User:Chrysophylax/YaLU

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial		Alveolar			Palatal	Velar		Glottal
	Plain	Ejective	Plain	Ejective	Palatalised		Plain	Ejective
Stop	b [p] p [pʰ]	ḇ [p’]	d [t] t [tʰ]	ḏ [t’]	d́ [tʲ] t́ [tʲʰ]		g [k] k [kʰ]	ḡ [g’]
Affricate			z [t͡s]	ẕ [t͡s’]	ź [t͡sʲ]
Fricative	v [v]		s [s̠̻]		ś [s̠̻ʲ]				h [h]
Nasal	m [m]		n [n]		ń [nʲ]
Approximants			l [l]		ĺ [lʲ]	y/j [j]	w [w]
Trills			r [r]

Notes

1. /j/ is written with <y> before u, a, o but <j> everywhere else.
2. The consonants r, l, w can all stand in for a vowel in a syllable core.
3. The consonants s and n, have the following retroflex allophones after r: [ʂ], [ɳ]; e.g. prsaḏi ['pʰrʂat’i]
4. The plain plosive stops, that is b, d, g may become semi-voiced between vowels and after n, m and l.

Vowels

Five vowels: a, e, i, o, u with long doublets aa, ee, ii, oo, uu.

Tone

Syllables can take one of three tones: rising, falling, plain or mid, indicated respectively by the acute, the grave and no accent.

Plain	Rising	Falling
ḡaaj	ḡááj	ḡààj
[k’āːj]	[k’ǎːj]	[k’âːj]
"rock"	"who"	"elk"

Grammar

Morphology

Pronouns

Pronouns come in primarily two shapes, independent and enclitic versions. The independent pronouns are used to emphasise and in certain syntactic constructions. The enclitic versions are used everywhere else. Furthermore, as this is a pro-drop language, they may be dropped from any given sentence if context allows it.

	singular	plural
		inclusive	exclusive
first	har	haryań	hammeḏ
second	yań	yaańńeḏ
third	jee, śi	jeemeḏ

Notes

1. Different pronouns are used for the third person depending on the referent's animacy. The word jee can only be used for animate referents and can be pluralised to jeemeḏ, whereas inanimate śi can solely appear with inanimates, e.g., úúlem śi … "the country, it…", and cannot be pluralised.

The proclitic versions are ha-, ńa-, je-, śi- in the singular and hee-, ńee-, mee- in the plural.

Nouns

Nouns are relatively simple, being marked for possession and number. The only major difference between animate and inanimate nouns is that only animate nouns may be pluralised. Inanimate nouns need to use a periphrastic construction to express plurality.

Number

Animate nouns are pluralised simply by affixing the correct prefix or circumfix, which in turn varies depending on whether the noun refers to a human or not, on whether the noun is respected by the speaker. For all parts where a V is written, replace this with the same vowel that is found in the word.

	human	non-human
neutral	-míít	-ta
respective	Vz-_-t	Vr-_-ta
disrespective	Vl-_-t	Vm-_-ta

	tak chief	ḡààj elk
	human	non-human
neutral	tagmíít rulers	ḡààt́a elks
respective	assaht just rulers	àrkààt́a noble elks
disrespective	aldaht treacherous rulers	àmkààt́a wretched elks

Possession

All nouns change for possession, which can be broadly divided into alienable and inalienable possession. The marking for alienable possession is achieved by means of certain prefixes which indicate the person and their number.

	S	P
1P	u-	hù-
2P	a-	ẕè-
3P	ya-	yú-

The noun is then followed by its possessor, either a pronoun or a noun. Pronouns are always in the singular in the third person, even if the noun has a possessive plural marker.

yadnald jee

"He has a dog (lit. his-dog he)"

yúdnald jee

"They have a dog (lit. their-dog he)"

yaḡaaj ẕal yùśi jee

"They have some rocks (lit. 3sg.poss;rock many 3pl.poss;it he)"

hùhassat haryań

"Our noble rulers"

To show inalienable possession, which is reserved for family members, body parts, etc., the word gains the enclitic version of the relevant pronoun as a prefix.

ha-pàs

"My mother (lit. I-mother)"

je-wel

"Her nose (lit. she-nose)"

je-wel yaśi ha-pàs

"My mother's nose (lit. 3sg-nose 3sg.poss;it 1sg-mother)"

Syntax

In transitive sentences: verb-patient-agent. Also permits fronting of agent for emphasis, leading to agent-verb-patient. In intransitive sentences, verb-subject is the norm.