Riagi

Background

This language is meant to be one of the main languages in a yet unnamed conworld. This language is also known as the "language of gods" as it is the language that the gods and powerful spirits use to communicate with mortals, this makes the language immutable. For this reason most languages are either derived or influenced by it.

Features

• Definiteness and politeness marked by word order
• Fluid-S alignment
• Simple phonology
• Thematic themed (heh :P) noun cases
• Extensive mood declensions

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m/ ⟨m⟩	/n/ ⟨n⟩	-	/ŋ/ ⟨ŋ⟩	-
Stop	/p/ ⟨p⟩	/t/ ⟨t⟩	-	/k/ ⟨k⟩	/ʔ/ ⟨ ' ⟩
Fricative	/f/ ~ /ʃ/ ⟨s⟩		-	-	-
Approximant	/β/ ~ /ð/ ⟨v⟩		/j/ ⟨j⟩	/ɰ/ ⟨g⟩	/h/ ⟨h⟩
Flap	-	/ɾ/ ⟨r⟩	-	-	-

There is free variation between all voiceless labial and coronal fricatives, free variation also exists between /β/, /ʋ/ and /ð/. This variation is mostly regional.

Vowels

Vowels can be either short of long.

	Front	Back
Close	/i iː/ ⟨i ii⟩	/u uː/ ⟨u uu⟩
Close-mid	/e eː/ ⟨e ee⟩	/o oː/ ⟨o oo⟩
Open	/a aː/ ⟨a aa⟩	-

Diphthongs

The following diphthongs are allowed: /ae ao ai au oe oi ou ui eːa oːa iːa uːa/

Stress

Stress is marked by intonation and pitch. It falls on the second to last syllable of a word and the first vowel of a diphthong. Any irregular words have their stressed syllable marked by an acute diacritic.

Phonotactics

Syllables consist of a short vowel, long vowel or a diphthong with an optional onset consonant. The syllable structure thus is (C)V(V)

Morphology

Verbs

Coverbs

Coverbs are special auxiliary verbs that accept TAM inflections in order to allow TAM stacking or negation.

Tense

Rjargi has four tenses:

• Past (pst)
• Present (prs)
• Future (fut)
• Gnomic (gno)

Aspect

Rjargi has five aspects:

• Perfective (pfv)
• Retrospective (ret)
• Continuous (cont)
• Prospective (prosp)
• Habitual (hab)

Mood

Moods are divided in External, Internal and Evidential

• External
  • Permissive (prm): Used to express permission
  • Requisitive (req): Used to express requests or suggestions
  • Compulsory (cls): Used to express orders and commands
  • Impositive (ims): Used to express expectations or imposed actions
• Internal
  • Promissory (pms): Used to express for promises oaths or threats
  • Desiderative (des): Used to express willingness or intent
  • Aspirative (asp): Used to express hopes, fears or wishes
  • Necessitative (nec): Used to express needs or obligations
• Evidential
  • Factual (fac): Indicates the certainty of the action
  • Probable (pbl): Indicates the likelyhood of the action
  • Improbable (ipb): Indicates the unlikelyhood of the action
  • Potential (ptn): Indicates the posibility of the action

Negation

There are two basic ways to negate

Negating the main verb

Negates the action but not the TAM

You may not-work

Negating the coverb

Negates the TAM but not the action

You may-not work

The coverb needs not to be fully inflected, one may only negate mood, tense/aspect or both, allowing for sentences like I didn't use to need to take my medicines by negating only the tense on I used need to take my medicines

Non-Finite forms

Infinitive

Dictionary form

Used when employing the verb as a noun

Gerund

Used when employing the verb as an adjective or adverb

Nouns

Gender

There are five different genders depending on the complexity of the soul of the object.

Divine gender

Guardians, Patrons, Gods and Titans

High gender

Humans and other sentient beings

Medium gender

Animals, spirits and machines

Low gender

Plants, 'lucks' and 'seers'

Inanimate gender

Everything else

Groups of objects are assigned the highest gender available in the group, i.e.: a forest is of Medium gender as it has animals.

Noun Cases

Nouns can be marked for up to two cases, an argument case and a thematic case

• Argument Cases
  • Nominative (nom): Agent, defaults to Agentive thematic case
  • Absolutive (abs): Object, defaults to Patientive thematic case
  • Dative (dat): Indirect object, defaults to Benefactive thematic case
• Thematic Cases
  • Agentive (-): Agent (exclusive to the nominative case)
  • Patientive (pat): Patient, Theme
  • Instrumental (ins): Intrument, Sociate
  • Locative (loc): Location, Time
  • Benefactive (ben): Beneficiary, Recipient
  • Origative (ori): Origin, Source, Cause
  • Metative (met): Goal, Direction, Purpose

Pronouns

First Person		Dual Person		Second Person		Third Person
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
1s	1p	Ds	Dp	2s	2p	3s	3p
Fourth Person				Fifth Person
Singular		Plural		Singular		Plural
4s		4p		5s		5p
Zero Person
Singular				Plural
0s				0p

• The First person plural is exclusive
• The Dual person singular indicates both the Speaker and the Addressee
• The Dual person Plural is an inclusive version of the first person plural
• The Fourth person is an indefinite category that encompasses First and Dual persons. "These ones think so" (referring to themselves)
• The Fifth person is similar to the fourth but covers Second and Third persons.
• The Zero person is a completely generic category. "One could say so"

Derivational morphology

Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs and adjectives are essentially the same and can be used interchangeably, their lexical category is only determined by their position on a sentence. Because of this, both will be abbreviated as 'Adx'

Syntax

Word Order

Nouns

Before the verb if its indefinite

After the verb if its definite

Adjectives

Before the noun

Multiple adjectives need a commitative particle

Adverbs

Before the word they modify

Prepositions

Adjacent to the verb

After the verb if the subject is definite

Before the verb if the subject is indefinite

Verbs take only one preposition

Nested prepositional phrases must be separated by a subordinator

Cardinal numbers

Before the noun and it's adjectives and adverbs

Ordinal numbers

Treated as adjectives