Kämpya: Difference between revisions

Kämpya is spoken is my far-future Antarctican conworld, where runaway global warming has melted the icecaps and made the continent habitable (while rendering most of the rest of the world uninhabitable).

It then diverged into a number of widely divergent dialects (technology regressed, and groups of speakers were cut off from one another), followed by another period of koineisation when enough technology was re-invented for speakers of different dialects to be able to contact one other again. This koine was called Kämpya, and spread to many other parts of the continent, aided by the growth of a religion called Laikyâr (although not all Kämpya speakers follow the Laikyâr religion, and not all Laikyâr believers speak Kämpya). Indeed there is a special register of the language that is only used in religious contexts. There are also a number of regional dialects. However, this page describes what could be termed the "standard" dialect.

In addition to this, there is also a tone contrast, but this is only used for grammatical purposes (e.g. to change between different parts of speech, or to mark alienable / inalienable possession), never for lexical purposes. For example, from the noun /áˈlâṵn/ - "that which is alone", which has High Tone on the first syllable and Falling Tone on the second (with harsh voice), we can derive the non-restrictive adjective /àˈláṵn/ - "by itself / solitary", which has Low Tone on the first syllable and High Tone on the second (with harsh voice).

====Consonants====

/s/ acquired phonemic aspiration in similar situations to the above e.g. /sʰḛ̂n/ - "heaven" (from English "ascend") vs. /èˈsóʔt/ - "exotic.DESC" (the /k/ that used to precede the /s/ was lost, but not before blocking that aspiration that would otherwise have occurred on an /s/ in a stressed syllable).

/ʍ/ re-emerged in English via spelling pronunciations, becoming Kämpya /hw/ (pronounced as [ʍ]) e.g. /ˈhwâ̰jù/ - "whale".

English /v/ became /bw/ before a vowel e.g. /ˈbwḛ̂lì/ - "valley"

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===Genitive / Ergative Pronouns===

====With Postpositional Phrases====

valley=from depart enemy

or

enemy valley=from depart

valley=from 2PS depart

As another example, the sentence

enemy valley=from depart

becomes the following:

valley depart=from enemy=DAT

This is clearly a cliticisation process, since adverbs can come before the particle but after the verb e.g.

The forest that the lizard bit the dog in is small. (not */ˈlḭ̂zàd=zù bíʔ=kà dô̰g=àuŋ pʰò̤wè m̥ôṵ/)

==Mood/Evidentiality==

I want you to be bitten by the '''small''' dog (and not a big one).

===Conditional Mood===

===Hypothetical Mood===

2PS.INTR=HYP=depart

2PS.INTR=HYP=depart COND=1PS.EXCL=alone

===Direct Evidential===

===Reportative Evidential===

dog REP=alone

alone REP=dog

===Inferential Evidential===

/dô̰k gés=áˈlâṵn/

===Assumptive Mood===

/sôṵlà dáz=áʔp/

===Interrogative Mood===

You weren't abandoned by the dog.

==Responses to Polar Questions==

or

Hkonat=from Q.INTR=depart

When English would use a word such as "where" or "when", Kämpya instead uses /kḛ̀/ (the accusative emphatic interrogative pronoun) with a postposition e.g.

enemy Q.ACC=from depart

For example, from the sentence:

mother=ERG REP=know everyone

We can replace the object with a pronoun to get

mother 1PS.INCL.ACC=REP=know

If there is a subordinate clause, then the accusative pronoun is replaced with /nó/ e.g.

mother SBRD.ACC=REP=know dog=ERG bite lizard

If the superordinate clause's absolutive argument is also the topic of the subordinate clause, then it does not need to be mentioned twice e.g.  

mother SBRD.ACC=REP=know dog=ERG bite

mother SBRD.ACC.EMP=SEC ANTIP=speak child=DAT  INDEF=bone=SEC REP=give dog

child SBRD.ACC 1PS.EXCL.ACC=speak enemy REP=depart

==Comparative Constructions==

dog.TOP lizard=above fast

Dogs are faster than lizards (literally "Dogs are fast above lizards").