Kunesian
Kunesian is a language which is spoken on the same conworld as Bearlandic. It is an isolating language with a rather complex phoneme inventory and a quite messy but still predictable orthography. That is, the orthography is predictable to those who are familiar with it. The language is said to possess every sound you can hear in the jungles of Kunesia, including the sound of the vomiting after eating some poisonous berry (/χ/), that of spitting out the next poisonous berry (/p͡çᶣ/), that of a growling tiger (/rʶ/), and that of a hissing snake, which is simply /s/.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolo-palatal | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Palatalised | Plain | Labial | |||||||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | (ɴ) | |||
| Stop | Aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | cʰ | kʰ | qʰ | |||
| Voiceless | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | ʈ | c | k | q | ||
| Voiced | b | bʲ | d | dʲ | ɖ | ɟ | g | ɢ | ||
| Affricate | Voiceless | t͡ɕ | p͡çᶣ | |||||||
| Voiced | d͡z | d͡ʑ | ɖ͡ʐ | ɟ͡ʝ | ||||||
| Fricative | ɸ | s, θ | ɕ | ʂ | ç | çᶣ | xʷ | χ | ||
| Approximant | β | j | ɥ | ɰ | ʁ | |||||
| Rhotic | ɾ | ɽ͡r | rʶ | |||||||
| Lateral | l | ɭ | ʎ | ɫ | ||||||
Vowels
| Front | Cenral | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |||
| Close | i | y ~ ʉ | ɨ ~ ɯ | u | ||
| Mid | ɛ ~ e | œ ~ ø | ʌ ~ ɤ | ɔ ~ o | ||
| Near-open | æ | |||||
| Open | a | aɨ̯ | ||||
Unstressed /a/ becomes /ɐ/, unstressed /i/ and /aɨ̯/ merge with /ɨ/.
Pitch-accent
Kunesian has a pitch-accent in which the stressed syllable can have either high or low pitch.
Creaky voice
All vowels distinguish modal and creaky voice.
Noun phrases
Plural
Plural can be marked using the particles ti ... tai, which function like some kind of circumfix just like the French negation ne ... pas. It is however not necessary to mark plurals and it is usually only done to stress the plurality or as a collective.
- ti potrai tai
/tʰí pʌʈáɨ̯ tʰɨ/
PL house PL
houses, a group of houses, a village
Relational particles
To indicate a noun's relationship to another one, Kunesian uses relational particles. Some of the most important relational particles and their uses are:
- li: possession, focus on possessed rather than possessor.
- potrai mela li: the man's house
- du: possession, focus on possessor rather than possessed.
- mela potrai du: the man who has a house
- me: the last noun is an important part of the first one.
- potrai nipit me: house with books = library
- to: the last thing is located inside the first one.
- mure rente to: a forest with monkeys
- kim: the first thing is inside the last.
- rente mura kim: a monkey in the forest
- anku: the two nouns refer to the same.
- mela kusto anku: the man who is a liar
Adjectives
Adjectives precede their nouns. In complex noun phrases with multiple nouns, an adjective may refer to a single noun or to several nouns. To indicate where the adjective "ends", one of the particles ni, koi and sufi may be used, which have a positive, a negative, and a neutral connotation respectively. Compare these phrases:
- nipu gilipo sufi pinokas me
/ɲýpu ɟíʎpo súçᶣɨ p͡çᶣɨ̰́kɐs mʲé/
red shop ADJ.END.NEUTRAL banana of
a red shops which sells bananas - nipu gilipo pinokas me koi
/ɲýpu ɟíʎpo p͡çᶣɨ̰́kɐs mʲé qʰí/
red shop banana of ADJ.END.BAD
a red shop which sells red bananas
In the first of these two sentences, the adjective nipu "red" applies to the shop only, so nothing is said about the color of the bananas. In the second sentence however, the adjective applies to both nouns, thus making both the shop and the bananas it sells red. Note also the use of koi in the second sentence. The bananas shouldn't be red, after all.
Pronouns
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st incl. | - | ninke /ɲḭ̀ɲc/ |
| 1st excl. | no /nʌ́/ | bunai /bṵ́nɨ̯/ |
| 2nd | pas /pʰàs/ | nili /ɲíʎɨ/ |
| 3rd prox. | kai /kʰáɨ̯/ | enni /ḛ̀ɲɨ/ |
| 3rd obv. | nuro /nɨ́rʶ/ | laite /láɨt͡ɕ/ |
| All | - | tola /tʰʌ́ɫɐ/ |
| Interrogative | supk /sùk/ | |
The proximate pronouns refer to the first third-person constituent in the sentence. That is, if the subject is in the third person, kai and enni refer to the subject, otherwise, those refer to a possible third-person object. The obviate pronouns are only used in sentences with third-person subjects and refer to objects that are not the same as the subject. Compare these sentences:
- No kai tnanku.
/nʌ́ kʰáɨ̯ tà̰ɴqɨ/
1SG 3SG.PROX hit
I hit him. - Kai kai tnanku.
/kʰáɨ̯ kʰáɨ̯ tà̰ɴqɨ/
3SG.PROX 3SG.PROX hit
He hits himself. - Kai nuro tnanku.
/kʰáɨ̯ nɨ́rʶ tà̰ɴqɨ/
3SG.PROX 3SG.OBV hit
He hits him.
Verb phrases
The verbal system makes quite much use of particles which, just like the nominal plural particles, are placed around the verb like pseudo-circumfixes. They will be listed here in the order in which they appear, the ones which are placed closest to the verb being listed first and those that are furthest from the verb being listed last. Like virtually all particles, verbal particles can be left out when their meaning is implied from the context.
Personal particles
Subject pronouns can be replaced by verbal particles. This moves the focus from the subject to the object.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st incl. | - | si ... ju /ɕí ɟ͡ʝɨ/ |
| 1st excl. | po ... ra /pʰʌ́ rʶɐ/ | bu ... po /bú pʰʌ/ |
| 2nd | pi ... ras /p͡çᶣí rʶɐs/ | ni ... pai /ɲí pʰɨ/ |
| 3rd | te ... sor /t͡ɕé sʌrʶ/ | e ... nai /é nɨ/ |
| Indefinite | ge ... su /ɟé sɨ/ | |
| All | - | tak ... ai /tʰàk ɨ/ |
| Interrogative | nek ... irki /ɲèk iɾç/ | |
Note that there are no obviate particles as subjects are never obviate.