Reháľa Kâp

Phonology

Consonants

Ejectives are only weakly ejective and may be realized as tenuis.

Orthographically, when phonemes represented by digraphs or trigraphs are geminate, only the first character is doubled.

Vowels

Oral Short

Nasal Short

Oral Long

Note that long vowels are always stressed.

* Stressed

Phonotactics

The syllable structure is C(C)V(ː)(C)(C)(C), except that initial syllables can begin with a vowel.

Stress is phonemic and mobile, and may fall on one of the last three syllables of a word (including any attached clitics).

Only the stressed vowel can be long. Nasal vowels can precede both oral and nasal consonants and can fall in final position.

Diachronics

The protolanguage had the vowel phoneme inventory /i æ ɑ u iː æː ɑː uː/, allophonic palatalization, and a contrast between uvular and pharyngeal consonants.

Short vowels in the most unstressed positions (i.e. odd distances from the primary stress and not in initial or final syllables, unless the short vowel was in final position within a clitic before a vowel-initial morpheme) became ultrashort unless they are the sole syllable of a stem, as these are not 'most unstressed'; this is relevant later.

Note that in the following collapse in vowel lengths, ultrashort vowels remain ultrashort.

Protolanguage /i æ ɑ u iː æː ɑː uː/ became /e ə ə o iː aː aː uː/ when not adjacent to uvular or pharyngeal consonants.

Protolanguage /i æ ɑ u iː æː ɑː uː/ became /e a a o eː aː aː oː/ when adjacent to uvular consonants and not adjacent to any pharyngeal consonants.

Protolanguage /i æ ɑ u iː æː ɑː uː/ became /e e e ə eː eː eː əː/ when adjacent to pharyngeal consonants.

Protolanguage /ij æj ɑj uj iːj æːj ɑːj uːj/ where the /j/ fell in a coda position became /iː eː aj uj iːj eːj aːj uːj/ when not preceded by uvular or pharyngeal consonants.

Protolanguage /ij æj ɑj uj iːj æːj ɑːj uːj/ where the /j/ fell in a coda position became /eː aː aj oj eːj aːj aːj oːj/ when preceded by uvular consonants.

Protolanguage /ij æj ɑj uj iːj æːj ɑːj uːj/ where the /j/ fell in a coda position became /eː eː ej ɐj eːj ejː eːj ɐːj/ when preceded by pharyngeal consonants.

Protolanguage /iw æw ɑw uw iːw æːw ɑːw uːw/ where the /w/ fell in a coda position became /iw aw oː uː iːw aːw oːw uːw/ when not preceded by uvular or pharyngeal consonants.

Protolanguage /iw æw ɑw uw iːw æːw ɑːw uːw/ where the /w/ fell in a coda position became /ew aw oː oː eːw aːw oːw oːw/ when preceded by uvular consonants.

Protolanguage /iw æw ɑw uw iːw æːw ɑːw uːw/ where the /w/ fell in a coda position became /ew ew ɐː ɐː eːw eːw ɐːw ɐːw/ when preceded by pharyngeal consonants.

Long vowels shortened.

Stressed vowels in open syllables lengthened.

Geminates shortened, and simultaneously coda nasals were elided leaving preceding nasal vowels. When a geminate nasal followed a vowel, this resulted in a nasal vowel followed by a non-geminate nasal consonant.

Oral ultrashort vowels were elided where four (or greater)-consonant clusters or clusters consisting of a sibilant fricative or affricate followed by a sibilant fricative would not result; otherwise ultrashort vowels became merely short. As a result, palatalization becomes phonemic.

Pharyngeal consonants become uvular, but do not change their coloring of vowels. Note that as uvular consonants were able to undergo palatalization which pharyngeal consonants did not undergo, this results in a further contrast between palatalized uvular (i.e. velar) and uvular consonats.

/j/ between consonants or after a consonant and in final position becomes /i/, and /w/ between consonants or after a consonant and in final position becomes /u/.

Unstressed /jɐ/ after a consonant becomes /i/ and unstressed /wɐ/ after a consonant becomes /u/.

Morphosyntax

@ Contracted form.

+ Uvular-colored form.

# Pharyngeal-colored form.

~ Palatalizing form.

^ Uvular-coloring form.

% Pharyngeal-coloring form.

: A long vowel or geminate in the protolanguage.

& Before or after a vowel in the protolanguage.

Word Order

The fundamental word order is topic-verb-comment, with the verb in V2 position (note that anything can be placed before the verb to emphasize it).

Adjectives, non-pronominal possessors, and relative clauses are placed after the NP.

Adverbs are normally placed after the main verb.

Vocatives are normally placed at the very start, before the topic.

Verbs

There are three aspects (imperfective, perfective, and stative) and two morphosyntactic tenses (present and past). Note, however, that the 'present perfective' is actually used to express the future or performatives.

Many verbs do not have stems that distinguish all there aspects on the verb itself. Rather, the order of verb agreement clitics is used to express tense, with clitics preceding the verb indicating present by default and clitics following the verb indicating past by default. In turn, present tense implies imperfective aspect and past tense implies perfective aspect. Past imperfective, 'present perfective', and for verbs that are not defective so as to always be stative, present stative and past stative are marked with periphrasis.

Past imperfective is expressed by placing the main verb in the past, using the imperfective stem of the main verb, and preceding the main verb with tâg 'be like'.

'Present perfective' is expressed by placing the main verb in the present, using the perfective stem of the main verb, and preceding the main verb with góň 'create, make, do + complementizer'.

Past stative is expressed by placing the main verb in the past, using the stative stem of the main verb, and preceding the main verb with yáň 'exist + complementizer'.

Present stative is expressed by placing the main verb in the present, using the stative stem of the main verb, and preceding the main verb with yáň 'exist + complementizer'.

The verb is marked for inverse if the transitive direct object is higher than the transitive subject on a hierarchy of personhood, animacy, named (higher) versus unnamed, topicality, and singular and count (highest) versus dual (middle) versus plural or mass (lowest).

Agreement suffixes are given in order of core and then oblique, decreasing order of personhood, decreasing order of animacy, and then increasing order of number.

Passivization is used to remove the agent of a transitive verb or express a passive participle of a transitive verb.

Antipassivization is used to remove the direct object of a transitive verb or express an active participle of a transitive verb.

Transitive relative clauses where a core argument is relativized are formed by marking the verb as a participle and placing it after the NP, agreeing with it as an adjective, and having it receive agreement clitics for all arguments except the relativized noun. Whether the relativized noun is the agent or patient depends on hierarchy and inverse marking on the participle.

The verb itself is composed of the following:

• The imperative prefix; this is verb-dependent and is either a-, à-+, or e-#, on one hand, or o- or a-#, on the other hand.
• Participles are marked ~e-.
• The negative is marked with ~ye- or ~y-@ and the prohibitive is marked with ~ce- or ~c-@.
• The conditional is marked with ~śa-, ~śà-+, ~śe-#, or ~ś@.
• Applicatives:
• The locative is marked with ~še- or ~š-@. When passivized the locative argument may be promoted to subject.
• The comitative is marked with ~^ke- or ~^k-@. This uvular-colors preceding vowels. When passivized the direct object is promoted to subject.
• The dative is marked with ~ša-, ~šà-+, ~še-#, or ~š-@. When passivized the dative argument may be promoted to subject.
• The instrumental is marked with ~ma-, ~mà-+, ~me-#, or ~m-@. When passivized the instrumental argument may be promoted to subject.
• The verb stem; this may have imperfective, perfective, and/or stative forms.
• The reflexive/reciprocal is marked with -at, -àt+, -et#, or -t@ when following a protolanguage consonant and -t when following a protolanguage vowel.
• The causative is marked with ~-ad, ~-ađ&, ~-àd+, ~-àđ+&, ~-ed#, ~-eđ#&, ~-d@, or ~-đ@& when following a protolanguage consonant and -d, or -đ& when following a protolanguage vowel..
• The passive is marked with ~-e, which if after a non-monosyllable replaces a historical final short vowel, or after a monosyllable ending in a historical short vowel or anything ending in a historical long vowel, is marked with ~-ye. This is a palatalizing suffix.
• The antipassive is marked with -k' after a vowel or single consonant in the protolanguage and -k'a, -k'à+, -k'e#, or -k'@ after two consonants or a geminate in the protolanguage.
• The subjunctive is marked with -n or, after a vowel, -ñ.
• The indirective is marked with -a, -à+, or -e# after a historical consonant and ~-ya, ~-yà+, or ~-ye# after a historical vowel.
• The inverse is marked with -ar, -àr+, -er#, or -r@ after a historical consonant or -r after a historical vowel.

Modals

Modals are often expressed with impersonal verbs taking a subordinate clause as their direct object. The impersonal modals are stative. However, some modals are expressed as having a subject and a subordinate clause as their direct object.

Verbification

There are a number of prefixes for deriving verbs from adjectives and nouns:

Note that predicative adjectives and nouns do not involve prefixes, but rather involve direct usage of adjectives and nouns like stative verbs. Imperative predicative adjectives and nouns take the imperative prefix a-.

Nouns and Adjectives

There are no cases, three numbers (singular, dual, and plural), four genders (masculine animate, feminine animate, masculine inanimate, and feminine inanimate), two states (absolute and construct), and four degrees (positive, comparative, elative, and superlative).

Comparative degree is marked with (~)-ts(@), ~-ats, ~-àts+, or ~-ets# depending on whether the stem ended in a vowel, non-uvular/non-pharyngeal consonant, uvular consonant, or pharyngeal consonant in the protolanguage, and how elision took place. This is a palatalizing suffix. Also, stress-related stem changes may take place.

Elative degree is marked with ^-q'à, which may color a final vowel of the stem. Also, stress-related stem changes may take place.

Superlative degree is marked with either (~)-ñna, ~-eñna or (~)-na(@) depending on whether the stem ended in a vowel or consonant or whether vowel elision applied. This is a palatalizing suffix. Also, stress-related stem changes may take place.

Feminine animate gender is marked with -s or, where a CCC cluster formerly forbidden in the protolanguage would have resulted, -sa.

Dual number is marked with -ta.

Plural number is marked on masculine nouns and adjectives with ~-ya or, when after a consonant, ~-i, and on feminine animate nouns and adjectives with -to.

Non-pronominal possession is expressed by placing the possessee before the possessor in construct state. Construct state is marked on nouns and adjectives ending in consonants with the affix ~-a, ~-à+, or ~-e# (this is a palatalizing suffix), on monosyllabic nouns and adjectives ending in vowels with the affix ~-ya, and on polysyllabic nouns and adjectives ending in vowels by removing the final vowel and then treating them like nouns and adjectives ending in consonants. Other changes may occur due to stress changes and changes in syllable structure historically.

Nominalization

There are a number of assorted nominalization prefixes for deriving nouns from verbs and adjectives. The gender of the resulting nouns is normally determined by the nominalization prefix except that prefixes creating masculine animate nouns may be combined with -h(a) to derive feminine animate nouns. Note that nominalizers deriving nouns from verbs can have negative and voice affixes attached to the verb prior to attaching the nominalizer.

Adjectivization

There are a number of prefixes for deriving adjectives from verbs and nouns:

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

Demonstrative Pronouns

Relative Pronouns

Note that these are archaic when not used for relativized obliques.

Interrogatives

Interrogatives undergo wh-movement, including with their whole noun phrase, to initial position before the verb.

Relational Nouns

On top of applicatives and serial verbs, locatives are expressed with relational nouns. Many relational nouns are etymologically related to body parts.

Numbers

Numbers one through five behave like demonstratives, and are clitics that precede that which they modify.

Numbers six through nine are formed by prefixing numbers one through four with 'five' ^qà:.

Nouns and their adjectives prefixed with 1 through 9 are marked as singular; this does not affect verb agreement clitics, though, which will agree with them as singular, dual, or plural as expected.

To make numbers 1 through 9 stand alone as nouns, e.g. when combining them with larger numbers, they are converted to masculine inanimate nouns by prefixing them onto (w)o, which becomes (w)a in construct state.

Numbers 10, 20, 100, 1000, and 10000 behave like masculine inanimate nouns, and are multiplied (except for 10, which is never multiplied) by prefixing them with clitics for one through nine. They are combined by placing them in apposition, from largest to smallest, in construct state before the noun they qualify. As they and not the noun the qualify are the direct arguments of the verb and of possessees, they go in the appropriate case given their syntactic role.

Samples