instances are going to leave with it. Essentially, Zuckerberg will eventually be able to kill the fediverse's growth prospects when he wishes and nab a bunch of users in the process, both of which he has incentive to do.
2. If we federate with Threads, Threads is undoubtedly going to seem like the easiest way to access our pool of content (at least on the microblog side of things). Newcomers already get intimidated by having to choose a Mastodon instance; give them access via essentially just logging into their Instagram account, and they'll take that over the non-corporate alternatives. Federation with Threads means that most of the people who want to see the content we make are going to go to Threads, meaning platforms like Mastodon & Kbin will be less able to grow.
3. When people go to Mastodon, Kbin, Lemmy, Firefish, Misskey, etc., they do so knowing they're going to the fediverse. When people go to Threads, most do so because they have an Instagram account. I'd bet that when Threads gets federation up and running, most people on Threads won't have a clue that they're on the fediverse. Those who do know will probably think of it as all of these small, niche platforms that are kinda offshoots of Threads. That's not the mentality that should pervade the fediverse.

I think that all of this is makes defederating from Threads a no-brainer. If we don't, we'll depend on Meta for activity, platforms that aren't Threads won't grow, and the fediverse will be primarily composed of people who don't have even a vague idea of the purpose behind it. I want more activity as much as the next guy, but that activity being beholden to the corporations most of us want to avoid seems like the worst-case scenario.

"But why not defederate later?"

If we don't defederate now, I don't think we're ever going to defederate. Once the fediverse becomes dependent on Threads for most of its content, there's no going back. If anything, it'd get worse as Threads outpaces the rest of the fediverse in growth and thus makes up a larger and larger share of activity. Look at how desperate everyone is for activity — even if it means the fediverse being carried by Meta — right now, when we're not used to it. Trying to get instances to defederate later will be nigh impossible.

"Why not just block Threads yourself?"

Even if that were a feature, it completely ignores the problem. I don't dislike the people on Threads, and I don't think their content will necessarily be horrendous. The threat is people on non-corporate fediverse platforms becoming dependent on Daddy Zuck for content, and that's something that can only be fought with defederation.

To close, imagine if Steve Huffman said that Reddit was going to implement ActivityPub and federate with Lemmy & Kbin. Would you want the fediverse to be dependent on Reddit for activity? Would you trust Huffman, who has all the incentive in the world to pull the plug on federation once everyone on Lemmy & Kbin is hooked to Reddit content? This is the situation we're in, just with a different untrustworthy corporation. The fediverse should not be at the mercy of Threads, Reddit, The Site Formerly Known as Twitter, or any other corporate platform. It's better to grow slowly but surely than to put what we have in the hands of these people.

With Meta beginning to test federation, there's a lot of discussion as to whether we should preemptively defederate with Threads. I made a post about the question, and it seems that opinions differ a lot among people on Kbin. There were a lot of arguments for and against regarding ads, privacy, and content quality, but I don't think those are the main issues. Imo, Threads presents a serious danger to the long-term viability of the fediverse if we become dependent on it for content, and our best bet at avoiding that is defederation.

Let's start with these three statements, which should hopefully seem pretty reasonable:

1. It's dangerous for one entity to dominate the activity pool. If, say, one person's instance contributes 95% of the content, then the rest of the fediverse becomes dependent on that instance. Should that instance defederate, everyone else will have to either live with 1/20 of the content or move to that instance, and good luck getting the fediverse to grow after that. By making everyone dependent on their instance for content, that one person gains the power to kill the fediverse by defederating.
2. Profit-driven media should not be the primary way people interact with the fediverse. Open source, non-corporate instances should be able to grow, and that growth will be stunted if most people who want to interact with the fediverse are deciding to go to corporate, profit-driven instances. Furthermore, lots of people went to the fediverse to avoid the influence of these large corporations on social media, and it should still uphold this purpose.
3. People should enter the fediverse with an idea of its purpose. If someone's on the fediverse, they should be aware of that fact and aware of the fediverse's goal of decentralized media. People should think of the fediverse as every instance contributing to a decentralized pool of content, not other instances tapping in to their instance as the main pool.

Now, let's apply these to federating with Threads:

1. This point alone is more than enough reason to defederate from Threads. Threads has millions more active users than all of the fediverse combined, and it's in much better of a position to grow its userbase due to its integration with Instagram. If we federate with Threads, it will dominate content. And that's not mentioning all of the company accounts on Threads that people have expressed an interest in following. While all of this new activity may seem like a good thing, it puts everyone in a position of dependence on Threads. People are going to get used to the massive increase in content from Threads, and if it ever defederates, tons of people on other instances are going to leave with it. Essentially, Zuckerberg will eventually be able to kill the fediverse's growth prospects when he wishes and nab a bunch of users in the process, both of which he has incentive to do.
2. If we federate with Threads, Threads is undoubtedly going to seem like the easiest way to access our pool of content (at least on the microblog side of things). Newcomers already get intimidated by having to choose a Mastodon instance; give them access via essentially just logging into their Instagram account, and they'll take that over the non-corporate alternatives. Federation with Threads means that most of the people who want to see the content we make are going to go to Threads, meaning platforms like Mastodon & Kbin will be less able to grow.
3. When people go to Mastodon, Kbin, Lemmy, Firefish, Misskey, etc., they do so knowing they're going to the fediverse. When people go to Threads, most do so because they have an Instagram account. I'd bet that when Threads gets federation up and running, most people on Threads won't have a clue that they're on the fediverse. Those who do know will probably think of it as all of these small, niche platforms that are kinda offshoots of Threads. That's not the mentality that should pervade the fediverse.

I think that all of this is makes defederating from Threads a no-brainer. If we don't, we'll depend on Meta for activity, platforms that aren't Threads won't grow, and the fediverse will be primarily composed of people who don't have even a vague idea of the purpose behind it. I want more activity as much as the next guy, but that activity being beholden to the corporations most of us want to avoid seems like the worst-case scenario.

"But why not defederate later?"

If we don't defederate now, I don't think we're ever going to defederate. Once the fediverse becomes dependent on Threads for most of its content, there's no going back. If anything, it'd get worse as Threads outpaces the rest of the fediverse in growth and thus makes up a larger and larger share of activity. Look at how desperate everyone is for activity — even if it means the fediverse being carried by Meta — right now, when we're not used to it. Trying to get instances to defederate later will be nigh impossible.

"Why not just block Threads yourself?"

Even if that were a feature, it completely ignores the problem. I don't dislike the people on Threads, and I don't think their content will necessarily be horrendous. The threat is people on non-corporate fediverse platforms becoming dependent on Daddy Zuck for content, and that's something that can only be fought with defederation.

To close, imagine if Steve Huffman said that Reddit was going to implement ActivityPub and federate with Lemmy & Kbin. Would you want the fediverse to be dependent on Reddit for activity? Would you trust Huffman, who has all the incentive in the world to pull the plug on federation once everyone on Lemmy & Kbin is hooked to Reddit content? This is the situation we're in, just with a different untrustworthy corporation. The fediverse should not be at the mercy of Threads, Reddit, The Site Formerly Known as Twitter, or any other corporate platform. It's better to grow slowly but surely than to put what we have in the hands of these people.

Threads seems to be beginning to test ActivityPub federation, and since Kbin can be used for microblogging, this affects kbin.social. What are your thoughts on federating or defederating with them?

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