Ditab

Ditab (Dîthâabh /diː˧˩θ̠aːaw˥˩/) is a language inspired by Iau, Proto-Lakes Plain, Dinka, Thai, Formor's avian conlang C’ą̂ą́r and Semitic languages (particularly chanted Tiberian Hebrew).

Phonology

Ditab has

• 4 consonants:
  • voiced labial stop: b
  • voiced postdental stop: d
  • voiceless alveolar stop: t
  • voiceless velar stop: k
• 21 vowels: i ị e ẹ a ọ o ụ u /i ɪ e ɛ ä ɔ o ʊ u/ + nasalized counterparts + ă (shva na3, by default /ä/); /ɔ o ʊ u/ are really their unrounded counterparts
• 6 pitch accent patterns (level, rising, falling, falling-rising, rising-falling, one like Swedish tone 2) (they should be loosely modeled after tropes) (long and overlong tones should be different; some tones have two nuclei like pashtayim and qadma v'azla)

There is a three way length distinction as well, in both consonants and vowels.

All four stops have continuant allophones (roughly [w ð̞̠ˠ θ̠ h]) after vowels, unless they're geminated. [ð̞̠ˠ] is Danish soft d.

Word structure

Final stress like Tiberian Hebrew

Most words are underlyingly either open syllable -V: (e.g. o), or "closed syllable" with nucleus -V: and allowed "codas" -C, -V, -VC, -CC, -(unstressed syllable) (e.g. och, o.o, o.och, o.chebh, o.c)

Extrametrical elements occur too: ô.k-ko [ô:.k:-kò:] (like -k in TibH ותבך vattėbh-k 'and she wept')

Orthography

Ditab has an ASCII friendly orthography in addition to the 'default' one, where some vowels are written with consonant letters.

Morphology

Ditab morphology is entirely suffixing except for adjectives. Adjectives are a small closed class and work by infixing and/or changing the vowels in the noun according to a predictable umlaut pattern.

There is no grammatical gender, and two declension classes:

• Class one nouns mark the construct state with the suffix -bẽ́.
• Class two nouns mark the absolute state with -bẽ́.

Verbs inflect by aspect but not tense. Curiously, the imperfective and perfective forms are interchanged when the verb follows the interrogative particle củ-, the negative particle bách- or the conjunctive particle ădhùbh-, or other preverbs/conjunctions, reminiscent of Old Irish verb allomorphy.

Ditab is borderline polysynthetic in that some verbs have to incorporate their objects. Ditab also uses bipersonal inflections.

Syntax

Ditab is strictly OVS. Cleft constructions are common.