Nidâri: Difference between revisions

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Ín Duári is an indigenous minority language spoken in small pockets in Minhay.  The language is not related to the [[Minhast]] language, nor the [[Peshpeg]] language, another minority language in the Minhast Nation.  A relationship with the extinct Corradi language, another language indigenous to Minhay, has not been successfully demonstrated.  Some linguists have also tried to establish a relationship with nearby languages in Northeast Asia, including Japanese, Korean, Ainu, and various Altaic, Tungusic, and Paleosiberian languages.  Others have tried to link it to the Indo-European language family, due to typological similarities between the two.  Nevertheless, a relationship with other languages continues to elude scholars, and thus Ín Duári remains classified as a language isolate.
Nidâri is one of two extant members of the Duaric language family.  The language is spoken by roughly 1,200 people in Sašvân ("refuge"), a volcanic island approximately 1100 km southeast of Minhay.  Unlike its relative, [[Ín_Duári| Ín Duári]], more than 90% of its inhabitants claim Nidâri as their first language.  The language's survival and relative health compared to Ín Duári, considered a moribund language, can be attributed to the physical separation of its speakers from the Minhast mainland.


The Ín Duári have often been referred to in older literature by the name ''Golahát''.  The term is an exonym, originating from the Peshpeg word ''gola'', meaning inferior, and ''-hát'', a Peshpeg suffix used to derived denonyms; the suffix ''-hát'' is itself a borrowing from the Minhast suffix ''-ast/-hast''.  The endonym ''ín Duari'', used by native speakers to refer to themselves,  means "the people", and they refer to their language as ''rinázi'', meaning "those who speak (intelligibly)".
Because of this separation, various phonemic and morphological changes have rendered Nidâri and Ín Duári mutually unintelligible.  Ín Duári is considered the more conservative of the two languages, as it has preserved most of the protolanguage's noun class system and more archaic verb system.  While more innovations have indeed occurred in Nidâri, it nevertheless has retained more of the original Duaric lexicon, as loanwords from the [[Minhast]] and [[Peshpeg]] languages have had a significant impact on the Ín Duári lexicon.  Moreover, while it is the case that the Nidâri noun class system has been reduced to four classes, as opposed to Ín Duári's eight classes, the number of irregularities' in Nidâri's noun class system paradoxically reveals that it has preserved remnants of an even more extensive system from the protolanguage.
 
Like Peshpeg, Ín Duári is an endangered language; according to the 2010 census, less than one thousand people still speak the language, the youngest in their late 30's or early 40's.  ín Duari has fared better than Peshpeg, which has only a few hundred speakers at most. Nevertheless, ín Duari continues to lose speakers due to several factors, such as the influx of Minhast speakers into traditionally Ín Duári-speaking areas,  emigration by the younger generation to urban areas in search for employment, and the influence of the Minhast-dominated media.  Particularly devastating to the language in recent years was when the Ín Duári fled to Horse Speaker territory after suffering numerous punitive attacks by the Wolf Speakers during the Three Speakers War.  The Ín Duári suffered heavy casualties and as a result lost many native speakers.
 
Ín Duári is divided into several dialects, with various degrees of mutually intelligibility.  The Anzi dialect has historically been the dominant dialect, however an unofficial lingua franca based on the Enoţin dialect has recently spread as its speaker base has been least affected by the diaspora resulting from Wolf Speaker expansion.  The GæÞwin dialect, although considered a minor dialect, is found in most linguistic literature as it is the most conservative of all the surviving dialects and is found in most native literary works and prevails in oral tradition; it is considered as the prestige dialect for these reasons and is the dialect described in this article.


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==Phonology==
==Phonology==
===Orthography===
===Orthography===
Ín Duári was originally written in the native Minhast abugida called the ''Širkattarnaft'', but as it reflected Minhast's four-vowel system, it  was deficient in representing Ín Duári's, whose present-day vowel inventory distinguishes seven phonemically distinct vowels.  Stress, rather than length, is phonemic and is reflected in the practical Uannar orthography, adopted with modifications from the Latin alphabet.  ''Uannar'' means "Eastern Sea", a historical reminder that it was early American missionaries that developed the system before the Minhast prefectures imposed restrictions limiting Western access to Aškuan.
''Vannâri'', cognate with Ín Duári ''uannar'', means "Eastern Sea", a historical reminder that it was early American missionaries that developed the system before the Minhast prefectures imposed restrictions limiting Western access to Aškuan.




{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
|-  
|-  
!  | Uannar Characters  
!  | Vanâr Characters  
|-  
|-  
|  a, á, æ, e, é, i, í, o, ó u, ú, b, p, f, v, d, ð, t, ţ, g, k, n, m, l, r, z, s, h, ua, ue, w, y   
|  a, â, e, i, o, u, b, p, v, f, t, d, k, g, m, n, l, r, s, š z, h, x, y   
|-  
|-  
|}
<br/>
The ''Uannar'', originally representing the pronunciation of the Gæţwin dialect faithfully, has now diverged from the language as it is now spoken, so silent letters have arisen. One such example is the definite article ''ðæl'', which is now pronounced /dɛ/ in most dialects.
The grapheme <æ> is freqently pronounced /ɛ/ and written as <e> if it falls within a stressed syllable. <y> is pronounced /ʌ/, reflected in the ''Uannar'' when it was first developed, but in contemporary speech may be pronounced /ɪ/ or /ɛ/; this change resulted as a compromise between separate sound changes that occurred in two separate dialects. /ð/ generally changes to /d/ when preceded by a voiced nasal or liquid, or by a vowel followed by an obstruent or voiced nasal or liquid.
An example of the current orthographical representation and original pronunciation, and the current pronunciation in the Gæţwin dialect, is represented in the following example:
<br/><br/>
{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
|+ '''Divergences in Spelling and Pronunciation Over Time'''
|-
! colspan="2" | Year || Spelling || Pronunciation || Meaning
|-
! rowspan="2" | Differences
|  c. 1897
|  Đæl mireli torma ueðen
| /ðæl 'mirɛli torma wɛðyn/
| rowspan="2" | "The chair was (sitting) over there."
|-
|  2003
|  Đæl mireli torma ueðen
|  /dɛ 'mirli 'dɔmʌ wedɪn/
|-
|}
|}
<br/>


===Consonants===
===Consonants===


{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
|+ '''Ín Duári Consonantal Inventory'''
|+ '''Nidâri Consonantal Inventory'''
|-  
|-  
! colspan="2" |
! colspan="2" |
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! Non-Sibilant
! Non-Sibilant
|  f  v
|  f  v
|  θ ð
|   
| ç
|  
| x
| x ɣ
|  
|  
|h  
|h  
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|-
|-
! colspan="2" |Affricates  
! colspan="2" |Affricates  
|
|
|
|
| t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
|
|
|
|
|
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|-
|-
! colspan="2" |Approximants  
! colspan="2" |Approximants  
| w
|
|
|
| j
| j
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|style="padding-bottom:3px;"| &nbsp;
|style="padding-bottom:3px;"| &nbsp;
| style="width: 60px;" | '''Front'''
| style="width: 60px;" | '''Front'''
| style="width: 60px; word-spacing: -.3em;" | '''Near- front'''
| style="width: 60px; word-spacing: -.3em;" |  
| style="width: 60px;" | '''Central'''
| style="width: 60px;" | '''Central'''
| style="width: 60px;word-spacing: -.3em;" | '''Near- back'''
| style="width: 60px;word-spacing: -.3em;" |
| style="width: 60px;" | '''Back'''
| style="width: 60px;" | '''Back'''
|-
|-
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<!-- NEAR-CLOSE VOWELS -->
<!-- NEAR-CLOSE VOWELS -->
<div style="position: absolute; left: 28%; width: 2.33em; top: 17%; background: white;">ɪ</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 28%; width: 2.33em; top: 17%; background: white;"></div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 44%; width: 4em; top: 17%; background: white;"></div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 44%; width: 4em; top: 17%; background: white;"></div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 74%; width: 1.5em; top: 17%; background: white;"></div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 74%; width: 1.5em; top: 17%; background: white;"></div>
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<!-- OPEN-MID VOWELS -->
<!-- OPEN-MID VOWELS -->
<div style="position: absolute; left: 30%; width: 3em; top: 58%; background: white;">ɛ</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 30%; width: 3em; top: 58%; background: white;">ɛ</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 57%; width: 2.7em; top: 60%; background: white;">ʌ</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 57%; width: 2.7em; top: 60%; background: white;"></div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 74%; width: 2.7em; top: 58%; background: white;">ɔ</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 74%; width: 2.7em; top: 58%; background: white;"></div>


<!-- NEAR-OPEN VOWELS -->
<!-- NEAR-OPEN VOWELS -->
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<!-- OPEN VOWELS -->
<!-- OPEN VOWELS -->
<div style="position: absolute; left: 44%; width: 3em; top: 86%; background: white;">æ</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 44%; width: 3em; top: 86%; background: white;"></div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 68%; width: 1em; top: 86%; background: white;">a</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 68%; width: 1em; top: 86%; background: white;">a</div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 85%; width: 2em; top: 86%; background: white;"></div>
<div style="position: absolute; left: 85%; width: 2em; top: 86%; background: white;">ɒ</div>
|}
|}
</div></div>
</div></div>
|-
|-
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | &nbsp;&nbsp;'''Near-close'''
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" |  
|-
|-
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Close-mid'''
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Close-mid'''
|-
|-
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Mid'''
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" |  
|-
|-
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Open-mid'''
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Open-mid'''
|-
|-
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Near-open'''
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" |
|-
|-
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Open'''
| style="height: 30px; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;" | '''Open'''
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====Length and Stress====
====Length and Stress====


Vowel length is distinctive in Ín Duári, and is indicated in the orthography by acute accents over the lengthened vowels.  Additionally, the acute accent in ''ú'' and ''í'' also signify vowel quality.  Since vowel length affects the stress; the acute accent also indicates the location of the primary stress of the word.
Vowel length is distinctive in Nidâri and is indicated by macrons.  The phoneme /ɒ:/ is inherently long and indicated by a circumflex <â> in the ''Vannâri'' orthography.  Stress usually falls on the last syllable, but with certain affixes, whether inflectional or derivational, the stress shifts to the penultimate, e.g. ''jandarme'' /jæn'darmɛ/ "healer, doctor" (the affix ''-mɛ'' derives occupational nouns).
 
Vowel length is almost always associated with syllable stress. As a general rule, long vowels do not occur in CVCC clusters, although some exceptions arise, as in ''mínþir'' (exhaustion).  If two or more long vowels occur in a word, the final long vowel is stressed.


====Intonation====
====Intonation====
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===Phonotactics===
===Phonotactics===
<!-- Explain the consonant clusters and vowel clusters that are permissible for use in the language. For example, "st" is an allowed consonant cluster in English while onset "ng" isn't. -->
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The GaeÞwyn dialect, although not considered the "standard" dialect, best represents the phonotactics of all the Ín Duári dialects and is found in most references of the language.
* In nominal and verbal roots, final /n/ elides to /ð/, and sporadically, /θ/, e.g. ''evaţæwyn'' instead of expected ''eva<u>n</u>þænwyn'' "clouds" (NOM.PL).


===Morphophonology===
===Morphophonology===
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Ín Duári is a fusional language with some agglugination.
Nidâri is a fusional language with some agglugination.


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===Nouns===
===Nouns===
Nouns inflect for gender, number and case.  The gender system contains eight classes, descended from an earlier system that distinguished animacy through noun classifiers.  In time these classifiers became bound morphemes, accounting for the disparate patterns found across the present noun class system.  Animacy is still correlated with noun classes, with animacy tending to decrease from left to right across the noun classes.  However, the animacy distinctions have blurred, with some of the nouns in the protolanguage being reassigned to another class due to syncretism.
Nouns inflect for gender, number and case.  The original Proto-Duaric gender system consisted of at least eight noun classes, perhaps even up to eleven<ref>The putative eleven cases are based on the Nidâri suffixes ''-šni'', ''-jan'', and ''-qan'', which have no cognate forms in Ín Duári.</ref>, descended from an earlier system that distinguished animacy through noun classifiers.  Of this complex noun class system, Nidâri preserved four of them.


The Class I and Class II nouns are unmarked in the nominative, but take accusative suffixes.  Nouns from Class III to Class VI all exhibit suffix marking on the nominative, with null marking on the accusative.  These nouns are referred to as the ''unmarked accusative'' nouns, or ''marked nominative'' nouns.  Based on this type of case marking, linguists have classified Ín Duári's morphosyntactic alighnment as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative%E2%80%93absolutive_language nominative-absolutive ], a subtype of the more familiar nominative-accusative morphosyntactic alighment.  Nominative-absolutive languages occur rarely throughout the world. However, Ín Duári exhibits nominative-absolutive alignment only in Class III-Class VIII.  Class I and Class II exhibit the prototypical nominative-accusative pattern though, so Ín Duári is highly unusual as it appears to exhibit a split alignment system between the nominative-accusative and the nominative-absolutive morphosyntactic alignment classifications.
Animacy has some correlation amongst the surviving noun classes, with animacy tending to decrease from left to right across the noun classes.  However, the animacy distinctions have blurred, with some of the nouns in the protolanguage being reassigned to another class due to syncretism, as can be seen in the Class III and IV nouns, where both the singular and plural nominative and genitive forms are wildly irregular.  Across all noun classes, including the irregular paradigms, there is always an infixed ''-h-'' in the plural, reflecting an earlier ''-θ-'' in the Proto-language that is still preserved in Ín Duári.


Class VII and Class VIII nouns have merged the nominative and accusative cases into a single, direct case.  The plural forms originally reduplicated the initial syllable with the CV- pattern followed by and  infixed ''-θ-'', but through phonological erosion initial consonants were lost, leaving behind the vowel of the original reduplicated syllable.  Through time the vowels were leveled to an ''e-'' prefix in all noun classes, save for the plural in the form VIII direct case, which changed to initial ''i-'' prefix.


{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
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|-  
|-  
! rowspan="3"| Case
! rowspan="3"| Case
! colspan="16" |  Noun Classes
! colspan="8" |  Noun Classes
|-
|-
! colspan="2" | Class I
! colspan="2" | Class I
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! colspan="2" | Class III
! colspan="2" | Class III
! colspan="2" | Class IV
! colspan="2" | Class IV
! colspan="2" | Class V
! colspan="2" |Class VI
! colspan="2" |Class VII
! colspan="2" |Class VIII
|-
|-
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Singular
! Plural
! Plural
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|-
|-
! Nominative
! Nominative
| rowspan="3" | hora
| hora
|
| hohra
|
| talâr
|
| tahlâri
|
|
|
|  
|  
|
|
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|
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
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|-
! Accusative
|
|
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|-
|-
! Genitive
! Genitive
|
| horāne
|  
| hohrāne
|  
| rowspan="2"|talâre
|
| tahlâr
|
|
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|
|
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
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|  
|  
|-
|-
! Commitative
! Instrumental
| rowspan="2" |horȇ
| rowspan="2"|horē
|  
| rowspan="2"|hohrē
|
| tahlarâni
|
|
|
|
|
|
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
|  
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|-  
|-  
! Ablative
! Ablative
|
| talârē
|  
| tahlâriye
|
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|  
|  
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|-
|-
! Allative
! Allative
| rowspan="2"| horȇn
| horā
|
| hohrā
|
| talârā
|
| tahlârȇn
|
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|  
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|-
|-
! Locative
! Locative
|
| horāna
|  
| hohr<span style="font-weight:bold;color:blue">ē</span>na
|  
| talâri
|  
| tahlâri
|  
|  
|
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|- 
! Comitative
| horē
| hohrē
| talâre
| tahlâr
|
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|- 
! Instrumental
| rowspan="2"|hor(d)âni <br/> hor(d)âne
|
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|-
|-
! Ergative
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|}
|}
<!-- Note: "rinázi" one who speaks, "riná" speech, "rinásse" he speaks, to speak -->
<!-- Note: "rinázi" one who speaks, "riná" speech, "rinásse" he speaks, to speak -->


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|-  
|-  
! rowspan="3"| Case
! rowspan="3"| Case
! colspan="20" |  Noun Classes
! colspan="12" |  Noun Classes
|-
|-
! colspan="2" | 1st
! colspan="2" | 1st
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! colspan="2" | Class III
! colspan="2" | Class III
! colspan="2" | Class IV
! colspan="2" | Class IV
! colspan="2" | Class V
! colspan="2" |Class VI
! colspan="2" |Class VII
! colspan="2" |Class VIII
|-
|-
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Singular
! Plural
! Plural
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|-
|-
! Nominative
! Nominative
| veiţ
| šuda
| fwyţ
| šuha
| caen
| gardaš
| ðaes
| gardân
| naei
| nia
| ðaes
| nihâ
| ani
| ni
| ðaen
| niah
| ðaene
| nešq
| ðaen
| nâhe
| faeţwyn
| niškâr
| faeţ
| našin
| rauţa
| rauţ
| laenţen
| laenţ
| rowspan='2'| riaţa
| rowspan='2'| riaţ
| rowspan='2'| faeðaen
| rowspan='2'| faeð
|-  
|-  
! Accusative
! Genitive
| šudâni
| šuhân
| gardaq
| garâdi
| niani
| nihâni
| niar
| nihâr
| nešqân
| na’i
| nin
| našvâz
|-
! Instrumental
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! Ablative
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! Genitive
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! Allative
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! Instrumental
! Locative
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===Verbs===
==== The Copula ====
The Nidâri copula inflects for TAM and polarity:
{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
|+
! TAM
! Positive
! Negative
|-
! Present
| bâz <!-- << bey-ân-z, biy-ân-z -->
| bâš, bâšq <!-- << bey-ân-z-g, biy-ân-z-g -->
|-
! Future/Irrealis
| bidâz <!-- << biy-ad-ân-z -->
| bidâšq <!-- << biy-ad-ân-z-g -->
|-
! Past
| baštân <!-- << ba-š-t-ân-->
| baštâq <!-- << ba-št-ân-g -->
|-
! Imperative
| baš <!-- << ba-š -->
| bašqân, bašgân <!-- << ba-š-g-ân -->
|-
|}
<!--
{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
|+
|-
! rowspan="3"| Tense-Aspect
! colspan="12" |  Person
|-
! colspan="2" | 1st
! colspan="2" | 2nd
! colspan="2" | Class I
! colspan="2" | Class II
! colspan="2" | Class III
! colspan="2" | Class IV
|-
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
! Singular
! Plural
|-
! Present
| šubâz
| šubâzan
| garbâz
| garbâzan
| bâz
| bâzan
| nebâz
| nehbâzan
| nibâz
| nehbâzan
|
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|-
! Future/Irrealis
| šubidâz
| šubidâzan
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| bidâz
| bidâzan
|
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|-
! Ablative
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! Perfective
| šubaštân
| šubaštânan
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| baštân
| baštânan
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! Imperfective
| šušbaš
| šušbâšan
|
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|-
! Allative
|
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|  
|  
| bibaš
| bibašan
|  
|  
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|-
! Purposive
| šubâšaniš  //c.f. Ín Duári suffix "-iţ" (e.g. varánu-iţ "in order to see"//
| šubâšananiš
|
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| bâšaniš
| bâšananiš
|
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|-
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! Locative
! Imperative
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The copula originates from two roots, ''ba-'' and ''biy-''.  The root ''bi-'' is used to form the Future/Irrealis stem, whilst ''ba-'' forms the rest of the TAM stems.  Both ''ba-'' and ''biy-'' are cognate with Ín Duári ''bean'', “to sit, be in a sitting position”


===Verbs===
==== The Participial ====
The copula combines with a verbal noun, descended from the Proto-Duaric gerund, to form a compound verb.  In Duaric linguistics, this verbal noun is referred to as the participial, as it also functions as nominalizers, adjectives, temporal nouns, among other functions.  The participial replaced the original verbal noun that survives in its sister language Ín Duári.
 
The participial agrees with its subject in gender, number, and case.  Adjectives may also appear and modify the participial.  Just as in NPs, the participial follows its head.


==== The Copula ====
In intransitive clauses, the participial/participial phrase precedes the copula and any accompanying auxiliaries:
{{Gloss
|phrase = Birân bagdaman baštân.
| IPA = /bi'rɒ:n bagda'man baʃ'tɒn/
| morphemes = bir-ân bagda-man baštân
| gloss = to.house-CL4.NOM running-CL1.NOM was
| translation = He ran home.
}}


The Nidâri copula inflects for TAM and polarity:
{{Gloss
|phrase = Han gabagdaman baštâq gureh birân.
| IPA = /han gabagda'man baʃ'taɣ gu'rɛh bi'rɒ:n /
| morphemes = han ga=bagdam-an baštaq gureh bir-ân
| gloss = NEG NEG=running-CL1.NOM was.NEG try to.house-CL4.NOM
| translation = He did not try to run home.
}}


{| class="bluetable lightbluebg"
In transitive clauses, the gerund precedes the object, which is inflected in the genitive case, followed by the copula:
|+
{{Gloss
! TAM
|phrase = Han gatâqivan birânen baštâqešan gureh.
! Positive
| IPA = /han gatɒɣi'van birɒ'nɛn bagda'min baʃtaɣe'ʃan gu'rɛh/
! Negative
| morphemes = han ga=tâqiv-an bir-ânen baštâq-ešan gureh
|-
| gloss = NEG NEG=burning-CL1.NOM house-CL4.GEN was.NEG-CAUS try
! Present
| translation = He did not try to burn down the house.
| bâz << bey-ân-z, biy-ân-z
}}
| bâš, bâšq << bey-ân-z-g, biy-ân-z-g
|-
! Future/Irrealis
| bidâz << biy-ad-ân-z
| bidâšq << biy-ad-ân-z-g
|-
! Past
| baštân << ba-š-t-ân
| baštâq << ba-št-ân-g
|-
! Imperative
| baš << ba-š
| bašqân, bašgân << ba-š-g-ân
|-
|}


The copula originates from two roots, ''ba-'' and ''biy-''.  The root ''bi-'' is used to form the Future/Irrealis stem, whilst ''ba-'' forms the rest of the TAM stems.  Both ''ba-'' and ''biy-'' are cognate with Ín Duári ''bean'', “to sit, be in a sitting position”
<!-- "bir-" ("house, home"), cognate with Ín Duári "ber-" ("stone") -->


===Adjectives===
==Syntax==
==Syntax==
===Constituent order===
===Constituent order===
Canonical word order is VSO.  Nevertheless, SVO, SOV, VOS, OSV, and OVS may appear as the case system allows such flexibility since it explicitly marks syntactic roles.  Modifiers for the most part follow their heads, although determiners and deictics precede their heads.
Canonical word order is SV<sub>1</sub>OV<sub>2</sub>, but V<sub>1</sub>OSV<sub>2</sub> and V<sub>1</sub>OV<sub>2</sub>S also occur, the last of which occurs rarely.  The subject can never appear after V<sub>1</sub>, the participial component of the verb phrase.  This is due to diachronic factors: the participial and object developed from a possessive phrase structure, attested to the survival of the genitive marking on the noun head.  As this segment of the VP was originally a possessive phrase, non-constituents such as subjects were blocked from insertion into between the original possessum and possessor.


===Noun phrase===
===Noun phrase===
====Possessive Constructions====
====Comparison====
===Verb phrase===
===Verb phrase===
As mentioned in the [[Nidâri#The_Participial|Participial Section]], the participial and its head, the object, are in form identical with that of a nominal possessive phrase.  The possessor of the NP serves as head and the possessum its dependent, just as the direct object serves as the head of its dependent, the participial.  Both the possessor and the direct object receive genitive marking.  The participial must also agree with the subject in gender and number, as illustrated in the following example:
{{Gloss
| phrase = Tâqivan birâneqan baštânešan.
| IPA = tɒ:ɣiv'an birɒ:nɛ'qan baʃtɒ:nɛ'ʃan
| morphemes = tâqiv-an birân-eqan baštân-ešan
| gloss = burning-CL1.NOM house-CL.IV.GEN was=CAUS
| translation = He burned down the house. (lit: "He was the house's burner.").
}}
Adjectives and any modifier, be it for the subject or the object, must agree with their respective heads.  The constituent order does not deviate from that of the NP: adjectives follow their heads and agree in case, number and gender.  The following example shows the grammatical concordance of the subject and object and their respective modifiers:
{{Gloss
| phrase = Tâqivan behoran birâneqan bišvi baštânešan.
| IPA = tɒ:ɣiv'an bɛho'ran birɒ:nɛ'qan biʃ'vi baʃtɒ:nɛ'ʃan
| morphemes = tâqiv-an behor-an birân-eqan biš-vi baštân-ešan
| gloss = burning-CL1.NOM fat.one-CL1.NOM house-CL.IV-GEN red-CL.IV.GEN-was=CAUS
| translation = The fat one burned down the red house. (lit: "The fat one was the red house's burner.").
}}
===Sentence phrase===
===Sentence phrase===
===Dependent clauses===
===Dependent clauses===
Line 670: Line 640:


==Example texts==
==Example texts==
== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}
==Other resources==
==Other resources==
<!-- Example: Word order, qualifiers, determinatives, branching, etc. -->
<!-- Example: Word order, qualifiers, determinatives, branching, etc. -->

Latest revision as of 11:35, 28 March 2022


Introduction

Nidâri is one of two extant members of the Duaric language family. The language is spoken by roughly 1,200 people in Sašvân ("refuge"), a volcanic island approximately 1100 km southeast of Minhay. Unlike its relative, Ín Duári, more than 90% of its inhabitants claim Nidâri as their first language. The language's survival and relative health compared to Ín Duári, considered a moribund language, can be attributed to the physical separation of its speakers from the Minhast mainland.

Because of this separation, various phonemic and morphological changes have rendered Nidâri and Ín Duári mutually unintelligible. Ín Duári is considered the more conservative of the two languages, as it has preserved most of the protolanguage's noun class system and more archaic verb system. While more innovations have indeed occurred in Nidâri, it nevertheless has retained more of the original Duaric lexicon, as loanwords from the Minhast and Peshpeg languages have had a significant impact on the Ín Duári lexicon. Moreover, while it is the case that the Nidâri noun class system has been reduced to four classes, as opposed to Ín Duári's eight classes, the number of irregularities' in Nidâri's noun class system paradoxically reveals that it has preserved remnants of an even more extensive system from the protolanguage.


Phonology

Orthography

Vannâri, cognate with Ín Duári uannar, means "Eastern Sea", a historical reminder that it was early American missionaries that developed the system before the Minhast prefectures imposed restrictions limiting Western access to Aškuan.


Vanâr Characters
a, â, e, i, o, u, b, p, v, f, t, d, k, g, m, n, l, r, s, š z, h, x, y

Consonants

Nidâri Consonantal Inventory
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Laryngeal
Nasal m n
Plosive p b t d k g ʔ
Fricative Non-Sibilant f v x ɣ h
Sibiliant s z
Affricates t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Approximants j
Trill r
Lateral l

Vowels

  Front Central Back
Close
Blank vowel trapezoid.svg
i
u
o
ɛ
a
ɒ
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open

Prosody

Length and Stress

Vowel length is distinctive in Nidâri and is indicated by macrons. The phoneme /ɒ:/ is inherently long and indicated by a circumflex <â> in the Vannâri orthography. Stress usually falls on the last syllable, but with certain affixes, whether inflectional or derivational, the stress shifts to the penultimate, e.g. jandarme /jæn'darmɛ/ "healer, doctor" (the affix -mɛ derives occupational nouns).

Intonation

Phonotactics

Morphophonology

Morphology

Nidâri is a fusional language with some agglugination.

Nouns

Nouns inflect for gender, number and case. The original Proto-Duaric gender system consisted of at least eight noun classes, perhaps even up to eleven[1], descended from an earlier system that distinguished animacy through noun classifiers. Of this complex noun class system, Nidâri preserved four of them.

Animacy has some correlation amongst the surviving noun classes, with animacy tending to decrease from left to right across the noun classes. However, the animacy distinctions have blurred, with some of the nouns in the protolanguage being reassigned to another class due to syncretism, as can be seen in the Class III and IV nouns, where both the singular and plural nominative and genitive forms are wildly irregular. Across all noun classes, including the irregular paradigms, there is always an infixed -h- in the plural, reflecting an earlier -θ- in the Proto-language that is still preserved in Ín Duári.


Case Noun Classes
Class I Class II Class III Class IV
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative hora hohra talâr tahlâri
Genitive horāne hohrāne talâre tahlâr
Instrumental horē hohrē tahlarâni
Ablative talârē tahlâriye
Allative horā hohrā talârā tahlârȇn
Locative horāna hohrēna talâri tahlâri
Comitative horē hohrē talâre tahlâr

Pronouns

Case Noun Classes
1st 2nd Class I Class II Class III Class IV
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative šuda šuha gardaš gardân nia nihâ ni niah nešq nâhe niškâr našin
Genitive šudâni šuhân gardaq garâdi niani nihâni niar nihâr nešqân na’i nin našvâz
Instrumental
Ablative
Allative
Locative

Verbs

The Copula

The Nidâri copula inflects for TAM and polarity:

TAM Positive Negative
Present bâz bâš, bâšq
Future/Irrealis bidâz bidâšq
Past baštân baštâq
Imperative baš bašqân, bašgân


The copula originates from two roots, ba- and biy-. The root bi- is used to form the Future/Irrealis stem, whilst ba- forms the rest of the TAM stems. Both ba- and biy- are cognate with Ín Duári bean, “to sit, be in a sitting position”

The Participial

The copula combines with a verbal noun, descended from the Proto-Duaric gerund, to form a compound verb. In Duaric linguistics, this verbal noun is referred to as the participial, as it also functions as nominalizers, adjectives, temporal nouns, among other functions. The participial replaced the original verbal noun that survives in its sister language Ín Duári.

The participial agrees with its subject in gender, number, and case. Adjectives may also appear and modify the participial. Just as in NPs, the participial follows its head.

In intransitive clauses, the participial/participial phrase precedes the copula and any accompanying auxiliaries:

Birân bagdaman baštân.
/bi'rɒ:n bagda'man baʃ'tɒn/
bir-ân bagda-man baštân
to.house-CL4.NOM running-CL1.NOM was
He ran home.
Han gabagdaman baštâq gureh birân.
/han gabagda'man baʃ'taɣ gu'rɛh bi'rɒ:n /
han ga=bagdam-an baštaq gureh bir-ân
NEG NEG=running-CL1.NOM was.NEG try to.house-CL4.NOM
He did not try to run home.

In transitive clauses, the gerund precedes the object, which is inflected in the genitive case, followed by the copula:

Han gatâqivan birânen baštâqešan gureh.
/han gatɒɣi'van birɒ'nɛn bagda'min baʃtaɣe'ʃan gu'rɛh/
han ga=tâqiv-an bir-ânen baštâq-ešan gureh
NEG NEG=burning-CL1.NOM house-CL4.GEN was.NEG-CAUS try
He did not try to burn down the house.


Adjectives

Syntax

Constituent order

Canonical word order is SV1OV2, but V1OSV2 and V1OV2S also occur, the last of which occurs rarely. The subject can never appear after V1, the participial component of the verb phrase. This is due to diachronic factors: the participial and object developed from a possessive phrase structure, attested to the survival of the genitive marking on the noun head. As this segment of the VP was originally a possessive phrase, non-constituents such as subjects were blocked from insertion into between the original possessum and possessor.

Noun phrase

Possessive Constructions

Comparison

Verb phrase

As mentioned in the Participial Section, the participial and its head, the object, are in form identical with that of a nominal possessive phrase. The possessor of the NP serves as head and the possessum its dependent, just as the direct object serves as the head of its dependent, the participial. Both the possessor and the direct object receive genitive marking. The participial must also agree with the subject in gender and number, as illustrated in the following example:

Tâqivan birâneqan baštânešan.
tɒ:ɣiv'an birɒ:nɛ'qan baʃtɒ:nɛ'ʃan
tâqiv-an birân-eqan baštân-ešan
burning-CL1.NOM house-CL.IV.GEN was=CAUS
He burned down the house. (lit: "He was the house's burner.").

Adjectives and any modifier, be it for the subject or the object, must agree with their respective heads. The constituent order does not deviate from that of the NP: adjectives follow their heads and agree in case, number and gender. The following example shows the grammatical concordance of the subject and object and their respective modifiers:

Tâqivan behoran birâneqan bišvi baštânešan.
tɒ:ɣiv'an bɛho'ran birɒ:nɛ'qan biʃ'vi baʃtɒ:nɛ'ʃan
tâqiv-an behor-an birân-eqan biš-vi baštân-ešan
burning-CL1.NOM fat.one-CL1.NOM house-CL.IV-GEN red-CL.IV.GEN-was=CAUS
The fat one burned down the red house. (lit: "The fat one was the red house's burner.").

Sentence phrase

Dependent clauses

Example texts

Footnotes

  1. ^ The putative eleven cases are based on the Nidâri suffixes -šni, -jan, and -qan, which have no cognate forms in Ín Duári.

Other resources

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