User:Chrysophylax/Caryas

Background

Goals

The primary objective is to achieve a lexicon of 200 words of naturalistic character in conjunction with an attempt at a naturalistic syntax and a morphological system. This should permit the language to be used as primarily a naming language. Future applications as a derivational source for daughter languages is something that will be taken into consideration while designing the language.

Setting

To construct more easily a naturalistic vocabulary, we postulate an island-based setting, somewhere off in the northern hemisphere. A simple subsistence farming lifestyle, combined with folk memories of a heroic past will provide ample background sources. The most common animals used in this lifestyle are (in reverse order of rarity) hens, sheep, pigs, cows, horses. We limit the technological level to a pre-industrial time, that is, no sophisticated machinery has yet to appear, for the sake of simplicity. Medicine as we know it in the western world is completely unknown, instead a reliance on a selection of natural concoctions and herbs are utilized (which may, or may not be effective).

The role of women is, in comparison with western society at a pre-industrial time, highly equalised in respect to that of men. Women hold a strong position in society, tenants of matchmaking, judicial, and organisational offices. The culture is dominated by a strong hierarchy of bureaucracy, wherein all inhabitants of the land are guaranteed their inviolable rights as set out in the seven pillars. To actually, receive these rights, one must file a suit of complaint with one's local clerk.

The primary religion is a somewhat melangemischung between Indo-European themes, such as the great Serpent, the twin brothers and a philosophical touch inspired by IE-break-away Buddhism such as identifying desire as the root to unhappiness. A dialectic opposition between two kinds of gods is a definite marker of the Caryatic religion. A somewhat stoic character is characteristic of the culture, based on the hardships experienced on the islands.

An interisland rivalry is a strong theme in the stories from the heroic past, although nowadays the hegemony of the islands’ council, based on the previously unpopulated small island of Taryas, is spread all over the islands and ensures compliance to the laws and ordinances set out in the seven pillars.

Phonology

Vowel inventory

The vowels of the Caryatic language are quite similar to the so-called continental values given for a, o, u, e, and i. The vowel y is articulated similarly to i but rounded and slightly more closed. This gives us a relatively small vowel inventory of six base vowels. The possible diphthongs are ei, oe, and ai. There is a distinction in vowel length, which in turn brings the total vowel inventory to twelve main vowels and six diphthongs for a grand total of eighteen.

	Front	Back
Close	i iː , y yː	u uː
Close-mid	e eː	o oː
Open	a aː	(ɑ ɑː)

Consonant inventory

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Nasal
Plosive
Fricative
Affricate
Approximant
Trill
Flap or tap
Lateral fric.
Lateral app.
Lateral flap

Syllabic structure

The typical syllable structure consists of a vowel nucleus, with an optional consonant onset and coda. The vowels i and y may serve in the onset position before the nucleus.

(C)V(C)

Phonotactics

There is a marked preference for the coda and onset having different sonorant levels; syllables such as l–l and n–n (where – is any vowel) are very rare in Caryas. Consonant clusters are discouraged with only a few being allowed medially.

Stress

In words of two syllables the stress in indubitably on the first syllable unless otherwise noted. In three-syllable words the middle syllable is invariantly stressed, that is pa–LLA–to not PA–lla–to. In longer words it is variant and lexically determined. Generally adjectives tend to stress on the first syllable.

Morphology

Nouns

The Caryatic language is a nominative–accusative language with an almost always unmarked accusative. A more archaic, legal register of the language preserves an accusative ending for the singular in –á, and –ár in the plural. The main case inflections are the nominative (–s, –a, –e; –ar,), the possessive (–u, –o, –i; –or), the genitive (–to, –ta, –te; –tar), the accusative, and the dative (–no, –na, –ne; –nar). A locative case (–ai, –ir) is preserved for certain nouns such as vaxa(island). The nouns can be separated into three primary declensions and three genders, which almost always agree. That is to say, the –s, –a, and –e classes usually correspond to the masc., fem. and neuter genders. There is no gender differentiation in the plural. It is therefore, usually quite hard to tell if the specific noun is masculine, feminine or neuter from only a plural form.

Adjectives

Adjectives always stand after their head, rendering noun phrases that appear reversed to speakers of English. The "naked" (uninflected) adjective may only stand in an attributive position, if it is to be used predicatively; it is suffixed by the noun endings. That is, adjectives agree with their heads with respect to gender and number in the predicative role but not in the attributive one.

(a) black cat

    macas naryara

(b) the cat is black

    macas xas naryaras

(c) the cats are black

    macar xas naryarar

(d) The city's cat is black

    macas pallato xas naryaras

The marking on the adjective in the predicative role helps it connect to its head, which can come in handy in those longer sentences!

Verbs

A quick note about some potential existential issues in Caryas

The seemingly most important verb in Caryas would at first glance appear to be the copula; sadly, it is not that simple. The copula xas is not conjugated in any way at all for person or number in Caryas, nor does it take any tense, aspect or mood modifications. This is why it is not regarded as a verb in Caryatic grammar but is merely termed the linking word. This does not mean that one cannot express tense, aspect or mood at all, only that for pure linking purposes xas and only xas can be used. There are several verbs which express locational existence, future being, and existence (the other uses of the verb be in English). This means that one has to use several different verbs besides the copula in Caryatic to express the English sentences: “he is happy”, “he is in London”, “he will be president”, “there’s a man there”. With that cleared out, we may move onto the actual intricacies of the verbal system in Caryatic.