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==Grammar== | ==Grammar== | ||
Tsan exhibits what’s called [[Tsan#Predicate/argument flexibility|predicate/argument flexibility]] | Tsan exhibits what’s called [[Tsan#Predicate/argument flexibility|predicate/argument flexibility]]; all content words equivalent to English verbs, nouns and adjectives, can fill the role as predicate or as argument of a clause. The flexibility is due to that the lemma form of all content words corresponds to a predicative expression. All content words have a subject, which in the default is the third person: For example, the word for "dog" is ''kshawí'', but it is also equivalent to "it is a dog". | ||
In essence, | In essence, the distinction between noun and verb is blurred. All content words may be conjugated and form verbal phrases, they may modify each other, and they all have one of three [[w:grammatical gender|grammatical gender]]s. | ||
=== | ===Grammatical gender=== | ||
Tsan has a peculiar system of grammatical gender. The genders are purely natural: Women are feminine {{sc|f}}, men and males are masculine {{sc|m}}, and everything else is neuter {{sc|n}}. | |||
Do note, however, that the grammatical gender is not marked. Rather, there is a form of dual marking. The gender of the subject of a content word is marked to congruate with that of the topic; if the subject gender is the same as the topic, it is marked as the ''same'' {{sc|sam}}, whereas if the subject gender is different to that of the topic, it is marked as "different" {{sc|dif}}. | |||
===Conjugation=== | |||
The Tsan conjugation is rather a form of affixation of relevant arguments. | |||
Revision as of 10:29, 13 July 2014
 | This article is a construction site. This project is currently undergoing significant construction and/or revamp. By all means, take a look around, thank you. |
| Tsan | |
|---|---|
| Kándini tsúyi | |
| Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|kaŋtʼẽʔi t͡suβ̞ʝɪ]] |
| Created by | – |
| Native to | Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso |
| Native speakers | 4 million (2014) |
Jasi-Jivan
| |
Early form | Proto-Tanisi
|
Dialects |
|
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | Aytshin Sasháatsandi |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ts |
| ISO 639-2 | ts |
| ISO 639-3 | qts |
Tsan (kándini tsúyi or tsani tsúyi) is a language spoken by the Tsan people in Western Africa. It belongs to the Tanisi language family and is thus distantly related to the Ris language. Tsani is a heavily agglutinating with a complex verbal morphology. The language has repeatedly been analysed as lacking nouns and adjectives altogether, in favour of verbs. Phonologically it exhibits ejective consonants, which are also realised as voiced stops in some dialects.
Phonology
The Tsani inventory has been documented and assessed repeatedly since the 19th century, the foremost people in the field being the Belgian linguist Émile d'Ivoire and the Scottish linguist John Glenn Crossing, an expert on Jivan languages. This page uses a standard notation where C is a consonant, N a nasal consonant, and V is a vowel. Features are indicated by square brackets [ ] and plus or minus signs, ±.
Phonemic inventory of vowels and consonants
The following is a Tsani inventory of consonants, according to Émile d'Ivoire, a model nowadays serving as standard when analysing the language. Émile analyses the Tsani inventory as unusual in that it has ejective consonants, as well as an ill-defined dorsal consonant. The consonantal phonology is fairly symmetrical.
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | central | lateral | palatal | |||||
| Nasals | m /m/ | n /n/ | ||||||
| Stops | ||||||||
| voiceless | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | |||||
| ejective | b /pʼ/ | d /tʼ/ | g /kʼ/ | [ʔ] | ||||
| Affricates | ts /t͡s/ | tl /t͡ɬ/ | tsh /t͡ɕ/ | |||||
| Fricatives | th /θ/ | s /s/ | sh /ɕ/ · y /ʝ/ | kh /x/ | h /h/ | |||
| Approximants | [β̞] | w /ɰ/ [w] | ||||||
| Trills | r /ʀ ~ r/ | |||||||
D'Ivoire standardised the phonemic inventory of vowels in the language. He divided the four primary vowels into four categories by length; granting short, long, diphthong and long diphthong vowels. It is important to note that in the modern language, the so called diphthongs are not realised as diphthongs at all, but rather a closed VC syllable.
| Oral | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short diphthong | long diphthong | |
| Close front unrounded | i /i/ | ii /i:/ | í /iɰ/ | - |
| Open back unrounded | a /a/ | aa /aː/ | á /aɰ/ | áa /aːɰ/ |
| Close back rounded | u /u/ | uu /uː/ | ú /uɰ/ | úu /uːɰ/ |
| Mid back rounded | o [o̞] | oo [o̞ː] | ó [o̞ɰ] | óo [o̞ːɰ] |
Debuccalisation of nasal stops
- In the old language, vowels preceding nasals were mandatorily nasalised, which influencing their modern articulation in manners close to what occurs in French.
- An unprecedented change in the language is the apparent debuccalisation of the nasal stops, that is, «m» /m/ and «n» /n/. In the language, these phonemes have been completely lost in all but the word initial positions. The nasal stops are debuccalised into a coup de glotte, [ʔ] intervocalically. The glottal stop is deleted in word final and pre-consonantal positions.
Émile does not represent the nasalisation and debuccalisation in his transcription of the language. Other linguists prefer to analyse the process as a nasalisation of the preceding vowels, after which the nasals are lost. They claim the glottal stop is a consequence of diaeresis. D'Ivoire defends his assertion by pointing out the widespread glottalisation of intervocalic stops.
There is also notable discussion concerning Émile's terminology, since debuccalisation is a term reserved for oral stops. Some consider the process a denasalisation, followed by a debuccalisation. This is however, no record of any intermediary stages.
|
(1) |
|
(2) |
|
(3) |
Allophony of the velar approximant
The velar approximant w /ɰ/ is a particularly elusive phoneme, and is subject to a great deal of allophony. Émile d'Ivoire describes this phoneme as highly variable in the language.
- The semi-consonant commonly analysed as a velar approximant, is a true caméléon and has an impressive four different allophones, depending on the following vowel. Whilst historically analysed as purely velar, my research finds that it is variously labialised into [w], bilabialised as [β̞], and palatalised into [j]. The pure velar approximant [ɰ] also occurs.
He goes on to describe the environments triggering the allophony.
- The labialised velar [w] occurs when adjacent to the mid back rounded vowel o /o̞/, the bilabial approximant [β̞] is produced near the close back rounded vowel u /u/, and the palatal approximant y [j] is produced when adjacent to the close front unrounded vowel i /j/. Finally [ɰ] is used with the open back unrounded vowel a /a/.
The conditions are the following:
- ɰ > {w, β̞, j, ɰ} / _ {o̞, u, i a}C
- ɰ > {w, β̞, j, ɰ} / {o̞, u, i a}_C
Additionally, [w, β̞, ɰ] occur in the so called diphthongs and long diphthongs, namely á, áa, ú, úu, ó and óo, with their associated vowels. When a diphthong precedes a nasal, the nasal is lost.
|
(4) |
|
(5) |
|
(6) |
|
(7) |
Allophony of vowels
D'Ivoire did indeed standardise the phonemic inventory of vowels in the language, but he did also supply a more detailed transcription of how the velar approximant and the debuccalisation of nasal stops affected the articulation of vowels. He divided the four primary vowels into another two categories, nasal and oral.
| Orthography and vowels | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral | Nasal | |||||||
| short | long | short diphthong | long diphthong | short | long | short diphthong | long diphthong | |
| i [i] | ii [i:] | í [iɨ̯] | - | in · im [ẽ] | iin · iim [ẽ:] | ín · ím [iːn] | - | |
| a [a] | aa [aː] | á [aɰ] | áa [aːɰ] | an · am [ɑ̃] | aan · aam[ɑ̃] | án · ám [aŋ] | áan · áam [aːŋ] | |
| u [u] | uu [uː] | ú [uβ̞] | úu [uːβ̞] | un · um [ũ] | uun · uum [ũː] | ún · úm [um] | úun · úum [uːm] | |
| o [o̞] | oo [o̞ː] | ó [o̞ɰʷ] | óo [o̞ːɰʷ] | on · om [õ̞] | oon · oon [õ̞ː] | ón · ón [o̞ːŋ͡m] | óon · óom [o̞ːŋ͡m] | |
Grammar
Tsan exhibits what’s called predicate/argument flexibility; all content words equivalent to English verbs, nouns and adjectives, can fill the role as predicate or as argument of a clause. The flexibility is due to that the lemma form of all content words corresponds to a predicative expression. All content words have a subject, which in the default is the third person: For example, the word for "dog" is kshawí, but it is also equivalent to "it is a dog".
In essence, the distinction between noun and verb is blurred. All content words may be conjugated and form verbal phrases, they may modify each other, and they all have one of three grammatical genders.
Grammatical gender
Tsan has a peculiar system of grammatical gender. The genders are purely natural: Women are feminine f, men and males are masculine m, and everything else is neuter n.
Do note, however, that the grammatical gender is not marked. Rather, there is a form of dual marking. The gender of the subject of a content word is marked to congruate with that of the topic; if the subject gender is the same as the topic, it is marked as the same sam, whereas if the subject gender is different to that of the topic, it is marked as "different" dif.
Conjugation
The Tsan conjugation is rather a form of affixation of relevant arguments.
Predicative complements
Simple predicative expressions
In Tsan, the predicative complement of an expression is equivalent to the predicate itself. All content words are predicates in their own right, due to a copula suffix. This copula is a null suffix in the third person proximate, but it congruates with the subject. The subject does not need to be independent, and is only marked on the predicate.
|
(1) |
|
(2) |
|
(3) |
Predicative nominatives
If the subject of the expression is stated independently, it is marked with a specifier, (SPEC), which roughly translates as the English relative determiner that which, or the construction it is […] that is […]. The post-vocalic form is –n and the post-consonantal form is –i.
The predicative complement, or predicate, agrees with the topic. The topic, most often the subject, is marked with the third person singular homus suffix, as well as the specifier.
|
(2.5) |
|
(2.6) |
|
(2.7) |
Predicative accusatives
Tsan has one copula, and one copula only. In English you may find a variety of related verbs with similar function to the main copula to be; for example to feel, to seem and to become. In Tsan, the semantics of these verbs are all conveyed by means of modifying the copula with evidentials, mood markers, applicatives and other constructions.
Typically, what may be percieved as an increase in valency is marked with the copula and an appropriate applicative-like affix. The former subject is always demoted to the object or patient.
|
(2.8) |
|
(2.9) |
|
(2.10) |
Intransitive clauses
When you accept that two content words in a predicative expression co-function as predicate and subject, it is not difficult to imagine other clauses with one core argument. The simplest are the corresponding English intransitive clauses. Tsan makes an important dichotomy between stative and dynamic content words.
Stative clauses
Stative predicates, such as to hang, to lie, to be on fire, to taste like and to know are almost exclusively expressed by means of the copula suffix. See also predicative complements, which is an equivalent interpretation.
|
(3.11) |
|
(3.12) |
Dynamic clauses
Dynamic predicatives on the other hand, including to run, to lay, to put on fire, to savour, and to learn, are formed with a conjugating dynamic prefix, acting in the same manner as the copula.
|
(3.13) |
|
(3.14) |
|
(3.15) |
Flexibility of arguments and predicates
It is in these dynamic and static clauses that Tsan first exhibits its flexibility of arguments. By simply switching the prefixes of the content words, the meaning is reversed or changed drastically.
|
(3.16) |
|
(3.17) |
|
(3.18) |
See also
| Tsani language | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Orthography | Cree syllabary | ||
| Phonology | IPA for Tsan • Phonology | ||
| Grammar | Grammar • Arguments • Syntax | ||
| Vocabulary | Basic vocabulary • Swadesh list | ||
| Numerals | |||
| Example texts | The Lord's Prayer • The North Wind and the Sun • The Tower of Babel • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights | ||
| Geneaology | Tanisi languages • Proto-Tanisi | ||