Ash
Ash | |
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ahgaa | |
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Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|ˈʔɑħˌqɑː]] |
Created by | Ava Skoog |
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Introduction
Ash (ahgaa, lit. "seaspeak", IPA [ˈʔɑħˌqɑː]) is the anglicised name of a language mostly spoken around coastal areas, notably the town of Appa (ahba). Its speakers are familiar with technological advancements such as nautical vessels and steam locomotives.
The language is mildly synthetic to polysynthetic, largely based around agglutination with fusional elements. There is a great focus on verbs, nominals being mostly uninflected, and significant pro-drop tendencies and a general focus around deixis rather than pronominal distinctions. The word order is heavily SOV.
Phonology
Phonemes
Due to the small number of underlying sounds in Ash and their high degree of allophonicity, a simple listing of phonemes according to phonotactic patterning is more suitable than a traditional consonant table and vowel trapezium.
Vocalic | /a~Ø i~j~Ø u~w~Ø/ |
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Plosive | /p~β t~ð k~ɣ/ |
Affricate | /t͡ɬ~ɬ t͡s~s/ |
Glottal | /ʔ~h/ |
Nasal | /m~˜ n~˜ ŋ~˜/ |
The reasoning for this rather unusual classification is down to phonotactic patterning: these five groups all behave somewhat differently and serve as a more useful distinction than point of articulation when describing the phonology of Ash. The pair or triplet given for each phoneme refers to an alternation between various allophonic realisations despite the relatively low number of underlying sounds, an important feature of the language that makes the variation richer on the surface. For instance, long vowels (romanised by doubling the vowel) and nasal vowels (romanised using a tilde) are not analysed as phonemic.
Romanisation
The romanisation strikes a balance between representing phonemes versus surface realisations and uses the following seventeen letters:
a | ã | e | ẽ | y | o | õ | w | b | d | g | l | s | h | m | n | ŋ |
An example of a word with its archiphonemic, phonemic and surface transcriptions as well as romanisation:
//ˈwat.ʔa.wo// | → /ˈwaʔ.ta.wo/ | → [ˈʔɔ̯ɑħ.t̠ɐ.wʊ] | → oahdawo "during the day" |
Syllable structure
A cluster cannot exceed two consonants and must be of one of the following configurations:
CC | Both consonants are the same |
FP | Fricative followed by plosive |
NP | Nasal followed by plosive |
PN~FN | Plosive or fricative followed by nasal |
Prosody and stress
Prefixes are always unstressed. Following the last stressed syllable an iambic pattern of secondary stress on every other underlyingly light syllable follows unless an underlyingly heavy syllable intervenes, resetting the pattern. In addition, unless at the end of a word, stressed syllables are forced to be heavy either by lengthening of the vowel or reduplication of the next syllable's onset consonant if they are not already underlyingly so.
Phonological processes
Depending on the underlying nature of a cluster, various processes take place either on a phonemic (phoneme alternation) or on a phonetic (surface allophony) level. For example, /t/ merges with /t͡s/ on the phonemic level before /i~j/ or a plosive or an affricate, but alternates with [ð] on the phonetic level between vowels.
- A nasal or fricative geminates before a glide, assimilating to and eliding it in the process.
- All plosives alternate phonemically with fricatives or affricates before another plosive or an affricate.
- /h~ʔ/ (and plosives before nasals) is a fricative before vowels/glides and plosives but a glottal stop before nasals and affricates.
- Affricates are fricatives intervocalically, before other plosives or affricates, word-finally and before nasals (which are prestopped).
/-j/ | /-w/ | |
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//N-// | [ɲ.ɲ] | [m.m] |
//h-// | [ç.ç] | [ʍ.ʍ] |
//t͡s-// | [ɕ.ɕ] | [s̠.s̠] |
//t͡ɬ-// |
//-P// | |
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//p-// | /h.P/ [ħ.P] |
//k-// | |
//t-// | /t͡s.P/ [s̠.P~ɕ.P] |
//-P// | //-P͡F// | //-N// | |
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//h-// | [ħ.P] | [ħ.P͡F] | /ʔ.ᴰN/ |
//-N// | |
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//p-// | [ʔ.ᵇm] |
//t-// | [ʔ.ᵈn̠~ʔ.ᶡɲ] |
//k-// | [ʔ.ᶢŋ] |
Morphology
Ash does not mark words for number, person or case. With regards to syntactic patterning, only three significant word classes can be posited: verbs, nominals and converbs. Nonetheless there is a degree of mobility between them.
Verbs
The bulk of all inflection goes on verbs, making them morphemic anchors fundamental to almost any utterance in the language. The general verb template is as follows:
Stem | |||||||||||
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Deixis | TV | Preverbs | Incorp. | Class. | Root | Der. | State | Mood | Inv. | Converb. |
TV refers to transitive-volitional marking, as the two categories are entwined.
Stems
Each verb has a set of primary stems formed more or less predictably from a combination of affixes. The first stem, the stative (or active, if there is no stative) indicative, is used as the lemma when citing words, such as oada "to shine":
Stative | Active | Transitional | |
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Indicative | oada | oahda | oadna |
Optative | oase | oadse | oadne |
All of these terms are to an extent ad hoc. Some verbs are inherently stative or active and do not have two distinct stems. The transitional is often used in a perfective sense as opposed to the imperfective or habitual active or stative.
Derived verbs
Derivational suffixes can be used to extend the root and create a new set of stems, such as the causative -j-, the potential -d- and the frequentative -(d)s-, which can themselves, depending on the word, be stative or active (all derived verbs are inherently one or the other or both and do not display the allomorphy of basic verbs), transitional and so on. These are some of the words derived from oo "consume":
Stative | Active | Transitional | |
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Basic | oona | ||
Causative | oena | ||
Potential | odna | ||
Frequentative | osdna |
Sometimes stems appear connected through no longer productive processes, such as mohwa "cook", related also to oo.
Nominals
Nominals are mostly unmarked; the main kind of affixation, while resembling case marking, results in converbialisation, thus changing the class of the word. Nominals can however be marked for possession (obligatory on inalienably possessed nominal) or be incorporated into a verb (in which case inalienably possessed nominal do lose their possessive marker).
The possessive prefix (a)n- can be preceded by a deictic prefix. Here are the possessed forms of mõõ "head; hair; top", an inalienably possessed nominal:
Neutral | Proximal | Distal |
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ammõõ | emmõõ | ommõõ |
Any phrase can be nominalised using a classificatory topic marker (see below).
Converbs
Converbs are used to denote a place, time or manner. Their formation sometimes resembles case marking or conjunctions or adverbs.
Some prominent converbialising suffixes:
Suffix | Example | |
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Locative | -da | sooda "where they live; by the house" |
Durative | -(w)o | oadnawo "when it gets bright; in the morning" |
Benefactive | -(w)a | eewa "in order to see" |
Deixis
The language lacks true pronouns and due to its pro-drop tendencies commonly avoids alternatives as well. One thing that does get marked is deixis: whether something is close to or far away from the speaker or a previous referent; unspecified deixis is also possible. On nominals deixis is generally spatial while on verbs it is temporal (proximal working roughly as a present tense and distal as a non-present one); converbial deixis can be either depending on the characteristics of the converb in question.
The deictic stems are as follows:
Neutral | Ø- (unmarked) |
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Proximal | e- |
Distal | o- |
Deixis occurs in the form of isolated nominals ee and oo as well as verbal and possessive prefixes e- and o-. Despite their conventional romanisation ee and oo are not pronounced *[-i̯eː-] and *[-u̯oː-]. They are respectively irregularly reduced forms of *eyye and *owwo that tend to blend into the next word, often as [-e̞(ː)ɪ̯]~[-e̞j-] and [-o̞(ː)ʊ̯]~[-o̞w-], but also with the glide assimilating, leading to forms such as [-ɪw-] and [-ʊj-]. This also goes for the proximal-proximal reflexive prefix ee- (reduced from *eye-) and the distal-distal counterpart oo- (reduced from *owo-). This includes converbs such as the locative eeda "here" [ˈe̞ːi̯.ðɐ]. They can be thought of as *ey and *ow but due to their exceptionality and for consistency with the use of e and o for semivowels elsewhere (as in ae and ao) it has been decided that they be spelled the way they are.
Conjunct and disjunct verbs
While Ash lacks a set of first, second and third person pronouns, a system of so called conjunct versus disjunct verb forms can be used in combination with transitivity markers and deixis in order to more or less unambiguously cover the same ground. This concept is also known in the literature as assertor's involvement marking, which might give the reader a clearer idea of the concept: verbs are marked for whether the one making an assertion is involved in the action (conjunct) or not (disjunct).
In simple statements the assertor defaults to the speaker (i.e. first person) but in questions to the addressee (second person). In reported speech the assertor defaults to the source of the quote and may therefore also take on a third person role. First and second person roles are associated with proximal deixis while third person is associated with distal deixis or an explicit nominal.
Conjunct is marked by the suffix -s and disjunct is unmarked.
Simple intransitives
In simple statements proximal deixis combined with a conjunct verb denotes a first person, while combined with a disjunct verb it denotes a second person, whereas in questions this is flipped. Distal deixis or an explicit nominal denotes a third person in both cases. Note that there is no number distinction and so for example first person can imply both "I" and "we" but for the sake of space only one translation is given for each example.
Declarative | Interrogative | |||
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Proximal | Distal | Proximal | Distal | |
Conjunct | (ee go) oadas "I am pale" |
- | (ee go) oadas no? "are you pale?" |
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Disjunct | (ee go) oada "you are pale" |
(oo go) oada "they are pale" |
(ee go) oada no? "am I pale?" |
(oo go) oada no? "are they pale?" |
Simple transitives
Simple transitive clauses work much the same way but the choice between a direct transitive or inverse transitive marker affects the meaning as well and is the only way to differentiate between agent and patient roles when the referents are first and second person.
Declarative | ||||
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Proximal | Distal | |||
Direct | Inverse | Direct | Inverse | |
Conjunct | (ee go) ahhees "I look at you" |
(ee go) assees "you look at me" |
(oo go) ahhees "I look at them" |
(oo go) assees "they look at me" |
Disjunct | (ee go) ahhee "you look at them" |
(ee go) assee "they look at you" |
(oo go) ahhee "they1 look at them2" |
(oo go) assee "they2 look at them1" |
The interrogative patterns the same way except for the first and second person again being flipped. As the last two examples show, the choice of transitivity marker can also serve as a proximate-obviative distinction.
Reported speech
In quotations the conjunct versus disjunct distinction instead focuses on the source of the quote, but only in the subclause. Again this may serve as a proximate-obviative distinction. This means that it is possible to mark distal referents as conjunct in such subclauses.
Proximal | Distal | ||
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Conjunct source | Disjunct source | Disjunct source | |
Conjunct target | (ee go) oadas (ee go) ogaas "I said I am pale" |
(ee go) oadas (ee go) ogaa "you said you are pale" |
(oo go) oadas (oo go) ogaa "they1 said they1 are pale" |
Disjunct target | (ee go) oada (ee go) ogaas "I said you are pale" |
(ee go) oada (ee go) ogaa "you said I am pale" |
(oo go) oada (oo go) ogaa "they1 said they2 are pale" |
When the source is proximal the target can also be distal in which case it is always disjunct and refers to a third person.
Indirect involvement
As the conjunct form denotes merely whether the assertor is somehow involved in the action, the assertor need not necessarily be the agent. A conjunct form would still be used to denote first person involvement as a patient in some statements.
- emmõõ bo ao ehbadsas
[ʔɪmˈmũ̯õ̞ː‿ᵐbo̞ ˈʔɑːʊ̯ je̞ħˈpɑħ.t̠͡s̠ɐs̠]
PROX-POSS-head TOP:CRESC ao PROX-TV-hand.FREQ.IND-CONJ
Ao is braiding my hair
Despite a third person being the agent of the action, the focus is on the first person (the assertor) and the verb is therefore conjunct.
Syntax
The word order is fairly strictly SOV, with converbs generally preceding the nominals followed by the verb.
Valency
Transitivity and inversion
Transitivity is explicitly marked and through an inversion marker on the verb the roles of agent and patient can be swapped without a change in word order, the purpose of which is topicalisation, leaving the topic in the subject position. The subject requires a topical marker, the details of which will be explained in detail in the section on locative verbs.
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Inversion is especially important when the subject is being omitted as person markers do not exist.
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Reflexivity
A verb can also be made reflexive by using a deictic marker in the transitivity slot, meaning a distinction is made between proximal and distal reflexivity, corresponding to the spatial deixis of nominals rather than the normally temporal deixis of verbs.
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Reflexivity can be used to disambiguate between cases when the first and second person implications of the proximal deixis would otherwise collapse or as a proximate-obviative distinction.
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Incorporation
There is a limit on two unmarked nominal arguments of a verb. There are two ways to introduce more arguments, one of which is to incorporate the third nominal into the verb.
- ao go bahba odsãmmoyya
[ˈʔɑːʊ̯‿ɣʊ ˈβɑħ.pɐ wo̞ħˈt̠͡s̠ɑ̃mˌmʊj.jɐ]
ao TOP:ACT dog DIST-TV-water-consume.CAUS.IND
Ao was giving the dog water to drink
Converbialisation
The other method is to completely remove the valency of the nominal by turning it into a converb, which is why this process sometimes resembles case marking.
- ao go bahba meeda odsãmmoyya
[ˈʔɑːʊ̯‿ɣʊ ˈβɑħ.pɐ ˈmʲi̯eː.ðɐ wo̞ħˈt̠͡s̠ɑ̃mˌmʊj.jɐ]
ao TOP:ACT dog fire-CVB:LOC DIST-TV-water-consume.CAUS.IND
Ao was giving the dog water to drink by the fire
Animacy
While there is no explicit marking for animacy, an underlying hierarchy ranging roughly from natural forces at the top to people and animals in the middle and inanimates at the bottom governs certain parts of the grammar. The main aspect of this hierarchy is that inanimate referents cannot act as agents which affects how transitive and inverse marking is interpreted in their presence.
Transitive | Inverse | |
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Animate | bahba go ahhoo "dogs eat it" |
bahba go assoo "dogs are eaten" |
Inanimate | sãã sa ahhoo "water is drunk" |
*sãã sa assoo (ungrammatical) |
Topicalisation
New non-verbal information is focused by fronting, i.e. introducing the word or phrase earlier in the sentence. This means that the order of subject and object might shift in order to focus on the object. When the object is inanimate inversion is not possible nor necessary, while for an animate object it is. The nominal in focus will also receive a topic marker, explained in detail in the section on locative verbs.
Normal | Fronted | |
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Animate | ao go bahba ohhee "Ao was looking at the dog" |
bahba go ao ossee "it was the dog Ao was looking at" |
Inanimate | ao go sãã ohhoo "Ao was drinking water" |
sãã sa ao ohhoo "it was water Ao was drinking" |
Subclauses
Relativisation is done simply by chaining phrases one after another, with no special marking. Subclauses go before main clauses, in which the deictic context is centered around the subject of the subclause.
- [oo oahdaga bahba go ossoena]1 [ee oahdaga esseenas]2
[ˈʔo̞w‿ˈwɔ̯ɑħ.t̠ɐ.ʁɐ ˈβɑħ.pɐ‿ɣo̞ wʊs̠ˈs̠ʊːɪ̯.n̠ɐ ˈjɪw‿ˈwɔ̯ɑħ.t̠ɐ.ʁɐ jɪɕˈɕi̯eː.n̠ɐs̠]
[DIST shine.ACT.IND-CVB:DUR dog DIST-INV-consume.CAUS.TRANS.IND]1 [PROX shine.ACT.IND-CVB:DUR PROX-INV-see.TRANS.IND-CONJ]2
[today I saw]2 [the dog that (you) fed yesterday]1
This is also how stative verbs are used to assign qualities to nominals.
- bahba go oada esseenas no
[ˈbɑħ.pɐ‿ɣo̞ ˈwɔ̯ɑː.ðɐ jɪɕˈɕi̯eː.n̠ɐz̠‿ᵈn̠ʊ]
dog TOP:ACT shine.STAT.IND PROX-INV-see.TRANS.IND-CONJ Q
have you seen the white dog?
Unstressed words
In addition to unstressed locative verbs used as topicalising classifiers (see below) there are a few other words that can be unstressed to serve various purposes, mostly after verbs.
Modality
Perhaps the most grammatically significant are ma for negation and no for interrogation. There is also yo for emphasis.
Declarative | Negative | Interrogative | Emphatic |
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ebadsa "weaving" |
ebadsa ma "not weaving" |
ebadsa no? "weaving?" |
ebadsa yo "(really) weaving!" |
Evidentiality
Reduced forms of some verbs can function as evidential markers, such as e for observation and ga for hearsay.
Declarative | Observational | Quotative |
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ebadsa "weaving" |
ebadsa e "(evidently) weaving" |
ebadsa ga "(allegedly) weaving" |
Locative verbs
An important part of Ash grammar is an extensive set of so called locative verbs which are used almost like a noun classification system and cover location, motion and related concepts while providing specific information about the referent at hand, such as specifying whether liquid is involved. These also have reduced clitic forms used as topic markers. Some topic markers also exist that do not correspond to a locative verb, such as the oral o, instead related to the active transitive verb oo "eat". Some locative verbs also retain non-locative meanings, such as the aerial see, which in conjunction with the oral classifier, as osee, means to "blow".
These are some of those verbs:
Locative | Topic | Gloss | Semantic range |
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laa | la | :STAT | General stative (indefinite or permanent) |
goo | go | :ACT | General active (temporary or dynamic) |
sãã | sa | :LIQ | Water and other liquids |
see | se | :AER | Air and weather |
boo | bo | :CRESC | Growth (hair, plants et c.) |
doo | do | :PART | Particles (powder, sand, dust, smoke, spores et c.) |
mee | me | :PYR | Fire (by extension core or centre) |
baa | ba | :INST | Hand and instrumental (things held; implements and tools) |
— | o | :ORAL | Mouth and food |
Classificatory topicalisation
An unstressed locative verb is required as a topical marker following a fronted nominal, resembling a particle. The choice of verb functions much like a noun class classifier and can be used to differentiate between various meanings of a single nominal lexeme.
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Used this way they nonetheless remain verbs with the accompanying syntactic implications. Since they create subclauses, a nominal specified for category with a locative verb cannot be used in object position and so will always precede any agent. However, since this is in line with the normal rule of topicalisation by fronting, it has no actual implications on the syntax.
- emmõõ bo ao ehbadsas
[ʔɪmˈmũ̯õ̞ː‿ᵐbo̞ ˈʔɑːʊ̯ je̞ħˈpɑħ.t̠͡s̠ɐs̠]
PROX-POSS-head TOP:CRESC ao PROX-TV-hand.FREQ.IND-CONJ
Ao is braiding my hair
Unstressed locatives also apply to the pronominal-like nominals ee "this", oo "that", nõõ "what" and maa "none".
Conjunction
In addition to serving as a topical marker, an unstressed locative verb can also be used as a nominal conjunction. As subject and object are never both topically marked, a series of topicalised nominals serves as a single noun phrase in the fronted subject position.
- ao go bahba go ooda egoo
[ˈʔɑːʊ̯‿ɣʊ ˈβɑħ.pɐ‿ɣo̞ ˈwo̞ːʊ̯.ðɐ jɪˈɣu̯oː]
ao TOP:ACT dog TOP:ACT DIST-CVB:LOC PROX-CVB:LOC:ACT.STAT/ACT.IND
Ao and the dog are over there
Specification
Prefixes such as mo- "up; forth", ne- "down; away" and go- "around" can be used to specify location, with the translative stem of the locative verb providing a sense of motion.
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Use with converbs
Converbial location is generic and locative verbs can be used to specify the meaning.
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Pragmatics and conventions
Modality
Wants, needs, desires and possibilities are often just expressed through morphological means in Ash, such as optatives, potentials and interrogatives.
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Domestic vocabulary
The verb soo carries many meanings related to the home. An important part of its usage is the focus on the host rather than the guest when describing a visit.
- ao go ahbada esdsoes
[ˈʔɑːʊ̯‿ɣo̞ ˈʔɑħ.pɐ.ðɐ jɪɕˈȶ͡ɕʊːɪ̯ɕ]
ao TOP:ACT appa-CVB:LOC PROX-INV-LOC:DOM.STAT/ACT.OPT-CONJ
I'm on my way to visit Ao in Appa
Nonetheless it refers to the referent's own home when used intransitively.
- ahbada esoonas
[ˈʔɑħ.pɐ.ðɐ jɪˈz̠u̯oː.n̠ɐs̠]
appa-CVB:LOC PROX-LOC:DOM.TRANS.IND-CONJ
I've moved to Appa
Colour terms
While most descriptive attributes are expressed through stative verbs, colours are expressed through comparative converbs, likening the appearance of the referent to something else, such as mee "fire" → meyya "red; yellow; orange; brown" or ao "sea" → ayya "blue; green". These are combined with locative verbs.
- meyya bahba go
[ˈme̞j.jɐ ˈβɑħ.pɐ‿ɣʊ]
fire-CVB:SEMB dog TOP:ACT
a brown dog
The exceptions are brightness and darkness which are still expressed through stative verbs, which can also be combined with the comparative converb to specify the hue.
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