Balog

Balog [ˈbɐɫɔɡ̚] is the main language of the Balog people of Ub as well as the most widely used lingua franca on that planet.

Phonology

Consonants

Manner	Phonation	Bilabial	Dentolabial Labiodental	Dental/Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	voiced	/m/ 1,2 ‹m›		/n/ 2,3 ‹n›			/ŋ/ 2 ‹ŋ / ng›
Plosive	voiced	/b/ 4 ‹b›		/d/ 3,4 ‹d›			/ɡ/ 4 ‹g›
	voiceless	/p/ 5 ‹p›		/t/ 3,5 ‹t›			/k/ 5 ‹k›		/ʔ/ ‹q›
	ejective			/tʼ/ 3,6 ‹tq›			/kʼ/ 6 ‹kq›
Affricate	voiced			/d͡z/ 7 ‹dz›	/d͡ʒ/ 7 ‹dž / dzh›
	voiceless			/t͡s/ 7 ‹ts›	/t͡ʃ/ 7 ‹tš / tsh›
	ejective			/t͡sʼ/ 6,7 ‹tsq›	/t͡ʃʼ/ 6,7 ‹tšq / tshq›
Fricative	voiced	/v/ 8 ‹v›		/z/ ‹z›	/ʒ/ ‹ž / zh›		/ɣ/ 9 ‹ğ / gh›
	voiceless	/f/ 8 ‹f›		/s/ ‹s›	/ʃ/ ‹š / sh›		/x/ 9 ‹x›
Trill / Flap	voiced			/r/ 10 ‹r›
Lateral	voiced			/l/ 3,11 ‹l›
Semivowel	voiced					/j/ ‹y›	/w/ 12 ‹w›

1. /m/ assimilates to the articulation of a following /v/ or /f/, being pronounced bilabially [m] by speakers with bilabial pronunciations of /v/ and /f/ ([β] and [ɸ]), dentolabially [ɱ͆] by speakers with dentolabial pronunciations of /v/ and /f/ ([v͆] and [f͆]) and labiodentally by speakers with labiodental pronunciation of /v/ and /f/ ([v] and [f])
2. Nasal consonants may be pronounced syllabically when not adjacent to a vowel. Their syllabic pronunciations are always short and unstressed.
3. The alveolar/dental consonants /n d t tʼ l/ are pronounced with dental articulation by some speakers and alveolar articulation by others. This varies chiefly by region and/or native language.
4. The voiced plosives /b d g/ are frequently pronounced as implosives post pausa: [ɓ ɗ~ɗ̪ ɠ]
5. The voiceless plosives /p t k/ are generally unaspirated although aspirated pronunciations may be found, especially by L2 speakers: [pʰ tʰ~t̪ʰ kʰ]. The glottal plosive /ʔ/ is never aspirated.
6. The ejective consonants /pʼ tʼ kʼ t͡sʼ t͡ʃʼ/ are frequently pronounced irregularly by L2 speakers who lack ejective consonants in their native languages. As there are many minimal pairs that can result in dangerous misunderstandings if the ejective consonants are not pronounced, many L2 speakers who are unable to pronounce the ejectives substitute them with sequences of a plain plosive or affricate, a weakly articulated schwa and then a glottal stop: [pə͉ʔ tə͉ʔ kə͉ʔ t͡sə͉ʔ t͡ʃə͉ʔ].
7. The affricates are not distinguished phonetically from equivalent sequences of plosive and fricative that come together by compounding processes or even across word boundaries. They are ascribed phonemic status due to their phonotactic patterning.
8. The majority of Balog pronounce the fricatives /v/ and /f/ dentolabially: [v͆] and [f͆]. Due to anatomical differences, the majority of non-Balog pronounce these labiodentally as [v] and [f]. Speakers of certain regions, both Balog and non-Balog, may pronounce them bilabially as [β] and [ɸ].
9. The fricatives /ɣ/ and /x/ may be pronounced either at the velum as [ɣ] and [x], or at the uvula as [ʁ] and [χ]. Speakers with uvular pronunciations of /ɣ/ may frequently pronounce it as a trill [ʀ].
10. The consonant /r/ is generally pronounced as a tap or flap [ɾ] with trilled pronunciations generally restricted to emphatic speech. When geminate, the pronunciation is always as a trill.
11. The lateral /l/ may be, as discussed in point 3., either be dental or alveolar, however there is always a strong velar or pharyngeal coarticulation: [ɫ~ɫ̪]
12. The semivowel /w/ is generally pronounced unrounded by Balog speakers due to anatomical differences. It is, however, pronounced with lip compression that results in a similar auditory effect: [w͍]. Non-Balog who speak it as an L2 may pronounce it with rounding: [w].

Vowels

Header text	Front	Back
High	/i/ [ɪ] ‹i›	/u/ [ʊ͍] ‹u›
Mid	/e/ [ɛ] ‹e›	/o/ [ɔ͍] ‹o›
Low	/æ/ [æ] ‹ä›	/a/ [ɐ] ‹a›

Morphology

Bases

Bases are the equivalent of verb, nouns, adjectives and pronouns in other languages. It is impossible to assign bases to separate discrete classes of nouns, verbs etc. using syntax or morphology alone. With few exceptions, each base exhibits complete bidirectional subject-predicate flexibility, meaning they can be used in predicates ("verbally") or in subjects ("nominally") without any irregular changes in form or meaning.

This situation can distinguished from the extensive zero-derivation, such as that employed by English, whereby verbs and nouns can, with a fair degree of flexibility, change category. Zero derivation results in identical verbs and nouns whose meanings relate to one another in somewhat unpredictable ways. For instance, although, by definition, a spy spies and a stray strays, it cannot be said that, by definition, a fish fishes or burger burgers. A tree grows, but there is nothing called a grow that can be said to tree. The verbal and nominal meanings formed by zero-derivation must therefore be regarded as separate (although related) lexical entities in their own right.

By contrast, the meaning of Balog bases does not change depending on their syntactic position within a clause. Each base may be given a nominal or a verbal translation into English, but the relationship between them is consistent. If given a nominal translation, the verbal translation is simply "be [noun]". If given a verbal translation, the nominal translation is simply the agent noun of it or, more specifically, "entity that [verb]s", "one who [verbs]", "that which [verbs]", "those that [verb]" etc.

Base	Verbal Translation	Nominal Translation
dauz	be a tree	tree
ŋaž	be tall	tall one
magaz	fall over	one that falls over
dek	die without obvious cause	one that dies without obvious cause
vaŋ	hunt; be a hunter	one who hunts; hunter

It could be argued that a non-syntactic distinction could be made on the basis of semantics. For example, it could be argued that the base magaz (fall over) is intrinsically "verb-like" as it describes "an action/state", whereas the base dauz (be a tree) is intrinsically "noun-like" because it describes "an entity". This semantic approach to the creation of additional categories that are not supported by syntactic analysis will, however, inevitably cause disagreements as semantic categories have fuzzy edges. A word such as lisim could equally well regarded as a noun meaning "(an) annoyance" or "nuisance" or as a verb meaning "annoy" or "bother". The question as to whether lisim refers to an entity or to an action/state can be answered with "Both!" Lisim refers to the action and the agent of that action. Likewise, the base vaŋ could be argued to be a verb meaning hunt (an action) or a noun meaning "hunter" (an entity or that performs the action). Even in more apparently clear-cut cases, although the base magaz "fall over", which is "clearly" an action is most conveniently translated into English as a verb, it also describes an entity that falls over (a "faller-over"). Likewise, the base dauz describes an entity, a "tree", it also describes the action/state of being a tree.

In many cases, the difference between what would frequently be regarded as nominal or verbal meaning depends on the the intrinsic temporal aspect or Aktionsart of the word's definition. Words describing relatively long-lasting and static attributes of an entity, such as dauz "be a tree" or ŋaž "be tall" are less likely to be thought of as semantically "verb-like" and therefore frequently use "be" to achieve verbal translations in English; dynamic states or actions involving movement or change, especially transient or momentane descriptions of an entity that the entity may quickly pass through, are more likely to be regarded as intrinsically "verb like" and may have awkward, clunky nominal translations into English involving relative clauses headed by "entity that", "one who" or "that which".

The following table illustrates the temporal duration of varying attributes of what may be regarded as a single entity, a tree.

           Verbal               
Balog:     Translation:       Time:-----------------------------------------------------------------------> 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________       
ŋurad     | germinate:       | X
biyad     | grow:            | XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
zemalik   | be seedling:     |  XXXXXXXXXXxxx
dauzit    | be sapling:      |         xxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxx
dauz      | be tree:         | xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ŋaž       | be tall:         |                             xxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
näh       | photosynthesise: |  X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X  
zambilif  | flower:          |                    XX    XX    XX   XX   XXX  XXX XX
magaz     | fall down:       |                                                         X
dišif     | rot:             |                                                       xxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXxxxxx

Semantic Particles and Prefixes

Semantic particles and prefixes modify bases to give them new shades of meaning. For example, particles indicating tense and aspect optionally stand before a base and give temporal information about the base. These are not restricted to use with semantically verb-like bases, nor are they restricted to

In the following example, the imperfective particle hi indicates that the action of dying is not spoken about as a completed whole, but, rather, an action seen from the middle, thus "is dying" (or according to context, "was dying" etc.). The past tense particle do appears before garag '(be) neighbour' to indicate 'one who was a neighbour', thus 'former neighbour'.

Hi zowak aqaddo garag wenniiž.
[hɪ ˈzɔ͍w͍ɐk ɐʔɐdːɔ͍ ˈɡɐɾɐɡ wɛnːiːʒ]
hi	zowak	aqa(ː)-	do	garag	we(ː)-	ni(ː)-	ž
IPFV	die.of.protracted.illness	SPEC(B)-	PST	neighbour	ESS-	GEN-	1S
"A former neighbour of mine is dying (of a protracted illness)."

Syntactic Clitics

Subject Markers

Subject markers appear at the beginning of every phrase denoting a grammatical subject. They indicate not only that the following base phrase is the subject of the preceding predicate but also convey information about definiteness (whether the addressee is expected to know which exact entity), specificity (whether the speaker knows which exact entity) and an inflectional dimension integral to Balog called status.

Subject Markers

Status (Gloss)		Definite Specific (DEF)	Indefinite Specific (SPEC)	Indefinite Non-Specific (NSPC)
Entities
"Powerful"	(A)	u-	uqu-	uhu-
"Dominant"	(B)	a-	aqa-	aha-
"Intermediate"	(C)	o-	oqo-	oho-
"Subordinate"	(D)	e-	eqe-	ehe-
"Powerless"	(E)	i-	iqi-	ihi-
Propositions
Propositional	(P)	ä-	äqä-	ähä-

Status

All referents are assigned a status any time they are appear as the subject of a clause. Status is not a permanent attribute of a referent but rather a context-dependent assignment within a discourse that depends on the speaker's perceived and expressed relations between the referent and other referents. When a single referent is mentioned, the status used depends only on the speaker's perception of the referent, however when there are two or more referents, statuses may be assigned that would otherwise not be used in order to differentiate between multiple referents within a discourse and rank them relative to one another.

A useful way to conceptualise the typical assignment of status is to use the question "Who would win in a physical fight?" as the deciding metric. Physically larger, stronger and more active referents are assigned a higher status than smaller, weaker referents. The highest status, A, the "powerful" status, indicated with the vowel u, is an exception, dependent not only physical strength but rather social, financial or political power. A referent marked with u is not necessarily physically dominant over other referents, but a conflict with an individual could lead to more significant consequences for referents of lower status than the physical prowess of the A-statused referent alone would afford them. "Weighty" abstract concepts may sometimes be referred to with the A-status when there is no person in the discourse assigned to this status.

Syntax

One of the most unusual features of Balog is its complete lack of grammatical objects. Every verb is monovalent (intransitive), meaning it can refer to only one noun at a time. For this reason, it is essentially impossible to describe the morphosyntactic alignment of Balog. It can, however, be noted that there is a preponderance of unaccusative verbs to describe actions, with semantic agents generally appearing in clauses containing

Complementiser

The propositional subject markers ä-, äqä- and ähä- function as a complementiser akin to "that", attaching to the beginning of the predicate of a clause and marking it as the subject of the matrix clause. Ä- and ähä- are frequently used with the former referring to definite facts and events and the latter referring to the generalised idea. The following examples should elucidate the difference.

M'oož nam ämmelets eel.
[ˈmɔ͍ːʒ ˈnɐm æmˈmɛɫɛt͡s ɛːɫ]
m	o(ː)-	ž	nam	ä(ː)-	melets	e(ː)-	l
feel.emotionally	DEF(C)-	1S	appeal	DEF(P)-	be.happy	DEF(D)-	2S
"I'm glad you're happy." "I like that you're happy."

M'oož nam ähämmelets eel.
[ˈmɔ͍ːʒ ˈnɐm æhæmˈmɛɫɛt͡s ɛːɫ]
m	o(ː)-	ž	nam	ähä(ː)-	melets	e(ː)-	l
feel.emotionally	DEF(C)-	1S	appeal	NSPC(P)-	be.happy	DEF(D)-	2S
"I like the idea of you being happy."