Lántun
The Lántun language is a part of a macrofamily of languages generally called Aiwanic, although it is not spoken by a humanoid race. They are characterised by polysynthetic morphology, pitch accent and lack of true labial consonants and vowels.
The Lánunic languages are a contiguous dialectal block, with the exception of some small obscure dialects spoken at the fringes of the known world. The terms “Lántun” and “Lánunic” are often used interchangeably by linguists studying this language, but the former is more typically used to mean the central standardised dialect, while the latter refers to the language continuum as a whole. The name Lántun is the endonym of the language, meaning “a collective of words”. The beings themselves do not have self-designations (autonyms) in their language yet they are called “the Draconids” or “Dragons” in English; they do however frequently have specific names for local groups and their dialects, as the local group was more important culturally than larger relations for this species.
From a synchronic perspective, the Lánunic languages are considered to be dead, as they were spoken during the Second Era of the Universe (while this Era is the Fourth), so there are no any living speakers left. Yet, the language represented a very distant ancestor to all Aiwanic and possibly even some other languages. There is no evidence that would support any relation to the languages of the Fourth Era planet Earth (the Kyrdan languages are confirmed to be Aiwanic, though).
Salishan languages are most commonly represented using the Latin alphabet in a phonetic notation that accounts for the various vowels and consonants that do not exist in Latin or English, while some letters have a different designated sound than expected. Many Dragon groups evolved various writing systems for their language, and while technically Lántun is viewed as “standard” in this article, there was no single standard variety of Lánunic.
External history
Lántun (pronounced [ˈɺɑn˥.t̪ɯn꜉]) is a language created by Raistas in 2012. Since that time the language underwent many significant revisions and reworks changing drastically in the process. It is an attempt to create an alien protolanguage for the Aiwanic (“Heaven”) language macrofamily. Its distinctive feature is the lack of a separate noun category, as all nouns can be interpreted as stative verbs. In Lántun, relationships between the noun phrases making up the sentence are expressed by either stative or eventive verbs. However, the semantic content found in verbs, can also be found in Lántun's sentence-final particles, which are not conjugated themselves, yet can be used as copulas or factual markers. Despite its complex verbal morphology, Lántun is an expressive and intelligible language even though it is not meant to be spoken by humans.
Phonology
Since the Draconid vocal tract has a different composition and structure, than the human one, the phonology of Lántun is thus constrained and defined by this structure, such a lack of true lips and nose. Still, a Dragon may have been able to pronounce most sounds that would somewhat correspond to the modern IPA system, even though the medium through which the sound propagated, was not air but instead plasma, so the actual values of the sounds represented in the article are very different from these approximations.
Vowels
Lántun has the seven monophthongs, which are distinguished by their height and backness. Vowel length is a distinctive feature, which doubles the total amount of vowel phonemes. Some dialects also use a central short monophthong [ə], which is called a neutralised vowel in environments, where vowel reduction occurs. In Lántun itself vowel reduction evolved into syncopation instead.
| Short | Long | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Centralised | Back | Front | Centralised | Back | |
| Close | i [i] | y [ɪ] | u [ɯ] | ī [iː] | ȳ [ɪː] | ū [ɯː] |
| Mid | e [e̞] | ø [ɘ̞] | o [o̞] | ē [e̞ː] | ø̄ [ɘ̞ː] | ō [o̞ː] |
| Open | a [a~ɑ] | ā [ɑː] | ||||
Although there are several diphothongs, such as ei [eɪ] or au [ɑʊ], they are not considered to be separate phonemes, since they typically occur in morphologically predicted environments. The resonant [r] can function as a syllabic core, although word-initially it is often devoiced – ŕti [ˈr̩˥.t̪i꜉] “it appears” or “it seems”, but rthe [r̥t̪ʰe̞˧] or [r̥ə.ˈt̪ʰe̞˧] “the time has come”.
Consonants
Látun does not distinguish plosives from fricatives, existing fricatives are analysed as aspirated plosives and likely originated from them. There is no labial series, instead a similar-sounding series is called "frontal", and the nasal consonant category is substituted with a similar "postmaxillar" place of articulation (which is basically a cleft palate leading to a closed cavity right under the brain).
| Frontal | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Laryngeal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Postmaxillar | m [ɱ] | n [n̪] | ŋ [ŋ] | ||||
| Plosive– Fricative |
tenuis | t [t̪] | c [t̺͡s̺] | k [k] | |||
| aspirated | f [ɱ̥] | th [t̪ʰ] | s [s̺ʰ] | kh [kʰ] | ḥ [ħ] | ||
| Approximant | v [ʋ] | d [ð̞] | l [ɺ] | j [j] | g [ʟ] | h [ɦ] | |
| Trill | r [r~r̥[note 1]] | ||||||
- ^ [r̥] is an allophone of /r/ near voiceless consonants and before h, which usually becomes silent in that position – [r̥(h)].
In addition, most consonants, except approximants and the trill, can be geminated, for instance, nn /n:/, kk /k:/ Fricatives may sometimes become affricates in this position, such as ss being pronounced [t̺͡s̺ʰː], in this instance the aspiration is lengthened instead of the onset, unlike tenuis geminates.
Syllable structure
The most typical syllable structure is CV and CVC (where C is any consonant, and V is any vowel). However, ecause of the vowel syncope, consonant clusters can occur within a syllable, such as in the word sve [s̺ʋe̞꜊] “to exist”. In dialects [ə] may usually break these clusters – [s̺ə.ʋe̞꜊].
The main root syllable is generally recognised as being monosyllabic of the form (C)VC. Disyllabic roots, although common, are derived from monosyllabic with augment formatives, or simply augments. They act as suffixes and typically have the form -VC. This, in turn, may be followed by additional secondary augments that often merge together via the process of syncope. Thus, it is convenient to analyse Lántun roots through a general formula – 01C112V112C2, with the form mCn, in which m is the "strength" of a consonant (m=0 being [∅], m=1 being a consonant with no tone and m=2 being a consonant with tone. For vowels m=1 indicates that a vowel is short and m=2 indicates a long vowel); and n is a position of a sound in the root. However, due to various phonological processes that occur in the root, only three simple root patterns are allowed (with the additional fourth pattern arising from augmentation, e.g. adding an augment to a root). The three patterns are:
| Simple | Augmented | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| initial | final | ||||
| Type 1 | 0,1C11V11C2 | Type A1i | 0,1V-10,2C11V11C2 | Type A1f | 0,1C12V10C20V21C3 |
| Type 2 | 0,1C12V11C2 | Type A2i | 0,1V-10,2C12V11C2 | Type A2f | 0,1C11V11C21,2V21,0C3 |
| Type 3 | 0,1C11V12C2 | Type A3i | 1V-10,2C11V12C2 | Type A3f | 0,1C12V10,2C20,1V22C3 |
Neither prefixes nor suffixes follow these patterns, suggesting that they is a more recent layer of morphology, which contrast with more ancient root alternations. The table shows that some root patterns may look identical on the surface, despite belonging to different types: tōme “it is spacious” and tōne “era, long time” both seem to be Type 2, but the latter is actually Type A11. The former has a simple root √TŌM, while the latter has an augmented root √TOG+N.
Prosody
There is no agreed number of prosodic variables in Lántun. Various elements, such as intonation and stress position, may reflect features of the speaker or the utterance: their emotional state; the form of utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus. For this function a wide range of pitch is used, while at other times a narrow range is needed (such as in formal situations). Látun makes use of changes in key; shifting one's intonation into the higher or lower part of one's pitch range is meaningful in certain contexts. Stress is not phonemic in Látun, long and/or accented vowels usually receive stress. Polysyllabic words often have a secondary stress, which is also not phonemic.
Látun is a pitch-accent language, meaning that the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch (or tone) and vowel length, rather than by loudness, as in stressed languages. Some words are “accentless”, they instead receive a neutral pitch, which assimilates to the pitch of the neighbouring words. Short vowels can have one of the two marked pitches (or three if considering the neutral pitch as distinct): high (há [ɦɑ˥]) and low (hà [ɦɑ˩]). The accent on a long vowel or diphthong could be on either half of the vowel, making a contrast possible between a rising accent (hǎ [ɦɑː˧˥]) and a falling one (hâ [ɦɑː˧˩]); compare itaî [i꜊.täɪ˧˩] “at home” vs. itǎi [i꜊.täɪ˧˥] “homes”. Other vowels are considered unaccented, yet they actually receive the tone of the preceding accented syllables.
Phonotactics
The consonants g, ŋ and ḥ centralise the preceding front vowels, so that *iŋ, for example, would become yŋ [ɪŋ]. Two vowels in hiatus often form diphthongs, when in word stems, but otherwise the preceeding vowel becomes elided by the following one: néŋi “we (incl.) see him” becomes néŋū “we (incl.) see them”, where -i (inclusive marker) is elided by by -ū (3rd plural marker). In this example the morpheme is not deleted, it instead becomes its zero allomorph, which happens quite frequently. The phoneme /s/ becomes [r̥] after a voiceless consonant, the preceeding consonant then becomes aspirated.
Morphology
Lántun is a polysynthetic language, meaning words have a root verb basis to which information is added; that is, morphemes (affixes) are added to verb roots. These words may contain subjects, objects, indirect objects, possession and location. Thus, surprisingly complex ideas can be communicated with as little as one word, for example:
No·feimilt·alómkîssalus el nok-feimil-t-ida-lóm-ki-á-ys-ḥa-l-us e-l IO.Pl-entertain-ABST-TRNS-good-very-REPRT-but-always-IRR-3Ag.DIST be-IRR “However, they will say that he is a great entertainer anyway”.
Nouns are simpler in their structure, than verbs, as most information is included as part of the verb. Lántun also does not distinguish between genders, considering that Dragons also lack biological sex/gender. Sentence structure is quite fluid, with words being organised according to importance or novelty. Often the main verb is placed initially.
The surface morphology of Lántun is typically agglutinative in structure, as can be seen from the example above. Not only are the morphemes strung together, but the grammatical morphemes are usually at least a syllable in length, although morphemes of a single consonant exist. Those that do exist are often archaic and take part in various alternations, such as elision or syncope. Normally, its morphology falls into the general pattern of initial+stem+medial+ending where the stem itself consists of root+augments. The root itself is fairly simple, being divided into three simple and six augmented types; the endings tend to be quite transparent in use as well. The augments and medials (or simply the stem suffixes) tend to be complex and often ambiguous and it is also where zero and portmanteaux morphemes become common. As a result, old morphology tends to pile up immediately after the root, often being erroded by a more recent morphology. Some morphological augments became empty morphemes, and these are often elided completely being replaced by new morphemes with the same meaning. This indicates, that Lántun is an ancient language with a long history and thus can not be the original first language, even though it is very likely the closest to Proto-Aiwanic as one can possibly get.
Augments
The augment formative is a prefix or (more typically) a suffix, added to the base root in order to derive new roots from the existing ones. There are several types of formatives, most of which have a broad semantic function. Often their initial meaning becomes obsolete and they become fully fused to the base root through the process of syncopation. This is why many words with seemingly different meaning have a common base root.
| Formative | Variation | Meaning | Initial | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ar | -r | active participant | i- | plural of objects |
| -t | abstract, collective | á- | dual, pair of objects, places | |
| -il | sensation, feeling | u- | distant, out of | |
| -am | neuter formative (object) | ō- | manner | |
| -ìj | -ì | locative (in, at, from) | u-y- | negative, not |
| -ǎ | -ìja | direction (towards, through or away) | ∅-n- | begin (inchoative) |
| -elan | -elam | location (temporal or spatial) | ∅-s- | change, turn into (translative) |
| -i | -aj | relational | í- | instance, small size |
| -un | -u | process, event, phenomenon | ∅-k- | big part |
| -il | -i-ivlis | part of the whole | ∅-h- | opposition, cycle |
| -u-mai | -u-mi | quality, the state of being | ||
| -iv | -iju | adverbial, abstract | ||
| -it | -ita | singulative, instance | ||
| -āt | -āl | concrete noun, item | ||
| -ad | above, towards | |||
| -ed | away, below | |||
| -um | under | |||
| -as | -is, -us | group, process, kind | ||
| -ul | -in, -il | from, towards, through | ||
It is also opportune to clarify, that the morphology of Lántun is templatic. The template or slot is a functional position in an affixal string of morphemes; each position can be occupied by a definable set of morphemes. This term is the most useful referring to verbal morhology. The function of a given template is determined by how proto-morphemes have come to be re-analysed and ordered in the language, thus semantically related morhemes tend to occupy the same positions, and the morphemes sharing a given position define the function of that position. However, it would be quite facile to argue that reconstruction on such a large scale can be accurately made, using the method of internal reconstruction of some kind of Proto-Lánunic can be misleading, as later Lánunic dialects show a great variability of forms and positions indicating gradual and complex morphophonological shifts.
Colour markers
The category of internal state idicates a person’s identity (e.g. various aspects or attributes of their appeaeance and personality), translated into English as colour markers. There is no direct correspondence to this category in human laguages, gendered pronouns is likely the closest analogy, yet a misleading one, since draconids are neither male nor female. The colour is carried by the grammatical person markers (only in their singular forms). There are seven traditionally recognised “colours”: red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet and white, the latter also being referred to as neutral. Sometimes black is viewed as a separate colour, but it is not used to indicate a person. Every colour has their own stereotypical attributes, and thus a colour marker can reveal a lot of information about the speaker that uses a given marker or a person referred via such a marker.
| Colour | Attribute | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Red | order, energy, passion | Indicates someone, who is strong and grounded in reality, not particularly emotional. |
| Yellow | enthusiasm, friendliness, gentleness | Can sometimes indicate immaturity. Otherwise refers to a social, extraverted, or optimistic person. |
| Green | exploration, intelligence, stubborness | Refers to someone, who values intelligence and knowledge over emotions. May indicate social awkwardness. In dragon culture it is a colour of science and logic. |
| Cyan | impulsivity, change, rigor | Like yellow, it may indicate a carefree person, but usually refers to someone who is serious, yet impulsive and emotional. |
| Blue | stability, wit, serenity | Most often used among introverts. Indicates a more open person, that red, yet still quite strong and independent. |
| Violet | eccentricity, creativity | Used by someone who feels different. Can indicate a tendency towards change, similarly to cyan. Often indicates odd beliefs and thinking. |
| White | balance, humility, defiance | Typically used when the colour is unknown, or when a speaker does not want to specify their colour. Otherwise, indicates a person, who does not conform to traditional norms, similarly to violet (both fairly open to interpretation). |
| Black* | inanimate | Used to refer to a person that is not alive. Using with first person is impossible. Can be used to refer to artificial intelligence (e.g. robots). |
Nouns
The nominal morphology of Lántun is relatively simple, when compared to the verbal morphology of this language. Lántun exhibits predicate/argument flexibility, which means that all content words are able to occur as the head of the sentence. Words with noun-like meanings are equivalent to nouns, and words with more verb-like meanings are equivalent to verbs, usually regardless of their function. For example, the verb el·a can mean “to go”, “the process of going” and “one that goes” depending on the context and thus be interpreted as a noun in some instances and a verb in other. Likewise, noun-like words can indicate tense or mood, which is more typical for (yet not entirely exclusive to) verbs, for example: kil·tǎi·na “this was our (excl.) house”. The category unique to nouns is number. Although Lántun verbs can potentially receive number markers as well, in those cases the markers typically have a distributive or intensive meaning, while number is instead indicated with person markers. Number in nouns is indicated by augmenting the root, for instance the stem -tǎi- is A3f-type and its plural form is -itǎi-, which is A1i-type, while its dual form is -tajô- — A2f-type. The types, to which these augmented forms belong, are usually predictable (A2f or A3f for dual, and A1i or A2i for plural), the same is true for the verbal stems and their augmentation. However, many stems do not change, and their number is instead indicated with a suffix, mostly in a case, when a word is a concrete noun (e.g. an item, or a person) — ill·a “(this is) a draconid (sing.)”, ill·à “(these are) two draconids (dual)”, ill·au “draconids (plur.)”, all three stems belong to the A1f type.
Verbs
The Lántun verb is characterised by a system of complex pronominal conjugation, in which paradigmatic stem alternations are found. Some personal endings consist of portmanteaux morphemes expressing notions, such as tense, agent, patient and clusivity. Depending on the number of verbal stems and their position in the verbal paradigm, every Lántun verb belongs to one of two main conjugation types. Compound verbs are found in Lántun, in fact, most verb stems are not derived from single roots. These compound verbs consist of a verb stem and an auxiliary that adds semantic notions to the main verb.
The Lántun verb can be sectioned into several components: the “inner” part, consisting of a verb stem, and an “outer part”, which includes both suffixes and prefixes. A given verb does not have an affix for every position and the individual positions depend on the conjugation type.
prefixes stem suffixes
The suffixing conjugation has the following templates:
| prefixes | stem | suffixes | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| p2 | p1 | 0 | s1 | s2 | s3 | s4 | s5 | s6 | s7 | s8 | s9 | s10 | s11 | s12 |
| locative object |
indirect object |
stem | reflexive | tense | 2Ag 1→2 |
1du.2du | 1→3 | 3pl | mood | 3du.Ag 1→2pl 2pl.Ag |
2du.Pat 1du.Pat |
incl. excl. |
3sg.Ag | focus 3.Pat |
The prefixing conjugation has the following templates:
| prefixes | stem | suffixes | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| p10 | p9 | p8 | p7 | p6 | p5 | p4 | p3 | p2 | p1 | 0 | s1 | s2 | s3 |
| locative object |
indirect object |
3sg.Ag 3du.Ag |
1→2pl 2pl.Ag 2du.Pat 1du.Pat |
incl. excl. |
3pl | 1→3 | 1du.2du | 2Ag 1→2 |
reflexive | stem | tense | mood | focus 3.Pat |
Locative prefixes
The locative prefixes indicate a location or motion, they precede indirect object prefixes and can only occur word-initially. There are several locative prefixes indicating different grammatical person (there are no additional distinctions in first or third person, as there are in other personal affixes):
| Singular | Dual | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | inclusive | ti- | tik- | tin- |
| exclusive | tíhk- | tíh- | ||
| 2nd person | si- | sik- | sin- | |
| 3rd person | i- | ik- | in- | |
Example: ǐh·alna kamì “I went outside” (lit.: “into it I went, which is outside”.
Indirect object prefixes
The indirect object is expressed with prefixes, which can be used with both verb types, just as the locative prefixes. When used with nouns the indirect object prefixes are called possessive instead. There are several indirect object markers indicating not only person, but also proximity and a category, usually called internal state. There are seven states, six “coloured” and one neutral or “white”. 3 person also has animacy distinction,
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| red | yellow | green | cyan | blue | violet | white | inclusive | exclusive | inclusive | exclusive | |
| 1st person | ra- | ja- | ŋa- | ni- | si- | nu- | na- | ho- | hos- | nil- | kil- |
| 2nd person | rhi- | ji- | ā- | vi- | su- | ku- | ka- | kø- | vi- | ||
| 3rd person | he- | ga- | va- | je- | ḥi- | ho- | ha- | no- | nok- | ||
| 3rd inanimate | ne- | ||||||||||
Example: navas·tadda “he (green) gave it to me (white)”.
The category of handedness is often expressed as a separate marker, which can be used with singular possessive markers, which defines a person’s dominant side. Unlike in humans, handedness is an important aspect that define various abilities, in particular their ability to interact via the electroweak force, and compatibility with other dragons. Left-handed dragons use -l(V), while right-handed use -d(V) (where V is an echo vowel that breaks impossible clusters), for example: nada·tǎja “it is my house (neutral right-handed speaker)”. This marker is optional and is often omitted in formal speech.
Evidentiality
Evidentiality indicates the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, what kind of evidence exists for a statement or event. This evidence can be divided into several categories, based on their credibility and relevance to the speaker:
| Category | Suffix | Meaning | Example | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Witnessed | -∅- | Information was obtained directly by the speaker. | halna | “He went” (I witnessed it) |
| Reportative | -á- | Information was provided to the speaker by another person. | halána | “He went, they say” (I heard it) |
| Inferential | -(a)ḥa- | Information was infered, being general knowledge, assumption, or past experience. | halḥana | “He went, obviously” (I assumed it) |
| Dubitative | -(ì)d- | Information is uncertain or dubious. | halìnna | “He must have went” (I guessed it, but I’m not sure) |
Conjugation types
The most basic opposition among Lántun verbs is a distinction between eventive verbs and stative verbs. The eventive class contains true dymanic or action verbs often involving agentivity on the part of the subject, while the stative class indicated that the subject of the verb was either the patient or experiencer of its verb. The eventive verbs belong to the prefix-conjugation pattern, while the stative — to the suffix-conjugation pattern. The same stem can be conjugated in both ways, the resulting conjugated verbs would differ in meaning. The individual morphemes represent a more recent morphology and thus are not incorporated into the stem. Both conjugation patterns have specific order of morphemes and assimilation processes among those morphemes.
s3-slot
The position s3 describes the relationship between the subject, which is the first person and the direct object, which is the second person, in case if a verb is transitive; and the second person subject, if a verb is intransitive.
In the tables below all possible transitive verb morphemes belonging to the s3-slot are represented with subject being on the vertical axis and object being on the horizontal axis. The forms also have two sets: one for preterit and one of every other tense.
| Non-preterit | red | yellow | green | cyan | blue | violet | white |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| red | -rām | -ŋām | -nām | -nīm | -jēm | -jūm | -jām |
| yellow | -rāg | -ŋāŋ | -nāg | -nø̄g | -jø̄g | -jōg | -jāg |
| green | -rǎn | -ŋǎŋ | -nǎn | -nǐn | -jěn | -jǔn | -jǎn |
| cyan | -rū | -ŋū | -nū | -nī | -jī | -jū | -jā |
| blue | -rōḥ | -ŋōḥ | -nōḥ | -nø̄ḥ | -jø̄ḥ | -jōḥ | -jāḥ |
| violet | -rākh | -ŋākh | -nākh | -nīkh | -jēkh | -jūkh | -jākh |
| white | -rā | -ŋā | -nā | -nī | -jē | -jū | -jā |
| Preterit | red | yellow | green | cyan | blue | violet | white |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| red | -rtām | -ccǎm | -ncam | -ncīm | -cēm | -thūm | -cām |
| yellow | -rtāg | -ŋkǎŋ | -ncag | -ncø̄g | -cø̄g | -thōg | -cāg |
| green | -rtǎn | -ccǎŋ | -ncǎn | -ncǐn | -cěn | -thǔn | -cǎn |
| cyan | -rtū | -ŋkū | -ntū | -ncī | -cī | -thū | -cā |
| blue | -rtōḥ | -ŋkōḥ | -ntōḥ | -ncø̄ḥ | -cø̄ḥ | -thōḥ | -cāḥ |
| violet | -rtākh | -ccākh | -ncākh | -ncīkh | -cēkh | -thūkh | -cākh |
| white | -rtā | -ccā | -ncā | -ncī | -cē | -thū | -cā |