Balog

Balog [ˈbɐɫɔɡ̚] is the main language of the Balog people of Ub as well as the most widely used lingua franca on that planet.

Phonology

Consonants

Manner	Phonation	Bilabial	Dentolabial Labiodental	Dental/Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	voiced	/m/ 1,2 ‹m›		/n/ 2,3 ‹n›			/ŋ/ 2 ‹ŋ / ng›
Plosive	voiced	/b/ 4 ‹b›		/d/ 3,4 ‹d›			/ɡ/ 4 ‹g›
	voiceless	/p/ 5 ‹p›		/t/ 3,5 ‹t›			/k/ 5 ‹k›		/ʔ/ ‹q›
	ejective	/pʼ/ 6 ‹pq›		/tʼ/ 3,6 ‹tq›			/kʼ/ 6 ‹kq›
Affricate	voiced			/d͡z/ 7 ‹dz›	/d͡ʒ/ 7 ‹dž / dzh›
	voiceless			/t͡s/ 7 ‹ts›	/t͡ʃ/ 7 ‹tš / tsh›
	ejective			/t͡sʼ/ 6,7 ‹tsq›	/t͡ʃʼ/ 6,7 ‹tšq / tshq›
Lateral affricate	voiced			/d͡ɮ/ 7 ‹dl›
	voiceless			/t͡ɬ/ 7 ‹tl›
	ejective			/t͡ɬʼ/ 6,7 ‹tlq›
Fricative	voiced	/v/ 8 ‹v›		/z/ ‹z›	/ʒ/ ‹ž / zh›		/ɣ/ 9 ‹ğ / gh›
	voiceless	/f/ 8 ‹f›		/s/ ‹s›	/ʃ/ ‹š / sh›		/x/ 9 ‹x›		/h/ ‹h›
Trill / Flap	voiced			/r/ 10 ‹r›
Lateral	voiced			/l/ 3,11 ‹l›
Semivowel	voiced					/j/ ‹y›	/w/ 12 ‹w›

1. /m/ assimilates to the articulation of a following /v/ or /f/, being pronounced bilabially [m] by speakers with bilabial pronunciations of /v/ and /f/ ([β] and [ɸ]), dentolabially [ɱ͆] by speakers with dentolabial pronunciations of /v/ and /f/ ([v͆] and [f͆]) and labiodentally by speakers with labiodental pronunciation of /v/ and /f/ ([v] and [f])
2. Nasal consonants may be pronounced syllabically when not adjacent to a vowel. Their syllabic pronunciations are always short and unstressed.
3. The alveolar/dental consonants /n d t tʼ l/ are pronounced with dental articulation by some speakers and alveolar articulation by others. This varies chiefly by region and/or native language.
4. The voiced plosives /b d g/ are frequently pronounced as implosives post pausa: [ɓ ɗ~ɗ̪ ɠ]
5. The voiceless plosives /p t k/ are generally unaspirated although aspirated pronunciations may be found, especially by L2 speakers: [pʰ tʰ~t̪ʰ kʰ]. The glottal plosive /ʔ/ is never aspirated.
6. The ejective consonants /pʼ tʼ kʼ t͡sʼ t͡ʃʼ t͡ɬʼ/ are frequently pronounced irregularly by L2 speakers who lack ejective consonants in their native languages. As there are many minimal pairs that can result in dangerous misunderstandings if the ejective consonants are not pronounced, many L2 speakers who are unable to pronounce the ejectives substitute them with sequences of a plain plosive or affricate, a weakly articulated schwa and then a glottal stop: [pə͉ʔ tə͉ʔ kə͉ʔ t͡sə͉ʔ t͡ʃə͉ʔ t͡ɬə͉ʔ].
7. In careful speech, affricates are distinguished phonetically from equivalent sequences of plosive and fricative that come together across word boundaries. The clusters are pronounced with a separate release.
8. The majority of Balog pronounce the fricatives /v/ and /f/ dentolabially: [v͆] and [f͆]. Due to anatomical differences, the majority of non-Balog pronounce these labiodentally as [v] and [f]. Speakers of certain regions, both Balog and non-Balog, may pronounce them bilabially as [β] and [ɸ].
9. The fricatives /ɣ/ and /x/ may be pronounced either at the velum as [ɣ] and [x], or at the uvula as [ʁ] and [χ]. Speakers with uvular pronunciations of /ɣ/ may frequently pronounce it as a trill [ʀ].
10. The consonant /r/ is generally pronounced as a tap or flap [ɾ] with trilled pronunciations generally restricted to emphatic speech. When geminate, the pronunciation is always as a trill.
11. The lateral /l/ may be, as discussed in point 3., either be dental or alveolar, however there is frequently also a strong velar or pharyngeal coarticulation: [ɫ~ɫ̪]
12. The semivowel /w/ is generally pronounced unrounded by Balog speakers due to anatomical differences. It is, however, pronounced with lip compression that results in a similar auditory effect: [w͍]. Non-Balog who speak it as an L2 may pronounce it with rounding: [w].

Vowels

	Front	Front Labialised	Back	Back Labialised
High	/i/ [ɪ] ‹i›	/y/ [ʏ͍] ‹ü›		/u/ [ʊ͍] ‹u›
Mid	/e/ [ɛ] ‹e›	/ø/ [œ͍] ‹ö›		/o/ [ɔ͍] ‹o›
Low	/æ/ [æ] ‹ä›		/a/ [ɑ] ‹a›

The labialised vowels are pronounced by phenotypical Balog as unrounded vowels due to their protruding lower canines, however they are distinguished from their unlabialised counterparts by lip compression which has a similar auditory effect to rounding. This compression may sometimes be so extreme as to form a complete closure in the centre of the lips, leaving the airflow to escape laterally. Non-Balog speakers of Balog typically pronounce these vowels as rounded vowels.

The phonetic realisation of these vowels, especially the higher ones, is generally quite lax, hence the symbols < ɪ ʏ͍ ʊ͍ ɛ œ͍ ɔ͍ æ ɑ > have been used here to represent the phones. The symbols < i y u e ø o æ a > were chosen to represent the phonemes purely for ease of typing, although in all cases except that of /a/, the IPA value of each of these characters is well within the range of possible realisations. A pure [a] would be right on the edge of the ranges of /æ/ and /a/: with the most fronted pronunciations of /a/ being in the realm of [ä].

Diphthongs

All mid and low vowels can begin falling diphthongs. The following sequences are diphthongs: /ai au æi æy ei eu ey oi ou øi øy/. All other vowel combinations will be separated by a consonant, including the semivowels /w/ and /j/.

Phonotactics

Syllables in Balog are maximally CSVC, where C represents a consonant, S semivowel /w/ or /j/ and V a vowel. Syllables with a CS onset are rather rare.

Consonant clusters other than those in which the second element is a semivowel do not occur within a morpheme or even within a clause, meaning that the appearance of such a consonant cluster reliably indicates a clause boundary.

Any consonant may appear initially or medially in a morpheme. Ejective consonants cannot appear at the end of a morpheme. The plain voiceless stops and affricates are sometimes allophonically ejectivised at the end of an utterance.

Morphophonology

Vowel Length and Gemination

A number of proclitic morphemes such as the nominals (which indicate a subject), the essive proclitic ⫽weː⫽ and the possessive proclitics ⫽niː⫽ and ⫽nuː⫽ contain the archiphoneme ⫽ː⫽ which is realised as the gemination of the following consonant, which belongs to the next morpheme, unless the next morpheme is a verb consisting of a single consonant or another morpheme containing ⫽ː⫽, in which case ⫽ː⫽ is realised as a lengthening of the vowel of the proclitic.

For example, verb corresponding to the first person singular subject pronoun ("I") may be either ž or žan. Applying the b-ranked, definite subject nominal clitic ⫽aː⫽ results in aaž or ažžan respectively (both meaning 'I', with the latter being more emphatically singular, 'I and no one else'). The essive proclitic ⫽weː⫽ applied to ž or žan results in weež or wežžan respectively ('who is me') and the a sequence of essive ⫽weː⫽ and subordinate possessive ⫽niː⫽ applied to ž or žan results in wenniiž or wennižžan respectively ('my', 'which is mine').

Vowel Harmony

All of the eight monophthongs and eleven diphthongs can be assigned to a harmonic class. Only /i/, /e/ and /ei/ are neutral.

	Neutral	Front- Harmonic	Back- Harmonic
High Monophthongs	/i/	/y/	/u/
Mid Monophthongs	/e/	/ø/	/o/
Low Monophthongs		/æ/	/a/
Mid Diphthongs to non-labial	/ei/	/øi/	/oi/
Mid Diphthongs non-labial to labial		/ey/	/eu/
Mid Diphthongs labial to labial		/øy/	/ou/
High diphthongs to non-labial		/æi/	/ai/
High diphthongs to labial		/æy/	/au/

Individual morphemes in Balog cannot contain both front-harmonic and back-harmonic vowels. Both sets can coexist with neutral vowels. The front harmonic vowels are relatively rare in Balog, with the majority of roots containing only back-harmonic and or neutral vowels.

In the standard dialect of Tšqaigal, the hub of the Balog empire, vowel harmony spreads only to derivational affixes. For example, the causative infix -uw- becomes -üw-when added to front-harmonic words such as däz ('be an assertion/claim') → düwäz. In other dialects, front vowel harmony may spread from subject clitics, including the subordinator ää=, onto roots, neutralising the difference between front-harmonic and back-harmonic roots in these positions. Back vowel harmony does not spread from clitics to roots. Vowel harmony does not spread through compounding, except for some very old compound words.

Front harmonic vowels are often associated with animateness, as in the minimal pair maš 'what' vs mäš 'who'.

Morphology

Verbs

There is only one class of content word in Balog. These form the equivalent of verbs, nouns, adjectives and pronouns in other languages. Words of this lexical category cannot be sorted into separate discrete classes of nouns, verbs etc. using syntax or morphology. With few exceptions, each content word exhibits complete bidirectional subject-predicate flexibility, meaning they can be used in predicates ("verbally") or become nominalised by a subject marker in order to be used ("nominally") as the subject of a clause without any irregular changes in form or meaning. This class of words in Balog is refered to as "verbs" due to the simple fact that they can appear unmodified in a predicate but must be modified by a nominaliser in order to appear in subjects.

This situation can distinguished from the extensive zero-derivation, such as that employed by English, whereby verbs and nouns can, with a fair degree of flexibility, change category. Zero derivation results in identical verbs and nouns whose meanings relate to one another in somewhat unpredictable ways. For instance, although, by definition, a spy spies and a stray strays, it cannot be said that, by definition, a fish fishes or burger burgers. A tree grows, but there is nothing called a grow that can be said to tree. The verbal and nominal meanings formed by zero-derivation must therefore be regarded as separate (although related) lexical entities in their own right.

By contrast, the meaning of Balog verbs does not change depending on their syntactic position within a clause. Each verb may be given a nominal or a verbal translation into English, but the relationship between them is consistent. If given a nominal translation, then the verbal translation is simply "be [noun]". If given a verbal translation, the nominal translation is simply the agent noun of it or, more specifically, "entity that [verb]s", "one who [verbs]", "that which [verbs]", "those that [verb]" etc.

Balog Verb	Verbal Translation	Nominal Translation
dauz	be a tree	tree
ŋaž	be tall	tall one
magaz	fall over	one that falls over
dek	die without obvious cause	one that dies without obvious cause
vaŋ	hunt; be a hunter	one who hunts; hunter

It could be argued that a non-syntactic division of the category of verbs into classes of true verbs, nouns, adjectives etc., could be made on the basis of semantics. For example, semanticists may argue that the verb magaz (fall over) is semantically a true verb as it describes "an action/state", whereas the verb dauz (be a tree) is semantically a noun because it describes "an entity". This semantic approach to the creation of additional categories that are not supported by syntactic analysis will, however, inevitably cause disagreements as semantic categories have fuzzy edges. A verb such as lisim could equally well regarded as a noun meaning "(an) annoyance" or "nuisance" or as a true verb meaning "annoy" or "bother". The question as to whether lisim refers to an entity or to an action/state can be answered with "Both!" Lisim refers to the action and the agent of that action. Likewise, the verb vaŋ could be argued to be a true verb meaning hunt (an action) or a noun meaning "hunter" (an entity or that performs the action). Even in more apparently clear-cut cases, although the verb magaz "fall over", which patently seems to describe an action, is most conveniently translated into English as a verb, it also describes an entity that falls over (a "faller-over"). Likewise, the verb dauz describes an entity, a "tree", yet it also describes the action/state of being a tree. Balog simply makes no syntactic or lexical distinction between performing an action or being the agent of such an action.

In many cases, the difference between what semanticists would regard as true verbs or nouns depends on the the intrinsic temporal aspect or Aktionsart of the word's definition. Words describing relatively long-lasting and static attributes of an entity, such as dauz "be a tree" or ŋaž "be tall" are less likely to be perceived by semanticists as true verbs and also less likely to be translatable by verbs alone in languages with a noun-verb distinction. Dynamic states or actions involving movement or change, especially transient or momentane descriptions of an entity that the entity may quickly pass through, are more likely to be regarded as intrinsically "verb like" and, when translated into English, may frequently have awkward, clunky nominal translations involving relative clauses headed by "entity that", "one who" or "that which".

The following table illustrates the temporal duration of varying attributes of what may be regarded as a single entity, a tree. This entity can be regarded as performing the action "be tree" for a substantial period of time, although, archetypally, it would most likely be described as a tree when fully grown and not yet fallen over. The size of the X's in the table indicates the suitability of the word. Throughout a tree's life, it undergoes dynamic, changing action/states, some only for a single moment such as germinating or falling over, others, such as flowering may continue for a few weeks or months at a time and recur intermittantly. Other action/states, such as verbal "growing", occur for similar durations of time as more semantically nominal action/states such as "be tree", "be sapling", however these are regarded by semanticists as verbal merely due to the focus of the word on the change of state, contrasting with "be tree", in which changes of state are not in focus.

Balog      Verbal               
Verb:      Translation:       Time:-----------------------------------------------------------------------> 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________       
dauz      | be tree         | xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ŋurad     | germinate       | X
biyad     | grow:           | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
zemalik   | be seedling     |  XXXXXXXXXXxxx
dauzit    | be sapling      |         xxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxx
ŋaž       | be tall         |                             xxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
näh       | photosynthesise |  X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X  
zambilif  | flower          |                    XX    XX    XX   XX   XXX  XXX XX
magaz     | fall down       |                                                         X
dišif     | rot             |                                                       xxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxx
däžib     | fallen tree, log|                                                          XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxx

Adverbs

Adverbs modify verbs to give them new shades of meaning. The vast majority of adverbs are very short, particle-like words. For example, adverbs indicating tense and aspect optionally stand before a verb and give temporal information about it. These are not restricted to use with semantically verbal verbs, nor are they restricted to syntactic positions within a predicate as subject phrases themselves consist of

In the following example, the imperfective particle hi indicates that the action of dying is not spoken about as a completed whole, but, rather, an action seen from the middle, thus "is dying" (or according to context, "was dying" etc.). The past tense particle do appears before garag "be neighbour" to indicate "be one who was a neighbour", thus "former neighbour" in the translation.

Hi zowak aqaddo garag wenniiž.
[hɪ ˈzɔ͍w͍ɐk ɐʔɐdːɔ͍ ˈɡɐɾɐɡ wɛnːiːʒ]
hi	zowak	aqa(ː)-	do	garag	we(ː)-	ni(ː)-	ž
IPFV	die.of.protracted.illness	SPEC(B)-	PST	neighbour	ESS-	GEN-	1S
"A former neighbour of mine is dying (of a protracted illness)."

Syntactic Clitics

Syntactic clitics are morphemes that attach to the first word of a verb phrase in order to subordinate them in some manner into another verb phrase. Syntactic clitics include the archiphoneme /ː/, which lengthens the clitic's vowel when the following verb phrase consists of only a consonant and otherwise geminates the following consonant.

Essive

The essive or equative clitic we(:)- introduces a verb phrase that modifies its preceding head in a strict, additive manner. It is frequently translated into English by means of a relative pronoun.

aqabbalog weŋŋaž
aqa(:)	balog	we(:)-	ŋaž
SPEC(b)	be.Balog	ESS-	be.tall
"a tall Balog"

iddžeb weššwaŋ
i(:)	džeb	we(:)-	šwaŋ
SPEC(b)	be.slave	ESS-	execute.PRF.PASS
"the slave who has been executed"

iddemeg webbad
i(:)-	demeg	we(:)-	bad
DEF(e)	be.book	ESS-	be.big
"the big book"

eqeŋŋal wellouh
eqe(:)-	ŋal	we(:)-	louh
SPEC(d)	use.leg	ESS-	sleep
"a sleepwalker", "a walker who sleeps"

iddemeg wennuuž
i(:)-	demeg	we(:)-	nu(:)-	ž
DEF(e)	be.book	ESS-	POSS.DOM-	1S
"my book"

iddiž weddemeg webbad wennuuž
i(:)-	diž	we(:)-	demeg	we(:)-	nu(:)-	ž
DEF(e)	be.DEM.PROX.1	ESS-	be.book	ESS-	POSS.DOM-	1S
"this big book of mine"

Subject Clitics

Subject clitics appear at the beginning of every phrase denoting a grammatical subject. They indicate not only that the following base phrase is the subject of the preceding predicate but also convey information about definiteness (whether the addressee is expected to know which exact entity), specificity (whether the speaker knows which exact entity) and an inflectional dimension integral to Balog called status, described below.

In everyday use, when not speaking to a much higher ranked individual, the definite forms are frequently used even for specific indefinite referents, with the specific, indefinite forms with being more emphatically indefinite, representing a marked indication to the listener that they are not expected to know the identity of the referent. When speaking to higher ranked individuals, failure to use the indefinite specific forms when needed is seen as an affront to the hierarchy of respect as it effectively eliminates any indication of the listener's knowledge of the situation.

Subject Clitics

Status (Gloss)		Definite Specific (DEF)	Indefinite Specific (SPEC)	Indefinite Non-Specific (NSPC)
Entities
"Powerful"	(A)	u(:)-	uqu(:)-	uhu(:)-
"Dominant"	(B)	a(:)-	aqa(:)-	aha(:)-
"Intermediate"	(C)	o(:)-	oqo(:)-	oho(:)-
"Subordinate"	(D)	e(:)-	eqe(:)-	ehe(:)-
"Powerless"	(E)	i(:)-	iqi(:)-	ihi(:)-
"Unknown, animate"	(ANIM)			eu(:)-
"Unknown, inanimate"	(INAN)			ei(:)-
Propositions
Propositional	(P)	ä(:)-	äqä(:)-	ähä(:)-

Status

All referents are assigned a status any time they are appear as the subject of a clause. Status is not a permanent attribute of a referent but rather a context-dependent assignment within a discourse that depends on the speaker's perceived and expressed relations between the referent and other referents. When a single referent is mentioned, the status used depends only on the speaker's perception of the referent, however when there are two or more referents, statuses may be assigned that would otherwise not be used in order to differentiate between multiple referents within a discourse and rank them relative to one another.

A useful way to conceptualise the typical assignment of status is to use the question "Who would win in a physical fight?" as the deciding metric. Physically larger, stronger and more active referents are assigned a higher status than smaller, weaker referents. The highest status, A, the "powerful" status, indicated with the vowel u, is an exception, dependent not only physical strength but rather social, financial or political power. A referent marked with u is not necessarily physically dominant over other referents, but a conflict with an individual could lead to more significant consequences for referents of lower status than the physical prowess of the A-statused referent alone would afford them. "Weighty" abstract concepts may sometimes be referred to with the A-status when there is no person in the discourse assigned to this status.

Pronouns

	1st Person (Exclusive)		1st + 2nd Person			2nd Person		3rd Person
Status	Singular	Plural	Neutral	Dual	Plural	Singular	Plural	Neutral	Singulative	Plurative
A "Powerful"	uuž (užžan)	uuz (uzzim)	uuŋ	uŋŋan	uŋŋim	uul (ullan)	uur (ullim, urrim)	uu	uun	uum
B "Dominant"	aaž (ažžan)	aaz (azzim)	aaŋ	aŋŋan	aŋŋim	aal (allan)	aar (allim, arrim)	aa	aan	aam
C "Intermediate"	oož (ožžan)	ooz (ozzim)	ooŋ	oŋŋan	oŋŋim	ool (ollan)	oor (ollim, orrim)	oo	oon	oom
D "Subordinate"	eež (ežžan)	eez (ezzim)	eeŋ	eŋŋan	eŋŋim	eel (ellan)	eer (ellim, errim)	ee	een	eem
E "Powerless"	iiž (ižžan)	iiz (izzim)	iiŋ	iŋŋan	iŋŋim	iil (illan)	eer (illim, irrim)	ii	iin	iim
P "Propositional"	-	-	-			-	-	ää	-	-

Syntax

One of the most unusual features of Balog is its complete lack of grammatical objects. Every verb is monovalent (intransitive), meaning it can refer to only one noun at a time. For this reason, it is essentially impossible to describe the morphosyntactic alignment of Balog. It can, however, be noted that there is a preponderance of unaccusative verbs to describe actions, with semantic agents generally appearing in clauses containing information about manner.

Clause Syntax

Clauses consist of a predicate followed by a subject. The predicate consists of a verb phrase. The subject consists of a verb phrase marked by a subject clitic.

Structure of a Clause

Clause
Predicate	Subject
Verb Phrase	Subject Clitic	Verb Phrase

Here are some examples showing this structure.

Magaz iddauz.
magaz	i(:)-	dauz
fall.over	DEF(E)-	be.tree
VP	SC	VP
The tree fell over. The tree falls over.

Dauz immagaz.
dauz	i(:)-	magaz
be.tree	DEF(E)-	fall.over
VP	SC	VP
What fell over was a tree. The thing that is falling over is a tree.

Clause Apposition

As shown above, an intransitive clause such as 'the tree falls over,' can easily be expressed in Balog by means of a single clause. However, the strictly monovalent (intransitive) nature of all verbs in Balog prevents clauses from containing objects or adjuncts. The equivalent of sentences in other languages that contain an object must be multiclausal in Balog, with each argument being associated with its own verb. Typically, the agent of an action is the subject of a clause giving information about the manner of the action, very frequently indicating the body part or tool used whereas the patient is the subject of a verb conveying more semantic information. In the following examples, clauses are separated with commas, although this is not usually done.

B'avvaŋ, magaz iddauz.
b	a(:)-	vaŋ,	magaz	i(:)-	dauz
use.hand	DEF(B)-	hunt,	fall.over	DEF(E)-	be.tree
VP	SC	VP,	VP	SC	VP
The hunter pushes the tree over by hand.

Clauses that are placed next to each other in apposition, without any linking conjunction, are interpreted as causally and pragmatically related to one another. The conjunctive adverb tšqe "and unrelatedly" can be used to prevent this as well as to introduce new topics.

Complementiser

The propositional subject markers ä(ä)-, äqä(ä)- and ähä(ä)- function as a complementiser akin to "that", attaching to the beginning of the predicate of a clause and marking it as the subject of the matrix clause. Ä(ä)- and ähä(ä)- are frequently used with the former referring to definite facts and events and the latter referring to the generalised idea. The following examples should elucidate the difference.

M'oož nam ämmelets eel.
[ˈmɔ͍ːʒ ˈnɐm ˈæmːɛɫɛt͡s ˈɛːɫ]
m	o(o)-	ž	nam	ä(ä)-	melets	e(e)-	l
feel.emotionally	DEF(C)-	1S	appeal	DEF(P)-	be.happy	DEF(D)-	2S
"I'm glad you're happy." "I like that you're happy."

M'oož nam ähämmelets eel.
[ˈmɔ͍ːʒ ˈnɐm æˈhæmːɛɫɛt͡s ˈɛːɫ]
m	o(o)-	ž	nam	ähä(ä)-	melets	e(e)-	l
feel.emotionally	DEF(C)-	1S	appeal	NSPC(P)-	be.happy	DEF(D)-	2S
"I like the idea of you being happy."