Kandi: Difference between revisions

'''Tsán asáari''', ꔌꖟꔷ ꕉꕦꔹꗏ , or simply '''Asáari''', ꕉꕦꔹꗏ, or '''Asaari''' /at͡sá͜ɑɣɪ/ is a language spoken in the eastern [[w:United States of America|United States of America]]. It is not known to be related to any extant language and is thus a language isolate. The name, '''Tsán asáari''' /t͡sán at͡sá͜ɑɣɪ/ simply means "the ocean blue language", or "the language that is ocean blue".  

Asaari has 23 consonants, called '''tsínáa''' /t͡sɪ́ná͜aʔ/, traditionally categorised into the following groups:

Asaari has three main vowels, /a/, /ɪ/ and /ɛ/. The vowels can all bear tone. The tones may change the vowels' qualities and articulation; these allophones are enclosed in square brackets. Vowels may be long or short. Long vowels are written twice in the native orthography.

===Diphthongs===

There are three so called "'''diphthongs'''¨" in the language. This is however merely a traditional name, as the diphthongs have long since collapsed into '''long vowels'''. Originally, these were homogeneous diphthongs, composed of doubled vowels.

! colspan="3" rowspan="1"| Monophthongs

! colspan="3" rowspan="1"| Diphthongs

Apart from the low tone vowels being nasalised, and the diphthongs collapsing into long vowels, Asaari has a few other compulsory phonological changes.

The term '''emphatic''' is a controversial one but refers to a certain form of assimilation in the Asaari language. Following high tone vowels, fricative consonants and /ʁ/ change their pronunciation.

Asaari uses a a system of '''tonic accent''', or [[w:pitch accent|pitch accent]]. A tonic accent is different to stress accent in that the prominent syllable in the word is distinguished by [[w:tone|tone]] rather than volume. The tonic accent is also different to a purely tonal system in that the number of tonal syllables in a word is limited.  

In Asaari, there is at most one tonic syllable in a word. The position of the tonic syllable determines the tonal pattern of the whole word. The distinction is binary, that is, a tonic syllable may be either high or low.

The [[Proto-Tanisi]] language, PT, had a moraic stress system, where the first heavy was stressed. In Asaari, this is largely irrelevant. Instead, depending on which syllable had a voiceless plosive or a nasal coda, the syllable became tonic. Syllables with a plosive coda got a high pitch, and nasal codas got a low pitch. The low pitch is marked with a [[w:grave accent|grave accent]] and the high one with an [[w:acute accent|acute accent]].

*For example, the PT word {{sc|hagiakis}} */ha.'gjakis/ recieved a high pitch on the second syllable when Asaari developed.

Proto-Tanisi words and syllable structure has deteriorated to become Asaari, thus giving rise to a multitude of minimal pairs. The following table gives an overview over the misunderstandings that could arise if the wrong pitch is chosen.

The [[Proto-Tanisi]] language, had a regular [[w:moraic stress| moraic stress system]] which degenerated as the Asaari system evolved. The Proto-Tanisi language stressed the third mora, but in the Asaari language much of the tonic accent is affected by so called '''glottal''' and '''nasal''' syllables.

The Asaari tonic accent distinguishes high and low tone. These arose due to [[w:nasalisation|nasalised]] syllables and syllables with a [[w:glottal stop|glottal stop]] coda in the Proto-Tanisi language. Today, these are part of a [[w:register (linguistics)|register]], where high pitch syllables get a glottal closure, and low pitch syllables are nasalised.

|+'''Asaari tonic register'''

The Asaari natively use the [[w:Vai syllabary|Vai syllabary]] to write amongst themselves. This modified syllabary is called the '''Asaari abugida'''.

! colspan="13"|Asaari abugida

[[image:asaari logograms.png|thumb|right|350px|The full index of Asaari logograms. All of them are fairly common.]]

The Atsàari script does also have a number of logograms: Single characters that mark a full word.  

Asaari has a fairly complex grammar; it lacks the common definition of a noun. Instead, all nouns are so called "nominals" verbs conjugated in a certain pattern.

In Asaari, all nouns are verbs, and all verbs are [[w:finite|finite]]. To create a construction similar to the English [[w:non finite verbs|non finite verbs]], a speaker uses the relativising suffix '''-i'''.

In Asaari, no syntactic argument carries as much weight as the [[w:Topic-comment|topic]]. The topic is the argument of the sentence being talked about; the argument that can be inferred.

The Asaari language lacks any distinction in [[w:grammatical voice|grammatical voice]]. To express passive phrases, one would use the topic marker on the object of the transitive verb.

[[w:Definiteness|Definiteness]] normally goes unmarked in Asaari, and no official distinction exist. However, using the topic marker, nouns are most often implied to be definite. This also infers that only one argument may be definite in a clause.

Asaari verbs are conjugated according to three different numbers; singular, dual, and plural.

Unlike other Native American languages, there are three genders, the masculine ({{sc|m}}), feminine ({{sc|f}}) and neuter ({{sc|n}}). Gender plays important roles in  and verbal inflections, since Asaari verbs conjugate according to gender. It is important to note that while verbs agree according to gender, it is the subject's gender that congruates.  

Statives are an Asaari conjugation of verbs that function primarily as nouns and adjectives. A stative is most often defined as a [[w:Predicative expression|predicative verb]], nominal or adjective, but may also include other [[w:predicates|predicates]]. There are three different applicative forms and two copulative. The applicative in Asaari is parted in three; instrumental, benefactive, malefactive and oblique.