Linguifex

Ɯ

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Ŭrbŭrŭx U
"the speech, U"
Pronunciation[/ˈuɾ.bu.ɾux ˈɯ/]
Created byNicolás Straccia
SettingYrḳuti conworlding project
Ɯ languages
  • Ŭrbŭrŭx U
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The language known as Ɯ is a conlang being created and developed by Nicolás Straccia as part of the Yrḳuti conworlding project.


Background


[...]

Grammar

In a nutshell:

PHONOLOGY

Vowels

Vowel inventory

Front Near-front Central Near-back Back
Close
 
i
y
u
ɯ
e
ø
o
a
Near‑close
Close‑mid
Mid
Open‑mid
Near‑open
Open

Stem-controlled roundness harmony. Both /a/ and /o/, a back and a front vowel, are neutral. In compounds each element retains it own harmony; affixes will harmonize with the stem with which they are directly in contact.

Consonants

Consonant inventory

Bilabial Labio-dental Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive p b t d (ɟ) k g ʔ
Nasal m n (ɲ) (ŋ)
Trill r
Tap or flap ɾ
Fricative f v s ʃ x h
Africate ʧ
Approximant w j
Lateral app. l (ʎ)

Phonotaxis

Sandhi

[...]



Syllable structure

Both verbal and nominal roots, as well as affixes, have a (C)(C)V(C) syllable structure.

MORPHOLOGY

Nominal morphology

Nominal roots are marked for grammatical case, deixis (relative locativity and lativity), definiteness and number or quantity.

Grammatical gender and animacy

There are two grammatical genders: animate and inanimate. The animate gender has two subdivisions: masculine and feminine. These are all generally listed as masculine, feminine and neuter gender.

(See also ‘Animacy and volition’ below)

Grammatical number and quantifier affixes

There are two systems of grammatical number: i) for nouns, Collective 1, Dual, Singulative, Collective 2; ii) for pronouns, the numbers Singular, Dual, Plural and Indefinite.

(See also “__*number*__” below)

Grammatical number markers for nouns

The determiners account for definiteness as well as for number:

Number Definiteness Marker
col Collective Indefinite -Ø
Definite -Vr
dual Dual Indefinite -Vt
Definite -VmVm
sg Singulative Indefinite -Vm
Definite -Vx
col2 Collective 2* Indefinite -lVt
Definite -lVm

* The number “Collective 2” reffers to collectives or complete sets of a noun; e.g. ne; trees; nelet, a.forest

Declension particles and affixes

Grammatical case
Animate Inanimate
Singular Dual Plural 4th Singular Dual Plural 4th
Nominative nom Ø
Ergative erg an- vVl- sVm- tVm- ɯl- xan- rVm- tVl-
Dative dat bVl- mVl- bVl- mVl-
Absolutive abs tVn- wVn- VtVn- sVn- okVn- xVn- VkVn- šVn-
Accusative acc VnV- lVt- VnV- lVt-
Instrumental inst or- Vm- or- Vm-
Partitive* part bV- tV- kV- tV-
Genitive** gen -(o)nnu(r)

* The partitive case (part) conveys the telicity of the verb (to.x/to.x.obj vs. to.fully/thoroughly.x/x.obj).
** The genitive case (gen) is marked with a conflation of the deictic markers -ho- (FROM) and -nur (APUD) and is thus the same for all nouns.

Deictics

.

Nominal declension themes

C-theme VC-stems
CVC-stems
V-theme CV-stems
CCV-stems

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns can be dropped. They are marked as follows:

-1 0 1 2
grammatical.case lam deictic.marker number.marker
“person"

Propter names

Proper names are marked for grammatical case in the same way as animate singular common nouns. Regular sandhi over morpheme boundaries is not triggered (for instance, tanTavar instead of **tanDavar, see below).

In the Romanization, the capitalization of the proper name remains in place while prefixes and suffixes remain in minuscle, e.g.:

“Farŭl” {Ø-Farŭl} nom-Farŭl vs. “anFarŭl” {an-Farŭl} erg-Farŭl or

“Perit” {Ø-Perit} nom-Perit vs. “belPerit” {bVl-Perit} dat-Perit or

“Tavar” {Ø-Tavar} nom-Tavar vs. “tanTavar” {tVn-Tavar} abs-Tavar.

Other names, like given names, nicknames and pet names based on common nouns are marked with the proper name marker pnm –gV or –Vg.

The proper name vocative, derived from a reduplicated form of the pnm, fossilized in the forms -gagV and -agVg, with epenthesis of the harmonically neutral vowel a. In this latter form, the first g is subject to sandhi, while the second isn’t. E.g. Tavar → Tavarraga!, Perit → Perittagi!, Farŭl → Farŭllagŭ!.

Verbal morphology

Verbal roots are marked for tense, aspect and subject (animacy, gender, number and person). Mood is marked through postpositions.

Tenses

Tenses are: present, non-present. The equivalent to the future and past tense are conveyed as follows:

Marking Conveyed tense
-2 -1 0 1 2
perfect - √root obviative subject.non-present past
Ø subject.present present
prospective subject.non-present future

Whence:

Marking
Primary aspect (-2) Tense (2)
Perfect present stative resulting from past action
non-present past
Prospective present prospective
non-present future
Neutral (Ø marking) present present
non-present oblique

Tense-person marking suffixes

The most animate agent of the clause (see "Animacy, control, volition") agrees with the verb declined with the proximate suffix, the lesser animate with the verb marked with the obviate. This can also be used to mark a change of referent (see "referent anaphora").

Proximate suffixes
Obviate suffixes

The obviative particle obv -i-/-ĭ- is placed between the root and the proximal tense marker. It applies to the second and third person.

This in turn shows the form of the tense suffix that is otherwise opaqued by the sandhi:

prox mẹnnᴉt, obv mẹnᴉlᴉt
-lit 3s.masc.pres, -ilit 3s.masc.pres.obv.

Verbal aspect markers

.

Aspect Marker
Perfect perf C₂a-/C₂o-
Prospective pros C₂ora-/oC₂osa-
Continuous cont C₂ona-
Progressive prog C₂ara-
Gnomic gnom aC₂C₂a-
Imperfective imper oC₂a-
Iterative iter toC₂a-


The primary and the secondary aspect markers have historically fused through metaphony and syncope, yielding the following standarized forms:

For animate subjects


For inanimate subjects

Mood marking particles

All mood marking particles are postpositional to the verb they modify. Being there no copula for existencial predication, all mood markers modify verbal phrases directly (see below: negation).

Special cases

i) Counterfactual conditional

The if clause is counterfactual

ii) Deliberative mood

A construction similar to a deliberative mood (delib – sentences of the form “should I do X?”) can be marked by the conflation of the optative mood marker (opt) kŭ either 1) with the interrogative mood marker (int) če; or 2) with the imperative mood marker (imp) kŭ.

delib (int+opt): čekkŭ (< če + kŭ)
delib (imp+opt): nakkŭ (< na + kŭ)

iii) Desiderative mood (“wanting to X”)

Participles

The participial verbal forms are formed with the bare root of the verb, marked with the participial marker ppl aC₂(a)- (a modified form of the gnomic aspect marker gnom aC₂C₂a-) and an epenthetic suffix -i/-ĭ that takes over the slot of the person-tense marker. This works as an infinitive participle, and can furtherly be inflected for tense and aspect. The forms of the ppl fused with the verbal tense structural primary verbal aspects, and most used participles are:


Marking Conveyed tense
-3 -2 0 2
1 ppl aC₂(a)- perfect C₂a-/C₂o- √root subject.non-present past
2 Ø subject.present present
3 prospective C₂ora-/oC₂osa- subject.non-present future


Marked with the forms:

Participle ppl Primary aspect marker Person-tense marker Participle prefix (-3)·(-2)-
1 Past participle aC₂(a)- C₂a-/C₂o- subject.non-present aC₂C₂(V)-
2 Present participle Ø subject.present aC₂(V)-
3 Future participle C₂ora-/oC₂osa- subject.non-present aC₂Vr(V)-


For example:

‹axxamaxi nēr›
/ˈax.xa.ma.xi neːɾ/
{axxa-max-i ne-er}
{aC₂C₂(V)-max-i ne-Vr}
ppl-to.cut-ppl trees-def.col
“the cut trees”

All other combinations of ppl+(aspect marker) are also allowed.

Referent anaphora

Anaphoric reference shift particle

The anaphoric marker states that the referent of the verb has changed. This is to avoid the ambiguity of sentences like the following:

“Tavar hit Perit. He cried”

Given a sequence of actions like the one above, performed by actuants (A or S) of the same level of semantically adscribed animaciy, it is necessary to mark wether the sequence of actions (hitting, then crying) belongs to the same referent, or if the referent of the first action is different than that of the latter. To mark that the actuant of the crying, S, is now Perit (formerly the non-actuant, O, of the hitting), and no longer Tavar (actuant, A, of the hitting), either the verb itself or the pronoun -most commonly the verb, given the pro-drop feature of the language- is suffixed with one of the following particles:


This would render the aforementioned sentence ("Tavar hit Perit. He cried") into the unambiguously marked:

‹anTavar sakĕssiteš tenPerit. Lamma xabaxlitešen›
/an.ta.ˈvaɾ sa.ˈkøs.si.teʃ ten.pe.ˈɾit | ˈlam.ma xa.ˈbax.li.te.ʃen/
{an-Tavar sa-kĕs-siteš ten-Perit | Ø-lam-ma xa-bax-liteš-en}
{an-Tavar C₂a-kĕs-liteš tVn-Perit | Ø-lam-Ca C₂a-bax-liteš-Ø-Vn}
ERG.ANIM.SG-Tavar PERF-to.hit-3S.ANIM.MASC.NPRES ABS.ANIM.SG-Perit | NOM.ANIM.S-LAM-PRON.S PERF-to.cry-3S.ANIM.MASC.NPRES.IND-shift
“Tavar hit Perit. He cried”

Tavar did the hitting, Perit the crying.

Use of the obviate

The obviative form of the tense-person marker, used to mark agreement of verbs with the less animate actor of a clause with different actors of the same semanticly adscribed degree of animacy, as it sepparates actors, can be used on its own to mark the shift in referent within a single clause, while the anaphoric reference shift particle can also be used over longer discourse segments.

Animacy, control and volition

Adjectives and adverbs

Semblative constructions

Participles

Dative and genitive constructions

Derivational morphology

Derivational affixes

Compounding

Genitive compounds
Special compositional functions of verbs
Dative compounds

Nominalization

Nominalization of a verb
Nominalization of a locative adverb

Hypocoristics

Diminutives
Augmentatives
Superlatives

Negation

Use of the negative mood marker NEG xe

Use of the coordinating discourse particle &neg nŭ

Use of the discourse particle/adjective? “without” kĭllŭ

Interrogation

General interrogation

Special interrogation

Discourse particles

Numerals

SYNTAX

Morphosyntactic allignment

i) transitive verbs (A) – (V) – (O)

ii) intransitive verbs (S) – (V)

iii) ditransitive verbs (A) – (V) – (T) – (O)


(S) NOM

(A) ERG

(T) DAT

(O) i) ABS, iii) ACC

Word order

(S)-V-(O/A)-V-(T)-(O)

A/N

Lexicon


Citation forms:

Leipzig-Jakarta list

Some terms which are listed as one entry in the Leipzig-Jakarta list but have more than one distinct term in [] have become as many entries as needed to accommodate the scope of its vocabulary.


Orthography

Samples

Sentences

Example of verb conjugation paradigms

Words:

A verb:
anaramĕnkram
/a.na.ɾa.ˈmøn.kɾam/
aC₂ara-møn-hram
per.prog.anim-to.fly-1s.mas.n.pres
"I was flying"
A noun:
alāšax
/ˈa.laː.ʃax/
ala-aš-Vx
to.perceive-tool-def.singulative
"the pair of glasses"
Something idiomatic:
alahuš
/ˈa.la.hɯʃ/
ala-huš
to.perceive-to.burn
"to glare"
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