Ash

Ash
ảhga
Onnost emblem of Appa
Pronunciation	[ˈʔɑħ.qə]
Created by	User:Prinsessa
Language family	Proto-Ash-Ish Proto-Ash Ash

Introduction

Ash (ảhga, lit. "seaspeak", IPA [ˈʔɑħ.qə]) 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. They are in close linguistic and cultural contact with the neighbouring speakers of Ish. Going back many millennia the languages are in fact related through Proto-Ash-Ish but speakers were separated until recent centuries after a long history of migration among both groups.

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.

Additional notes:

• The unusual poststopped nasals appear to derive from a merger of prenasalised stops and plain nasals in Proto-Ash-Ish going into Proto-Ash. This surfaces in various ways in clusters but is also articulated initially during emphasis and after pausa.
• The bilabial trill [ʙ] occurs as a free variation allophone of /w/ in some contexts and is common in emphatic pronunciations of the declarative modal clitic yo, sometimes allophonically altered into wo and ww. It is also a common approximation when Ash speakers try to produce Ish's velarised labiodental flap [ⱱᶭ].

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. Dot above (e.g. ȧ) denotes that a short vowel in a heavy syllable is stressed where it would otherwise read as unstressed.

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

//i.hVhˈwu.i//

→ /hihˈwu.ji/

→ [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 reduce to plain fricatives 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.ᵈn̪~ʔ.ᶡɲ]
//k-//	[ʔ.ᶢŋ]

A nasal before another nasal due to its poststopped nature results in the same kind of cluster as a plosive before a nasal but additionally nasalises the preceding vowel, even across words.

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.	Mood	Involv.

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.t̺ə]	oadna [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ᵈn̺ə]	oasda [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯s̠.t̠ə]	oadsa [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.t̠͡s̠ə]	oesya [ˈʊ͡ɪ̯ɕ.ɕə]
Irrealis	oae [ˈwʌ͡ɪ̯ː]	oadse [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ȶ͡ɕə]	oadne [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ᶡɲə]	oasde [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ɕ.ȶ͡ɕə]	oadse [ˈɔ͡ɑ̯ʔ.ȶ͡ɕə]	oesse [ˈʊ͡ɪ̯ɕ.ɕə]

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). 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 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 noun:

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 ảhhedse-s yo
smoke.INTS.IND=Q=CLF.TOP DIR-see.INTS.IRR-CONJ=DECL
I like 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, -nda	-s	sonda "where they live; by the house; at home"
Durative	-ya, -nya	-h	oadnah "when it gets bright; in the morning"
Benefactive	-wa	-o, -wı	ehwa "in order to see"
Qualitative	-ya	-e, -yı	ảyya "sea-like; blue; green"
Quantitative	~dna	-na	nõdna "how many; some amount"

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; unspecified (neutral) deixis is also possible, denoting a general fact. Deixis is simultaneously spatial and temporal, focussing on the proximity of an event to the speaker's current frame of reference.

The deictic stems are as follows:

Neutral	∅- (unmarked; verbs and inalienable nouns), N- (deverbal and deconverbial nouns)
Proximal	e-
Distal	o-

Deixis also 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 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). Unlike some languages however, the assertor in Ash is always the speaker, even in reported speech.

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

The additional unstressed words e and no are obligatory modal clitics and will be described in a later section.

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) ẻhheas yo "I look at you"	(ea go) ẻsseas yo "you look at me"	(oa go) ẻhheas yo "I look at them"	(oa go) ẻsseas yo "they look at me"
Disjunct	(ea go) ẻhhea yo "you look at them"	(ea go) ẻssea yo "they look at you"	(oa go) ẻhhea yo "they1 look at them2"	(oa go) ẻssea yo "they2 look at them1"

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 o ẻsbadsas yo ảo ga
PROX-POSS-head=CLF.TOP DET.DIST=PROX-INV-hand.INTS.RLS-CONJ=DECL Ao=CLF
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 basic word order is fairly strictly noun-verb, with converbs preceding verb phrases. The opposite order makes the verb attributive. Word order alone does not mark a noun phrase for any particular role (e.g. subject or object). This is determined instead by context and factors like salience, agency, and animacy. An explicit topic governing the main verb is introduced by a preceding auxiliary verb phrase.

Valency

Agency

Ash is a direct-inverse language. Transitivity and volition are tied up into 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 ẻhhea ga
Ao=CLF.TOP dog PROX-DIR-see.ACT.RLS=REP
Ao is looking at the dog

A simple transitive phrase like this can be inverted:

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

Such a phrase can also have the agent moved after the verb-final clitic and classified in its own right. A determiner is placed in its position in the initial phrase.

ảo ga o ẻssea ga bahba go
Ao=CLF.TOP DET.PROX=PROX-INV-see.ACT.RLS=REP dog=CLF
Ao is being watched by the dog; watching Ao was the dog

With ditransitive verbs such as causatives two referents can appear before the verb or the same displacement can take place.

oas ga bahba sa͠a ỏhhoyya ga
Oas=CLF.TOP dog water DIST-DIR-eat.CAUS.RLS=REP
it was Oas who gave the dog water to drink

oas ga o sa͠a ỏssoyya ga bahba go
Oas=CLF.TOP DET.DIST=water DIST-INV-eat.CAUS.RLS=REP dog=CLF
it was Oas the dog offered water to

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

ẻhheas 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

Besides the direct and inverse agency prefixes, verbs can also take a reflexive one.

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 referents.

ẽbmo͠o mo ẻsbadsas yo
PROX-INAL-head=CLF.TOP PROX-INV-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

The number of unmarked nominal arguments that a verb can take depends on its valency. There are other ways to introduce more referents, 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

However this is limited to very few nouns and is more of a derivational process than a grammatical one. On the other hand, the fact that the main verb phrase is separate from the topic (or classifier) phrase means that it's possible to use one of its argument slots, even when intransitive, as a kind of subject with semantics much like that of an incorporated noun, as the subject implicitly remains the topic from the previous clause.

enya ga bahba ảyıgaa e
younger_sibling=CLF.TOP dog REFL-sound.RLS=EXP
my sibling barks like a dog

The above main verb phrase can be taken to mean something like "dog-sounds (oneself)" or "dog-calls (oneself)".

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 o mehda ỏdsoyya ga bahba go
Ao=CLF.TOP DET:DIST=burn-CVB:LOC DIST-DIR-water-consume.CAUS.RLS=REP dog=CLF
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. Conjunct verbs are treated as if between regular animates and high animates.

	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-verb 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	oas ga o ỏhhedsa e bahba go "Oas was looking at the dog"	bahba go o ỏssedsa e oas ga "it was the dog Oas was looking at"
Inanimate	oas ga o ỏhhodsa e sa͠a sa "Oas was drinking the water"	sa͠a sa o ỏhhodsa e oas ga "it was the water Oas 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.

[owahdah bahba go ỏssoyya we]₁ [ewahdah eyea wo]₂
[yesterday dog=CLF.TOP DIST-INV-consume.CAUS.RLS=EXP]₁ [today PROX-see.STAT.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.

osy’ oada bahba go ẻsseas no
light-QUAL shine.ATTR gloss=dog=CLF.TOP shine.STAT.RLS PROX-INV-see.STAT.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
sea	se	:AER	Air and weather
boa	bo, mo	:CRESC	Growth (hair, plants et c.)
doa	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 and form separate clauses.

ẽbmo͠o mo e ẻsbadsas yo ảo ga
PROX-INAL-head=CLF.TOP DET.PROX=PROX-INV-hand.INTS.RLS-CONJ=DECL Ao=CLF
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 oas 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 sea

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

Possession

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

ảhdo ga ndoo ya
Atwa=CLF POSS-foot=CLF.TOP
Atwa's foot

ảhdo gã bmo͠o na
Atwa=CLF POSS-head=CLF.TOP
Atwa's head

Otherwise converbs such as the locative -s serve to mark the possessor of a possessum depending on the relationship.

ảhdo gas ảnda mmo
Atwa=CLF-LOC bread=CLF.TOP
Atwa's bread (lit. "bread at Atwa"; they already have it)

ảhdo gawı ảnda mmo
Atwa=CLF-BEN bread=CLF.TOP
Atwa's bread (lit. "bread for Atwa"; they do not yet have it)

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.

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

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

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

Colour terms

Colours are mainly expressed through qualitative 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". They are used together with attributive verbs.

nayy’ oada bahba go
fire-QUAL shine.ATTR dog=CLF.TOP
a brown dog