Verse:Hmøøh/Talma/Literature

Netagin is a triconsonantal language inspired by Biblical Hebrew, spoken in Western Cuadhlabh. This page describes Ancient Netagin.

Todo

final -ʔ to block initial seimhiu

Roots

• n-t-g: ???
• r-s-d: study
• z-ʔ-r: go
• k-d-d: fly
• w-n-š: love

Phonology

Ancient Netagin

Ancient Netagin had the following consonants:

m n ŋ t tˁ k ʔ b d g f s ts ɬ tɬ ʃ ħ h z ʕ w r j

⟨m n ŋ t ṭ c ʔ b d g f s ts ś tś š ħ h z ȝ w r y⟩

The following vowels were used:

i iː u uː
a aː oː
aj aw

⟨i ī u ū a ā ō ay aw⟩

Old Netagin

Begadkefat: /t tˁ k b d g/ > /θ θˁ x v ð ɣ/ after a V

Vowels go through Tiberian Hebrew-ish changes

Morphology

Nouns

Vowel-reducing paradigms

The largest class of vowel-reducing nouns have á or é between the first and second radicals that reduces to a/e (harmonizing with the frontness of following vowel; i after a y) when a suffix is added.

"Crawling-up" nouns

The "crawling-up" (Netagin: mittzúchábh) nouns underlyingly end in a consonant cluster. In the singular oblique cases the stem is turned into a CaCC (if the bare form is CeCaC, CiCC for CéCaC and CoCC for CóCaC) form, and the dual and plural turn the stem into (CaCáC, CeCáC and CoCáC).

Nouns ending in geminated consonants

These nouns may take sound case/number suffixes, or get the broken plural as a CVCC/CVnC stem.

-eh

In nouns ending in -eh, the -eh is deleted before a case ending.

Pronouns

	First person			Second person			Third person
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Independent	ʔáctiʔ	ʔáccū	ʔáccā	ʔánniʔ	ʔánnū	ʔánnā	hiʔ	hínnū	hínnā
Clitic	-tiʔ	-cū	-cā	-niʔ	-nū	-nā	-hiʔ	-hū	-hā

Verbs

Netagin verbs, perhaps similarly to those of Biblical Hebrew, mark aspect and person, but not tense. (Netagin, rather unusually, renders tense as proclitics on NPs instead.) Non-concatenative morphology figures prominently in conjugation for valence and TAM, much like in Semitic and Proto-Indo-European. However, unlike in Semitic languages verbs can also be derived via derivational "mishqalim" patterns (with a lot of overlap with nominal patterns), so there is not as much skew towards being noun-heavy as in Semitic.

Primary stems

For inflectional paradigms, please see Netagin/Primary stem conjugation.

The primary stems inflect with heavy use of transfixes. Comprising about 500 verbs, this class is the counterpart to strong verbs in Germanic. There are up to 4 primary patterns or "binyanim" that a root may take in Netagin:

• In the Intransitive paradigm are verbs denoting intransitive actions ("come"), as well as stative verbs ("be cold"). It is often considered the most basic form. The difference between adjectives and stative verbs is roughly equivalent to the ser-estar distinction.
• The Transitive paradigm contains most monotransitive verbs, ("eat") including causativizations of Intransitive verbs ("make happy"). Can also have a telic (desired outcome was reached) meaning.
• The Reflexive pattern consists of verbs denote reflexive/reciprocal action ("get dressed", "kiss each other"), or change of state ("thicken").
• The Causative pattern contains causatives of transitive verbs ("feed") (and of some Intransitives and Reflexives). Causatives of statives in the imperfective aspect may denote active maintenance of a state (as opposed to changing a state in the perfective aspect).

Note that there is no passive in Netagin - this function is mainly served by zeroth person in transitive verbs or with Reflexive verbs, or simply topicalization of the patient.

	Perfective	Imperfective	Participle	Action noun
Intransitive	C1aC2aC3	C1iC2C2aC3	C1óC2éC3	C1C2íC3N
Transitive	C1C2óC3	C1aC2C2í1C3	meC1aC2C2íC3	C1aC2C2íC3áˀN
Reflexive	ˀiC1C2é1C3	niC1C2é1C3	miNC1úC2áC3	ˀaC1C2óC3athN
Causative	ˀaC1C2aC3	NC1éC2aC3	maC1C2áC3	ˀaC1C2úC3áˀN

¹ Attenuates to a before a stressed suffix beginning with a consonant.

Suffixes beginning with a vowel cause the vowel between C₂ and C₃ to be elided.

The infinitive (inf) is formed by leniting the first letter of the bare stem of the verb, or if said first letter is a guttural or n, adding fa-.

The participle is an agent noun or an adjective. Adverbializing it yields manner of action "as if to X".

The action noun (axn) or gerund is used in action noun constructions, which are of the form SUBJECT-gen AXN OBJECT-acc. It is of importance in forming relative clauses, for Netagin does not have a relativizer.

בֶּן אָתַןּ גְדִיב כַּ֬וֵּה וַּתַּתֵּ֬לַם.

Ben ˀáthann ghedhíbh gcaféh fatedtélamh.

FUT=1PC.GEN drink.AXN.SG.DIR coffee.SG.DIR INV-(1,3)-awaken/CAUS.IPFV

Our drinking coffee will keep us alert.

Derived stems

The derived conjugation generates the bulk of new verbs in Netagin. The inflection, incorporating various concatenative formatives from the primary inflection, is almost entirely linear.

	Perfective	Imperfective	Participle	Action noun
Intransitive	ˀe[STEM]	[STEM]	miN[STEM]	ˀa[STEM]íthN
Transitive	ˀa[STEM]	ˀiN[STEM]	mə[STEM]	[STEM]íyáˀN

The infinitive is formed in the same manner as for the primary stems.

Patterns

Many (nowadays, most) derived verb patterns are verbalized noun patterns.

Affixes

Unipersonal (suffix) conjugation

The suffix conjugation is used for inherently intransitive (unaccusative) or reflexive verbs, and imperatives. Unipersonal verbs are negated in the optative/imperative by núr^N.

Unipersonal verb structure

0	1	2
Stem/Voice/Aspect	Personal suffix	Imperative or Polarity/Focus

In the indicative the personal suffixes represent the subject; in the imperative they indicate the object.

Unipersonal suffixes
Person	Singular	Paucal	Plural
0	-c[h]1áˀ
1	-d(i)/-gh(i)1/-t[h]1í3	-t[h]1ú	-t[h]1áˀ
2	-ann	-nú	-náˀ
3	-(a)2/-í3	-ú	-áˀ

The 0th, 1st and 2nd person forms are penultimately stressed; the 3rd person forms are ultimately stressed.

¹After vowels or mh.
²As indicative subject; not expressed without another suffix
³As imperative object.

Slot 2 suffixes
Netagin	Gloss
-n	Imperative (imp)
-chú	Affirmative focus (aff.foc)
-hí	Negative (neg)
-náˀ/-cháˀ*	Negative focus (neg.foc)

*In second person forms.

Bipersonal (prefix) conjugation

The prefix conjugation is used for non-imperative transitive verbs (verbs that can take an agent and a patient).

Bipersonal verb structure

−2	−1	0	1	2
Inverse prefix	Bipersonal prefix	Transitive stem/Voice/Aspect	Polarity/Focus	Pluractionality suffix

Inverse prefix
Netagin	Gloss
faD-	Inverse (inv)

The inverse prefix is called fó mágham ('flipping/inverting fó') in Netagin. Note that the inverse prefix geminates/de-lenites the personal prefix consonant.

Personal prefixes
Netagin	Gloss
b-	(2,0)
c-	(1,0)
h-	(1,2)
l-	(0,3)
n-	(2,3)
t-	(1,3)
y-	(3,3)

Polarity/focus suffixes
Netagin	Gloss
-(a)	Affirmative (aff)
-cú	Affirmative focus (aff.foc)
-hí	Negative (neg)
-náˀ	Negative focus (neg.foc)

All of the above suffixes are stressed. The focused suffixes emphasize the truth value and are therefore used to answer yes/no questions.

Pluractionality suffix
Netagin	Gloss
-nn	Pluractional (plax)

The pluractionality suffix never affects the thematic vowel in irregular verbs, unlike other suffixes beginning with a consonant.