Tseer

Tseer/Lexicon
Swadesh list for Tseer
Tseer/Sketchbook

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

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

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

Diachronics

• Unlike Windermere, Tseer vocalized some laryngeals in clusters, namely *Q and *f.
• Vocalized *f, vowels which were colored by *f, and u-umlaut of /a/ and /e/ are the main sources of /ø/ in Tseer.
• The laryngeals *X ("far laryngeal") and *H ("near laryngeal") produced breathy vowels, which eventually became nasal vowels. (*f functions as the far laryngeal in Ashanic)
• Nasal vowels merge with nonnasal vowels before m/n/ng/l
• Final -ng disappears leaving nasalization (as in Skellan)
• p > f
• final -g, -w disappear
• ś, g > kh /x/
• s- > t /t/
• -s > -x, *s backs to s following ruki; feminine -s becomes -kh
• š-, y- > x-
• c, ć > tx, ts
• t- > th /T/
• CäC- > CaC-

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.

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	ree	baa	khen	kheex	in	eex	aarir	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 -kh (from PLak *-s).

• ativ = son-in-law; ativkh = daughter-in-law
• bakhoo = uncle; bakhookh = aunt
• athaay = lion; athaaykh = 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-TAM

Agreement

Feminine subject: wa-

Danutx-ir ownax /da'nutsir ow'nas/ = I loved the girl (male speaker)

Wadanutx-ir ownax /wada'nutsir ow'nas/ = 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)
• Imperative: af- (~ Wdm. hef-; Modern Tseer uses xa- for imperative)

Poetry

Rhyme

Like in Hebrew piyyutim, to count as a rhyme the initial consonants of the last syllables also have to match, not just the rimes. For example, fothaay rhymes with athaay but not with gobaay.

Meter

Classical Tseer poetry is based on lines with

• a prescribed number of syllables
• a caesura somewhere in the middle
• the lines rhyme in some rhyme scheme, usually in rhyming couplets (aa) or rhyming quatrains (aaaa).

We use "m+n" to denote a meter of m syllables + caesura + n syllables.

Some meters were:

• 4+4
• 4+6
• 5+5
• 6+4
• 4+7
• 6+5
• 6+6
• 7+7