TolsianR: Difference between revisions

Additionally, an apostrophe is used to disambiguate ambiguous sequences which could be interpreted as either a digraph representing a single phoneme, or two graphemes in a row representing two phonemes. For instance, <lh> denotes /ɾ/, but <l'h> denotes /lh/.

<!-- How do the words in your language look? How do you derive words from others? Do you have cases? Are verbs inflected? Do nouns differ from adjectives? Do adjectives differ from verbs? Etc. -->

There are five main parts of speech in TolsianR : nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions.

Nouns have definiteness, gender, number, and case. The case system is actually very reduced, with only three cases : nominative, accusative, and genitive. Definiteness is marked by definite and indefinite articles which agree in gender and number with the nouns. There are two numbers, singular and plural. Finally, the gender system is fairly complicated, as it consists of two dimensions interacting : masculine vs feminine on the one hand and animate vs inanimate on the other. However, different parts of speech agree with these two gender systems : articles and adjectives will take masculine or feminine markings, while verbs are conjugated differently depending upon whether the noun is animate or inanimate. Nouns themselves are marked for gender, and for animatedness when in the accusative or dative case. Also, when an adjective qualifies several nouns which are not all masculine or feminine, they take a neutral plural suffix ; but beyond those special cases, neutral has disappeared from TolsianR.

There are definite and indefinite articles, agreeing in gender and number with the nouns they modify. They undergo morphophonological changes depending on whether the noun they modify begins with a vowel or with a consonant.

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On many nouns ending in a vowel, gender is identifiable as -''e'' and -''o'' are masculine markers, while -''a'' and -''i'' are feminine markers. But nouns ending with a consonant don't provide such cues. Besides, there are occasional exceptions to these rules. Animatedness is marked in the accusative case as the prefix will be ''ke''- (or ''k''- before a vowel) in the case of an inanimate noun, and ''dake''- (or ''dak''- before a vowel) in the case of an animate noun ; and in the genitive case, with a suffix ''-o'' for inanimate nouns (transformed into /w/ after a vowel) and ''-do'' for animate nouns (see section on cases for more details). Also, "natural" gender is usually reflected in the grammatical gender (nous which refer to male beings usually are masculine, and vice-versa) ; and "natural" animatedness is usually reflected in grammatical animatedness as well : people, animals and, it is worth noticing, plants, are usually animate, while objects, concepts etc are usually inanimate.

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Nouns can be singular or plural and articles, adjectives and verbs agree in number with the noun (or the subject in the case of the verb). Singular is unmarked, while plural is marked only after vowels, with the prefix /-s/, written <-c>. In the written register, it is also indicated after consonants by <-c>.

TolsianR has three cases : nominative, accusative and genitive. Case agrees with a noun's animatedness. Nominative is unmarked, and corresponds to the functions of subject, attribute of the subject, and all other functions which are not covered by the accusative and dative cases. Accusative corresponds to the function of direct object of a verb and is marked with a prefix :  ''ke''- (or ''k''- before a vowel) in the case of an inanimate noun, and ''dake''- (or ''dak''- before a vowel) in the case of an animate noun. In more recent developments of the language, ''dake-'' has become ''da-'' (or ''d-'' in front of a vowel). Genitive corresponds to the "possessor" of something and is marked with a suffix ''-o'' for inanimate nouns (transformed into /w/ after a vowel) and ''-do'' for animate nouns, although if the stem ends in a consonant diverse morphophonological changes take place depending on that consonant : aspirated plosives lose their aspiration ; voiceless obstruents become voiced ; the palatal nasal gets partially assimilated and turns into ''n'' ; prenasalised occlusives get totally nasalised ; the bilabial fricative becomes a labio-velar approximant [w] ; and there's gemination with the dental occlusives : [dd]. Those changes are usually reflected in the orthography.

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There are two main classes of verbs : (A) those whose stem ends in a vowel, and (B) those whose stem ends in a consonant. Verbs ending with an -''a'' or an -''i'' usually just take an -''r'' to form the infinitive, while the other ones usually take a -''ƃ'' /bɾa/. Verbs agree in person, animatedness and number with their subject. There are formally seven persons in TolsianR : first singular, second singular, third singular, first plural, second plural, third plural, and the "polite" second person used in formal contexts for which number is neutralized.

TolsianR's tense system is divided into past, present, and future, which are encoded in the conjugation of the verbs in the indicative mode.  

A distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects is marked morphologically in the past tense, while other aspectualities, such as progressive and perfect, are marked with auxiliaries : progressive with the auxiliary ''cƿƃ'' "to be" and the present participle, and perfect with the auxiliary ''vuƃ'' "to have" and the past participle.

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Realis

The two other moods of TolsianR are subjunctive and conditional. Subjunctive is used for instance in dependent clauses whose main clause's verb expresses an opinion, an inference, a belief (verbs such as "to think", "to believe", "to consider", etc), a desire or a wish ("to want", "to hope"). It is also used to express commands, interdictions and requests, as there is no distinct imperative mood in the language. Conditional is used to speak of events whose realization depends on a certain condition ; then, it is used in both the main and the dependent clauses.

The default polarity is positive : something is asserted. In order to express negation, the negative adverb ''ne'' is placed right before the verb. If a subject pronoun is used, it is inserted between the negative adverb and the verb.  

Examples : ''æ̊ cƿ'' "I am" ; ''ne æ̊ cƿ'' "I am not".

Verbs are inflected for person, mood, tense, and animatedness. There are four moods : indicative, subjunctive, conditional, and so-called "absolute" (gnomic). The indicative mood splits into four tenses : present, imperfect past, perfect past, and future. There are also a present partitive and a past partitive, especially used for progressive aspect and passive voice, respectively.

{| class="wikitable"

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| '''Absolute''' (Gnomic) || stemV-jo ; stemV-jos ; stemV-jot ; stemV-jof ; stemV-joz ; stemV-jon ; stemV-je || stemV-joh ; stemV-joθ ; stemV-jot̚ ; stemV-joɸ ; stemV-joʒ ; stemV-jowi ; stemV-joð ; stemV-joː

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{| class="wikitable"

|-

! 2FORMAL  

| ''stem''V-ne || ''stem''V-tVne || ''stem''V-fVne || ''stem''V-rVne || ''stem''V-ke || ''stem''V-ne || ''stem''V-je || ''stem''V-jne || ''stem''V-tVjne || ''stem''V-fVjne || ''stem''V-rVjne || ''stem''V-kje || ''stem''V-je || ''stem''V-joð ; ''stem''V-joː

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Note : in the original alphabet, and its corresponding traditional transliteration, endings that contain the sound /jo/ are written with the letter <y> if they belong to the absolute or subjunctive, but a digraph <i͠o> elsewhere ; for instance, the absolute animate 1SG, 2SG and 3SG persons are differentiated in writing from their inanimate conditional counterparts, despite being the same in phonic realization. In the modern transliteration, there is no difference.

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Absolute Inanimate : ''bariniyh, bariniys, bariniyŧ, bariniyƥ, bariniyƶ̆, bariniyƿ, bariniyƶ, bariniyœ''

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Historical / canonical :

But it is debated whether orthography should reflect better the palatalization and some write : ''barintqi, barintqic, barintqit, barintqimo, barintqitc, barintqin''.

{| class="wikitable"

|-

| '''Absolute''' (Gnomic) || stem-jo ; stem-jos ; stem-jot ; stem-jof ; stem-joz ; stem-jon ; stem-je || stem-joh ; stem-joθ ; stem-jot̚ ; stem-joɸ ; stem-joʒ ; stem-jowi ; stem-joð ; stem-joː

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Let's illustrate this table with the Class B verb ''vekƃ'', "to help" :

Illustration : ''barinitɯ, barinitañ, barinid, bariniƶ̆ ; vekɯ, vekañ, vekid, vekiƶ̆''.

Adjectives agree in number and gender (masculine/feminine) with the noun they qualify. They're usually derived from nouns, but sometimes from verbs as well. Adjectives derived from nouns often take on the suffix -''el(c)'', -''al(c)'', ''-ilc'' (/el/, /al/, /il/ ; masculine (masculine plural), feminine (feminine plural) and neuter plural, respectively) if the noun stem ends in a consonant ; or the suffix ''-le(c)'', -''la(c)'', -''lic'' (/le(s)/, /la(s)/, /lis/) if it ends in a vowel. As for adjectives derived from verbs, they're usually past participle with added suffixes for gender and number : ''-e(c)'', -''a(c)'', ''-i(c)''. The neutral only exist in the plural form nowadays and is used when an adjective qualifies several nouns of diverging gender. Adjectives are almost always placed after the noun they qualify.

Adverbs are invariable and are usually formed from the old singular neutral form of an adjective by adding the suffix -ƿn /win/. Thus, an adjective derived from a noun will yield such adverbs as stemV-''liƿn'' or stem-''ilƿn'', depending on the stem ending with a vowel or a consonant, and an adjective derived from a past participle will yield such adverbs as stemV-''dƿn'', stemV-''ƶ̆ƿn'', stem-''idƿn'' or stem-''iƶ̆ƿn''. Adverbs are usually placed directly after the word (verb or adjective) they modify.

To express many spatial or temporal relations and mark some diverse semantic roles, TolsianR relies on several function words which are placed before their complement and are thus prepositions. Here is a non-exhaustive list of prepositions :

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TolsianR makes use of both prefixes and suffixes to derive new words from older ones ; some suffixes can change a word's grammatical category, whereas both suffixes and prefixes can be used to alter the meaning of a word. Word compounding also exists but is less prevalent in modern Tolsian.

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Word order in simple declarative sentences can be SVO or SOV. It is thought SVO order is used to highlight the object more, while SOV would emphasize the process instead. Anyway, the important point is that the verb be placed after its subject in the sentence. In complex sentences with a main sentence and a dependent sentence, the order of the constituents is Subject - Verb- Dependent sentence. I suck at syntax. Inside the dependent sentence, the word order can be SOV or SVO as well, but is also commonly OSV.

In yes-no questions, the order can be VSO or OVS ; there is an inversion between subject and verb. In open questions ("wh-questions"), an interrogative pronoun is used and placed before the verb and the subject : Pronoun - Verb - Subject. If the question is precisely about the subject, then the order is Verb - Pronoun (like in "Says who ?").