Lántun

The Lántun language is a part of a macrofamily of languages generally called Aiwanic, although it is not spoken by a humanoid race. They are characterised by polysynthetic morphology, pitch accent and lack of true labial consonants and vowels.

The Lánunic languages are a contiguous dialectal block, with the exception of some small obscure dialects spoken at the fringes of the known world. The terms “Lántun” and “Lánunic” are often used interchangeably by linguists studying this language, but the former is more typically used to mean the central standardised dialect, while the latter refers to the language continuum as a whole. The name Lántun is the endonym of the language, meaning “a collective of words”. The beings themselves do not have self-designations (autonyms) in their language yet they are called “the Draconids” or “Dragons” in English; they do however frequently have specific names for local groups and their dialects, as the local group was more important culturally than larger relations for this species.

From a synchronic perspective, the Lánunic languages are considered to be dead, as they were spoken during the Second Era of the Universe (while this Era is the Fourth), so there are no any living speakers left. Yet, the language represented a very distant ancestor to all Aiwanic and possibly even some other languages. There is no evidence that would support any relation to the languages of the Fourth Era planet Earth (the Kyrdan languages are confirmed to be Aiwanic, though).

Salishan languages are most commonly represented using the Latin alphabet in a phonetic notation that accounts for the various vowels and consonants that do not exist in Latin or English, while some letters have a different designated sound than expected. Many Dragon groups evolved various writing systems for their language, and while technically Lántun is viewed as “standard” in this article, there was no single standard variety of Lánunic.

External history

This is a representation of a Draconid – an alien species that speak Lántun. This is a white draconid, their primary features are clearly visible. The blue rays appear due to Cherenkov radiation

Lántun (pronounced [ˈɺɑn˥.t̪ɯn꜉]) is a language created by Raistas in 2012. Since that time the language underwent many significant revisions and reworks changing drastically in the process. It is an attempt to create an alien protolanguage for the Aiwanic (“Heaven”) language macrofamily. Its distinctive feature is the lack of a separate noun category, as all nouns can be interpreted as stative verbs. In Lántun, relationships between the noun phrases making up the sentence are expressed by either stative or eventive verbs. However, the semantic content found in verbs, can also be found in Lántun's sentence-final particles, which are not conjugated themselves, yet can be used as copulas or factual markers. Despite its complex verbal morphology, Lántun is an expressive and intelligible language even though it is not meant to be spoken by humans.

Phonology

Since the Draconid vocal tract has a different composition and structure, than the human one, the phonology of Lántun is thus constrained and defined by this structure, such a lack of true lips and nose. Still, a Dragon may have been able to pronounce most sounds that would somewhat correspond to the modern IPA system, even though the medium through which the sound propagated, was not air but instead plasma, so the actual values of the sounds represented in the article are very different from these approximations.

Vowels

Lántun has the seven monophthongs, which are distinguished by their height and backness. Vowel length is a distinctive feature, which doubles the total amount of vowel phonemes. Some dialects also use a central short monophthong [ə], which is called a neutralised vowel in environments, where vowel reduction occurs. In Lántun itself vowel reduction evolved into syncopation instead.

	Short			Long
	Front	Centralised	Back	Front	Centralised	Back
Close	i [i]	y [ɪ]	u [ɯ]	ī [iː]	ȳ [ɪː]	ū [ɯː]
Mid	e [e̞]	ø [ɘ̞]	o [o̞]	ē [e̞ː]	ø̄ [ɘ̞ː]	ō [o̞ː]
Open	a [a~ɑ]			ā [ɑː]

Although there are several diphothongs, such as ei [eɪ] or au [ɑʊ], they are not considered to be separate phonemes, since they typically occur in morphologically predicted environments. The resonant [r] can function as a syllabic core, although word-initially it is often devoiced – ŕti [ˈr̩˥.t̪i꜉] “it appears” or “it seems”, but rthe [r̥t̪ʰe̞˧] or [r̥ə.ˈt̪ʰe̞˧] “the time has come”.

Consonants

Látun does not distinguish plosives from fricatives, existing fricatives are analysed as aspirated plosives and likely originated from them. There is no labial series, instead a similar-sounding series is called "frontal", and the nasal consonant category is substituted with a similar "postmaxillar" place of articulation (which is basically a cleft palate leading to a closed cavity right under the brain).

		Frontal	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Laryngeal
Postmaxillar		m [ɱ]	n [n̪]			ŋ [ŋ]
Plosive– Fricative	tenuis		t [t̪]	c [t̺͡s̺]		k [k]
	aspirated	f [ɱ̥]	th [t̪ʰ]	s [s̺]		kh [kʰ]	ḥ [ħ]
Approximant		v [ʋ]	d [ð̞]	l [ɺ]	j [j]	g [ʟ]	h [ɦ]
Trill				r [r~r̥]

In addition, most consonants, except approximants and the trill, can be geminated, for instance, nn /n:/, kk /k:/ Fricatives may sometimes become affricates in this position, such as ss being pronounced [t̺͡s̺ʰː], in this instance the aspiration is lengthened instead of the onset, unlike tenuis geminates.

Syllable structure

The most typical syllable structure is CV and CVC (where C is any consonant, and V is any vowel). However, ecause of the vowel syncope, consonant clusters can occur within a syllable, such as in the word sve [s̺ʋe̞꜊] “to exist”. In dialects [ə] may usually break these clusters – [s̺ə.ʋe̞꜊].

The main root syllable is generally recognised as being monosyllabic of the form (C)VC. Disyllabic roots, although common, are derived from monosyllabic with augment formatives, or simply augments. They act as suffixes and typically have the form -VC. This, in turn, may be followed by additional secondary augments that often merge together via the process of syncope. Thus, it is convenient to analyse Lántun roots through a general formula – ⁰¹C₁¹²V₁¹²C₂, with the form ^mC_n, in which m is the "strength" of a consonant (m=0 being [∅], m=1 being a consonant with no tone and m=2 being a consonant with tone. For vowels m=1 indicates that a vowel is short and m=2 indicates a long vowel); and n is a position of a sound in the root. However, due to various phonological processes that occur in the root, only three simple root patterns are allowed (with the additional fourth pattern arising from augmentation, e.g. adding an augment to a root). The three patterns are:

Simple		Augmented
		initial		final
Type 1	0,1C11V11C2	Type A1i	0,1V-10,2C11V11C2	Type A1f	0,1C12V10C20V21C3
Type 2	0,1C12V11C2	Type A2i	0,1V-10,2C12V11C2	Type A2f	0,1C11V11C21,2V21,0C3
Type 3	0,1C11V12C2	Type A3i	1V-10,2C11V12C2	Type A3f	0,1C12V10,2C20,1V22C3

Neither prefixes nor suffixes follow these patterns, suggesting that they is a more recent layer of morphology, which contrast with more ancient root alternations. The table shows that some root patterns may look identical on the surface, despite belonging to different types: tōme “it is spacious” and tōne “era, long time” both seem to be Type 2, but the latter is actually Type A1₁. The former has a simple root √TŌM, while the latter has an augmented root √TOG+N.

Prosody

There is no agreed number of prosodic variables in Lántun. Various elements, such as intonation and stress position, may reflect features of the speaker or the utterance: their emotional state; the form of utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus. For this function a wide range of pitch is used, while at other times a narrow range is needed (such as in formal situations). Látun makes use of changes in key; shifting one's intonation into the higher or lower part of one's pitch range is meaningful in certain contexts. Stress is not phonemic in Látun, long and/or accented vowels usually receive stress. Polysyllabic words often have a secondary stress, which is also not phonemic.

Látun is a pitch-accent language, meaning that the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch (or tone) and vowel length, rather than by loudness, as in stressed languages. Some words are “accentless”, they instead receive a neutral pitch, which assimilates to the pitch of the neighbouring words. Short vowels can have one of the two marked pitches (or three if considering the neutral pitch as distinct): high (há [ɦɑ˥]) and low (hà [ɦɑ˩]). The accent on a long vowel or diphthong could be on either half of the vowel, making a contrast possible between a rising accent (hǎ [ɦɑː˧˥]) and a falling one (hâ [ɦɑː˧˩]); compare itaî [i꜊.täɪ˧˩] “at home” vs. itǎi [i꜊.täɪ˧˥] “homes”. Other vowels are considered unaccented, yet they actually receive the tone of the preceding accented syllables.

Phonotactics

The consonants g, ŋ and ḥ centralise the preceding front vowels, so that *iŋ, for example, would become yŋ [ɪŋ]. Two vowels in hiatus often form diphthongs, when in word stems, but otherwise the preceeding vowel becomes elided by the following one: néŋi “we (incl.) see him” becomes néŋū “we (incl.) see them”, where -i (inclusive marker) is elided by by -ū (3rd plural marker). In this example the morpheme is not deleted, it instead becomes its zero allomorph, which happens quite frequently. The phoneme /s/ becomes [r̥] after a voiceless consonant, the preceeding consonant then becomes aspirated.

Morphology

Lántun is a polysynthetic language, meaning words have a root verb basis to which information is added; that is, morphemes (affixes) are added to verb roots. These words may contain subjects, objects, indirect objects, possession and location. Thus, surprisingly complex ideas can be communicated with as little as one word, for example:

No·feimilt·alómkîssalus	el
nok-feimil-t-ida-lóm-ki-á-ys-ḥa-l-us	e-l
IO.Pl-entertain-ABST-TRNS-good-very-REPRT-but-always-IRR-3Ag.DIST	be-IRR
“However, they will say that he is a great entertainer anyway”.

Nouns are simpler in their structure, than verbs, as most information is included as part of the verb. Lántun also does not distinguish between genders, considering that Dragons also lack biological sex/gender. Sentence structure is quite fluid, with words being organised according to importance or novelty. Often the main verb is placed initially.

The surface morphology of Lántun is typically agglutinative in structure, as can be seen from the example above. Not only are the morphemes strung together, but the grammatical morphemes are usually at least a syllable in length, although morphemes of a single consonant exist. Those that do exist are often archaic and take part in various alternations, such as elision or syncope. Normally, its morphology falls into the general pattern of initial+stem+medial+ending where the stem itself consists of root+augments. The root itself is fairly simple, being divided into three simple and six augmented types; the endings tend to be quite transparent in use as well. The augments and medials (or simply the stem suffixes) tend to be complex and often ambiguous and it is also where zero and portmanteaux morphemes become common. As a result, old morphology tends to pile up immediately after the root, often being erroded by a more recent morphology. Some morphological augments became empty morphemes, and these are often elided completely being replaced by new morphemes with the same meaning. This indicates, that Lántun is an ancient language with a long history and thus can not be the original first language, even though it is very likely the closest to Proto-Aiwanic as one can possibly get.

Augments

The augment formative is a prefix or (more typically) a suffix, added to the base root in order to derive new roots from the existing ones. There are several types of formatives, most of which have a broad semantic function. Often their initial meaning becomes obsolete and they become fully fused to the base root through the process of syncopation. This is why many words with seemingly different meaning have a common base root.

Formative	Variation	Meaning	Initial	Meaning
-ar	-r	active participant	i-	plural of objects
-t		abstract, collective	á-	dual, pair of objects, places
-il		sensation, feeling	u-	distant, out of
-am		neuter formative (object)	ō-	manner
-ìj	-ì	locative (in, at, from)	u-y-	negative, not
-ǎ	-ìja	direction (towards, through or away)	∅-n-	begin (inchoative)
-elan	-elam	location (temporal or spatial)	∅-s-	change, turn into (translative)
-i	-aj	relational	í-	instance, small size
-un	-u	process, event, phenomenon	∅-k-	big part
-il	-i-ivlis	part of the whole	∅-h-	opposition, cycle
-u-mai	-u-mi	quality, the state of being
-iv	-iju	adverbial, abstract
-it	-ita	singulative, instance
-āt	-āl	concrete noun, item
-ad		above, towards
-ed		away, below
-um		under
-as	-is, -us	group, process, kind
-ul	-in, -il	from, towards, through

It is also opportune to clarify, that the morphology of Lántun is templatic. The template or slot is a functional position in an affixal string of morphemes; each position can be occupied by a definable set of morphemes. This term is the most useful referring to verbal morhology. The function of a given template is determined by how proto-morphemes have come to be re-analysed and ordered in the language, thus semantically related morhemes tend to occupy the same positions, and the morphemes sharing a given position define the function of that position. However, it would be quite facile to argue that reconstruction on such a large scale can be accurately made, using the method of internal reconstruction of some kind of Proto-Lánunic can be misleading, as later Lánunic dialects show a great variability of forms and positions indicating gradual and complex morphophonological shifts.

Nouns

The nominal morphology of Lántun is relatively simple, when compared to the verbal morphology of this language. Lántun exhibits predicate/argument flexibility, which means that all content words are able to occur as the head of the sentence. Words with noun-like meanings are equivalent to nouns, and words with more verb-like meanings are equivalent to verbs, usually regardless of their function. For example, the verb el·a can mean “to go”, “the process of going” and “one that goes” depending on the context and thus be interpreted as a noun in some instances and a verb in other. Likewise, noun-like words can indicate tense or mood, which is more typical for (yet not entirely exclusive to) verbs, for example: kil·tǎi·na “this was our (excl.) house”. The category unique to nouns is number. Although Lántun verbs can potentially receive number markers as well, in those cases the markers typically have a distributive or intensive meaning, while number is instead indicated with person markers. Number in nouns is indicated by augmenting the root, for instance the stem -tǎi- is A3_f-type and its plural form is -itǎi-, which is A1_i-type, while its dual form is -tajô- — A2_f-type. The types, to which these augmented forms belong, are usually predictable (A2_f or A3_f for dual, and A1_i or A2_i for plural), the same is true for the verbal stems and their augmentation. However, many stems do not change, and their number is instead indicated with a suffix, mostly in a case, when a word is a concrete noun (e.g. an item, or a person) — ill·a “(this is) a draconid (sing.)”, ill·à “(these are) two draconids (dual)”, ill·au “draconids (plur.)”, all three stems belong to the A1_f type.

Verbs

The Lántun verb is characterised by a system of complex pronominal conjugation, in which paradigmatic stem alternations are found. Some personal endings consist of portmanteaux morphemes expressing notions, such as tense, agent, patient and clusivity. Depending on the number of verbal stems and their position in the verbal paradigm, every Lántun verb belongs to one of two main conjugation types. Compound verbs are found in Lántun, in fact, most verb stems are not derived from single roots. These compound verbs consist of a verb stem and an auxiliary that adds semantic notions to the main verb.

The Lántun verb can be sectioned into several components: the “inner” part, consisting of a verb stem, and an “outer part”, which includes both suffixes and prefixes. A given verb does not have an affix for every position and the individual positions depend on the conjugation type.

prefixes

stem

suffixes

The suffixing conjugation has the following templates:

prefixes		stem	suffixes
p2	p1	0	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7	s8	s9	s10	s11	s12
locative object	indirect object	stem	reflexive	tense	2Ag 1→2	1du.2du	1→3	3pl	mood	3du.Ag 1→2pl 2pl.Ag	2du.Pat 1du.Pat	incl. excl.	3sg.Ag	focus 3.Pat

The prefixing conjugation has the following templates:

prefixes										stem	suffixes
p10	p9	p8	p7	p6	p5	p4	p3	p2	p1	0	s1	s2	s3
locative object	indirect object	3sg.Ag 3du.Ag	1→2pl 2pl.Ag 2du.Pat 1du.Pat	incl. excl.	3pl	1→3	1du.2du	2Ag 1→2	reflexive	stem	tense	mood	focus 3.Pat

Locative prefixes

The locative prefixes indicate a location or motion, they precede indirect object prefixes and can only occur word-initially. There are several locative prefixes indicating different grammatical person (there are no additional distinctions in first or third person, as there are in other personal affixes):

		Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person	inclusive	ti-	tik-	tin-
	exclusive		tíhk-	tíh-
2nd person		si-	sik-	sin-
3rd person		i-	ik-	in-

Example: ǐh·alna kamì “I went outside” (lit.: “into it I went, which is outside”.

Indirect object prefixes

The indirect object is expressed with prefixes, which can be used with both verb types, just as the locative prefixes. There are several indirect object markers indicating not only person, but also proximity and a category, usually called internal state, which idicates a person’s identity and various aspects or attributes of their personality. There is no direct correspondence to this category in human laguages, gendered pronouns is likely the closest analogy, yet a misleading one, since draconids are neither male nor female. The internal state is carried by the first person singular only, while other person markers can show the attitude of the speaker towards the listener (in case of second person marker) or other person. There are seven states, six “coloured” and one neutral or “white”. 3 person also has animacy distinction,

	Singular							Dual		Plural
	red	yellow	green	cyan	blue	violet	white	inclusive	exclusive	inclusive	exclusive
1st person								ho-	hos-	nil-	kil-
2nd person								kø-		vi-
3rd person								no-		nok-
3rd inanimate	ne-