Tigol/Proto-Tigol

Tigol/Proto-Tigol '
Type
Fusional
Alignment
Nominative-accusative
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Verb-subject-object
Tonal
Yes
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
Yes
Nouns decline according to...
Case		Number
Definiteness		Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Background

The Themsaran language constitutes a separate branch of the Zachydic language family, along with other para-Themsaran languages. Themsaran is a typological and lexical outlier in its family due to its long period of isolation and substrate influence. The language possesses strongly head-initial syntax, head-marking in both clauses and possessive NPs, mixed fusional and agglutinative inflection, and nominative-accusative morphosyntax. This article describes Classical Themsaran.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Dorsal	Radical	Glottal
Nasal	m		n				ŋ
Plosive	p b			t d			k g	(ʡ)	(ʔ)
Fricative		f v	θ ⟨th⟩	s z	ʃ ⟨š⟩ ʒ ⟨ž⟩		x~χ ⟨ch⟩	ħ~ʜ~ʢ ⟨ħ⟩	h
Affricate					tʃ ⟨ť⟩
Approximant		(ʋ)				j
Trill				r
Lateral app.				l			ʎ ⟨ļ⟩

Vowels

Themaran has six vowels, short and long. Short vowels have one mora, and long vowels have two morae.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i ⟨i⟩ iː ⟨ī⟩	ʉ ⟨y⟩ ʉː ⟨ȳ⟩	u ⟨u⟩ uː ⟨ū⟩
Mid	e ⟨e⟩ eː ⟨ē⟩		o ⟨o⟩ oː ⟨ō⟩
Open		a ⟨a⟩ aː ⟨ā⟩

The following are the diphthongs, all falling: /ai au ei ie~ia uo~ua/ ⟨ai au ei ie ua⟩. All diphthongs are bimoraic.

Pitch accent

Pitch accent, or tone, is phonemic in Themsaran. The following is the notation for tones:

	Short	Long	Diphthong
Unmarked	a	ā	ai
High	á	a̋	ái
Low	à	ȁ	ài
Falling	-	â	âi
Rising	-	ǎ	ǎi

The pitch accent of a word consists of two components: the lexical tone, and the position of the downstep (the latter is confined to appear after the 3rd-to-last mora). A high-tone word is consistently high until the downstep, whereafter the pitch drops sharply. A low-tone word starts low and has the highest pitch at the tonic mora, which is immediately before the downstep.

The following is the notation used for marking Themsaran pitch accent:

1. High lexical tone is marked in the initial syllable; low tone is not marked, unless necessitated by rule 2.
2. The tonic syllable is always marked:

• • If the downstep occurs after a long syllable (syllable with a long vowel or diphthong), the syllable is rising in a low-tone word, and high in a high-tone word.
  • If the downstep occurs between the two morae of a long syllable, the syllable has falling tone.

1. If the first syllable has high tone and precedes a downstep, the second syllable is marked as low.

If the downstep occurred word-finally, the first syllable of a following high tone word would have slightly lower pitch. A word final short vowel and downstep sequence, occurring in isolation, would be realized as a falling, short vowel.

Grammar

Nouns

Nouns inflect for number, definiteness and possessedness, but not for case. Nouns have two genders, masculine and feminine. In third-person possessed forms, Themsaran makes a distinction between the absolute possessed form, the last noun in a possessive noun phrase, and the the conjunct possessed form, used to mark possession.

Adjectives

Adjectives agree in not only number, definiteness and gender with their heads, but also in possessedness. Adjectives also take degree inflection (positive, "less/least", "more/most", elative, "X enough", "too X").

Verbs

Finite verbs are marked for TAM, degree (positive, "more/most"), voice, the subject's person, number, and gender and, if the direct object is definite, may be marked with the direct object's person, number, and gender. The verb may agree with an indirect object (usually 1st or 2nd person) instead of with the direct object. There are also several non-finite forms, used with various subordinating conjunctions.

Syntax

The default constituent order is verb-subject-pronominal oblique object-direct object. The subject or the direct object may be topicalized or focalized by being placed in front of the verb.