This chapter addresses how languages express negation and evidentials in statements, questions and commands. Negation is typically conveyed via negative affixes or negative particles, but it can also be expressed in other ways, including tonally or via changes in word order. Evidentials encode source of information morphologically or syntactically; the chapter discusses both direct evidentials, which indicate that evidence was gathered through the senses, and indirect evidentials, that signal information gathered indirectly. This chapter also provides conlanging practice, includes a set of guided questions to facilitate the incorporation of negation and evidentials in a conlang, and describes how negation and evidentials are expressed in the Salt language

This chapter examines ways in which languages express three basic sentence types: statements, questions and commands. It provides conlanging practice, a set of guided questions facilitating the incorporation of various sentence types in a conlang, and describes statements, questions and commands in the Salt language. The chapter ends with a list of resources and references to explore further.

This chapter addresses stress and tone. It describes various types of stress systems attested in languages (lexical, morphological, fixed and weight-sensitive), different tonal systems (simple, tonal and pitch accent), and introduces intonation. This chapter provides a list of guided questions to facilitate the incorporation of stress or tone in a conlang, provides conlanging practice and describes the stress system of the Salt language. The chapter ends with a list of resources ad references to explore further.

This chapter introduces language invention. It addresses the similarities and differences between natural languages (natlangs) and constructed languages (conlangs) and distinguishes the latter from creative language forms such as slang and language games. This chapter also covers the main types of conlangs and the key motivations underlying language invention. It also discusses important considerations to keep in mind when creating a language and provides a guided exercise on language invention. The chapter ends with a list of resources and references to explore further.

This chapter focuses on the lexicon. It discusses how languages encode concepts into words and introduces lexical and grammatical word categories attested in languages, paying special attention to content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and interjections). This chapter also highlights strategies that can be used to increase the number of words in a conlang, provides a set of guided questions to expand a conlang vocabulary and discusses aspects of the lexicon of the Salt language, including color terms. The chapter ends with a list of resources ad references to explore further.

This chapter focuses on language variation and change. It discusses criteria used to distinguish dialects and languages, discusses standard and vernacular dialects, and previews various types of dialectal variation, including geolects, genderlects and sociolects. In addition, it examines language change and the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that are conducive to it. This chapter also addresses aspects of variation and change in Esperanto, Lojban and Tolkien’s Elvish languages. In addition, it provides conlanging practice and a set of guided questions to incorporate aspects of variation in a conlang, and exemplifies dialectal variation and historical change in the Salt language.

This chapter summarizes the conlanging process described throughout the book and provides suggestions on how to continue to build a conlang, including composing and translating fictional texts, and developing vocabulary and grammar further. It also discusses the extent to which conlangs need to be consistent with patterns attested in natural languages and provides a full translation and gloss of a fictional text for the Salt language.

This chapter focuses on written systems. It introduces logographic, semiographic and phonographic scripts, including alphabets, abjads, abugidas, and syllabaries, and provides a short account of the origin of writing. This chapter also exemplifies noteworthy conscripts and discusses the connection between writing, the fictional world, and the phonological and morphological structure of a language. In addition, it provides conlanging practice, provides you with a blueprint that will facilitate the design of an original conscript for a conlang, and introduces the writing system of the Salt language.

This chapter focuses on verbal morphology, in particular, agreement and so-called TAM, i.e., tense, aspect and mood/modality. It provides conlanging practice, a set of guided questions to develop the verbal morphology of a conlang, and describes the verbal morphology of the Salt language