Qoyan language

[Omzinesý]

I have been presenting this language before in Onzinian Scrap-thead, but now I thought to make a new thread for it. The language tries to have Africal feeling in it and it has been inflected by Somali and French.

The first post lacks, morphology, orthography, and tone/stress system (part of morphology)

Comments are welcome, as always.

consonants:

plain stops: p t t͡ɕ k k͡p q*
implosives: ɓ ɗ ɗ͡ʑ ɓ͡ɠ ɠ
plain nasals: m n ŋ m͡ŋ**
prenasalized stops: mb nd ŋg m͡ŋg͡b**
liquids: l r
fricatives: s ʃ*** χ
semi-vowels: j w
clicks: | ‖

* Plain stops are voiceless stops word-initially and word-finally, and voiced fricatives intervocally. Theoretically the labiovelar fricative [ɣ͡β] as an allophone of /k͡p/ is not the same as /w/, but intervocally they are often merged.
** Plain nasals and prenasalized stops have a harmony so that only one group can appear in an uncompound word.
*** /ʃ/ has an allophone [ɧ] if there is a breathy voiced vowel in the environment.

vowels:

i, i̤ , u, ṳ
e, e̤ , o, o̤
a, a̤



Syntax:

Clause structure:
TOP/FOC PART ABS PRON.AGR-V ERG

The object in the absolutive can either have its own tone or be 'incorporated' having no own tone. Also an instrument can be 'incorporated' before the verb. It's in the ergative then.

There are two cases: the absolutive and the ergative. The syntax also uses tose roles, so intransitive clauses are: SV but transitive clauses are OVS. The subject does, however, often appear in the FOC/TOP-position where it is in the absolutive case.

The obligatory particle encodes most grammatical information of the clause: polarity, agreeing/denying, declaration/question/command, aspect, posterior/simultaneous, causal relations... It could be analysed as a copula, because the copular clause is of the form: TOP PART ABS

The pronominals are clitics before the verb. They appaer in the following order, so that 6 is closest to the verb and 1st is the first one. In side the groups, the order is free.
6. sg1, pl1.exl
5. pl1,incl
4. sg2
3. rel.pron.masc, rel.pron.fem
2. 3th. prox.masc, 3th.prox fem
1. 3th.dist.masc, 3th.dist.fem

Although nouns have the abs-erg alignment, pronouns have a split system. There are three series of pronouns: Agent pronouns, patien pronouns, and dative pronouns. The dative pronouns are also used for expriencers, while the stimulus as a patient.
Qoyan is not a pro-drop language. The TOP/FOC cannot be a subject or object, but it must be repeated as a pronoun. The only differencebetween the topic and focus is that topics are repeated as a 1st or 2nd series pronoun, while focus is repeated as a relative pronoun.