Tigol/Proto-Tigol

Tigol/Proto-Tigol gávthȁ themsármā
Type
Fusional
Alignment
Nominative-accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Verb-subject-object
Tonal
Yes
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
Yes
Nouns decline according to...
Case		Number
Definiteness		Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Background

The Themsaran language constitutes a separate branch of the Zachydic language family, along with other para-Themsaran languages. Themsaran is a typological and lexical outlier in its family due to its long period of isolation and substrate influence. The language possesses strongly head-initial syntax, head-marking in both clauses and possessive NPs, mixed fusional and agglutinative inflection, and nominative-accusative morphosyntax. This article describes Classical Themsaran.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Dorsal	Radical	Glottal
Nasal	m		n				ŋ
Plosive	p b			t d			k g	(ʡ)	(ʔ)
Fricative		f v	θ ⟨th⟩	s z	ʃ ⟨š⟩ ʒ ⟨ž⟩		x~χ ⟨ch⟩	ħ~ʜ~ʢ ⟨ħ⟩	h~ɦ ⟨h⟩
Affricate					tʃ ⟨ť⟩
Approximant		(ʋ)				j
Trill				r
Lateral app.				l		ʎ ⟨ļ⟩

[ʔ] may occur only in morpheme boundaries.

Conditioned allophony

Phoneme	Allophone	Condition(s)
/ħ/	[ħ~ʜ]	#_, C[+voiceless]_
	[ʡ~ʢ]	V_V, C[+voiced]_
/h/	[ɦ]	V_V, C[+voiced]_
C[+obstruent, ±voiced]	C[+obstruent, ∓voiced]	_C[+obstruent, -guttural, ∓voiced]

Vowels

Themaran has six vowels, short and long. Short vowels have one mora, and long vowels have two morae.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ⟨i⟩ iː ⟨ī⟩	ʉ ⟨y⟩ ʉː ⟨ȳ⟩	u ⟨u⟩ uː ⟨ū⟩
Mid	e ⟨e⟩ eː ⟨ē⟩		o ⟨o⟩ oː ⟨ō⟩
Open		a ⟨a⟩ aː ⟨ā⟩

The following are the diphthongs, all falling: /ai au ei ie~ia uo~ua/ ⟨ai au ei ie ua⟩. All diphthongs are bimoraic.

Pitch accent

Pitch accent, or tone, is phonemic in Themsaran. The following is the notation for tones:

	Short	Long	Diphthong
Unmarked	a	ā	ai
High	á	a̋	ái
Low	à	ȁ	ài
Falling	-	â	âi
Rising	-	ǎ	ǎi

The pitch accent of a word consists of two components: the lexical tone, and the position of the downstep (the latter is confined to appear after the 3rd-to-last mora). A high-tone word is consistently high until the downstep, whereafter the pitch drops sharply. A low-tone word starts low and has the highest pitch at the tonic mora, which is immediately before the downstep.

The following are the rules governing the marking Themsaran pitch accent:

1. High lexical tone is marked in the initial syllable; low tone is not marked, unless necessitated by rule 2.
2. The tonic syllable is always marked:
   1. If the downstep occurs after a long syllable (syllable with a long vowel or diphthong), the syllable is rising in a low-tone word, and high in a high-tone word.
   2. If the downstep occurs between the two morae of a long syllable, the syllable has falling tone.
3. If the first syllable has high tone and precedes a downstep, the second syllable is marked as low.

If the downstep occurred word-finally, the first syllable of a following high tone word would have slightly lower pitch. In pausa, a word final high short syllable is realized as a falling, short vowel.

Grammar

Nouns

Nouns inflect for number, definiteness and possessedness, but not for case. Nouns have two genders, masculine and feminine. In third-person possessed forms, Themsaran makes a distinction between the absolute possessed form, which indicates a noun possessed by a pronoun, and the conjunct possessed form, used to indicate a possessive relationship between two nouns and agreeing with the gender of the possessor.

First declension

The first declension consists primarily of masculine nouns.

First declension

	Singular				Plural
	Indefinite		Definite		Indefinite		Definite
Unpossessed
1sg
2sg.m
2sg.f
3sg.m
3sg.f
4sg.m
4sg.f
1ex
1in
2pl.m
2pl.f
3pl.m
3pl.f
4pl.m
4pl.f

Second declension

The second declension consists primarily of feminine nouns.

Second declension

	Singular				Plural
	Indefinite		Definite		Indefinite		Definite
Unpossessed
1sg
2sg.m
2sg.f
3sg.m
3sg.f
4sg.m
4sg.f
1ex
1in
2pl.m
2pl.f
3pl.m
3pl.f
4pl.m
4pl.f

Third declension

The third declension consists mainly of mass, collective and abstract nouns of both genders.

Third declension

	Singular				Plural
	Indefinite		Definite		Indefinite		Definite
Unpossessed
1sg
2sg.m
2sg.f
3sg.m
3sg.f
4sg.m
4sg.f
1ex
1in
2pl.m
2pl.f
3pl.m
3pl.f
4pl.m
4pl.f

Adjectives

Adjectives agree in not only number, definiteness and gender with their heads, but also in possessedness. Adjectives also take degree inflection (positive, "less/least", "more/most", elative, "X enough", "too X"). Adjectives exhibit tonal ablaut like those of nouns.

Verbs

Finite verbs are marked for TAM, degree (positive, "more/most"), voice (active and mediopassive), the subject's person, number, and gender and, if the direct object is definite, is obligatorily marked with the (usually direct) object's person, number, and gender in most TAMs. The verb may agree with an indirect object (which is typically animate) instead of with the direct object. There are also several non-finite forms, used with various subordinating conjunctions.

Syntax

The default constituent order is verb-subject-pronominal oblique object-direct object. The subject or the direct object can be topicalized or focalized by being placed in front of the verb.