Kandi
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| Tsan | |
|---|---|
| ᏊᏮ Ꮧ:Ꮂ (Tsani tsúyi) | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|t͡sʌ̃ʔɪ t͡suβ̞ʝɪ]] |
| Created by | – |
| Native to | Sultanate of Tsandi |
| Native speakers | 4 million (2014) |
Jasi-Jivan
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Early form | |
Dialects |
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| Official status | |
| Regulated by | Aytshin Sasháatsandi |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ts |
| ISO 639-2 | ts |
| ISO 639-3 | qts |
Tsani, or ᏊᏮ Ꮧ:Ꮂ (Tsani tsúyi), pronounced [t͡sʌ̃ʔɪ t͡suβ̞ʝɪ], is a Tanisi language spoken in the Sultanate of Tsandi. The Sultanate is located in the eastern region of Sapirica. The language belongs to the Tanisi language family and is thus distantly related to the Ris language.
Tsani is a heavily agglutinating with a complex verbal morphology. The language has repeatedly been analysed as lacking nouns and adjectives altogether, in favour of verbs. Phonologically it exhibits prenasalised consonants, realised as nasal clusters or voiced consonants in different dialects.
Phonology
The Tsani inventory has been documented and assessed repeatedly since the 19th century, the foremost people in the field being the Belgian linguist Émile d'Ivoire and the Scottish linguist John Glenn Crossing, an expert on Jivan languages.
Consonants
The following is a Tsani inventory of consonants, according to Émile d'Ivoire, a model nowadays serving as standard when analysing the language. Émile analyses the Tsani inventory as unusual in that it has prenasalised consonants, as well as an ill-defined dorsal consonant. The consonantal phonology is fairly symmetrical, with the exception of lacking /p/.
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Dorsal | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | central | lateral | palatal | |||||
| Nasals | m [m] | n [n] | ||||||
| Stops | prenasalised | mb /ᵐb/ | nd /ⁿd/ | ng /ᶮɟ ~ ᵑg ~ ᶰɢ/ | ʾ /ʔ/ | |||
| voiceless | t /t/ | k /c ~ k ~ q/ | ||||||
| ejective | [pʼ] | [tʼ] | [cʼ ~ kʼ ~ qʼ] | |||||
| Affricates | ts /t͡s/ | tl /t͡ɬ/ | tsh /t͡ɕ/ | |||||
| Fricatives | th /θ/ | s /s/ | sh /ɕ/ | kh /ɕ ~ x ~ χ/ | h /h/ | |||
| Approximants | [β̞] | y /j/ | w /ɰ/ ~ [ɰʷ] | |||||
| Trills | r /r/ | |||||||
Vowels
D'Ivoire also re-analysed and standardised the phonemic inventory of vowels in the language. He divided the five primary vowels into two categories, nasal and oral, these were in divided by length, granting short, long and extra long vowels. D'Ivoire did make clear that the vowels were not phonetically realised as long and extra long in the modern language, but rather as diphthongised and diphthongised with a long non-glide element, respectively.
| Orthography and vowels | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oral | Nasal | ||||||
| short | long | extra long | short | long | extra long | ||
| i | i /i/ | í /i:/ | íi /i::/ | in /ĩn/ | ín /ĩ:n/ | íin /ĩ::n/ | |
| e | e /e̞/ | é /e̞ː/ | ée /e̞ːː/ | en /ẽ̞n/ | én /ẽ̞ːn/ | éen /ẽ̞ːːn/ | |
| a | a /a/ | á /aː/ | áa /aːː/ | an /ãn/ | án /ãːn/ | áan /ãːːn/ | |
| u | u /u/ | ú /uː/ | úu /uːː/ | un /ũn/ | ún /ũːn/ | úun /ũːːn/ | |
| o | o /o̞/ | ó /o̞ː/ | óo /o̞ːː/ | on /õ̞/ | ón /õ̞ːn/ | óon /õ̞ːːn/ | |
Émile's model did coincide with the traditional orthography, but he disputed the realisation of the vowels.
| Oral | Nasal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | extra long | short | long | extra long | |
| i | [i] | [iɨ̯] | [i:ɨ̯] | [ẽ] | [ẽ:] | [ẽ:] |
| e | [e̞] | [e̞ə̯] | [e̞ːə̯] | [ə̃] | [ə̃ː] | [ə̃ː] |
| a | [a] | [aː] | [aː] | [ʌ̃] | [ʌ̃ː] | [ʌ̃ː] |
| u | [u] | [uβ̞] | [uːβ̞] | [ʊ̃] | [ʊ̃ː] | [ʊ̃ː] |
| o | [o̞] | [o̞ɰʷ] | [o̞ːɰʷ] | [ɒ̃] | [ɒ̃ː] | [ɒ̃ː] |
Grammar
Tsan exhibits what’s called predicate/argument flexibility, meaning that all content words equivalent to English verbs, nouns and adjectives, can fill the role as predicate or as argument. This is achieved through that the basic form of the content word always corresponds with a predicative expression. The language’s word order is as such very free.
In essence, this feature makes the language seem to lack nouns or verbs, or rather lexical categories. Nevertheless, all content words may be conjugated and form verbal phrases, just like they may modify each other and all have one of three grammatical genders; masculine (M), feminine (F) or neuter (N). The genders are not marked, but rather a form of natural gender: women are feminine, men and males are masculine, and everything else is neuter. The marking on the content words congruate with the gender of the subject, and is simply marked as the same as, homus (HO), or different to, heterus (HE), the subject.
- Note to self: Topic rather than subject? Would make things easier and more intuitive.
Terminology
- Predicate – the part of a sentence or a clause containing, in the English translation, a verb and stating something about the subject. For example went home, in John went home.
- Argument – any of the nouns or noun phrases directly related to the predicate.
- Subject – a noun or noun phrase that is the element about which the rest of a clause is predicated. For example John in John went home.
- Object – a noun or noun phrase that is the element governed by an active transitive verb or by a preposition. For example home in John went home.
- Dependent argument – a dependent argument is marked on the predicate in the language, as an affix, similar to conjugation. For example –ó in Cambió pasaporte.
- Independent argument – an independent argument is not marked on the predicate, such as él, in él cambió pasaporte.
- Content word – equivalent to a verb or a noun in Tsan linguistic terminology.
Predicative complements
Simple predicative expressions
In Tsan, the predicative complement of an expression is equivalent to the predicate itself. All content words are predicates in their own right, due to a copula suffix. This copula is a null suffix in the third person proximate, but it congruates with the subject. The subject does not need to be independent, and is only marked on the predicate.
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(1) |
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(2) |
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(3) |
Predicative nominatives
If the subject of the expression is stated independently, it is marked with a specifier, (SPEC), which roughly translates as the English relative determiner that which, or the construction it is […] that is […]. The post-vocalic form is –n and the post-consonantal form is –i.
The predicative complement, or predicate, agrees with the topic. The topic, most often the subject, is marked with the third person singular homus suffix, as well as the specifier.
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(2.5) |
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(2.6) |
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(2.7) |
Predicative accusatives
Tsan has one copula, and one copula only. In English you may find a variety of related verbs with similar function to the main copula to be; for example to feel, to seem and to become. In Tsan, the semantics of these verbs are all conveyed by means of modifying the copula with evidentials, mood markers, applicatives and other constructions.
Typically, what may be percieved as an increase in valency is marked with the copula and an appropriate applicative-like affix. The former subject is always demoted to the object or patient.
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(2.8) |
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(2.9) |
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(2.10) |
Intransitive clauses
When you accept that two content words in a predicative expression co-function as predicate and subject, it is not difficult to imagine other clauses with one core argument. The simplest are the corresponding English intransitive clauses. Tsan makes an important dichotomy between stative and dynamic content words.
Stative clauses
Stative predicates, such as to hang, to lie, to be on fire, to taste like and to know are almost exclusively expressed by means of the copula suffix. See also [[Tsan#Predicative complements|]], which is an equivalent interpretation.
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(3.11) |
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(3.12) |
Dynamic clauses
Dynamic predicatives on the other hand, including to run, to lay, to put on fire, to savour, and to learn, are formed with a conjugating dynamic prefix, acting in the same manner as the copula.
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(3.13) |
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(3.14) |
See also
| Tsani language | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Orthography | Cree syllabary | ||
| Phonology | IPA for Tsan • Phonology | ||
| Grammar | Grammar • Arguments • Syntax | ||
| Vocabulary | Basic vocabulary • Swadesh list | ||
| Numerals | |||
| Example texts | The Lord's Prayer • The North Wind and the Sun • The Tower of Babel • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights | ||
| Geneaology | Tanisi languages • Proto-Tanisi | ||