Tseer

Tseer/Lexicon
Swadesh list for Tseer
Tseer/Sketchbook

This article describes Classical Tseer. See Tseer/Modern for Modern Tseer.

Tseer
døludx Tseer
Created by	IlL
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Language family	Lakovic Ashanic Tseer

Tseer (chair; natively døludx Tseer Classical: /døludz tʃẽr̝/ Modern: /dəwüts tʃẽʃ/ (the -x is a feminine marker); Skellan: brits Txeñz) is a Lakovic language spoken in Talma. It is inspired mainly by Hmong and Somali, with touches of Burmese (especially for Modern Tseer), Vietnamese and Satem IE languages like Polish.

Tseer was a prominent classical language of Talma, second to Windermere; it left a significant influence on Windermere and Skellan.

Unlike Windermere, Tsrovesh, or Häskä, Tseer epenthesized initial clusters or vocalized the laryngeal *H in clusters.

Todo

• Needs some vowel shifts
  • ø occurs when a (but not ä) is u-umlauted: *taafu > tøøfu
• p > f
• final -g, -w disappear
• ś, g > kh /x/
• s- > t /t/
• -s > -x
• š-, y- > x-
• c, ć > tx, ts
• t- > th /T/
• CäC- > CC- in Wdm and CaC- in Tseezh

Numbers: don, oorad, txim, khaag, omøøtx, dag, abood, xev, wooj, thab, taxaa, trøg

thanam = ice

tawsuug = example

odoxmed = ??? (odosméd = 'byproduct' in Eevo)

nasal vowels merge with nonnasal vowels before m/n/ng/l?

Final -ng disappears leaving nasalization (as in Skellan)

hox = angle

thamex = side

ba<gon>aakh = proportion, ratio

anxoofay = climate

Phonology

Consonants

Classical Tseer has 21 phonemic consonants: Syllable-final v dh are allophones of /b d/, and syllable final b d g are allophones of /p t k/.

m n ng /ŋ/

t th /ʈ/ k ' /ʔ/

b d dh /ɖ/ g

f x /s~z/ kh /x/ h

tx /ts/ ts /tʃ/

v ð /ð/ (only syllable finally)

w r /r̝~ʒ/ l y /j/

Notes

• /x/ is [ʂ] in some dialects
• b d g = [p t k] word-finally.

Vowels

Classical Tseer has 10 vowels: 6 oral and 4 nasal.

a e i o u ø /a e i o u ɵ/

aa ee oo øø /ã ẽ õ ɵ̃/

/ɵ/ will be transcribed as /ø/ for convenience.

Stress

Classical Tseer had no stress or tone.

Phonotactics

No initial clusters are allowed; also, final -p -t -th -k are forbidden.

Morphology

Classical Tseer morphology is much like Classical Windermere: nouns have masculine and feminine gender, and verbs inflect for aspect, tense, voice, and gender agreement using prefixes, infixes and reduplication.

Pronouns

	I	we (inc. du.)	thou (m.)	thou (f.)	he	she	we (exc.)	we (inc. pl.)	you (m. pl.)	you (f. pl.)	they (m.)	they (f.)
Full pronouns	rii	baa	khen	kheex	in	iix	riiri	baaba	kheekhe	kheekhex	inin	inix

Correlatives

Todo: correlatives table

this, that = ti, fi

this/that man = ten, fen; this/that woman = teex, feex

here, there = mid, mif

Nouns

Like Classical Windermere, each noun has an intrinsic gender, either masculine or feminine. For most feminine nouns, the feminine is marked with -x (pronounced [z] after V m n l r y v dh b d g, [əz] after x tx ts th and [s] after f kh).

• ativ = son-in-law; ativx = daughter-in-law
• bakhoo = uncle; bakhoox = aunt
• athaay = lion; athaayx = lioness

Plurals are formed by reduplication with the reduplicant modified for phonotactic or euphonic reasons.

• athaay 'lion' > a'athaay 'lions'
• moog 'feather' > momoog 'feathers'

TODO: plural reduplication rules

Verbs

Verb template

feminine-TAM-pluractionality-voice-ROOT?

Agreement

Feminine subject: wa-

Nutx-ir ownax /nutsir ownas/ = I loved the girl (male speaker)

Wanutx-ir ownax /wanutsir ownas/ = I loved the girl (female speaker)

Voice

• Passive: haa- (~ Windermere ha-)
• Reflexive/Reciprocal: ⟨ax⟩ (~ Wdm ⟨iș⟩)

Verbal number

Pluractionality is used when a verb is done multiple times or done to multiple objects.

Pluractionality: Fe-, FeL-, eeFe- or eeFeL- (cf. Windermere frequentative enFă-)

TAM

Aspects/Tenses:

• Perfective aspect: unmarked
• Intensive: tho-, ~ Wdm. thu-
• Imperfective aspect: le- or reduplication
• Progressive: oL-, oo- (~ Wdm. ăL-, Modern oL- with non-past meaning)
• Jussive: af- (~ Wdm. hef-; Modern Tseer uses xa- for imperative)

Derivation

Reconstruct more derivational morphology in PLak!

• ⟨r⟩ = patientive
• ⟨kh⟩ = verbalizer or patientive
• ⟨t~d⟩ = applicative
• xi- = adjectivizer
  • xilakow = free, wakoo originally meant 'human'
• ta- = nominalizer
• bo- = agentive
• la- = verbalizer
• (diminutive redup)
• cognates to Wdm derivational redup patterns

Poetry

Tseer poetry is based on rhyming and lines with set numbers of syllables. Rhyming prose is a common poetic form.