Naibas

Naibas
Naibas Naibas kaulas
Pronunciation	[[nɑɪˈbas̺] [nɑɪˈbas̺ kɑʊˈlas̺]]
Created by	puyongechi
Date	2020
Setting	Naiaba
Ethnicity	White, Naiabian
Native speakers	90,000,000 (1910)
Language family	Argo-Kigodic Argurian Niztanian South-Ilakian West-Nanaric Naibas

Naibas (IPA: /nɑɪˈbas̺/ or, less frequently, /ˈnai.bɑs̺/. Also Naibas kaulas (IPA: /nɑɪˈbas̺ kɑʊˈlas̺/)) is a Niztanian con-language and the official language of Naiaba, a con-country in West Arguria. It is spoken by approximately 50 million native speakers (1910) and 40 million L2 speakers around the world, being the most spoken Niztanian language, and the second most spoken Argurian language. It is an agglutinative language with an ergative-absolutive alignment and a SOV order. It was created by Reddit user puyongechi in late 2020.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m/		/n/	/ɲ/	/ŋ/
Plosive	/p/ /b/	/t/ /d/		/c/ /ɟ/	/k/ /g/	/ʔ/
Affricate				/tʃ/
Fricative	/f/	/s̻/	/s̺/	/ʃ/
Approximant	/β/			/ʝ/
Lateral			/l/
Rhotic			/r/ /ɾ/

• /ɲ/ occurs when n- is followed by -i- and another vowel (nia, nie, nio, niu)
• The glottal stop /ʔ/ occurs when a stressed diphthong precedes a stop or when a stressed syllable precedes a palatal plosive (eitto /ˈeiʔ.co/; koddi /ˈkɔʔ.ɟɪ/)
• There is distinction between the three sibilants /s̻/, /s̺/ and /ʃ/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	/i/ [ɪ]		/u/ /ɔ/
Mid	/e/	[ə]	[o]
Open		/a/	[ɑ]

• [ɪ], [o] and [ɑ] only occur when i, o and a are unstressed respectively. In some dialects of Naibas, [ʊ] occurs when u is unstressed.
• When e is unstressed and right before a stress, some speakers pronounce [ɪ] and some [ə].

Orthography

M m	N n	NiV niV	P p	B b	T t	D d	Tt tt	Dd dd	K k	G g
/m/	/n/	/ɲ/	/p/	/b/	/t/	/d/	/c/	/ɟ/	/k/	/g/
Kx kx	F f	S s	Z z	X x	I i	V v	L l	R- r-	-r- -r
/t͡ʃ/	/f/	/s̺/	/s̻/	/ʃ/	/ʝ/	/β/	/l/	/r/	/ɾ/

Prosody

Stress

Stress in Naibas follows some logical rules only broken in a few cases, reason why it is very easy to read. Naibas is a stem-stressed language when it comes to adding affixes to a word, that is, case, tense and aspect markers. Most words with more than two syllables place a secondary stress in the syllable that is two places away from the stressed one. In words like aniraz /ˌa.nɪˈɾas̻/ (woman), the last syllable is stressed, so the first syllable receives the secondary stress. Case markers and definite suffixes receive secondary stress too if the last syllable of the word is not stressed, so the word ixtoe /ˈiʃ.toˌe/ (the boy) places the secondary stress in the definite suffix -e.

• Words ending in -n, -l, -r, -s, -z, and -x place the stress in the last syllable (aniraz, ixol, kakun, osor, albes).
• Words ending in vowel, -k, -m or -t place the stress in the penultimate syllable (samak, ixto, inere, gatta, izum).
• Words ending in -u place the stress in the last syllable if they are neuter (kaniu) and in the penultimate if they are masculine (maiddu).

When it comes to adding the definite suffix -e, -i or -a, some words ending in vowel have two possible pronunciations. The word inere (girl), if attached the suffix (inere-i) can be pronounced either /ɪˈne.ɾeɪ/ or /ɪˈne.ɾeˌi/. The same thing happens with masculine words ending in -u (maiddu / maiddu-e: /ˈmaiʔ.ɟwe/ or /ˈmaiʔ.ɟuˌe/ 'beaver') or in -i (koddi / koddi-e: /ˈkɔʔ.ɟje/ or /ˈkɔʔ.ɟiˌe/ 'dog').

Phonotactics

• Onset (can be null): /b/, /d/, /f/, /g/, /k/, /c/, /ɟ/, /ʝ/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, /p/, /r/, /s̺/, /s̻/, /ʃ/, /t͡ʃ/, /t/, /β/ (only after a vowel), /l/, /ɾ/, /s̺/ or /s̻/.
  • Consonant clusters allowed in onset are: /tɾ/, /dɾ/, /kɾ/, /gɾ/, /pɾ/, /bɾ/, /kl/, /gl/, /pl/, /bl/, /fr/, /fl/. /kn/. /tn/ and /pn/ are also possible but some speakers substitute them with /n/ or /m/, and then the following vowel becomes a diphthong (kneta - neita; pnaxko - maixko).
• Nucleus: vowels and diphthongs.
• Coda (can be null): /k/, /t/, /p/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /ʔ/, /f/, /s̺/, /s̻/, /ʃ/, /l/, /ɫ/, /r/, /ɾ/
  • Consonant clusters allowed in coda are: /nk/, /lk/, /rk/, /s̺k/, /s̻k/, /ʃk/, /nt/, /lt/, /rt/, /s̺t/, /s̻t/, /ʃt/

Morphology

Nominal morphology

Nouns in Naibas have a suffix in almost any possible sentence, except if, for instance, there is a numeral. The definite article is realized as an affix that changes depending on the gender of the word. Words can be masculine, feminine or neuter.

	Suffix	Plural	Example	Translation
Masculine	-e	-ie	osore - osorie	the blanket - (the) blankets
Feminine	-i	-o/-ixo	noixi - noixo	the pig - (the) pigs
Neuter	-a	-ia	kaniua - kaniuia	the tavern - (the) taverns

Case marks

Case marks are added always at the end of a word, and they can be attached a definite article before, after or both before and after the word. If we take the word melke (coast), we can form the word melkeitez (melke + -i- (definite article) + -tez (locative case)), which means "from the coast" or "coastal". The definite article -e attached to the whole word would result in melkeiteze (the one (masculine) from the coast). We can keep adding affixes until we get really long but meaningful words

Melkeitezekia
melke	-i	-tez	-e	-k	-ia
coast	-det	-loc	-det	-gen	-pl
'The things (neut.) of the one (masc.) from the coast.'

Cases in Naibas are the following

case	masculine	feminine	neuter
abs	zutta(e/ie) 'cloud'	delas(i/o) 'sea'	nutu(a/ia) 'law'
erg	zutta(e/ie)s	delas(i/o)s	nutu(a/ia)s
dat	zutta(e/ie)ne	delas(i/o)ne	nutu(a/ia)ne
gen	zutta(e/ie)k	delas(i/o)k	nutu(a/ia)k
com	zutta(e/ie)ko	delas(i/o)ko	nutu(a/ia)ko
abess	zutta(e/ie)ta	delas(i/o)ta	nutu(a/ia)ta
caus	zutta(e/ie)kai	delas(i/o)kai	nutu(a/ia)kai
ben	zutta(e/ie)tu	delas(i/o)tu	nutu(a/ia)tu
instr	zutta(e/ie)kes	delas(i/o)kes	nutu(a/ia)kes
ine	zutta(e/ie)na	delas(i/o)na	nutu(a/ia)na
loc	zutta(e/ie)tez	delas(i/o)tez	nutu(a/ia)kez
all	zutta(e/ie)ro	delas(i/o)to	nutu(a/ia)to
term	zutta(e/ie)dan	delas(i/o)dan	nutu(a/ia)dan
abl	zutta(e/ie)to	delas(i/o)to	nutu(a/ia)to
ptv	zutta(-/ie)ku	delas(-/o)ku	nutu(-/ia)ku
prol	zutta(e/ie)tuk	delas(i/o)tuk	nutu(a/ia)tuk

We walked through the market and from there we went to the town hall square.

Zurokituk untuzipaxas tui naruto kurekiroxik udduaro tuna.

zuroki	-tuk	untu-	zipaxa	-s	tui	naru	-to	kurekiroxi-k	uddua	-ro	tuna
the market	-prol	-1pl.pst	walk	-prf	and	there	-abl	town.hall-gen	the plaza	-all	we.went

Adjectival morphology

Adjectives agree in gender with the noun but not in number. This said, nivi inerei (the tall girl) would have the plural nivi inereixo (the tall girls) but not *nivixo inereixo. Predicative adjectives do agree in both gender and number: inereixo nivixo irun (the girls are tall).

Comparative

The base noun on which we base the comparison is not suffixed but followed by kain/kan.

Superlative forms adding -um- between the adjective and the gender and number mark.
-Ibaldaie ixolie kan testumie irun. (Horses are faster than men.)

For equal or lower degree adjectives, Naibas only uses kain/kan and/or a negative nominal sentence.
-Ki nozur nue kain nive. (You are not as tall as me.)

-Nue kain nive nozur. (You are as tall as me.)

Superlative

The superlative forms by adding -ain- between the adjective and the gender mark (nivi - nivaini 'the tallest'). To mean "the least", -uin- is placed in said position (nivi - nivuini 'the least tall'). Superlative adjectives need the partitive case for the noun they describe, so "the tallest building" would be nivaini getoxku where getox (building) has the partitive case mark -ku. Adjectives in Naibas use plural marks if the noun is absent: nivixo (the tall ones).

Verbal morphology

Verbs use plenty of affixes to express person, number, tense, aspect and object. Depending on the position of the verb inside the phrase and also on the type of verb, affixes may be located in one place or another. For instance, ergative and unergative verbs mark the subject at the end of the word, whereas unaccusative verbs mark it at the beginning.

Naibas tenses are two: present tense (or no-past tense) and past tense.

Person	Object marker	Subject marker (no-past)	Subject marker (past)
nue(s) (1SG)	ma-	-e-	-(e)te-
zue(s) (2SG.M)	ze-	-aze-	-azte-
azue(s) (2SG.F)	zi-	-eze-	-ezte-
ana(s) (3SG.M)	a-	-a-	-(a)ta-
iana(s) (3SG.F)	i(x)a-	-i(x)a-	-(i)tia-
nun (nus) (1PL)	nu-	-un(u)-	-untu-
bi(s) (2PL)	bi(e)-	-i-	-(e)ti-
bie(s) (2DU)	bi(x)e-	-i-	-(e)ti-
iu(s) (3PL)	u-	-u-	-(e)tu-
	ane-

The verb stem, which is always stressed, is located between the object mark and the subject mark in ergative or unergative verbs (anure - I pay it). The final slot of a conjugated verb is occupied by the aspect marker, which can be null (-Ø) or -r(e), which marks an unfinished action (imperfective aspect). There are many other affixes that can add information to the verb:

unfinished action	-r(e)-	agulere 'I'm drinking it'
habitual action	-Ø-	agule 'I (usually) drink it'
finished action	-k/-i/-s	agulek 'I've just drunk it'
condition	-du-	aguledu 'I would drink it'
possibility	-gu-	agulegu 'I might drink it'
remote future (barely used)	-ke-	aguleke 'I will drink it (I don't know when)
present obligation (very informal)	-pa-	agulepa 'I gotta drink it'

Transitive verbs

These verbs require the subject to be in ergative case (-s), and place the subject mark at the end of the verb and the object mark at the beginning. There are two types:

• Verbs ending in -lk, -nk or -rk, which mark the perfective aspect with -k (gulk, polk, xank, tark).
• Verbs ending in -i, which mark the perfective aspect with -i (tidosi, libi, koni, tturti). These verbs are always stressed in the penultimate syllable.

Intransitive verbs

These verbs require the absolutive case in the subject (-e, -i, -a, -Ø and plurals). They always end in vowel, mostly -a or -e, and are stressed in the penultimate syllable. They place the subject at the beginning of the word. Intransitive verbs mark the perfective aspect by adding -s at the end of the verb.

	Transitive		Intransitive
	-k	-i	-V
	gulk	koni	kurku
Subject mark 1SG	gule	kone	ekurku
Translation	I drink	I love	I live
Subject (1SG) and object (3SG) marks	agule	akone
Translation	I drink it	I love it
Perfective aspect	agulek	akonei	ekurkus
Translation	I have drunk it	I have loved it	I have lived

Mood

There are three moods in Naibas: indicative, imperative and jussive. The imperative is formed by not modifying the verb at all (nurk - to pay; nurk! - pay!). The second person plural imperative is formed by adding the personal pronoun after the verb (nurk bi! - y'all pay!).

The jussive case is slowly disappearing from Naibas speakers' everyday use, but it is still required in formal contexts and an alive element in the most standard varieties of Naibas. It has three functions: negative imperative, formal imperative and third person imperative. It forms adding -xe after the subject mark in transitive verbs, and after the verb in intransitive verbs (ki gulazexe! - don't drink!; gulaxe! - let him drink!). The jussive case can be used in 1PL verbs to form structures similar to "let's do something!" (gulunuxe! - let's drink!), but most speakers use the indicative mood (gulun! - let's drink! (lit.: we drink!)). It is also important to note that some people form the negative imperative by adding ki (not) before the verb (ki gulk! - don't drink!).