Ris
- πρανάσση, ἄι ουαθά πανἂννη!
- pranássē, hai ouathá panā́nnē!
- Remember: You walk with your feet!
| Ris | |
|---|---|
| Rhánzi ris | |
 | |
| Pronunciation | [/ˈ/] |
| Created by | – |
| Native to | Italy, Cyprus; Sicily |
| Native speakers | 301,486 (2012) |
Menmer languages
| |
Early form | Proto-Men
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ri |
| ISO 639-2 | ri |
| ISO 639-3 | qhr |
Ris is my attempt to unite the sketchy constructed languages of mine; those lost forever in incomprehensible grammar, unsatisfying aesthetics and cumbersome phonologies. They stand united by the one shared feature - their relationship to the Greek language; my greatest influence no matter the language.
The language is a language isolate, and is thus not known to be related to any extant language. Ris has a normal-sized inventory of consonants and a fair amount of allophony. It is a fusional language and is morphosyntactically active-stative and with a fluid subject. The morphology is evenly split between nominal and verbal inflections.
Background
The Ris language, ῤάνζι ρις, is a constructed language, but does have a fictional background set in the real world.
Phonology and orthography
Consonants
The following is the inventory of consonants in the Ris language. There are 18 contrastive consonants.
| Consonants | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Denti-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
| plain | whispered | |||||||
| Nasals | plain | m /m/ | n /n/ | [ŋ] | ||||
| Plosives | aspirated | ph /pʰ/ | th /tʰ/ | kh /kʰ/ | [ʔ] | |||
| unvoiced | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | |||||
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | |||||
| Fricatives | unvoiced | s /s͎/ | h /ç ~ x ~ h/ | |||||
| voiced | z /d͡z ~ d͡z͎ ~ z ~ z͎/ | [ʝ] | ||||||
| Trills | aspirated | r /r̥ʰ/ | ||||||
| voiced | r /r/ | |||||||
| Approximants | ou /w/ | |||||||
| Laterals | l /l ~ ʎ/ | |||||||
Consonant allophony
Allophony is common to many consonants, and sandhi forces them to be realised different in different environments.
The glottal fricative
The phoneme /h/, the so called glottal fricative, is in free variation with the unvoiced palatal fricative /ç/ as well as the unvoiced velar fricative /x/.
| ἒτρο | ||||
| hétro | ||||
| /ˈhɛtrɔ/ | = | /ˈxɛtrɔ/ | = | /ˈçɛtrɔ/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| normal, okay | ||||
The velar fricative is the most common one, but the phones are all affected by palatalisation from front vowels, producing the palatal fricative [ç].
| ὒο | ἢστιμι | |||||
| hýo | hḗstimi | |||||
| /ˈhʏ̩.ɔ/ | → | [ˈçʏ̩.ɔ] | /ˈheːs͎tɪmɪ/ | → | [ˈçeːs͎tɪmɪ] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| to leave .ind.m. | pride .f | |||||
Palatalisation
Palatalisation occurs due to many factors:
- The phonemes /ʝ/ and /ɪ/, the voiced palatal fricative and the near-close near-front vowel, tend to palatalise adjacent consonants internally.
- Externally, a final voiced velar stop, /g/, palatalises the initial consonant of the following word.
All post-bilabial consonants are affected, except the rhotic /r/ and the aspirated apical fricative /s̺ʰ/. As such, the allophony is rather extensive:
| Plain | /n/ | /t/ | /d/ | /s/ | /z/ | /l/ | /ŋ/ | /k/ | /g/ | /kʰ/ | /t̺ʰ / | /h/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palatalised | [ɲ] | [t͡ʃ] | [d͡ʒ] | [ʃ] | [ʒ] | [ʎ] | [ɲ]1 | [t͡ʃ] | [d͡ʒ] | [k] | [t] | [ç] |
- Realised as /ŋg/ when non-initial. This grants /ŋg/ → [ɲd͡ʒ].
| խրոնի | դիան | ոդզի; | մյղի | |||||||||||
| hráni | tian | átzi? | móngi | |||||||||||
| /ˈhrænɪ/ | → | [ˈχræɲɪ] | /ˈtɪɑn/ | → | [ˈt͡ʃɪan] | /ˈætzɪ/ | → | [ˈætʃɪ] | /ˈməŋgɪ/ | → | [ˈməɲd͡ʒɪ] | |||
| spider, hand | friend | now.int | to go.subj. | |||||||||||
Voicedness
Some phonemes are susceptible to voicedness sandhi. These are the sibilants and the voiced lateral approximant /l/. When preceded by a phoneme differing in voicedness, the above mentioned phonemes assimilate.
| hlá | gyáng-sóm | átzi? | méngshi | |||||||||||
| /ˈçlæ/ | → | /ˈçɬæ/ | /ˈgʝæŋgsəm/ | → | /ˈgʝæŋgzəm/ | /ˈætzɪ/ | → | /ˈætsɪ/ | /ˈmiŋɡs̺ʰɪ/ | → | /ˈmiŋɡz̺ʱɪ/ | |||
| good; well; happy | to say.subj-you.1.p.pl.acc.inf | now.int | to dance.subj.caus | |||||||||||
The voicedness assimilation is included in broad transcriptions, as such, it is enclosed by slashes, //.
Vowels
There are 10 vowel phonemes in the Hrasic language. In addition to these, the open mid-back unrounded vowel, /ʌ/, is an allophone of /ɑ/.
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | é /i/ | í /ɨ/ | ú /ɯ/ | ||
| Near-close | i /ɪ/ | u /ʊ/ | |||
| Close-mid | |||||
| Mid | e /ə/ | ||||
| Open-mid | ó /ɞ/ | a /ʌ/ · o /ɔ/ | |||
| Near-open | á /æ/ | ||||
| Open | a /ɑ/ |
Morphology
Nominal
Declension
| Animate marked collective | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ma.an | gýtē - fish | ||
| singulative | dual-collective | plurative | |
| Patientive | gýtē | gytḗn | gytḗr |
| Agentive | gytḗr | gytḗrne | gytḗra |
| Dative | gytḗs | gytḗnse | gytḗi |
| Instrumental | gytḗn | gytḗnne | gytḗs |
| Genitive | gýtēa | gýtēan | gytēái |
| Locative | gýtēia | gýtēian | gýtēiar |
| Vocative | gýta | gýtan | gytár |
Samples
- thýo hā́ katḗrrazas
- tḗ rhánzatha
- gytḗra ouārathí ērikí
- inḗ gýtē mna.
- Atḗ, inḗ gytḗn ~ Atḗ, inḗ gýtē ne!