Vadi

Introduction

Vadi is an extinct language once spoken in Minhay. A small parchment fragment was discovered in April 2015 in a cave outside of Peħħat, a small township in Sakkeb Prefecture. Soon larger fragments and then the wonderfully preserved Kalapái Scriptum were discovered in an isolated hut, dated as late as the mid to late 1800's CE. The Kalapái Scriptum is a collection of letters between two farmers who were embroiled in an ongoing feud regarding the property lines between their lands. The letters were written in a mixture of Vadi intermixed with words from the unrelated Peshpeg language, which is itself unrelated to Minhast. A few letters were written entirely in the the extinct Minhast Knife Speaker dialect. Also found among the letters are legal papers drawn from the Prefect of Dog Speaker Country. The farmers' letters contained several texts clearly indicating code-switching between Vadi and the Knife Speaker dialect. The portions containing the intermixed Knife Speaker and Peshpeg words were used to decipher the Vadi texts. The Dog Speaker papers did not contribute directly to the decipherment of the language, but as an external source it provided a great deal of context of the nature of the feud between the litigants. This external contextual source clarified the translation of otherwise ambiguous passages. The Kalapái Scriptum is thus popularly referred to as the "Minhast Rosetta Stone".

Phonology

Consonants

Minhast Consonantal Inventory

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n
Plosive	p b	t d		k g		ʔ
Fricative	v	s				h
Affricates
Approximants	w		j
Flap		ɾ
Lateral Approximant		l

Vowels

	Front	Near- front	Central	Near- back	Back
Close	i u o ɛ a
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Prosody

Stress

Stress is highly variable in Vadi, but it tends to fall on the penultimate syllable. The orthography marks stress with an acute accent, which in turn implies that the vowel is lengthened, although exceptions abound. When a penultimate syllable is marked with an acute accent, one can generally assume that vowel lengthening has also occurred, although at times it may be an orthographic relic from a time when the vowel was lengthened in the past, but in modern speech has been shortened.

Morphology

Vadi is an analytic language and has very few affixes, but even these have been determined by some linguists as clitics. Their status as bound clitics versus unbound morphemes remains unclear, but those that indicate position or direction continue to be represented as clitics in glosses, following J.F. Schumann's practice.

Case Marking

Five postpositional morphemes have been identified:

Postpositional Clitics

Case	Postposition
Dative-Benefactive	=li
Ablative	=ta
Locative	=éva
Instrumental	=eta
Comitative	=kalí

Body part nouns may precede a head noun already marked with one of the case clitics to add more locational, directional, or positional precision. For example, the noun kilái "heart", often combines with a noun marked with the locative clitic =eva to convey an inessive sense:

Ji úla kilái kileva mana nai, ukan hen!
ji úla kilái kil=eva mana nai ukan hen
1P 2S heart house=LOC go FUT wreak.havok EMPH
I will enter your house and ruin you!

Core arguments take no marking. In transitive clauses, only word order distinguishes the subject and indirect object:

Ji kusara iaviti nai.
ji kusara iaviti nai.
1S meat buy FUT
I shall buy meat.

An object may come before the subject only if it the particle ipan is inserted between it and its clause, followed by an audible pause:

Kusara ipan, ji iaviti nai.
kusara ipan ji iaviti nai.
meat TOP 1S buy FUT
Meat, I shall buy (some).

Derivation

Derivational affixes occur in greater frequency, but the texts from the Scriptum suggest the overwhelming number of these affixes are no longer productive. For this reason, the general consensus among Vadists is that these affixes have been fossilized. A prefix pesa- occurs among some verbs that tends to give them causative meaning. For this reason some have speculated this is a borrowing from the Minhast causative prefix išp-. This view is problematic however, because this prefix sometimes appears to intensify the meaning of the root. Moreover, it is also found attached to some nouns, but its addition does not appear to affect the semantics of the noun.

Causative pesa-:

Anu úla pesadíka, hen.
Anu úla pesa-díka nai hen
PN 2P CAUS-run.off FUT EMPH
(Prefect) Annu will drive you out!

Intensive pesa-:

Ji pesakúna, kaman uláta, ji nokan pesakúdi.
ji pesa-kúna nai, kaman uláta ji nokan pesa-akúdi.
1P CAUS-go FUT head úla=ABL 2S rock CAUS-throw.
I will climb (that mountain) above you (so that) I can rain down rocks (upon you).

Nominal pesa-:

Pesarona hokun.
pesa-rona hokun
CAUS-snake eat.
Snakes will eat (you).

Contrast this with the actual use of the Minhast causative išp-, by Prefect Annu (Minhast, Dog Speaker Dialect):

Tašpintaknataheknessuš, tašpintaknaknessuš. Marantaħmankilmakš, yattax! Ikšitamaškidustitaħmāš!
ta-šp-nt-ikna-tahek-ness-u=š ta-šp-nt-ikna-k-ness-u=š maran-tahem-an-kilmakš yattax kš-tamašk-dust-tahem-an=š
NEG-CAUS-INT-go-2S.ACC+1S.NOM-FUT-TRNS=IRR NEG-CAUS-go-FUT-TRNS=IRR pest-2P.NOM-MIR.NEG DEPR CESS-stalk.while.hunting-REC.ADVS-2P.NOM-INTR=IRR
I don't plan on throwing you off your land, and I'm not planning on throwing him off his land. You two pests should leave each other alone!

Other derivational affixes, both prefixes and suffixes, are more common, some appear to be highly productive and suggest they can be spontaneously generated:

• -kai: a deverbal for creating place nouns, e.g. iavati-kai "a place for buying", i.e. marketplace.
• -pallahái: another deverbal for creating place nouns, e.g. tukin-pallahái "a place for sitting", i.e. hearth, dining room.
• -kattá: a deverbal affix deriving agent nouns, e.g. iavati-kattá "one who buys, a buyer"

Some affixes may be chained, as in tukimpallahaikattá < tukin-pallahai-kattá "a place for sitting ones", i.e. "dinner guests, diners". However, affix chaining is rather uncommon.

Syntax

Vadi, as an analytic language, relies on word order to indicate the case roles of the core arguments of a clause, to delineate the constituents of a noun phrase, and to indicate the pivot in multiclausal sentences. The language is primarily SOV, although the verb phrase may be placed in different locations within the clause. However, the S-argument invariable precedes the O-argument in transitive clauses. Tense particles always occur in clause-final position.

Noun phrase

Possessums precede their heads.

Example texts

úla ji tábila nikku úla hai, petta ulátane
/'u:la d͡zi 'ta:bɪla nɪk:u haɪ, petta u'la:tane/
úla ji tábi-la nikku hai, petta ulátane
2S 1S land-PL seize try PST, thief 2S.EMP
You tried to seize my lands, you are a thief indeed!

Ka úla mai naha ji tábila, ji puni úla merkeva nai!
/ka 'u:la maɪ 'naha d͡zi 'ta:bɪla d͡zi 'pu:ni 'u:la 'mɛrkɛva 'naɪ/
ka úla mai naha ji tábi-la nikku e, ji puni úla merkeva nai
if 2S come here 1S land-PL seize SJV, 1S RSLT 2S kill FUT
If you come here to seize my land, I will kill you!

Ji úla nánani.
/d͡zi 'u:la 'na:nani/
ji ula nanani
1S 2S RV~disgust
You truly disgust me.

Valí ulaki úla píhala nai.
/va'li u'laki 'u:la 'pihala naɪ/
valí ulaki úla píhala nai
perhaps authorities 2S seize FUT
Perhaps the authorities shall arrest you.

OVS -> matrix clause SC -> dependent clause

SVO -> matrix clause, COND SOV -> dependent clause, RSLT

OSV