New Karanesa

New Karanesa Karanesa
Progress: 74%
Type
Agglutinative
Alignment
Austronesian
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Subject-verb-object
Tonal
No
Declensions
No
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
None
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

New Karanesa (IPA: [kaˈranɛsa]) is a Nentan language spoken in Quillan. Derived from the former prestige language in the Quill Kingdom, Imperial Karanesa, New Karanesa is a semi-constructed language, a standardized form of Karroka and High Karanesa created with the intent to make reading of Karanesa Empire-era and earlier works easier. It is assumed to be mostly compatible with Imperial Karanesa, though they are separated by time, so its compatibility is impossible to evaluate for certain.

Introduction

Main article: Rokadong

Etymology

Karanesa is derived from Karane (a people group and the name for one of the Quillan calendar's epochs) + -asa ("from the").

Phonology

Main article: New Karanesa phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular
Nasal	m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Stop	p	b	t	d	t͡ʃ	(d͡ʒ)	k	ɡ	q
Sibilant			s		ʃ	ʒ
Fricative	ɸ		θ				x	ɣ
Approximant				(ɹ)		j		w
Rhotic			ɺ	r

Notes

• Fricatives /ɸ s ʃ θ/ become voiced [β z ʒ ð] in morpheme-final position.
• The postalveolar fricatives and affricate /(t)ʃ ʒ/ usually are pronounced as palato-alveolar [(t)ɕ ʑ]. The voiced equivalents to /ʃ tʃ/ both are written differently to their unvoiced counterpart, but are usually pronounced [dʑ] in onset position, and [ʑ] in coda position, so these phonemes are merged.
• Many phonemes, particularly /s z k g x/, palatalize to [ɕ ʑ c ʒ ç] when before /j/.
• The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ is commonly pronounced uvular [ʁ], and may even be a uvular trill [ʀ].
• Approximants /j w ɺ/ tense to suave fricatives [ʝ ɣʷ ɮ] in intervocalic stressed position. In some dialects, this fricated pronunciation for /ɺ/ is actually closer to [ð].
• The alveolar trill /r/ becomes a postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠] (often written as simply [ɹ]) in syllable-final position. This pronunciation is also common for the lateral rhotic in any position.
• The velar nasal /ŋ/ causes the preceding vowel to be nasalized. Morpheme-finally, this absorbs the /ŋ/.

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨː	u
Close-mid	e eː	ə əː	o oː
Open-mid	ɛː		ɔː
Open		a

Notes

• /ə əː/ generally tense to something like [a aɐ] before nasals.
• Long vowels with no short vowel equivalent are often pronounced phonetically short: [ɨ ɛ ɔ]. However, these are still considered "long vowels".
• In some dialects, /eː oː/ are turned into diphthongs [ej ow] or raised entirely [iː uː], particularly when stressed; the former is considered a "partial lowering" of historic /iː uː/.
• /ɨː/ is variably rounded, usually depending on if the next vowel is rounded. While the resulting [ʉ] is nonphonemic, it is still written differently in orthography.
  • In many dialects, /ə/ and even /a/ also participate in this vowel harmony, but [ɵ ɒ] are not written differently to [ə a].
• The close and close-mid vowels /i e eː u o oː/, are reduced to [ɪ eə eə ʊ oɵ oɵ] before [ɹ]. This results in neutralization of the length contrast in /e eː o oː/.
  • The close-mid long vowels /eː oː/ are also reduced at the end of a word, usually to the same result of [eə oɵ].

Prosody

New Karanesa is generally described as mora-timed, with short vowels and coda sonorants each providing one mora to the syllable, and long vowels and diphthongs providing two moras.

Stress and pitch

New Karanesa is a stress or dynamic-accent language, where stressed syllables are louder and may be lengthened slightly. The Karanesan family does not have a pitch accent system, unlike Rokadong. However, there is often a distinct phrasal pitch pattern: the topic of the sentence often has higher pitch than the surrounding words, and interrogative words also often receive higher pitch.

New Karanesa has a strict limit on stressed syllables: a syllable cannot receive primary stress if only one mora follows it. This means primary stress can only occur on the ultimate or antepenultimate mora, though these morae can be in any of the last three syllables depending on the syllables' content. If the stress is ultimate, the vowel is always phonetically lengthened, even if it is already long. This is unlike other strictly Nentan languages, and more in line with High Kanafan languages.

Phonotactics

New Karanesa is a (C)(C)V(C) language. Generally speaking, syllables with one onset consonant and one coda consonant are more common than syllables with two onset consonants, which are more common than full syllables. The only onset clusters that are attested are any non-palatal consonant before an approximant or rhotic (that is, /j w ɺ r/) and any plosive after /s/. Voiced plosives in this situation cause the /s/ to be voiced [z].

New Karanesa's only phonemic diphthongs are /aj aw/. However, any two vowels can be separated by only a hiatus as long as the second vowel is not [i u]. This phonetically sounds similar to a diphthong.

The following strings of phonemes that may occur due to affixes or compounding are not allowed:

• Any sonorant followed by itself; if a conflict occurs, one is dropped for consonants.
  • Vowel handling under this rule differs between dialects, though usually either they combine to a long vowel, or the latter vowel is given hard attack. Dialects where the latter is common may write such words as if they had an intervening /q/ between the vowels.
• Two consecutive consonants that differ only in voicing; if a conflict occurs, then the unvoiced consonant becomes voiced unless the prior vowel is phonetically short (/i u e o ə a/) and unstressed, then the voiced consonant becomes unvoiced.
• Any obstruent followed by another of the same manner of articulation; if this occurs, then the one closest to the root is duplicated to the one further from the root.

Orthography

Main article: New Karanesa orthography

New Karanesa may be either written using the Latin alphabet or the Nentan script.

Romanization

New Karanesa consonants are written as seen in the IPA, with the following exceptions:

• /ɲ/ is written as ny or nh
• /ŋ/ is written as ng
• /tʃ/ is written as c
• /dʒ/ is written as j
• /x/ is written as h
• /ɣ/ is written as rh
• /ʃ/ is written as sh
• /ʒ/ is written as zh
• /θ/ is written as th
• /ɺ/ is written as l
• /j/ is written as y
• /ɸ/ is written as f

New Karanesa's so-called "short vowels" (not to be confused with phonetically short vowels) are /i u e o ə/; these are written with <i u e o a> respectively. The other vowels /ɨː eː oː ɛː ɔː a əː/ are written with accents on the closest short vowel: <î/û é ó ê ô á â>. The orthography used for /ɨː/ depends on if the following consonant is rounded: it uses <î> if it isn't, and <û> if it is.

Syntax

Constituent order

In transitive sentences, New Karanesa tends to place the agent before the verb and the objects after the verb. However, New Karanesa does not have a subject in the Indo-European sense, so this word order is notated "AVO" rather than "SVO". Additionally, the verb can be moved from agent trigger into patient trigger with the prefix ko. Both the agent and direct object can also be marked individually as such with kwa and po respectively. As a result, the word order of New Karanesa is relatively free, though AVO is the most common word order, followed by OVA.

Noun phrase

Adjectives and determiners follow the noun they apply to. Much as in the natural language Spanish, numerals are often considered adjectives, but are placed before the noun, rather than after it. Prepositions and case particles precede the noun they apply to.

When placed in the genitive, a noun is considered an adjective, and is placed after the noun it applies to.

Verb phrase

Adverbs are considered a form of adjective, and follow the verb they apply to. However, unlike adjectives, adverbs take on the same tense affix as the verb they apply to. This is likely a holdover from when all adjectives were stative verbs.

Other resources

• Rokadong on Star Dragon's Den