Corrádi

Introduction

It has long been assumed that Minhay had been settled during nomadic tribes during the Ice Ages, part of the general migrations that eventually peopled Siberia, the Americas, and Ainushir. Traditional accounts claim that three ethnic groups, the Golahats, the Peshpegs, and the Minhast came to Minhay at around the same time, but eventually the Minhast eventually dominated the island. During the mid 1950's, foreign archaeologists from the West were finally allowed to enter Minhay, and their preliminary excavations came up with puzzling results. The closest relatives of the Minhast are believed to be the Ainu of neighboring Kar-put-ya-Moshir (Sakhalin), Hokkay and Honesh-Pet (formerly known as Honshu before the partition of the Japanese Empire by the Kingdom of Koguryeo and the Ainu Federation). But the Ainu, or their putative ancestors, the Jōmon, are known to have occupied the region as early 14,500 BCE. The earliest artifacts found in Minhay that could be definitively attributed to the Minhast are flint arrows and iron swords dated as recent as 300 CE. Golahat and Peshpeg artifacts are far rarer, but the earliest of those artifacts date to circa 130 CE. This indicates that the Minhast, Golahats, and Peshpegs came much later, several millenia after the great Paleosiberian migrations that led to the peopling of northeast Siberia and the Americas.

So it was a groundbreaking discovery, and shock to many, when in the late 70's the Kūtan excavations in south-central Minhay uncovered artifacts from an unknown civilization that dated around 1500 BCE. These artifacts included bronze tools and weapons, glazed pottery, lifelike statues and figurines, and the remnants of large stone buildings suggestive of palaces or temples. Moreover, the remnants of several parchment scrolls written in an unknown script and language were found. Less than a decade later, in March 12, 1985, several scrolls, in the same script as the ones found in Kūtan, were discovered in an inconspicuous cave in Mt. Irraħma. Unlike the scrolls discovered in Kūtan, the ones found in Mt. Irraħma were dated as late as the 1700's. These scrolls were written in the same language as Kūtan , but also included transcripts in the Minhast script, along with a dictionary and grammar, providing the Rosetta Stone to the Corrádi language.

The texts mentioned a city called Vórina which lay 50km south of the capital, Aškuan. In fact, the author had written precise directions where to find the lost city. Archaeologists went to where the purported Vórina was located, in an extensive hardwood forest that reached the edge of Minhay's southern coast. A few days before the archaeologists arrived, lidar imagery was taken of the area and revealed several large mounds underneath the canopy. Excavations began, and soon a treasure trove of artifacts were unearthed. Pillars and the remnants of buildings were found bearing a script very similar to the Irraħma scrolls engraved into the stone. Another surprise: in the lower strata were sedimentary deposits clearly indicating the city at one time was on the coastline. It was in this same strata that there were indications that a major earthquake had struck the area, and a thin layer of what could only be marine sediment - which could have been deposited there by a tsunami. And one more disturbing discovery. Flint arrowheads and signs of fire damage abound in this layer. The flint arrowheads were the hattīya, bearing the same design used by the Horse Speakers of the Central Plateau.

The scrolls reveal that the Corrádi language is unrelated to any northeastern Asian language. Possible relationships with Austronesian and other southeast Asian languages have been conclusively ruled out. Other hypotheses have been presented, but none have succeeded in establishing a relationship with other language families. Therefore, Corrádi has been classified as a language isolate.

Toponyms

Even before the discovery of the Irraħma Manuscripts, various Corrádi words survived as toponyms in Ín Duári and Peshpeg. In certain cases, it is unknown whether some of the names were originally Corradi, or if they were adopted from Ín Duári or Peshpeg into the Corradi language. After the Wolf Speaker invasions, these toponyms were absorbed into their dialect , with some alteration to fit the dialect's phonology, replaced with a calque or translation of the Ín Duári or Peshpeg variant, or an outright replacement based on the topographical features of the location.

Corrádi Place Names

Corradi	Meaning	Ín Duári	Peshpeg	Minhast (Wolf Speaker Dialect)
Kanzorél	Fresh Water	Gaenðyl	Kenzor	Kuznur
Azator	Orchard	Azdor	Ezdür	Kaykarayumbāt ("A Great Stand of Trees")
Aeredon	Overlook	Aerðyn	Erdün	Siħy ("Advantageous view from a higher elevation for the purpose of attack")
Nemkil	Corner	Naengileð	Kotash ("Meeting Place")	Xunnaš ("Rough Ground")
Ketra	Split	Girédra	Ketra	Kirāt
Karhō	Crossroads	Karhon	Oyür ("Ridgeline")	Qarħaq ("Sinew, thread")
Nargoi	Rivers Bend	Nergoïs	Nargoy	Narrūy
Verhális	West Wind	Verhális	Okyur ("Windy")	Ukkūr
Anthō/Aenthō	Fortress	Aeyaţin	Ansha	Nināha
Kalrō	Skull	Gaelron	Kolrün	Qarrū
Íkava	Narrow River	Íkava	Yikve	Zeydek ("Little River")

Morphology

Interrogatives

Type	Form
Polar - Active	iiosi
Polar - Stative	ilia
Who	cuen cora
What/Which	cueìn
When	cuensa
Why	cuenat
How	cuelni
Where	cuerin
How many/how much	cuen talmi

Quantifiers

Quantifiers in Corrádi take two forms, a substantive form, and an attributive form. As substantives, they syntactically behave like nouns, capable of assuming agent, patient, and oblique roles. They do not take case marking, falling under the class of invariable nouns. The attributive form is etymologically derived from the construct case, although some irregularities, principally in the vowel preceding the -n component of the construct affix, appear (e.g. contorin vs. expected *contoron). An intrusive -d- appears in corodin "both", and míledin "each".

Quantifier	Substantive	Attributive
All	ae	aeian
Most	ayra	ayran
Some	cantor	cantorin
Many	bel	belin
Both	coron	corodin
Each	mili	míledin
Few	oroz	orozin
Another/Other	atra	atran

Determiners

Determiners perform several functions in Corrádi. Before NPs, they mark the subject argument of a copula before its complement.

Vara im reni tohar.
/'vara ɪm 'rɛni tohar/
var-a im reni tohar
be.NEG-1S DET woman bad
I am not an evil woman.

They nominalize clauses when placed immediately before the verb in the embedded clause:

Ancaza im ieronza im reni im valak.
/an'kaza ɪm 'jɛronza ɪm 'rɛni ɪm valak/
ancaz-a im iero-nza im reni im valak
know-1S DET steal.PST DET woman money
I know the woman who stole the money.

Demonstratives

Corrádi shows a three-way distinction in its demonstrative pronouns, namely a proximal, medio-distal, and distal opposition.

	Proximal		Medio-distal		Distal
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Direct	don	doien	zari		vana
Construct	doion		terien		taris	varien
Oblique	doies		tesa			vas

Nouns

Nouns are for the most part divided into two categories, based on whether the stem ends in a consonant or vowel. This affects the form of their case endings, as well as adjectives, which must agree with the case and number of their noun head.

Case and Number

Corrádi nouns fall under two classes, declinable and indeclinable. Declinable nouns form the majority of nouns. Indeclinable nouns tend to be mass and abstract nouns.

Among the declinable class, three basic noun cases and two numbers are observed. Number manifests a singular-plural distinction, although there is also a separate system for singulative forms for collective nouns marked with the suffixes -ina (for consonant-final nouns), and -iena (for vowel-final nouns), take plural marking. Irregular paradigms, which appear to derive from a gender-based system, do appear; nouns that follow these paradigms are unpredictable and their forms must be memorized.

The following table illustrates the regular case-number paradigm:

	Consonant-Final Stems		Vowel-Final Stems
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Direct	-∅	-ien	-∅	-n
Construct	-ion		-n
Oblique	-ios	-ies	-s

The declension of the consonant-final noun reihar "wall", and the vowel-final noun andra "sword", is illustrated below:

	Consonant-Final		Vowel-Final
	Sg	Pl	Sg	Pl
Direct	reihar	reiharien	andra	andran
Construct	reiharion		andran
Oblique	reiharios	reiharies	andras

The direct case is used for nouns in both agent and patient roles. The construct case principally marks the possessum of a possessive noun phrase, although certain prepositions that can be etymologically traced to body part and location nouns also require the construct case. The oblique case appears in nouns preceded by prepositions, although the oblique case also marks subjects of a closed set of verbs indicating cognition, emotion, and perception.

Indeclinable nouns make a number distinction only. Number marking can be either a singular-plural distinction, as in caris "idea", or a singulative-collective one, as in rena "grain".

	Consonant-Final	Vowel-Final
Default	caris (sg)	rena (collective)
Marked	carisa (pl)	renaia (singulative)

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

The personal pronouns are unmarked for gender and case, but do mark number with the prefix ai- accompanied with stem changes in all paradigms except the first person:

	Number
Person	Sg	Pl
1st	na	aina
2nd	ron	aire
3rd	hedi	aidi

Indefinite Pronouns

The indefinite pronouns mark for polarity, with positive forms null-marked, and negative forms marked with the affixes -ava-/-aví. Two cases are realised, direct and oblique, the latter consistently marked with the suffix -si.

	Direct	Oblique
everyone	oran	orasi
someone	nevra	nevrasi
no one	nevrataví	nevratavasí
everything	taila	tailasi
something	vórida	vorídasi
nothing	voridaví	voridavasí

Verbs

Types

Motion Verbs

Corrádi utilize verb framing to indicate directionality. Directionality is embedded within the semantics of the verb. For example the verb narin means "to go to/towards, to approach", whereas andrin means "to return":

Narina ron Érovin, levá temi Roìdon
narin-a ron érovin le-vá temi Roìdon
go.to.TRS-PRS 2S place_name.DIR find-CONJ there Roìdon.
Go down to Érovin, and you will find Roìdon there.

Andrina ron Érovin, alanti terzien ni rom zidrá.
andrin-a ron Érovin, alan-ti terz-ien ni rom zidrá.
return.from.TRS-PRS 2S place_name.DIR finish-PST business-CSTR CONN 2S.GEN CAUS
(Now) Return from Érovin, for you (will have?) finished your business.

Depending on the semantics of a motion verb, the argument structure of its clause may manifest either as transitive, or intransitive:

1) Transitive Marking

Maza ron dorati!
maz-a ron dora-ti
come-TRS-PRS 2S 1P.EXC
You come to us!

2) Intransitive Marking

Maia tirena ron!
mai-a tiren-a ron
come-PRS be.fast-PRS 2S
Come quickly!

Many motion verbs demonstrate a shared etymology, such as maza and maia, from an underlying ma- in the previous examples. However, arguments that the -z- and -i- segments denote the transitivity of the verb is not supported by the data, as several counterexamples occur, and segments other than a z/i opposition are also found in the Irraħma author's writings. Counter examples include the verbs ioris "to approach" and iosin "to walk away", containing a shared underlying root io-, and submorphemes -ris and -sin respectively, with no known shared etymology.

Conjugations

Present/Imperative: -a Past: -nz- Future: auxiliary mar + null-marked 3S verb

1S: -a (elided if followed by vowel-initial word) 2S: ron (independent pronoun, no affix form) 3S: null-marked, or followed by independent pronoun aya

1P: -asi/-as (second form used if followed by noun with initial i/e) 2P: piri/pir 3S: aida, neida (second form seems to be preferred when aya occurs in the same or preceding clause)

Indefinite Sg/Pl: nani, or null-marked if recoverable by previous discourse.

• • Note:** With the exception of 1S/1P affixes, pro-drop occurs frequently, and in fact is obligatory when an embedded clause is coreferential with the subject of the prior clause. Pivot is S/A.

Particles

Prepositions

Case Role	Preposition
Dative	mara
Benefactive	corí
Adversive	doran
Allative	modir
Ablative	ria
Commitative	senuai
Locative	anri

Miscellaneous

• yel "no, not"

Syntax

Constituent order

Corradi is a VSO language, although the position of the verb can vary, yielding SVO and SOV orders. The relative position of the subject to the object is stricter: the object may precede the subject only if topicalized by the particle na. Possessums precede their possessor, and whilst adjectives follow their noun heads.

Example texts

Doranz Amzig Míoren danta conzi Regumon Perda nami
dor-nz-a amzig míoren danta co-nz-i regum-on perda nami.
flee-PST-1P place.name place.name after destroy-PST-3PL people-CNSTR spear
We fled to Amzig from Miyoren after the People of the Spear sacked the city.

"Yel nevratavi intuora, cintra ae”. Nothing is forever, all things end.