This paper represents the results of the comparative analysis of tropative expression strategies of natural vs constructed (articulatory vs graphic) languages, as well as those occupying a middle ground between the two major categories: Slavic microlanguages and contact languages with Indo-European influence. Tropative is a grammatical function expressing a meaning “X considers Y to be Z”. Microlanguages are Slavic ethnolects based on particular varieties and possessing their own literary norms different from those of parent languages. Tropative constructions of 215 languages are compared according to different criteria: tropativity class (integration between a tropative predicate and a characteristic Z), methods of reverse (Y is considered to be Z) and negative (X does not consider Y / Y is not considered to be Z) constructions formation. The poor level of coverage of tropative in all the language categories in question explains a usage of a non-conventional research method, namely, the cross-sectional method, which involved a short survey for native speakers or users of languages in question. The results of research from different categories were compared with the Fisher's exact test. Due to the low levels of coverage of tropative in grammar descriptions of languages, patterns of constructed languages and microlanguages can only be created based on authors' ideas about language simplicity. Thus, examination of such languages and their comparison with natural languages can reveal authors’ attitudes towards natural tropative patterns, which might shed light on the ideas on language simplicity in general. The aim of comparison of natural, constructed and intermediary languages is to define whether the correlation exists between the naturality/artificiality of a language and its tropative patterns, and therefore, whether it is possible to identify the origin-based category of an unknown language or to define its category in case of doubts given its tropative patterns.
Roman Viktorovich Tarasov (Sun,) studied this question.