Fourth Linguifex Relay/Sceptrian

Óphi fatipap Lingwifekson Lushakha:

Léhkodé pai ko qhóqhøkos,
keewesht mjulan oil qotitlóo;
darema soi slopapu'os,
jak rajidhé mitupurpóo.
Péma saitush_q'papa sekhe,
jevaa hifthilan gat'tishh'i,
moŕ ól dorahpipi qóphe;
mutshos tslarmak jódish b'shiit'sji.

Notes

Sceptrian is a head-initial, ergative-absolutive language, i.e. the word order in clauses is mostly VAO and the head of the noun phrase is followed by adjectives and demostratives. The language is fusional-agglutinative, e.g. verbs are conjugated, but both prepositions and postpositions are used as well and their heads are declined according to the noun class. The cases of nouns are utilized in derivational morphology so that at first glance many verbs seem to be only inflected nouns.

However, poems may have a more free word order and may omit vowels in various syllables. The apostrophe may stand for both these omissions and normal pausa.

Glossed

léhkod-é pai ko qhó~qhøk-os
ADVZ\fast-VOC MIR DIST.SG SUBJ~\is_broken-3SG.INCEP

• Verb particles don't always require verbs
  

keewesht mjula-n oil qot<i>~t-l-óo
mosaic life-GEN as rock~<DIM>-PL-LAT

• See prepositions for the effect of noun case.
  
• Some derivations utilize both reduplication and affixing. For qot<i>~t an alternative gloss might be: rock<DIM>~NMZ
  

darema soi slop<a>~p-u-os
Ruler.AUG on chair~<AUG>-LOC-POSS.3SG.ALIEN

• Sceptrian has several ways of indicating possession
  

jak rajidh-é mitup-u-r-p-óo
away sudden-VOC(.ADVZ) sea-LOC-VBZ.FREQ-NMZ-LAT

• Occurrence of apophony has certain rules
  

Pé=ma saitu-sh q(ó)pa-pa sek-he
2PL.VOC=FOC DEM.PROX.ANIM-PL act-ABL come-GNO.2PL

• On relative clauses of Sceptrian
  
• Ablative case has a causal meaning as well
  

jeva-a hifthila-n gat(o)ti-sh-h(e)i
grace-ERG heaven-GEN accommodation-INS(.VBZ)-PST.PFV.2PL

• Agent prefixes may be omitted
  
• Genitive forms don't agree with their heads
  

mo-ŕ ól dora-h-pi-pi qóp-he
1PL-GEN like law-COM(.VBZ)-GER-ABL act-GNO.2PL

• It is common for Sceptrian to derive new nouns from verbs already derived from nouns
  

mutsh-os tsla-r-mak-Ø jódi-sh b(a)shiit(i)s-ji
neighbour-INS(.COM) INCEP.1PL-HORT-give-ANTIP charity-INS poor_one-DAT

• Hortative in Sceptrian
  
• Antipassive is formed by turning the ERG agent into ABS, removing the subject/object verb suffix and changing the subject/object case into instrumental

Extra

• From leh, Léh-ko-d-é might be glossed as ADVZ\leg-LAT-VBZ.MVT\ADJZ-VOC, but the core was translated for simplicity :)
• Same for b(a)shi-i-t(i)-s-ji gloss wealth-VOC-ADJZ.ABE-NMZ.AN-DAT from bashi