Qulmian

Qulmian (native name: Qulm sihpa or Qulm usíhpa) is a language constructed by Yuv yuv for the constructed world of Taercnim.

Please note: a large part of this language has already been completed but is currently undergoing heavy revision and rewriting before being published.

Qulmian Qulm sihpa / Qulm usíhpa
Progress: 40%
Type
Fusional
Alignment
Nominative-accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Subject-verb-object
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
Masculine, feminine
Nouns decline according to...
Case		Number
Definiteness		Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Background

The Qulmian language started, like many of my languages, as an experiment in grammar and writing. I put to use some rather unusual grammatical ideas that I had been collecting for a period of several months before starting work on it, combining them with a script that I developed during a boring 11th-grade class.

In the world of Taercnim, Qulmian is spoken by about 55 million people in the southeastern region of Qulma on the continent Lerta. It is also used throughout Lerta as a liturgical language for religious purposes.

Phonology

Consonants

Qulmian has sixteen consonants.

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalv.	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/			ng /ɴ/
Plosive	p /p/ b /b/	t /t/ d /d/			q /q/	‘ /ʔ/
Fricative	v /v/		s /s/ z /z/	c /ʃ/ j /ʒ/		h /h/
Approximant			l /l/

/ʃ ʒ/ were originally velar stops /k g/ respectively. They were lenited to /x ɣ/ early on and shifted forward to their current values at a later stage. Modern Qulmian has no velar consonant phonemes, though some dialects may occasionally shift /q/ forward to a post-velar or velar position.

Unlike most other languages of Taercnim, Qulmian has no rhotic phonemes. Loanwords containing rhotic sounds have them transcribed as either /ʒ/ or /l/.

Word-final /ɪt/ is often realized as [ɪə̯t̚], with an unreleased [t].

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i /ɪ/	y /ɯ/ u /u/
Open	a /æ/	o /ɒ/

The phoneme /æ/ is usually realized as [æ] or [a]. In the diphthong ai, it is realized as [ä].

/ɯ/ may be realized as [i] in the diphthong oy.

Vowel length is phonemic. Long vowels are marked in the script with an additional vowel symbol, and in romanization with an acute accent.

Stress

By default, stress in Qulmian is placed on the antepenultimate syllable. If a long vowel is present in the word, it receives the stress. If there are two or more long vowels in the word, the last one of them receives the stress.

Script

Under construction ...

Grammar

Morphology

Qulmian morphology is fusional and nonconcatenative, using a system of triconsonantal roots placed into patterns to form words.

Verb morphology

Verbs morphologically encode tense and aspect along with the person, gender and number of the subject. Perfective and imperfective aspect are distinguished in the past tense.

There are four different types of conjugation patterns for verbs. Many roots can be placed into more than one pattern, forming verbs with different meanings.

• Form 1 – XoXXa (using example root hml – to give)

Person/Number/Gender	Perf. past	Impf. past	Present	Future
1st person singular	homil	húmil	ahmyl	ahmil
2nd person singular	homal	húmal	ahmol	ahmal
3rd person masculine singular	homla	húmla	ahmola	ahmala
3rd person feminine singular	homli	húmli	ahmoli	ahmali
1st person plural	homilu	húmilu	ahmylu	ahmilu
2nd person plural	homila	húmila	ahmól	ahmila
3rd person masculine plural	homlá	húmlá	ahmólá	ahmalá
3rd person feminine plural	homlí	húmlí	ahmólí	ahmalí

• Form 2 – XaiXoXa (using example root hml – to hold someone dear)

Person/Number/Gender	Perf. past	Impf. past	Present	Future
1st person singular	hómil	huimil	himyl	himil
2nd person singular	hómal	huimal	himol	himal
3rd person masculine singular	hómla	huimla	himola	himala
3rd person feminine singular	hómli	huimli	himoli	himali
1st person plural	hómilu	huimilu	himylu	himilu
2nd person plural	hómila	huimila	himól	himila
3rd person masculine plural	hómlá	huimlá	himólá	himalá
3rd person feminine plural	hómlí	huimlí	himólí	himalí

• Form 3 – XtoXXa (using example root sqt – to have the right to do something)

Person/Number/Gender	Perf. past	Impf. past	Present	Future
1st person singular	stoqit	stúqit	stuqyt	stuqit
2nd person singular	stoqat	stúqat	stuqot	stuqat
3rd person masculine singular	stoqta	stúqta	stuqota	stuqata
3rd person feminine singular	stoqti	stúqti	stuqoti	stuqati
1st person plural	stoqitu	stúqitu	stuqytu	stuqitu
2nd person plural	stoqita	stúqita	stuqót	stuqita
3rd person masculine plural	stoqtá	stúqtá	stuqótá	stuqatá
3rd person feminine plural	stoqtí	stúqtí	stuqótí	stuqatí

• Form 4 – XtaXoXa (using example root sqt)

Person/Number/Gender	Perf. past	Impf. past	Present	Future
1st person singular	sitoiqit	situiqit	sitiqyt	sitiqit
2nd person singular	sitoiqat	situiqat	sitiqot	sitiqat
3rd person masculine singular	sitoiqata	situiqata	sitiqota	sitiqata
3rd person feminine singular	sitoiqati	situiqati	sitiqoti	sitiqati
1st person plural	sitoiqiti	situiqiti	sitiqyti	sitiqiti
2nd person plural	sitoiqita	situiqita	sitiqót	sitiqita
3rd person masculine plural	sitoiqitá	situiqitá	sitiqótá	sitiqatá
3rd person feminine plural	sitoiqití	situiqití	sitiqótí	sitiqatí

T-mutation

Verbs in forms 3 and 4 may undergo a phonological process called T-mutation. All verbs in these forms have a T sound after the first radical, and when the two consonants are not separated by a vowel, the T may either change its phonetic value or switch places with the first radical.

There are two kinds of T-mutation: some apply in all positions, others apply only word-initially.

Mutation	Position	Example	Notes
No mutation	–	stoqta
mt – mp	Anywhere	*mtosqa – mposqa	Some dialects may realize the mutated consonant as b word-initially, but it is always written as p
nt – ng	Word-initially	*ntamoda – ngamoda	The two sounds fuse into a single uvular nasal /ɴ/ represented by ng. (/g/ as a phoneme does not exist in Qulmian.)
ngt – ngq	Anywhere	...
tt – ts, qt – qs	Word-initially	*ttonqa – tsonqa *qtaqta – qsaqta
dt – dz	Word-initially	...
bt – bd, dt – dd, jt – jd	Anywhere	*idtaloma – iddaloma *jtovda – jdovda
ht – th, ‘t – t‘	Anywhere	*htosta – thosta *‘tanona – t‘anona

Noun morphology

Like verb morphology, Qulmian noun morphology is highly fusional and only partially concatenative. Qulmian nouns are mostly formed by placing verb roots into nominalization patterns. Different patterns indicate different meanings, and each verb form has its own set of patterns.

Structure of a noun

A Qulmian noun has the following fixed structure:

1. Prefix indicating class and (in some cases) definiteness. This prefix takes the form of a single short vowel.

Class: There are two separately functioning sets of noun classes.

• Gender: Nouns can be either masculine or feminine. Often, gender acts as a way to create a subtle variation on a word, differentiating pairs of otherwise identical words describing similar or related concepts.
• Weight: Nouns can be either “light” or “heavy”. Places and people are usually heavy nouns, while other nouns are light, but this is not a hard rule and many exceptions exist.

	Light	Heavy
Masculine	u–	o–
Feminine	i–	a–

Definiteness: Light masculine nouns only receive the prefix if they are definite. If not, the prefix is dropped entirely: compare umíspa 'the day', mispa 'a day'.

2. Verb root placed into a nominalization pattern. Each verb form has its own set of patterns. Some patterns may only form light nouns, some only form heavy nouns, and some change their meaning depending on the weight of the noun.

Form 1	Form 2	Form 3	Form 4	Light meaning	Heavy meaning
XoXX	XaiXoX	XtoXX	XtaXoX	The act of <verb>ing	–
XaXX	XoXaX	XtaXX	XtoXaX	Something that <verb>s	A person who <verb>s
XuXX	XuXoX	XtuXX	XtuXoX	The act of being <verb>ed	–
XiXX	XoiXoX	XtiXX	XtoXaX	Something that is <verb>ed	A person who is <verb>ed
nXaXX, nXiXX	XoXnaX, XuXnoX	naXtaXX, naXtiXX	XatoXnaX, XatiXnaX	–	A place where the act of <verb>ing is done
–	XoXnaX, XuXnoX	–	XatoXnaX, XatiXnaX	A place where the act of <verb>ing is done (forms 2, 4 only)	–

3. Case suffix, usually consisting of a single short vowel. See Cases below.

4. Plural suffix: –m for masculine nouns, –q for feminine nouns.

Cases

While most languages use a system of cases with more or less fixed meanings and roles, Qulmian uses a system of five “numbered cases”, where the role of each case is determined by the verb in the sentence. In other words, each verb can be described as having its own set of multiple “parameters”.

A sixth case, called “case T”, exists and functions alongside the numbered cases. This case is the only one with an inherent meaning, and is usually equivalent to the inessive or temporal cases. It is used mostly for adverbials.

Case	Suffix
1	–a
2	–i
3	–o
4	–y
5	–u
T	–it

• Note: in plural nouns in case T, the suffix –it fuses with the plural marker: –imp for masculine nouns, –iqs for feminine.

In most verbs with only two parameters, case 1 is the nominative case and case 2 is the accusative case:

ca	amnyq	malni
1s.1	hold-1s-PRES	pen.2
“I am holding a pen.”

Some verbs with more parameters may differ. For example, the verb homla (to give) defines case 2 as the dative (the person to whom the object is given), and case 3 as the accusative (the object that is given):

ca	ahmil	di	malno
1s.1	give-1s-FUT	2s.2	pen.3
“I will give you a pen.”

Adjectives

Under construction ...

Syntax

Under construction ...