Carinnaha
After creating the phoneme inventory and orthography of an alphabetlang (now named Carinnaha), I figured I would actually use it, since Anthologica is down so I cannot work on Xanínə.
Obviously, the phoneme inventory and orthography are as follows:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
/a p tɕʼ t eː ɸ k χ i tɕ kʼ l m n oː pʼ qʼ ɾ s tʼ u β w ɕ j z/
/m n/ m n
/p t tɕ k ʔ/ b d j g ∅
/pʼ tʼ tɕʼ kʼ qʼ/ p t c k q
/ɸ s ɕ χ/ f s x h
/β z/ v z
/ɾ l/ r l
/w j/ w y
/i eː a oː u/ i e a o u
Note that there is also [ə], which is unwritten.
The syllable structure is as follows:
({O, N})({L, G})V({L, G})({O, N})
or:
({O, N})({L, G})Vː(C)
O: obstruent
N: nasal
L: liquid
G: glide
Disallowed consonant clusters are broken up with [ə] or, adjacent to a uvular consonant, [ɐ]. Note that larger onsets are preferred over larger codas, when both would allow the same number of inserted [ə]s, except that final CəC is preferred over final CCə, but geminates are not broken up.
Geminates are allowed for all consonants.
/n/ assimilates to the POA of following consonants.
/t tʼ n/ cannot be followed by /l/ in an onset.
/ppʼ ttʼ tɕtɕʼ kkʼ/ assimilate together to [pʼː tʼː tɕʼː kʼː]
/pʼpʼ tʼtʼ tɕʼtɕʼ kʼkʼ qʼqʼ/ assimilate together to [pʼː tʼː tɕʼː kʼː qʼː]
Tenuis plosives voice between vowels.
/β/ assimilates together with following or preceding /w/ to [w].
Voiced obstruents devoice adjacent to voiceless obstruents.
Epenthetic [j] is inserted after /i eː/ followed by a non-close front vowel, written y
Epenthetic [w] is inserted after /u oː/ followed by a non-close back vowel, written w
Epenthetic [j] is inserted before /i eː/ preceded by an open vowel, written y
Epenthetic [w] is inserted before /u oː/ preceded by an open vowel, written w
/ai/ becomes simply [eː] or [ɛː] (adjacent to uvular consonants), written e
/au/ becomes simply [oː] or [ɔː] (adjacent to uvular consonants), written o.
/aa/ becomes simply [a], written a
/i eː a oː u/ become [e ɛː ɑː ɔː o] adjacent to uvular consonants.
Nominal Declension
There are two genders, masculine and feminine, two systems of number, singular versus plural and, in some nouns, collective versus singulative (which is orthogonal to singular versus plural number), two cases, nominative versus oblique, three states, definite versus indefinite versus construct (yes I'm stealing this one from Semitic), and nouns inflect for the person, number, and gender of their possessor.
Indefinite and definite state nouns have the following format:
preposition-stem-adjective nominalization-gender-singulative-definiteness-plural-case
where
preposition is ∅ (obviously) for nouns not preceded by simple prepositions and otherwise a simple preposition attached to the noun stem
adjective nominalization is ∅ except for nouns nominalized from adjectives, where then it is a for property nominalization and u for instance nominalization
gender is ∅ for masculine and many feminine nouns and h for other feminine nouns (especially if the noun can also be masculine)
singulative is ∅ for singular, plural, and collective and at for singulative singular and singulative plural ("plural of paucity")
definiteness is ∅ for indefinite and m for definite
plural is ∅ for singular, collective, and singulative singular and n for plural and singulative plural
case is a for nominative and i for oblique but ∅ if a possessive affix is attached
Construct state nouns have the following format:
preposition-stem-adjective nominalization-gender-singulative-plural-possessor
where these are the same as the above, except for that:
possessor is ∅ for no possessor and otherwise:
1st sg. k 1st pl. kn
2nd m. sg. ba 2nd m. pl. ban
2nd f. sg. bet 2nd f. pl. betn
3rd m. sg. d 3rd m. pl. dn
3rd f. sg. s 3rd f. pl. sn
reflexive sg. aw reflexive pl. aw
Note that these "possessor" affixes are also used for forming conjugated prepositions, forming independent personal pronouns (by attaching them to a dummy stem), marking objects on verbs, and marking arguments of verbal nouns.
Verbal Conjugation
Finite verbs may be realis, where if they are main verbs they have witness, deductive, reportative, or assumption evidentials except in questions, or irrealis, where then they may be subjunctive, imperative, or jussive/cohortative. In addition to finite verbs there is also a verbal noun (which may have an object or a subject marked), an active participle, and a passive participle.
All verb forms may be either perfect or imperfect with the exception of imperative and jussive verbs, with perfect implying perfective and past and imperfect implying imperfective or stative and non-past, but more complex tenses are formed with auxiliary verbs; note that verb stems are inherently either perfect or imperfect, and for some verbs affixes are used to derive imperfect verbs from perfect verbs or perfect verbs or imperfect verbs, but for many verbs, especially many common ones, different stems are used for each.
Finite verbs are marked for the person, number, and gender of their subject, and transitive verbs are marked for the person, number, and gender of their object. Verbal nouns are marked for their subject or object with the same forms by which other nouns are marked for possession. Active participles are marked for their objects by a preposition, and passive participles are marked for their subjects by a preposition.
There are derivational affixes for deriving any reasonable combination of passive voice, causative voice, reflexive voice, and reciprocal voice for verbs (e.g. one can form a passive from a causative verb ("he was made to eat gruel") or a causative of a passive verb ("he made him be eaten") or a reflexive of a causative verb ("he made himself eat"). There are also verbs that are inherently causative, passive or middle voice, reflexive, and/or reciprocal. Note that causative, reflexive, and reciprocal derivation is used for participles, but passive derivation is not, with different inflectional mechanisms being used to mark active participles versus passive participles.
Verbs that may be transitive are normally ambitransitive.
Note that adjectival and nominal stems may be used as verb stems, where then they have predicative adjectival and equational meanings respectively. Both are imperfect by default. Inchoative verb stems can be derived from adjectival and nominal stems by prefixing k to them.
Non-imperative finite verbs have the following format:
subject-derivation-aspect/tense-stem-subjunctive/jussive-evidential-indirect object-negative-direct object
where
subject is the person, number, and gender of the subject:
1st sg. n 1st pl. t
2nd m. sg. di 2nd m. pl. y
2nd f. sg. u 2nd f. pl. wa
3rd m. sg. a 3rd m. pl. mi
3rd f. sg. di 3rd f. p. w
aspect/tense is ∅ when no aspect/tense interconversion is needed, d to convert an imperfect stem to a perfect verb, or m to convert a perfect stem to an imperfect verb.
derivation is ∅ when no derivation is needed or any combination of s for passive voice, r for causative voice, t for reflexive voice, and nu for reciprocal voice, ordered from last to first.
subjunctive/jussive is ∅ for indicative and imperative verbs, in for subjunctive verbs and ah for jussive/cohortative verbs.
evidential is ∅ for questions, non-main verbs, and irrealis verbs, a for witness, h for deductive, ya for reportative, or ek for assumption.
indirect object is ∅ for verbs without indirect objects and otherwise the subject, number, and gender of the indirect object (note that that the 3rd m. sg. indirect object marker am is also used with a venitive meaning):
1st sg. ad 1st p. ar
2rd m. sg. as 2rd m. pl. asd
2rd f. sg. ar 2rd f. p. ard
3rd m. sg. am 3rd m. pl. and
3rd f. sg. aw 3rd f. p. awd
reflexive sg. at reflexive pl. at
negative is ∅ for affirmative verbs and r for negative verbs except jussive verbs, which receive na for a prohibitive.
direct object is ∅ for intransitive verbs and otherwise marked like personal possession on nouns with regard to person, number, and gender of objects.
Imperative finite verbs have the following format:
subject-derivation-stem-indirect object-prohibitive-direct object
where the above are the same as with non-imperative finite verbs except:
stem is the (only) stem of the verb for verbs with one principle part, the perfect stem of the verb for verbs with separate perfect and imperfect stems, and a specialized imperative stem for verbs with one.
subject is the number and gender of the subject (always second person):
2nd m. sg. ∅ 2nd m. pl. i
2nd f. sg. u 2nd f. pl. a
prohibitive is ∅ for affirmative verbs and na for prohibitive verbs.
Verbal nouns have the following format (excluding affixes that are common with nouns):
derivation-aspect/tense-stem
where these have the same meanings as above.
Participles have the following format (excluding affixes that are common with adjectives):
derivation-aspect/tense-stem-kind
where these have the same meanings as above (except passive marking is not used as part of derivation) but
kind is t for active participles, n for passive participles, aw for dative/benefactive participles, v for instrumental participles, and er for locative participles
Adjective Declension
Adjectives are marked for the gender, definiteness, singular versus plural, and case of their referents.
They have the following format:
stem-nisba-gender-definiteness-plural-case
where
nisba is ∅ except for nisba-adjectives derived from noun stems, where then it is inn
gender is ∅ for masculine and h for feminine
definiteness is ∅ for indefinite and m for definite
plural is ∅ for singular, collective, and singulative singular and n for plural and singulative plural
case is a for nominative and i for oblique
Syntax
The basic word order is verb adverb subject object PP.
The NP word order is noun possessor adjective number PP relative clause.
Note that relative clauses are simply placed at the ends of their NPs, without any other marking. If the noun is the subject or object of the outermost relative clause it is marked with a gap, otherwise it is marked with a resumptive pronoun.
Number Declension
Numbers are marked for the gender of their referents.
They have the following format:
stem-gender
where
gender is ∅ for masculine and h for feminine
However, the number one, rat, is also marked for the definiteness and case of its referent and has the following format:
rat-gender-definiteness-case
where
gender is ∅ for masculine and h for feminine
definiteness is ∅ for indefinite and m for definite
case is a for nominative and i for oblique
Note that all numbers can be turn into ordinal adjectives with id attached to the stem, and both cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers can be nominalized like adjectives.
Prepositions
The following are some common prepositions:
dative/benefactive: h (also used to mark possession, especially where construct state is already being used to express compound nouns and in combination with the existential verb)
instrumental/comitative: m (also used to mean and)
ablative: ga
locative: s
allative: u
partitive: ni
comparative: qo
equative: r
These form conjugated prepositions in combination with the "possessive" affixes used with nouns.
These are commonly used in combination with relational nouns to express more fine-grained distinctions of meaning.
Auxiliary Verbs
Auxiliary verbs are used to express more complex tenses/aspects, particularly with subject-ka-(mood)-(evidential)-s (perf.) and subject-ko-(mood)-(evidential)-s (impf.) combined with a verbal noun (which if the overall verb is transitive agrees with its object).
subject-ka-(mood)-(evidential)-s combined with an imperfect verbal noun forms past imperfective.
subject-ka-(mood)-(evidential)-s combined with a perfect verbal noun forms pluperfect (perfective).
subject-ka-(mood)-(evidential)-s combined with ka combined with an imperfect verbal noun forms the pluperfect imperfective.
subject-ko-(mood)-(evidential)-s combined with a perfect verbal noun forms present retrospective.
Note that the word order in such forms is:
subject-ka/ko-(mood)-(evidential)-s S verbal noun
if intransitive and:
subject-ka/ko-(mood)-(evidential)-s S verbal noun-(object) (O)
if transitive except when verbal noun-(object) is ka where then it is:
subject-ka-(mood)-(evidential)-s S ka verbal noun
if intransitive and:
subject-ka-(mood)-(evidential)-s S ka verbal noun-(object) (O)
if transitive.
The future, when not implicit from the use of a time expression or adverb, is expressed with subject-ro-(mood)-(evidential) (impf.) combined with h (dative) and an a verbal noun (which if the overall verb is transitive agrees with its object)
subject-ro-(mood)-(evidential) combined with h and an imperfect verbal noun forms the future imperfective.
subject-ro-(mood)-(evidential) combined with h and a perfect verbal noun forms the future perfective.
Note that the word order in such forms is:
subject-ro-(mood)-(evidential) S h-verbal noun
if intransitive and:
subject-ro-(mood)-(evidential) S h-verbal noun-(object) (O)
if transitive.
Conditional Sentences
Conditional sentences are formed by putting the apodosis before the protasis and connecting them with ga (allative) followed by mid (construct of mida "condition").
Counterfactual conditional sentences place both the apodosis and the protasis in subjunctive mood; otherwise they are both in indicative mood. (In any case either can be imperfect or perfect.)
Clause Nominalization
Clauses are simply nominalized by using them like nouns, except that they do not inflect, and cannot take possessors. They are often possessed by nouns in construct state, which take the role of (usually subordinating) conjunctions.
Conjunction-like Forms
The instrumental/comitative preposition m is frequently used to mean and.
The instrumental/comitative preposition m with the construct form glut "choice" is frequently used to mean or (both with normal nouns and with clauses).
The dative/benefactive preposition h is frequently used to mean for, so that, so as to.
The comparative preposition qo is frequently used to mean than (both as a preposition and as a conjunction).
The equative preposition r is frequently used to mean as, like (both as prepositions and as conjunctions).
The ablative preposition ga with the construct form mid "condition" is frequently used to mean if.
The ablative preposition ga with the construct form neb "cause" to frequently used to mean because.
The ablative preposition ga with the construct form lig "time" is frequently used to mean after.
The ablative preposition ga with the construct form trd "place" to frequently used to mean from where.
The locative preposition s with the construct form lig "time" is frequently used to mean when or while.
The locative preposition s with the construct form trd "place" is frequently used to mean where.
The allative preposition u with the construct form lig "time" is frequently used to mean before.
The allative preposition u with the construct form trd "place" is frequently used to mean to where.
The allative preposition u with the construct form neb "cause" is frequently used to mean therefore.
Predicative Possession
Inspired by the "have" discussion on here, I have decided to make a number of different kinds of predicative possession.
The two kinds is "have" possession, expressed with the existential verb and the dative/benefactive preposition h, "own" possession, expressed with the locative preposition s, and "have on" possession, expressed with the instrumental/comitative preposition m. These can be combined in the same sentence.
Interrogative Sentences
In all interrogative sentences, the main verb has no evidential.
Yes-no questions are introduced with the particle ya before the main verb.
Wh-questions are introduced with a noun phrase where the noun is modified by determiner xa (stem xa) (inflected like an adjective, and placed in the same slot as demonstratives), i.e. immediately after the last genitive noun.
Vocatives
Vocative NPs are placed first in a sentence, before interrogative particles, interrogative NPs, or fronted topic NPs, and are prefixed with the particle a, which is prefixed onto the vocative NP.
Adverbialization
Adverbializing an adjective, when modifying another adjective, involves simply using the stem of the adjective with no endings placed after the modified adjective.
Adverbializing an adjective, when modifying a verb, involves quality nominalizing the adjective as a feminine noun, and placing it after the instrumental/comitative preposition m.
Adverbializing a verb, when modifying an adjective, involves simply using the appropriate participle (usually active participle) with no extra endings after the participle ending after the modified adjective.
Adverbializing a verb, when modifying another verb, involves quality nominalizing the appropriate participle (usually active participle) as a feminine noun or using the verbal noun, and placing after the instrumental/comitative preposition m.
Participle TAM
Participles realize perfect versus imperfect as perfective versus imperfective aspect, inheriting tense from their containing clause.
Interrogative words
The interrogative word xa can also be used as a pronoun. In the masculine is used to mean who, where, and when, distinguished by context, and in the feminine it used to mean what.