Ash

Ash
ảhga
Onnawasta emblem of Appa
Pronunciation	[ˈʔɑħˌqə]
Created by	User:Prinsessa
Language family	? Ash

Introduction

Ash (ảhga, lit. "seaspeak", IPA [ˈʔɑħˌqə]) is the anglicised name of a language mostly spoken around coastal areas, notably the town of Appa (ảhba). Its speakers are familiar with technological advancements such as nautical vessels and steam locomotives.

The language is synthetic, largely based around agglutination with fusional elements. There is a great focus on verbs, nominals being mostly uninflected, and significant pro-drop tendencies and a general focus around deixis rather than pronominal distinctions. The word order is heavily SOV.

Phonology

Phonemes

Due to the small number of underlying sounds in Ash and their high degree of allophonicity, a simple listing of phonemes according to phonotactic patterning is more suitable than a traditional consonant table and vowel trapezium.

Vocalic	/a i~j u~w/
Plosive	/p t k/
Affricate	/t͡ɬ t͡s/
Glottal	/h/
Nasal	/mᵇ nᵈ ŋᵍ/

The reasoning for this rather unusual classification is down to phonotactic patterning: these five groups all behave somewhat differently and serve as a more useful distinction than point of articulation when describing the phonology of Ash. There are many allophonic realisations despite the relatively low number of underlying sounds, which is an important feature of the language that makes the variation richer on the surface. For instance, long vowels (romanised by doubling the vowel) and nasal vowels (romanised using a tilde) are not analysed as phonemic.

Romanisation

The romanisation strikes a balance between representing phonemes versus surface realisations and uses the following letters:

a

ı

e

y

o

w

b

d

g

l

s

h

m

n

ŋ

Tilde (e.g. ã) is used to mark nasalisation, doubly wide (e.g. a͠a) on long vowels and diphthongs. Hook above (e.g. ả) denotes a word-initial glottal.

An example of a word with its archiphonemic, phonemic and surface transcriptions as well as romanisation:

//ih.Vhˈu.wi//

→ /hihˈwu.wi/

→ [çɪʍˈʍʊ͡ɪ̯ː]

→ ẻhhoe "hungry"

Syllable structure

A cluster cannot exceed two consonants and must be of one of the following configurations:

CC	Both consonants are the same
FP	Fricative followed by plosive
NP	Nasal followed by plosive
PN~FN	Plosive or fricative followed by nasal

Prosody and stress

Prefixes are always unstressed. Following the last stressed syllable an iambic pattern of secondary stress on every other underlyingly light syllable follows unless an underlyingly heavy syllable intervenes, resetting the pattern. In addition, stressed syllables are forced to be heavy either by lengthening of the vowel or reduplication of the next syllable's onset consonant if they are not already underlyingly so.

Clusters

Depending on the underlying nature of a cluster, various processes take place either on a phonemic (phoneme alternation) or on a phonetic (surface allophony) level. For example, /t/ merges with /t͡s/ on the phonemic level before /i~j/ or a plosive or an affricate as well as word-finally, but alternates with [ð] on the phonetic level between vowels.

• A nasal or fricative geminates before a glide, assimilating to and eliding it in the process.
• All plosives alternate phonemically with fricatives or affricates before another plosive or an affricate.
• /h~ʔ/ is a fricative before vowels/glides and plosives but a glottal stop before nasals (as is the case for plosives) and affricates.
• Affricates are deäffricated intervocalically, before other affricates or plosives, word-finally and before nasals (which are prestopped).
• Sibilant palatalisation spreads in both directions through clusters; sibilants are also palatalised after /i/ in coda position.

	/-j/	/-w/
//Nᴾ-//	[ɲ.ɲ]	[mʷ.mʷ]
//h-//	[ç.ç]	[ʍ.ʍ]
//t͡s-//	[ɕ.ɕ]	[s̠ʷ.s̠ʷ]
//t͡ɬ-//	[ʎ̥.ʎ̥]	[ɬʷ.ɬʷ]

	//-P//
//p-//	/h.P/ [ħ.P]
//k-//
//t-//	/t͡s.P/ [s̠.P~ɕ.P]

	//-P//	//-P͡F//	//-Nᴾ//
//h-//	[ħ.P]	[ʔ.P͡F]	/ʔ.ᴮN/

	//-Nᴾ//
//p-//	[ʔ.ᵇm]
//t-//	[ʔ.ᵈn̠~ʔ.ᶡɲ]
//k-//	[ʔ.ᶢŋ]

Morphology

Ash does not mark words for number, person or case. It can be analysed as having only three word classes: verbs, nominals and converbs. Nonetheless there is a degree of mobility between them.

Verbs

The bulk of all inflection goes on verbs, making them morphemic anchors fundamental to almost any utterance in the language. The general verb template is as follows:

			Stem
Deixis	Agency	Incorp.	Root	Deriv.	State	Mood	Involv.	Converb.

Stems

Each verb has a set of primary stems formed more or less predictably from a combination of affixes. The first stem, the stative (or active, if there is no stative) realis, is used as the lemma when citing words, such as oa "to shine", also a good example of the versatile morphophonology:

	Stative	Active	Inchoative	Terminative	Intensive	Causative
Realis	oa [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ː]	oahda [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ħ.t̠ə]	oadna [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ᵈn̠ə]	oasda [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯s̠.t̠ə]	oadsa [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.t̠͡s̠ə]	oesya [ˈʊ͡ɪ̯ɕ.ɕə]
Irrealis	oae [ˈwʌ͡ɪ̯ː]	oadse [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ȶ͡ɕɪ]	oadne [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ᶡɲɪ]	oasde [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ɕ.ȶ͡ɕɪ]	oadse [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ȶ͡ɕɪ]	oesse [ˈʊ͡ɪ̯ɕ.ɕɪ]

All of these terms are to an extent ad hoc. Some verbs are inherently stative or active and do not have two distinct stems. The inchoative and terminative are often used in a perfective sense as opposed to the imperfective or habitual active or stative.

Derived verbs

Derivational suffixes can be used to extend the root and create a new set of stems, such as the causative -y- or the intensive -(d)s-, which can themselves, depending on the word, be stative or active (all derived verbs are inherently one or the other or both and do not display the allomorphy of basic verbs). These are some of the words derived from oo "consume":

Basic	Intensive	Causative
oo	odsa	oyya

Nominals

Nominals are mostly unmarked. A handful of inherited inalienably possessed nominals are however obligatorily marked with a prefix or that disappears during incorporation into a verb. This possessive prefix n- can be preceded by a deictic prefix. Here are the possessed forms of mo͠o "head; hair", an inalienably possessed nominal:

Neutral	Proximal	Distal
ĩbmo͠o	ẽbmo͠o	õbmo͠o

Any phrase can be nominalised using a classificatory topic marker (see below). When marked for the locative (see also below), these can be used to connect possessum to possessor. Verbs and converbs require a nominalising particle in the form of an unstressed determiner, either the generic n or one of the deictic e and o (again see below) which attaches directly to the classifier if present.

dodsa ŋ-go edse-s yo smoke.INT.IND=Q=CLF.TOP see.INT.IRR-CONJ=DECL I like looking at trains

oas ga dodsa n edse ga oas=CLF.TOP smoke.INT.IND=Q see.INT.IRR=DECL I'm told Oas likes looking at trains

Converbs

Converbs are used to denote a place, time or manner. Their formation sometimes resembles case marking or conjunctions or adverbs.

Some prominent converbialising suffixes:

	Long	Short	Example
Locative	-la, -da	-s	ınsonda "where they live; by the house; at home"
Durative	-ga, -ya	-h	oadnah "when it gets bright; in the morning"
Benefactive	-ba, -wa	-o	eahba "in order to see"
Semblative	-ya	-e	ảyya "sea-like; blue; green"

Deixis

The language lacks true pronouns and due to its pro-drop tendencies commonly avoids alternatives as well. One thing that does get marked is deixis: whether something is close to or far away from the speaker or a previous referent; unspecified deixis is also possible. On nominals deixis is generally spatial while on verbs it is temporal (proximal working roughly as a present tense and distal as a non-present one); converbial deixis can be either depending on the characteristics of the converb in question.

The deictic stems are as follows:

Neutral	Ø- (unmarked)
Proximal	e-
Distal	o-

Deixis occurs in the form of isolated nominals ea and oa. In verbs with some form of agency marker, the prefixes irregularly assimilate to it, retaining the initial glottal stop but displacing the vowel, e.g. *e-ả- becomes ẻ-.

Conjunct and disjunct verbs

While Ash lacks a set of first, second and third person pronouns, a system of so called conjunct versus disjunct verb forms can be used in combination with transitivity markers and deixis in order to more or less unambiguously cover the same ground. This concept is also known in the literature as assertor's involvement marking, which might give the reader a clearer idea of the concept: verbs are marked for whether the one making an assertion is involved in the action (conjunct) or not (disjunct).

In simple statements the assertor defaults to the speaker (i.e. first person) but in questions to the addressee (second person). In reported speech the assertor defaults to the source of the quote and may therefore also take on a third person role. First and second person roles are associated with proximal deixis while third person is associated with distal deixis or an explicit nominal.

Conjunct is marked by the suffix -s and disjunct is unmarked.

Simple intransitives

A conjunct verb denotes the involvement of the speaker and thus the first person. Note that there is no number distinction.

	Declarative	Interrogative
Conjunct	emeas "I am warm", "we are warm"	emeas no "am I warm?", "are we warm?", "maybe I am warm", "maybe we are warm"
Disjunct	emea "you/they are warm"	emea no "are you/they warm?", "maybe you/they are warm"

Simple transitives

Simple transitive clauses work much the same way but the choice between a direct transitive or inverse transitive marker affects the meaning as well and is the only way to differentiate between agent and patient roles when the referents are first and second person.

	Declarative
	Proximal		Distal
	Direct	Inverse	Direct	Inverse
Conjunct	(ea go) ẻhweas yo "I look at you"	(ea go) ẻsseas yo "you look at me"	(oa go) ẻhweas yo "I look at them"	(oa go) ẻsseas yo "they look at me"
Disjunct	(ea go) ẻhwea yo "you look at them"	(ea go) ẻssea yo "they look at you"	(oa go) ẻhwea yo "they1 look at them2"	(oa go) ẻssea yo "they2 look at them1"

The interrogative patterns the same way except for the first and second person again being flipped. As the last two examples show, the choice of transitivity marker can also serve as a proximate-obviative distinction.

Indirect involvement

As the conjunct form denotes merely whether the assertor is somehow involved in the action, the assertor need not necessarily be the agent. A conjunct form would still be used to denote first person involvement as a patient in some statements.

ẽbmo͠o mo ảo ẻhbadsas yo
PROX-POSS-head=CLF.TOP Ao PROX-DIR-hand.INTS.RLS-CONJ=DECL
Ao is braiding my hair

Despite a third person being the agent of the action, the focus is on the first person (the assertor) and the verb is therefore conjunct.

Interrogatives and reported speech

Unlike in some languages with involvement marking, the reference point of the conjunct marker does not change in questions or quotations in Ash. This has partially to do with the lack of distinct personal pronouns, and partially to do with the difference in the evidential (first-person-centric) nature of its modal devices (the reportative word gaa and its reduced clitic form ga, and the the interrogative clitic no), and the fact that the interrogative is really "indeterminate" and also used for (again first-person-centric) uncertainties ("maybe").

Thus the conjunct -s always refers to the first person, i.e. the speaker, but again not as a subject or agent marker but merely an involvement marker, thus also as an object or patient marker.

Syntax

The word order is fairly strictly SOV, with converbs generally preceding the nominals followed by the verb.

Valency

Agency

Transitivity and volition are tied up in a single grammatical category termed agency. Direct agency is explicitly marked, and the roles of agent and patient can be swapped without a change in word order by way of an inversion marker on the verb. The purpose of this is topicalisation, leaving the topic in the subject position. The subject requires such a topical marker, which will be detailed in the section on locative verbs.

ảo ga bahba ẻhwea ga ao=CLF.TOP dog PROX-DIR-see.ACT.RLS=REP Ao is looking at the dog

ảo ga bahba ẻssea ga ao=CLF.TOP dog PROX-INV-see.ACT.RLS=REP Ao is being watched by the dog

Inversion is especially important when the subject is being omitted as person markers do not exist.

ẻhweas yo PROX-DIR-see.ACT.RLS-CONJ=DECL I am looking at them

ẻsseas e PROX-INV-see.ACT.RLS-CONJ=EXP they are looking at me

Reflexivity

A verb can also be made reflexive by using a deictic marker in the transitivity slot, meaning a distinction is made between proximal and distal reflexivity, corresponding to the spatial deixis of nominals rather than the normally temporal deixis of verbs.

oadnah ảyısa͠as yo shine.INCH.RLS-DUR REFL.PROX-LOC:LIQ.STAT/ACT.RLS-CONJ=DECL I wash in the morning

ảo ga oadnah ảyısa͠a ma ao=CLF.TOP shine.INCH.RLS-DUR REFL.DIST-LOC:LIQ.STAT/ACT.RLS=NEG Ao doesn't wash in the morning

Reflexivity can be used to disambiguate between cases when the first and second person implications of the proximal deixis would otherwise collapse or as a proximate-obviative distinction.

ẽbmo͠o mo ẻhbadsas yo PROX-INAL-head=CLF.TOP PROX-DIR-hand.INTS.RLS-CONJ=DECL you are braiding my hair

ẽbmo͠o mo ẻwıbadsas yo PROX-INAL-head=CLF.TOP PROX PROX-REFL.PROX-hand.INTS.RLS-CONJ=DECL I am braiding my hair

Incorporation

There is a limit on two unmarked nominal arguments of a verb. There are two ways to introduce more arguments, one of which is to incorporate the third nominal into the verb.

ảo ga bahba ỏdsoyya ga
ao=CLF.TOP dog DIST-DIR-water-consume.CAUS.RLS=REP
Ao was giving the dog water to drink

Converbialisation

The other method is to completely remove the valency of the nominal by turning it into a converb, which is why this process sometimes resembles case marking.

ảo ga bahba mehda ỏdsoyya ga
ao=CLF.TOP dog burn-CVB:LOC DIST-DIR-water-consume.CAUS.RLS=REP
Ao was giving the dog water to drink by the fire

Animacy

While there is no explicit marking for animacy, an underlying hierarchy ranging roughly from natural forces at the top to people and animals in the middle and inanimates at the bottom governs certain parts of the grammar. The main aspect of this hierarchy is that inanimate referents cannot act as agents which affects how transitive and inverse marking is interpreted in their presence.

	Transitive	Inverse
Animate	bahba go ảhhea yo "dogs watch it"	bahba go ảssea yo "dogs are watched"
Inanimate	sa͠a sa ảhhea yo "water is watched"	*sa͠a sa ảssea yo (ungrammatical)

Topicalisation

New non-verbal information is focused by fronting, i.e. introducing the word or phrase earlier in the sentence. This means that the order of subject and object might shift in order to focus on the object. When the object is inanimate inversion is not possible nor necessary, while for an animate object it is. The nominal in focus also receives a topic marker, explained in detail in the section on locative verbs.

	Normal	Fronted
Animate	ảo ga bahba ỏhhea e "Ao was looking at the dog"	bahba go ảo ỏssea e "it was the dog Ao was looking at"
Inanimate	ảo ga sa͠a ỏhyoo e "Ao was drinking water"	sa͠a sa ảo ỏhyoo e "it was water Ao was drinking"

Subclauses

Relativisation is done simply by chaining phrases one after another, with no special marking. Subclauses go before main clauses, in which the deictic context is centered around the subject of the subclause.

[owadsah bahba go ỏssoyya o]₁ [ewadsah ẻsseaŋas yo]₂
[DIST shine.INT.RLS-DUR dog=CLF.TOP DIST-INV-consume.CAUS.RLS=DECL]₁ [PROX shine.ACT.RLS-DUR PROX-INV-see.INCH.RLS-CONJ=DECL]₂
[today I saw]₂ [the dog that (you) fed yesterday]₁

This is also how stative verbs are used to assign qualities to nominals.

oasya bahba go ẻsseaŋas no
light-SEMB gloss=dog=CLF.TOP shine.STAT.RLS PROX-INV-see.INCH.RLS-CONJ=Q
have you seen the white dog?

Unstressed words

In addition to unstressed locative verbs used as topicalising classifiers (see below) there are a few other words that can be unstressed to serve various purposes, mostly after verbs.

Modality

Declarative	Negative	Interrogative	Felicitative	Miserative
ebadsa yo "(really) weaving"	ebadsa ma "not weaving"	ebadsa no "weaving?", "maybe weaving"	ebadsa sa "weaving, happy to say"	ebadsa na "weaving, unfortunately"

Evidentiality

Reduced forms of some verbs can function as evidential markers, such as e for direct experience and ga for hearsay.

Experiential	Reportative
ebadsa e "(evidently) weaving"	ebadsa ga "(allegedly) weaving"

Locative verbs

An important part of Ash grammar is an extensive set of so called locative verbs which are used almost like a noun classification system and cover location, motion and related concepts while providing specific information about the referent at hand, such as specifying whether liquid is involved. These also have reduced clitic forms used as classifiers and topic markers.

These are some of those verbs:

Locative	Classifier	Gloss	Semantic range
laa	la, da, na	:STAT	General stative (indefinite or permanent)
goa	go, ŋo	:ACT	General active (temporary or dynamic)
sa͠a	sa	:LIQ	Water and other liquids
see	se	:AER	Air and weather
boa	bo, mo	:CRESC	Growth (hair, plants et c.)
doo	do, no	:PART	Particles (powder, sand, dust, smoke, spores et c.)
mea	me	:PYR	Fire (by extension core or centre)
baa	ba, ma	:MAN	Hand and instrumental (things held; implements and tools)

There are also some classifiers without corresponding verbs:

Classifier	Gloss	Semantic range
ya, wa, nya	:GEM	Used mainly of pairs (e.g. eyes, hands) but does not denote dual number
na	:COLL	Used mainly of collectives (e.g. people) and higher animates but does not denote plural number

Others do have corresponding verbs but not locative ones, such as the personal ga~ŋa corresponding to gaa "say", used for referring to individuals by name (e.g. ảo ga the person vs. ảo sa the sea).

Classificatory topicalisation

An unstressed locative verb is required as a topical marker following a fronted nominal, resembling a particle. The choice of verb functions much like a noun class classifier and can be used to differentiate between various meanings of a single nominal lexeme.

ĩbmo͠o mo POSS-head=CLF.TOP hair (on the head)

ĩbmo͠o na POSS-head=CLF.TOP head (on the body)

Used this way they nonetheless remain verbs with the accompanying syntactic implications. Since they create subclauses, a nominal specified for category with a locative verb cannot be used in object position and so will always precede any agent. However, since this is in line with the normal rule of topicalisation by fronting, it has no actual implications for the syntax.

ẽbmo͠o mo ảo ẻhbadsas yo
PROX-INAL-head=CLF.TOP ao PROX-DIR-hand.INTS.RLS-CONJ=DECL
Ao is braiding my hair

Conjunction

In addition to serving as a topical marker, an unstressed locative verb can also be used as a nominal conjunction. As subject and object are never both topically marked, a series of topicalised nominals serves as a single noun phrase in the fronted subject position.

ảo ga bahba go onda egoa e
ao=CLF.TOP dog=CLF.TOP DIST-LOC PROX-CVB:LOC:ACT.RLS=EXP
Ao and the dog are over there

Use with converbs

Converbial location is generic and locative verbs can be used to specify the meaning.

ảo sas sa͠a sea=CLF-LOC LOC:LIQ.STAT/ACT.RLS (be) in the ocean; at sea

ảo sas laa sea=CLF-LOC LOC:STAT.STAT/ACT.RLS (be) by the sea

Possession

The fossilised set of nouns that can take the possessive prefix n- can follow directly after a classified possessor.

ảo ga ndoo ya ao=CLF-LOC POSS-foot=CLF.TOP Ao's foot

ảo gã bmo͠o na ao=CLF-LOC POSS-head=CLF.TOP Ao's head

Otherwise the locative converbialiser -s serves to mark the possessor of a possessum.

ảo gas osee go
ao=CLF-LOC breath=CLF.TOP
Ao's breath (lit. "breath at Ao")

Pragmatics and conventions

Modality

Wants, needs, desires and possibilities are often just expressed through morphological means in Ash, such as irrealis forms, potentials and interrogatives.

ẻhhodses yo PROX-DIR-consume.INTS.ACT.IRR-CONJ=DECL I want/need to eat; I am hungry

ẻhhodses no PROX-DIR-consume.INTS.ACT.IRR-CONJ=Q perhaps I should eat something

bahba go ẻhhodse no dog=CLF.TOP PROX-DIR-consume.INTS.ACT.IRR=Q maybe the dog is hungry

Colour terms

Colours are mainly expressed through semblative converbs, likening the appearance of the referent to something else, such as mea "fire" → nayya "red; yellow; orange; brown" or ảo "sea" → ảyya "blue; green".

nayya bahba go
fire-SEMB dog=CLF.TOP
a brown dog