User:Chrysophylax/YaLU

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial		Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Glottal
	Plain	Ejective	Plain	Ejective	Palatalised		Plain	Ejective
Stop	b [p] p [pʰ]	ḇ [p’]	d [t] t [tʰ]	ḏ [t’]	d́ [tʲ] t́ [tʲʰ]		g [k] k [kʰ]	ḡ [g’]
Affricate			z [t͡s]	ẕ [t͡s’]	ź [t͡sʲ]
Fricative	v [v]		s [s̠̻]		ś [s̠̻ʲ]				h [h]
Nasal	m [m]		n [n]		ń [nʲ]
Approximants			l [l]		ĺ [lʲ]	y/j [j]	w [w]
Trills			r [r]

Notes

1. /j/ is written with <y> before u, a, o but <j> everywhere else.
2. The consonants r, l, w can all stand in for a vowel in a syllable core.
3. The consonants s and n, have the following retroflex allophones after r: [ʂ], [ɳ]; e.g. prsaḏi ['pʰrʂat’i]
4. The plain plosive stops, that is b, d, g may become semi-voiced between vowels and after n, m and l.

Vowels

Five vowels: a, e, i, o, u with long doublets aa, ee, ii, oo, uu.

Tone

Syllables can take one of three tones: rising, falling, plain or mid, indicated respectively by the acute, the grave and no accent.

Plain	Rising	Falling
ḡaaj	ḡááj	ḡààj
[k’āːj]	[k’ǎːj]	[k’âːj]
"rock"	"who"	"elk"

Grammar

Morphology

Pronouns

Pronouns come in primarily two shapes, independent and enclitic versions. The independent pronouns are used to emphasise and in certain syntactic constructions. The enclitic versions are used everywhere else. Furthermore, as this is a pro-drop language, they may be dropped from any given sentence if context allows it.

	singular	plural
		inclusive	exclusive
first	har	haryań	hammeḏ
second	yań	yaańńeḏ
third	jee, śi	jeemeḏ

Notes

1. Different pronouns are used for the third person depending on the referent's animacy. The word jee can only be used for animate referents and can be pluralised to jeemeḏ, whereas inanimate śi can solely appear with inanimates, e.g., úúlem śi … "the country, it…", and cannot be pluralised.

The proclitic versions are ha-, ńa-, je-, śi- in the singular and hee-, ńee-, mee- in the plural.

Stems

Stems are usually predicate bases of the form CVC. These can never have the same consonant in the first and second position, thus forbidding forms such as **lul or **rer.

Similar to Semitic languages and European languages there is considerable vowel variation, something which has been grammaticalised. The basic vowel variation pattern is e – u – ø. These patterns have acquired specific names based on their predominant usage in the language. The e–pattern is called the nominal pattern, the u–pattern the verbal, and the ø–pattern is named the qualifying pattern. Certain stems do not have a verbal form and are termed deprived stems.

A general example: the consonant stem g–r “straight” we get the possible configurations ger–, gur–, gr– all used in words such as geraz, guruti, and grtaz.

As mentioned, not all stems have all the possible vowel patterns available, e.g., t–r “person” with the only forms being ter, tr–, lacking the verbal pattern **tur.

Roots

The roots of the language are further split into animate and inanimate. To the animate category certain animals, spirits, gods, creatures possessing a modicum of independent will (e.g., talking plants in a story), humans, certain natural phenomena such as lightning or hurricanes, and to the inanimate we find everything else.

Verbs

Active-stative, fluid-S. The verbal system is moderately complex inflecting for number, person, animacy, mood, epistemic modality, evidentiality, tense, and aspect. Furthermore, object, subject, and proximity is marked on the finite verb. The verbs can all be constructed from the appropriate verbal stem in combination with the relevant affixes. There are exceedingly few irregular verbs, somewhere around three to five depending on analyses.

ḏa "1p" ḏameh "1pl.ecl." meh "1pl.incl" ḇe "2P" ka "3P" repetitiveness can be derived by: ẕuliń -> ziẕuliń

//notes

THIS IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN I EXPECTED

Verb construction
Tense	Patient	Agent	Number	Root	Aspect	Evidentiality	Epistemic modality	Mood
wá-	ḡ-	aa	me	ẕul	ín	u	źi	r
non.fut	inan	anim	pl
wáḇaameẕulínuźir

It is most prudent to begin with the temporal facet of verb construction for the verb is ever marked with a suitable tense, of which we are allowed to choose two: present and non-present.

Nouns

Nouns are relatively simple, being marked for possession and number. The only major difference between animate and inanimate nouns is that only animate nouns may be pluralised. Inanimate nouns need to use a periphrastic construction to express plurality.

Syntax

In transitive sentences: verb-patient-agent. Also permits fronting of agent for emphasis, leading to agent-verb-patient. In intransitive sentences, verb-subject is the norm.