Zutan / jiutär

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 07 Mar 2014 23:04

This is a language I've been working on on-and-off for at least four years now, since before I knew (much) about linguistics or phonetics or anything. It's developped a lot since those halycon days and is now a lot more sensible and, I think, valid as a conlang. It's spoken by the Zutans/jioutäsol(/jiauttäscol, Scoran dialect), a tribal race of humans who live across various parts of my conworld. I'd never really been able to share it with anybody before except for non-linguistically inclined friends who would usually greet it with an unenthusiastic "That's quite interesting", so I'm very pleased to have found this place, and I'm excited to introduce you all to it!

Phonology

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Orthography

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Nouns

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Regular noun declension:

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Oblique cases and endings:

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Relative and demonstrative pronouns and adjectives

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Verbs

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loomy · Post by **loomy** » 08 Mar 2014 15:38

Updated with a (n in -progress) section on nouns.

Post by **Micamo** » 08 Mar 2014 20:41

When is the ablative case used? Could you give some examples?

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 08 Mar 2014 20:45

There are a total of thirty-four cases in Zutan, of which thirty are grouped as 'oblique'. The oblique stem is given in the tables below, and the full endings for those are given further down. (Later post)

The four non-oblique cases are nominative (for the subject), accusative (for the direct object), genitive (to indicate possession) and vocative.

Full declension of all regular nouns is in the spoiler below. Note that when two identical vowels fall next to each other, they collapse into one acute-accented long vowel.

Spoiler:

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 08 Mar 2014 20:55

Micamo wrote: When is the ablative case used? Could you give some examples?

It's used as a mixture of locative, instrumental and dative - it's used with any indirect object or preposition, really.

imäleli relä - I went with my mother (imäli (mother), ablative imälel suffix -i 'with')
imälele fiäs - I was talking to my mother (suffix -e 'to')
fastandil leanal - I am walking on the mountain (fastä (mountain), ablative fastal, suffix -ndil 'upon')

Post by **Micamo** » 08 Mar 2014 21:11

loomy wrote:It's used as a mixture of locative, instrumental and dative - it's used with any indirect object or preposition, really.

imäleli relä - I went with my mother (imäli (mother), ablative imälel suffix -i 'with')
imälele fiäs - I was talking to my mother (suffix -e 'to')
fastandil leanal - I am walking on the mountain (fastä (mountain), ablative fastal, suffix -ndil 'upon')

Is there any reason you're calling this case "ablative?" Seems to me "oblique" would be a better fit, considering its function.

Also, your "prepositions" are suffixes that combine with the ablative? Why not analyze them as cases? Are there any instances where a noun combined with a "preposition" could appear in something other than the ablative?

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 08 Mar 2014 22:40

Micamo wrote: Is there any reason you're calling this case "ablative?" Seems to me "oblique" would be a better fit, considering its function.

Hm! You raise a good point. I'll get around to fixing that.

Also, your "prepositions" are suffixes that combine with the ablative? Why not analyze them as cases? Are there any instances where a noun combined with a "preposition" could appear in something other than the ablative?

Partially because since there are so many of them I'm not sure what I'm name the cases if I analysed them all as such. Yes - for example 'ainenver', meaning 'long ago' but which comes from the ablative of aini (ainel) meaning history, plus - nver ('at the time of')

Post by **Micamo** » 08 Mar 2014 23:15

loomy wrote:Partially because since there are so many of them I'm not sure what I'm name the cases if I analysed them all as such.

You could always look at the names used for natlangs with large case systems like Hungarian, Finnish, Chukchi, or Tsez.

Yes - for example 'ainenver', meaning 'long ago' but which comes from the ablative of aini (ainel) meaning history, plus - nver ('at the time of')

Wouldn't it be "ainelnver" then? What causes that /l/ to be lost?

Also, you said "yes" but the explanation you provide is not an example of a preposition suffix being used with a non-ablative/oblique noun.

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 08 Mar 2014 23:23

Many of the prepositional prefixes cause the ablative -l to assimilate with the prefix.

Ah, I slightly misunderstood your question. In that case, they're not used with nouns outside of this case, no. They're used with relative and demonstrative pronouns (undil, 'whereupon, upon which'; tiandil, 'thereupon, upon that'), but not with nouns that aren't oblique.

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 09 Mar 2014 00:50

In light of your helpful feedback, Micamo, I've turned those 'prespositional ablatives' into their own cases, showcased in the spoiler below with examples.

My main question now is whether or not the names are appropriate, the endings seem naturalistic and wheter any of them seem totally useless, frankly.

Spoiler:

Post by **Micamo** » 09 Mar 2014 02:17

That's a very large system: If naturalism is important, I'd go through that list and evaluate which of those cases you actually need and which you can do without: For example, do you really need Essive, Similessive, and Similative? Do you need both the dative and allative? Do you need the causative and procausative? You can cut down on your inventory significantly by taking all the -essive and the -lative cases that are left and regularly deriving one from the other. Finally, look at which of these you can handle with a phrase rather than with a dedicated case: "in spite of" rather than "despite", "at/to the front of" instead of the antessive/antelative. Few natlangs have more than 10 cases (including the grammatical ones like the Nominative, Accusative, and Genitive) and among the ones with large systems the upper limit is 20 or so.

DesEsseintes · Post by **DesEsseintes** » 09 Mar 2014 02:58

How do you translate "with Tom and John"? Is it enough for both of them to be in the oblique case and for one of them to take the comitative -l ending? If so, you are probably dealing with enclitic adpositions, and you don't need to analyse your system as a rather-too-baroque case system.

Whether this solution makes the lang any more naturalistic, I'll leave to more knowledgeable board members.

Post by **Micamo** » 09 Mar 2014 03:05

DesEsseintes wrote:How do you translate "with Tom and John"? Is it enough for both of them to be in the oblique case and for one of them to take the comitative -l ending? If so, you are probably dealing with enclitic adpositions, and you don't need to analyse your system as a rather-too-baroque case system.

Whether this solution makes the lang any more naturalistic, I'll leave to more knowledgeable board members.

This is true: Still, I'd re-examine the system either way. 31 adpositions is more reasonable than 36 cases, but still on the upper end. English's adposition system (with its huge inventory) is the exception, not the rule.

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 09 Mar 2014 10:36

DesEsseintes wrote:How do you translate "with Tom and John"? Is it enough for both of them to be in the oblique case and for one of them to take the comitative -l ending? If so, you are probably dealing with enclitic adpositions, and you don't need to analyse your system as a rather-too-baroque case system.

"With Tom and John" would be "Tomal ol Jionel" ['tomɑlˠ olˠ 'çjonɛlˠ], so there they'd both take the full comitative ending.

However, adjectives attached to nouns on oblique cases usually just take the plain oblique: fastandil gure ['fasʲtandilˠ 'gurɛ:] (on the big mountain)

Micamo wrote:That's a very large system: If naturalism is important, I'd go through that list and evaluate which of those cases you actually need and which you can do without: For example, do you really need Essive, Similessive, and Similative? Do you need both the dative and allative? Do you need the causative and procausative? You can cut down on your inventory significantly by taking all the -essive and the -lative cases that are left and regularly deriving one from the other. Finally, look at which of these you can handle with a phrase rather than with a dedicated case: "in spite of" rather than "despite", "at/to the front of" instead of the antessive/antelative. Few natlangs have more than 10 cases (including the grammatical ones like the Nominative, Accusative, and Genitive) and among the ones with large systems the upper limit is 20 or so.

Well, I've reduced the rather excessive thirty-one to these thirteen:

Spoiler:

So should they remain as cases, or would it still be better to refer to them as adpositions after all?

Edit: Slightly mixed around some of the 'new' thirteen cases above, and added a section on prefixes for further prepositionals

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 09 Mar 2014 16:03

Relative and demonstrative pronouns and adjectives

Demonstrative pronouns and adjectives

There are four levels of distance in Zutan:
fia - this here
tia - that there
vwia - that over there (distant-visible)
sjia - that (distant-invisible)

Demonstrative pronouns can be put after nouns (as long as they agree with the noun in number, gender and case) to become demonstrative adjectives:

pläsga fia - this man (here by me)
limiä tiä - that woman (over there by you)
hiäta vwia - that star (way up there)
niji sjiä - that bird (that we saw before, that we cannot see now etc)

They are declined as such:

For bright-colour nouns:

N fi-a/fi-al
A fi-ad/fi-addi
G fu-ar/fu-air
O fi-u-/fi-i- (fí-)
V fi-ä/fi-ä

For dark/neutral-colour nouns:

N fi-ä/fi-äl
A fi-äc/fi-ätti
G fu-an/fu-ain
O fi-u-/fi-i- (fí-)
V fi-e/fi-e

The same endings apply for all levels of distance, so tiad, vwiatti, sjiu-. The only exception is that the genitive forms of distant-visible drop the u, so vwar, vwair, vwan, vwain.

Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns follow exactly the same declension as demonstratives, but they begin with j-.

jia? - who?
jiad? - whom?
jiar? - whose?
jiuli? - with whom?
et cetera.

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns decline in number and case, but not gender. They agree with the noun they refer to and inherit that noun's declension from the relative clause, not the main clause.

N u/u-l
A u-d/u-ddi
G u-n/u-in
O u-/u-i-
V u/u

jiulgä fiad hadä? pläsgolgä tiulgä.
How did you do this? (Lit. with the help of/by means of what/who?) With the help of that man.

fastätti vwiatti fifiäd uingia bjimrem?
Do you see those mountains, through which we need to go?

vwiungia bjimrem?!
We have to go through those ones over there?!

solounde jiar äd?
Whose house are you in?

jiunif äri hanfe? hwelanif äri.
What is your daughter like? She is like a flower.

jiulso vwiad hadä? gwennoilso vwiad halä.
Who did you do that for (that thing a long time ago)? I did it for my friends.

jiunde är? tiundin är.
Where is it? It is up there (where you are).

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 09 Mar 2014 20:27

Personal pronouns

SINGULAR
N dor_________fer/bor/mar______ir/ar/ör
A dod_________fed/bod/mäd____id/ad/öd
G duir________feir/buir/moir___ír/air/öir
O de-_________fé-/be-/moe-_____ie-/ae-/öe-
V dä__________fí/bä/me_________ía/e/o
PLURAL
N ha/ne__________se_____________ur/jer
A had/näd_______säd____________od/jed
G har/när_______sär_____________oir/jär
O hai-/nei-______sei-____________ue-/jei-
V he/ní__________sí______________uo/jí

There are three second person singulars:
The familiar fer [fɛr] is used among friends, family members and against younger people.
The formal bor [bɔr] is used against (significantly) older people, teachers etc.
The affectionate mar [mɑr] is used very exclusively: between two people who are deeply in love, or by mothers/grandmothers against their children/grandchildren. Since the verb ruam (to love) can imply either platonic or romantic love, saying mäd rual rather than fed rual is the equivalent 'step' in a Zutan relationship of telling your partner you love them.

There are three third person singulars:
ir is used for female people or bright-colour nouns, ar for males or dark-colours and ör is used for neutral-colour nouns or non-specified subjects (it, that etc)

There are two first person plurals:
The exclusive ha does not include the person being spoken to, whereas the inclusive ne means 'all of us, including you[/i].

There are two third person plurals:
The exclusive ur does not include a previously-mentioned third person, so essentially means 'the rest of them'. The inclusive jer, however, also includes any third persons previously mentioned.

It should be noted that it is common to use 'short accusatives' - that is, attaching the accusative as a prefix to the verb. If the verb begins with a consonant, the final 'd' on the accusative form is dropped:
märual - I love you
jefiäl - I see them

There are also 'short genitive' forms that are attached to nouns as suffixes. When this happens, the final vowel in bright- or dark-coloured nouns is dropped to make way for this suffix. Doubled consonants at the end of the stem are reduced to single consonants. Some consonant clusters are simplified, too.

SING -du______ -fe/-bo/-mä_-li/-lä/-lö
PLUR -ha/-nä_______-sä________ -lu

N du_____________fe/bo/mä__________________li/lä/lö
A dud____________fed/bod/mäd_______________lid/läd/löd
G dor/don_____[fir/fin]/[bar/ban]/[mer/men]___[lear/lean]/[ler/len]/[lor/lon]
O dui-_____________fei-/boi-/mäi-_____________le-/la-/lu-
V do_______________fi/ba/me_________________lea/le/lo
PLURAL
N ha/ne___________________sä_________________lu
A had/näd________________säd________________lud
G [här/hän]/[när/nän]___sär/sän______________lor/lon
O hai-/nei-______________säi-________________lui-
V he/ni__________________se_________________lo

Note that the same short genitive -lu is used to replace both oir and jär.

solu när -> solnä - our house
gwänna duir -> gwändo - my friend
rualon feir -> rualonfe - your love
gwennoile oir -> gwennluile - with their friends

Also note that no matter what vowel nouns with short genitive prefixes end up terminating with, their colour remains the same, so they still decline as though they had their original vowel ending:

hanä air -> hanla - his daughter
-> hanlac, hälatti (accusative singular, plural) NOT hanlad, hänladdi
-> hanlän, hänläin (genitive singular, plural) NOT hanlär, hänläir

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 12 Mar 2014 00:06

Here's a kind of patchy brief overview of verbs. More on this tomorrow!

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated in number, person, tense, voice and mood.

There are four persons: first, second, third and impersonal; verbs can be singular or plural:
brinil ['brinilˠ] - I eat
brinid ['brinið] - you eat
briniri ['briniri] - she eats/bright-colour noun eats
brinira ['brinirɑ] - he eats/dark-colour noun eats
brinir ['brinir] - it eats/neutral-colour noun eats
brini ['brini] - one eats (also used for passive polite commands - 'hwavunde jiunde ibrini' lit. One doesn't eat in this shop, meaning 'Please do not eat in this shop')
brinim ['brinim] `- we eat
brinind ['brinind] - you (pl) eat
briniru ['briniru] - they eat

Three morphological tenses: Present, perfect and imperfect:
brinilä ['brinila]: I have eaten
brinis ['brinisʲ]: I was eating

Two voices: passive and active
brinigin ['brinigin] - It has been eaten, somebody ate it

And four moods: indicative, subjunctive, imperative and cohortative.
at brinidi [ɑθ 'brinið]: I wish you would eat (lit. may you eat)
brinidd! ['briniʔd]: eat!
brinini! ['brinini]: let's eat!
ibrinilia! [i'briniljɑ]: let's not get eaten!
at hostäri [ɑθ hɔstari]: long may she live
at hostärelu [ɑθ hɔstarɛlu]: may she be outlived

Full conjugation of verbs with vowel stems

Note that the verb äm (stem ä-) is irregular in the third person in the present indicative:

ir - she is (not äri)
ar - he is (not ära)
or - it is (not är)
ur - they are (not äru)

Passives
Passive verb forms are commonly used when there is no specified subject:
ruant - I am loved
fiänfi - you were seen
einögin - it was found
bleajalla - we are killed
iat cläfwondiu - I hope that we don't get tempted (may we not)
arenua - they were being sent

Passives can be used when the subject is specified. In this case the subject is usually placed afterwards in the instrumental case. This is uncommon, though, and if there is a subject specified, the active is normally used:

sairant gwennoilgä - I was forgiven by (my) friends
hlaistöndd meaonälgä - S/He was being mourned by everybody (every person)

Usually these would be rendered as:
dosairasur gwennal - My friends forgave me
ihlaistödd/ahlaistödd meaone - Everybody was mourning her/him

k1234567890y · Post by **k1234567890y** » 12 Mar 2014 00:18

seems that is has a complex verbal conjugation system(and other grammatical systems), did it have any in-world history? and how about cases for nouns suffixed with "short genitive"s?

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 12 Mar 2014 00:28

k1234567890y wrote:seems that is has a complex verbal conjugation system(and other grammatical systems), did it have any in-world history?

Certainly! I'm hoping to explain a little more about that at a later point.

and how about cases for nouns suffixed with "short genitive"s?

That's what I was trying to explain with the really badly formatted table a few posts ago. For an example, I'll fully decline 'my mother', first with full genitive and then with short.

N imäli duir / imelil duir
A imälic duir / imelitti duir
G imälean duir / imeleain duir
O imäle- duir / imelei- duir
V imälea duir / imelea duir

N imäldu / imeldul
A imälduc / imeldutti
G imäldon / imeldoin
O imäldui- / imelduí-
V imäldo / imeldo

loomy · Post by **loomy** » 15 Mar 2014 15:38

Derivation

Spoiler:

The CBB

Zutan / jiutär

Zutan / jiutär

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