Porphyrogenitos wrote: ↑15 Mar 2024 16:17
Nice start! The coalescence of consonants into palatalized and voiceless forms reminds me a bit of Icelandic. Although I am wondering about how ɾh hɾ > tʼ tʼ came to be.
Thanks! The /tʼ/ can be explained diachronically: there was once /ɗ/, which became /ɾ/ in all contexts except _h_, where it remained glottalic. Maybe I'll add /hb/ > /pʼ/ as well, though it is by no means a common cluster.
Also, I forgot to clarify the spelling of /j/: <i> is used in the onset, <y> in the coda.
Morphosyntax
The interesting part.
Abaniscen is a heavily analytic language. Most words, excepting conjunctions, exclamations and the like, behave as one class syntactically. Perhaps the most important part of Abaniscen morphology is the <re> (<le>) infix. I'm not sure what is the correct nomenclature for its function, but for now I'm calling it "oblique" or "genitive." A single construction – OBL NOM – is used for action and property predication, for example:
celco<re> tia
dog<OBL> speak
The dog speaks.
lesia<re>n batiuh
human<OBL> big
The man is big.
Another construction – NOM NOM – is used for nominal predicates, as well for patients in bivalent clauses:
lesian inanhar
man chef
The man is a chef.
lesia<re>n celco novi
man<OBL> dog hear
The man hears the dog.
Thus
celco novi -> the dog is being heard,
celcore novi -> the dog hears (something).
The personal pronouns have irregular oblique forms:
1s
ne |
ni
2s
bey |
bi
3s
is |
i
1p
nemor |
nele
2p
beynemor |
bele(y)
3p
isnemor |
iles(nemor)
The third person singular oblique form
i is used to form relative clauses, which are very common in Abaniscen.
celcore {i batiuh} tia
dog<OBL> REL big speak
The big dog speaks.
celcore tia {i cecumen}
dog<OBL> speak REL loud
The dog speaks loudly.
celcore veshtu na
dog<OBL> house be_in
The dog is in the house.
celcore {i veshtu {i batiuh} na} tia
dog<OBL> REL house REL big be_in speak
The dog that's in the big house speaks.
ni is novina {i veshtu na}
1s.O 3s hear:PST REL house be_in
I heard that/him/her/etc. in the house.
Of course, the other construction can also be used in relative clauses, though it isn't as common.
lesian is inanhanar chiusce
man REL chef:PST dead
The man who was the chef is dead.
Note the tense marking on the "noun".
If a relative clause modifies a 1st/2nd person pronoun, the
i will often be skipped:
ni {Ø cancanar} astar
1s.O [REL] sing old
I who sing am old or perhaps
I'm singing and I am old.
To be continued! Feedback and questions welcome.