Middle Sethite

Middle Sethite
Sethgo 布語
Pronunciation	[seθgɤ]
Created by	IdaeChop
Setting	The Moon, but with oceans and life
Native to	I Seth Empire
Ethnicity	Sethite Sethjin
Language family	Austronesian Malayo Polynesian Sethitic Middle Sethite
Early forms	Proto-Sethite Old Sethite
Official status
Official language in	I Seth Empire

Metatext for Readers

Hi, yeah. This is one of the conlangs in my (IdaeChop) world, Middle Sethite! This was originally a submission for the Cursed Conlang Circus 4, however I decided to modify a whole ton to make it what it is today! It is still lacking in worldbuilding and other necessities, however I am proud of what I am able to achieve now and I want to put it here so people can read about it, I guess? Well. Here's this article then!

Middle Sethite was a language spoken around the Gulf of Albategnius around 1000 ASC. The division between Middle Sethite and Old Sethite is the usage of the Latin Script as opposed to the older Japonic-based writing system, though usage of the Japonic-system still persisted until the 1400 ASC and people today still study and use Kanji.

Phonology

Consonants

Middle Sethite consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	Voiceless	p	t	tɕ	k
	Voiced	b	d	dʑ	g
Fricative	Voiceless	ɸ	s θ	ɕ	x
	Voiced	β	ð	ʑ
Approximant			l	j	ɰ

/ð/ is pronounced more as a voiced postalveolar fricative [ɹ̠˔]

Vowels

Middle Sethite has 5 vowels that can either be short or long.

Middle Sethite vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i, iː		ɯ, ɯː
Close-mid	e, eː		ɤ, ɤː
Open		a aː

Middle Sethite do not have diphthongs, but does have vowels that are in hiatus. Long vowels may also be analysed as two of the same vowels in hiatus by some speakers.

Phonotactics

Middle Sethite's phonotactics are CCVCC. However, most syllables only have CVC, and the few that do have consonant clusters don't do it up to two in the inside of a word. Nasals must assimilate with the consonant cluster (same placement in the mouth). For onsets and codas, only the fricative /s/ can appear furthest from the nucleus; nasals can only appear closest to the nucleus; plosives can't cluster with other plosives; voiced plosives can't touch /s/; and /ɸ/ /β/ /ð/ /x/ /l/ and /ɰ/ can only cluster with /s/. For medial clusters, it's at maximum 2 with nasals unable to touch plosives.

Morphophonology

/s/ after an /ð/ becomes a [ʃ] and is depicted in the orthography as ⟨sh⟩.

Orthography

Middle Sethite's orthography was not standardised, there are numerous ways words can be said. Some letters may be doubled but it does not change the pronunciation.

Middle Sethite Latin orthography

Symbol	Sound	Note
a	/a/
aa, ah, ar	/aː/
ae, ay	/eː/
b	/b/
c	/k/	except after i and e
c	/s/	only after i and e
ch	/tɕ/	only at the start of words
ch	/x/	except at the start of words
d	/d/
dge	/dʑ/	only at the end of words
e	/e/
ee, ei	/eː/
f	/ɸ/
g	/g/
gn	/ŋ/	only at the start of words
h	/x/	only at the start of words
i	/i/
ii, ie	/iː/
j	/dʑ/
k	/k/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
ny	/ɲ/
ng	/ŋ/
o	/ɤ/
oa, oo	/ɤː/
oo	/ɯː/
p	/p/
qu	/kɰ/, /kɯ/	really rare
r	/ð/
s	/s/
sh	/ɕ/
sh	/s/	touching a /r/
shn	/sŋ/
t	/t/
tch	/tɕ/
th	/θ/
u	/ɯ/
uu	/ɯː/
v	/β/
w	/ɰ/
x	/ks/	rare
y	/j/
z, zh, zi	/ʑ/

Morphology

Middle Sethite has what is called Austronesian alignment. This means the role of the noun is determined by what case something is alongside what voice the verb is.

In Middle Sethite, nouns are only inflected by case and number (singular and plural); verbs only inflected by aspect and voice; adjectives do not inflect.

Verbs

Every verb in Middle Sethite has a voice. The voice marks what every case in the sentence does. Verbs do not mark for tense nor mood.

	Pastlooking	Presentlooking	Futurelooking
Agentive Voice	⟨inum⟩ binumava	⟨um⟩ bumava	de- ⟨um⟩ debumava
Patientive Voice	⟨in⟩ -(e)n binavan	-(e)n bavan	de- -(e)n debavan
Locative Voice	⟨in⟩ -an binavaan	-an bavaan	de- -an debavaan
Benefactive Voice	⟨in⟩ -(e)nan binavanan	-(e)nan bavanan	de- -(e)nan debavanan
Instrumental Voice	⟨in⟩ +second vowel fronting bineva	first vowel fronting beva	de- +second vowel fronting debeva

Verbs may be duplicated to form the frequentative aspect. e.g. bumava becomes bava-bumava

Voice

There are five voices Middle Sethite uses. Changing the voice of a sentence does not reduce the valency, only rotating it.

Middle Sethite voices

	Agentive Voice	Patientive Voice	Locative Voice	Benefactive Voice	Instrumental Voice
Subject	Agentive "Nominative"	Patientive "Ergative"	Locative	Benefactive	Instrumental
Object	Patientive "Accusative"	Agentive "Absolutive"	Patientive	Patientive	Patientive
Circumject	Locative	Locative	Dative	Locative	Locative
Conject	Comitative	Comitative	Agentive	Agentive	Agentive

Every intransitive sentence must have a subject; every transitive sentence must have a subject and an object. However, if the subject or object happens to be the topic or it is obvious from context (like pronouns), it may be left unsaid.

Examples

The Agentive voice:

• Ach bumili nichan kit empang tempen tarka sumaen antaspan
  I am buying fish and bread at a store for my wife using money

ach

1sg.AGT

b-um-ili

⟨AV⟩buy

n-ichan

PAT-fish

kit

and

em-pang

PAT-bread

tepo-en

store-LOC

tarka

towards

suma-en

wife-LOC

an-taspan

COM-money

ach b-um-ili n-ichan kit em-pang tepo-en tarka suma-en an-taspan

1sg.AGT ⟨AV⟩buy PAT-fish and PAT-bread store-LOC towards wife-LOC COM-money

The Patientive voice:

• Shichan bilin ku kit entaspan tempen tarka sumaen ampang
  I am buying fish and bread at a store for my wife using money

sh-ichan

PAT-fish

bili-n

buy-PV

ku

1sg.AGT

kit

and

en-taspan

AGT-money

tepo-en

store-LOC

tarka

towards

suma-en

wife-LOC

am-pang

COM-bread

sh-ichan bili-n ku kit en-taspan tepo-en tarka suma-en am-pang

PAT-fish buy-PV 1sg.AGT and AGT-money store-LOC towards wife-LOC COM-bread

The Locative voice:

• Stemp bilian nichan kit empang sumaen nank kit antaspan
  I am buying fish and bread at a store for my wife using money

s-tepo

LOC-store

bili-an

buy-LV

n-ichan

PAT-fish

kit

and

em-pang

PAT-bread

suma-en

wife-DAT

nak

1sg.AGT

kit

and

an-taspan

AGT-bread

s-tepo bili-an n-ichan kit em-pang suma-en nak kit an-taspan

LOC-store buy-LV PAT-fish and PAT-bread wife-DAT 1sg.AGT and AGT-bread

The Benefactive voice:

• Suma bilinan nichan kit empang tempen nank kit antaspan
  I am buying fish and bread at a store for my wife using money

∅-suma

BEN-wife

bili-nan

buy-BV

n-ichan

PAT-fish

kit

and

em-pang

PAT-money

tepo-en

store-LOC

nak

1sg.AGT

kit

and

an-taspan

AGT-bread

∅-suma bili-nan n-ichan kit em-pang tepo-en nak kit an-taspan

BEN-wife buy-BV PAT-fish and PAT-money store-LOC 1sg.AGT and AGT-bread

The Instrumental voice:

• Staspan bili nichan kit empang tempen tarka sumaen nank
  I am buying fish and bread at a store for my wife using money

s-taspan

INST-money

bili

IV\buy

n-ichan

PAT-fish

kit

and

em-pang

PAT-money

tepo-en

store-LOC

tarka

towards

suma-en

wife-LOC

nak

1sg.AGT

s-taspan bili n-ichan kit em-pang tepo-en tarka suma-en nak

INST-money IV\buy PAT-fish and PAT-money store-LOC towards wife-LOC 1sg.AGT

Nouns

Middle Sethite had fused the case system of Old Sethite and made them declensions instead.

Middle Sethite noun declension

	Vowel-starting		Consonant-starting
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Subject	sh-	sh- -ad	(s)-	(s)- -ad
Object	n-	n- -ad	eN-	en- -ad
Circumject	k-	k- -ad	-en	-enad
Conject	gn-	gn- -ad	aN-	aN- -ad

Syntax

The grammar of Middle Sethite is typically predicate-final, with a topic-comment structure, though exceptions may occur. The subject of the sentence is separate with the topic of the sentence.

Word Order

The typical word order for Middle Sethite is Subject-Verb-Object. All sentences has these three, even intransitive verbs. For when a sentence has one of them missing, an auxiliary "ta" is added. However when the auxiliary direction matches with the verb direction, these auxiliary nouns may be dropped.

Word Direction

Middle Sethite reverses words whenever the word is not the head of a noun clause or one wants to indicate aspects. This is done per phoneme, not per character as written by the orthography. The verb direction dictates the direction of the sentence and paragraphs.

• Shasu mera
  The dog is red
• Shasu arem
  The red dog

Noun Clause

A noun clause is head-initial; an adjective goes after the noun.

Verb Clause

A verb clause has two parts: the nouns and the adverbs. The nouns go after the verb, the adverbs go before the verb. The head is right in the middle of these.

Aspects

Middle Sethite has four main aspects. These aspects can be divided even further by adding the affixes -in- or di-. They are indicated by the direction of the nouns in relation to the verb direction. For words where it’s ambiguous what the direction is (because its a phonemic palindrome), they will be reduplicated (CV + word; e.g. apa → a’apa, masam → mamasam)

Middle Sethite aspect

	Pastlooking	Presentlooking	Futurelooking
Continuing	→ ⟨in⟩⇒ → Ach binumot ta "I am still working"	→ ⇒ → Ach bumot ta "I am working"	→ de⇒ → Ach debumot ta "I am working for some time"
Ending	→ ⟨in⟩⇒ ← Ach binumot at "I have stopped working"	→ ⇒ ← Ach bumot at "I stop working"	→ de⇒ ← Ach debumot at "I am about to stop working"
Starting	← ⟨in⟩⇒ → Ha binumot ta "I have started working"	← ⇒ → Ha bumot ta "I start working"	← de⇒ → Ha bumot ta "I am about to start working"
Fulfilling	← ⟨in⟩⇒ ← Ha binumot at "I have worked"	← ⇒ ← Ha bumot at "I work"	← de⇒ ← Ha debumot at "I am planning to work"

Relative Clauses

Middle Sethite employs relative clauses to convey more meaning in a single sentence. Sethite has five relative clause markers, which follows the same logic as the case markers. There is sing, ning, king, and nang. Unlike other nonhead parts of the clause, relative clauses do not need to be reversed (though some complex clauses do need reversals still).

• Shasu sing kumanaor seka emat
  

sh-asu

AGT-dog

sing

REL.AGT

kumanaor

⟨AV⟩have

seka

one

emat

PAT-eye

sh-asu sing kumanaor seka emat

AGT-dog REL.AGT ⟨AV⟩have one PAT-eye

'The dog that has one eye'

• Sto ning tumubuk ach
  

s-to

AGT-person

ning

REL.PAT

t-um-ubuk

⟨AV⟩punch

ach

1sg.AGT

s-to ning t-um-ubuk ach

AGT-person REL.PAT ⟨AV⟩punch 1sg.AGT

'The person whom I am punching'

• Bale king misi ach

∅-bale

AGT-house

king

REL.LOC

m-isi

⟨AV⟩be.inside

ach

1sg.AGT

∅-bale king m-isi ach

AGT-house REL.LOC ⟨AV⟩be.inside 1sg.AGT

'The house that I'm living at'

• Sparuk nang bumengi nichan ach

s-paruk

AGT-cookware

nang

REL.COM

b-um-engi

⟨AV⟩cook

n-ichan

PAT-fish

ach

1sg.AGT

s-paruk nang b-um-engi n-ichan ach

AGT-cookware REL.COM ⟨AV⟩cook PAT-fish 1sg.AGT

'The pot that I am cooking fish with'

Other resources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetrical_voice