Ox-Yew: Difference between revisions

|name = Adzaac (Ox-Yew)

|nativename = Adzaac, Adɮāc

<small>additionally creator of:<br />

<li>[[Adzaac]]</li>

Adzaac (or Adɮāc) is an a priori, possibly non-terrestrial language whose phonology, morphology, grammar, and really whose entire weltanschauung is inextricably tied to sets of three. Their number system is nonal (3×3); there are three vowels; there are three of each type of consonant; there are three noun classes (or “genders,” but that word really isn’t useful here); there are even three finite grammatical moods.

Since [ɑdˈɮɑːtɬʼ] doesn't really roll off the tongue of the average native speaker of most European languages, the alternative name “Ox-Yew” (or the Language of the Ox-Yew People) is derived from all of the Latin letters which the orthography of Adzaac explicitly does ''not'' use.

Because of the limited range of vowels, a vowel chart is almost wasted for Adzaac, but here you go:

! Frontish

[[File:Adzaac-diphthongs.png|frameless|Adzaac diphthongs]]

Stress is moraic. Stress falls on longest left-most syllable. Where morae are equal, long vowels have a higher priority than diphthongs, which have a higher priority than final consonants. There are eight possible syllable weights:

Non-stressed syllables are reduced. (See [[Adzaac#Phonotactics|Phonotactics]]).

! Frontish

! Nasal:

| ⟨m⟩ /m/

| ⟨n⟩ /n/

| ⟨v⟩ /ŋ/

**p, t, k, b, d, g, q, j, c, m, n, v, l, z, r, s, f, h

*Vowels with secondary stress are reduced by their right-most mora:

#*E.g. ááidlaacùùp → aaidlacuup

The number of  consonant clusters which can occur intervocalically between syllables with non-primary stress is dramatically reduced. Somehow. Probably. I think.

Adzaac has three distinct orthographies. There is a native writing system (patent pending...); a “presentational” orthography, which uses some diacritics and some non-standard characters to present the language a little more compactly and with a few slightly more intuitive graphemes; and a “utility” orthography, which uses only 21 letters of the standard Latin alphabet. (The letters O, X, Y, E, and W are not used.)

!width=75px| Function

!width=75px| Form

!width=75px| IPA

|align="center"| tɬ

|align="center"| tʃ

|align="center"| dʒ

|align="center" colspan=2| ⟨s⟩⟩

|align="center"| s

|align="center"| ⟨f⟩

|align="center"| ⟨⟨š⟩⟩

|align="center"| ʃ

|align="center" colspan=2| ⟨h⟩⟩

|align="center"| x

|align="center"| iɑ̯

|align="center"| iːɑ̯

|align="center"| ɑ

|align="center"| ɑi̯

|align="center"| ɑː

|align="center"| ɑu̯

|align="center"| ɑːi̯

|align="center"| ɑːu̯

|align="center"| uɑ̯

|align="center"| uːɑ̯

The typology of Adzaac is predominantly SOV or verb-final. Marked order is OSV. A morphological particle is inserted between the subject and the direct object which is ostensibly a case suffix combined with a case prefix; a different particle is used in marked order.

Adzaac alignment is tripartite, so nouns and pronouns are differentiated for subject, object, and agentive roles by use of case affixes and/or particles.  

Adzaac is predominantly head-final, and this is reflected in many of its more granular alignments.

As mentioned in Typology, Adzaac is a verb-final language, and as such, adverbs always immediately precede the verb. Verbs inflect for person, number, polarity, voice, mood, tense, and aspect.

Adzaac has several cases which regulate the roles various words play in a sentence.  

The use of the dative in Adzaac is slightly more restrictive than it may be in other languages. It specifically invokes the meaning of ‘to’ or ‘towards’.

Many languages have an “ablative” case, though it rarely means the same thing from one language to another. In Adzaac, the ablative is the exact inverse of the dative, invoking the meaning of ‘out of’ or ‘from’.

The oblique isn't so much a case as an anti-case: This is the “Dictionary Form” of Adzaac nouns, and is not inflected at all. It is mainly used with adpositions, or for mentioning things in a list.

There are only three noun classes in Adzaac, so one might be tempted to call them “genders,” but that term really doesn't work well here, considering that all of the human genders which usually serve as examples of the various grammatical genders all fall into a single noun class. Adzaac nouns are divided into Animate, Inanimate, and Abstract classes.