Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

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Ares Land
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Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

That language dates back to, oh... 2002. I worked on it, on and off, frequenty jettisoning everything and starting from scratch. The problem was, I had good ideas, but I lacked the linguistic knowledge to produce something both satisfying and coherent.

But isn't the lockdown the perfect occasion to try and make it work?

Context.

Erdaníla 'the Erdaní way' is the language of Erdaní, the language of the hilly, rugged littoral of the Middle Sea. An old name for the ethnic group is Helí, 'the people'. (Erdaní is, quite simply, 'Heli country).
The Helí were slash and burn farmers, living in semi-permanent villages and moving when they had exhausted the local resources; they were also among the first to domesticate the Southern Hemisphere horse.
This mobile lifestyle led them to expand across the whole of the South-Eastern continent; on the West coast they finally adopted more permanent forms of agriculture and founded the kingdom of Kapittan.
The eastern branch finally settled down in Erdaní, at the time a colony of the Tarandim city-states, and later a province of the Tarandim empire.

Context.

The Tarandim name for them was Qanien, litterally 'murderers' which suggests that first impressions weren't entirely positive; but soon the Qanien adopted the Tarandim urban and agricultural lifestly, as well as the religion. They were good sailors, and shrewd traders (indispensable, in fact, when it came to obtaining good horses), and an essential part of the Tarandim army. They were widely seen as cowardly -- the Qanien view on war was 'it is sweet and fitting to make other people die for their country' but excellent riders and guerilla fighters.

The Qanien ended up in charge for a century and a half before the empire finally collapsed.

Erdaní is now a patchwork of small kingdoms -- or I should, say, queendoms, since the Herdaníní titles pass along matrilineal lines and only women hold property and titles, united by a commonality of language and culture (not entirely unlike the Holy Roman Empire).

The ethnic group is now called Herdaníní, singular Herdanín (or Erdanín, if talking about a man).
.
Erdaníla is, in practice, a dialect continuum; with dialects at the extremes not always mutually intelligible. This sketch will describe the dialect of Cerdóa, the largest city.

Typology

Erdaníla is a polysynthetic, fusional and (mostly) suffixing language.

The Erdaníla sound system


Vowels
FrontCentralBack
Highi u
Closee o
Openʌ ̃
Lowa
Erdaníla has five oral vowels: a, e, i, o, u

e, i are realized [e o] in open syllables, [ɛ ɔ] in closed ones.

It has a nasal vowel, ʌ, generally realized [ʌ ̃], in free variation with [ɔ̃]. It's the result of the merger of the two nasal vowels of proto-Helian, and never the counterpart of an oral vowel.

Consonants
LabialsDentalsAlveolarsPost-AlveolarVelarsUvular
Plosivesp t d k g
Fricativess h
Affricatesj
Nasalsm n ŋ
Liquidslr
Semivowelsw
The fortis stops p, t, k are voiceless and unaspirated (except in consonant clusters) the lenis stops b, d, g voiced and unaspirated. Word-final d g are unreleased.

t,d,n,l are laminal denti-alveolar while s is apical alveolar, or even post-alveolar before the high vowels /i u/
r is an alveolar flap [ɾ]. /r/ and /l/ only contrast word-initially; only [l] may occur intervocally and l, r > [ɾ] at the end of a syllable.

j is a post-alveolar voiced africate [ʤ]
h is a palatal fricative [ç] before the high vowels /i u/, elsewhere it's realized as a voiceless uvular fricative [χ].

Syllable structure
Syllable structure is a very simple (C)V(C).

There are no diphtongs, but vowels in hiatus are quite common: haáe 'sky' [χa.a.e], iraus, 'bull' [i.ɾa.us]
An intervocalic w or glottal stop may be added: [ha?a?e], [i.ɾawus] in fast speech.

Erdaníla allows the following consonant clusters:
pp, ps, (pr), (pl), tt, (tl), (tr), kk, ks, jj, (kr), (kl), sp, st, sn, (sr), (sl), mb, nd, nj, ŋg, mm, nn, ŋŋ, ll, rd, rg, rw
The cluster in parentheses are all found in loanwords and may be broken up by an epenthetic vowel.
The cluster jj is realized [t.t̠ʃ].

Tone and stress

All vowels may carry either middle tone: a, high tone: á or low tone: à.
Stress is determined as follows:

If any of the last three vowels carries a high tone, stress it:
psísaa ['psi:.sa.a] 'I shall open it'
iwesó[i.we.'so:] 'castle'
molóʌ[mo.'lo:.ɔ̃] 'apple'

As the phonetic transcription above implies, the stressed vowel is longer, in addition to being louder.

In case none of the last three vowels is high, stress the penultimate:
iraus[i.ra:.us] 'bull'.

Finally, if there are several high vowels, stress the penultimate if it's high:

ródíʌ
[ro.'di:ɔ̃] 'they hit me with a spear'.
If not, the earliest one:
sekkéwesí
[sek.'ke:we.si] 'when you met with me'

Low tones are never stressed; stress the vowel after, or before if there's no following vowel:
nàdelʌ 'the land of the dead'
[na.'de.lɔ̃]
hemòd > landowner
['χe:.mod]

Tone rules.

On a scale from 1 to 5:

As we've seen, the stressed vowel is pronounced long; if it's high, the tone is realized as a sharp rising tone:
ké 35.
If if it carries middle tone, the tone is slightly rising: 34

A middle tone before a consonant cluster becomes low, unless it's stressed: 3 > 1
A middle tone vowel following a high tone is realized slightly higher. 3 > 4
A middle tone vowel following a low tone is realized slightly lower 3 > 2
For that matter, a low tone after a high tone becomes a middle tone: 1 > 3
(A low tone before a high tone, or before stress is slightly higher 1 > 2, a high tone before a low tone is slightly lower, 5 > 4)
A high tone after a low tone becomes a middle tone 5 > 3, except if it carries the stress.

A few tone contours should make these rules more clear:
sek-ké-we-sí
2-35-4-5
mo-ló-ʌ
3-35-4
psammàdái 'he/she sent me away'
psam-mà-dá-i
2-2-35-4
hemòd
34-2

ksánùtte 's/he tries to get rival clans to cooperate'.
ksá-nùt-te
35-3-3
heàitte 'uterine sister'
he-à-it-te
3-2-34-3
Last edited by Ares Land on Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:48 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Moose-tache
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Re: Erdaníra -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Moose-tache »

Very cool. I think you might have "fortis" and "lenis" reversed, though. I am looking forward to what makes this language "Iroquoian" other than the nasal vowel. Are all the Iroquoian prefixes being replaced by suffixes?
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Ares Land
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Re: Erdaníra -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

Moose-tache wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:33 am Very cool. I think you might have "fortis" and "lenis" reversed, though. I am looking forward to what makes this language "Iroquoian" other than the nasal vowel. Are all the Iroquoian prefixes being replaced by suffixes?
Good catch, thanks! (Also, the language has no b). As for the Iroquoian bit, there's not quite a one to one correspondance between affixes, but I think the similarities will be there.
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Re: Erdaníra -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by WeepingElf »

What is the velar nasal doing among the fricatives?
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Ares Land
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Re: Erdaníra -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

WeepingElf wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 4:42 am What is the velar nasal doing among the fricatives?
It was probably up to no good. I put it back in its place.
Ares Land
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

Verbs

There are three word classes in Erdaníla : verbs, nouns, and particles and we'll spend most of our time with verbs, as they form the bulk of the language.

A quick note on gender
Erdaníla nouns has two genders: masculine and feminine, conflated with animate-inanimate. For human referents, these match with actual gender; for non-humans, things get a bit muddled.

Basically, the animate-feminine category covers anything that can be the agent of the verb.

So, for instance: iwʌ, 'wood', ihel, 'corn', iìde, 'shovel' are masculine-inanimate. So are imʌd, flower or imoa, 'berry'.

Animals, by contrast are feminine-animate: haksá, wolf, haejje, horse, but you'll agree that it's only reasonable that a male horse is igùd(masculine) and an ox ikkod, masculine

So far, so good.
The trouble is, a goose is always masculine-animate, ikag, an oak (hagʌd) is feminine and so is a knife: haksí .

To muddle things further, some words have distinct forms when used in an animate or inanimate sense. Water is ussaa, but running water is hoses. The sea is both masculine-inanimate ihola and feminine-animate psammàdáʌr

The good news is, formal nouns are structured this way: prefix-root-suffix. For instance: i-kkod, ho-ses, ha-ett-se > haejje, and the feminine prefix always begins with an h-.
So, all feminine formal nouns begin with an h-. Except, for of course, the exceptions, such as place names: Erdaní, Kerdóa.

But Erdaníla has a large number of syntactic nouns, which are morphologically verb but take on the functions of a nouns. For instance, the word for 'sea': psammàdáʌr, literally 'she carries us away'.
Nothing to worry about -- animacy is marked on the verb as well and eventually we'll figure out how.

Good, we're ready to take on tense-person markings.
Tense-person

The tense-person suffix is the only mandatory verb suffix; it occurs either immediately after the verb root or after the affect suffix (we'll get there eventually).

The suffix potentially encodes subject, object and tense. Erdanílra has a fairly simple tense system, comprising present, past and future, all three unmarked for aspect.

The suffix comes in three varieties: patient markers, agent markers and transitive markers.

Intransitive verbs.

Erdaníla is an active-stative language: the subject of an intransitive verb may be marked with an agentive or a patientive marker.
Basically, agentive implies volition, patientive implies an involuntary action or condition. But these categories are mostly determined once and for all by the verb (a situation called split-S).

So for instance: sosu, 'I run' is agentive; ʌrsan, 'I'm tired' patientive. There are some counter-intuitive cases, such as ennódʌ, 'I sleep'.
There are verb doublets, according to volition:
Patientive: tèááhʌ, 'I can speak (my native tongue)' vs. tèokksu, 'I can speak (I learned the language)'

Anyway, let's start with a nice, unobstrusive class I verb: rahé , 'she's tied, she's in a knot'

Class I
Singular Plural
1st rahʌ rahʌ́
2nd raho rahá
3rd masculine inanimate rahaj rahajé
3rd feminine animate rahé rahahé
About the one thing of note is that the 3rd person carefully distinguishes animate/masculine from inanimate.

Now, let's do the past tense:
Singular Plural
1st rahen rahené
2nd rahʌ rahí
3rd masculine inanimate rahij rahijé
3rd feminine animate rahí rahihé
And the future:
Singular Plural
1st rahon rahoné
2nd raho rahú
3rd masculine inanimate rahoj rahué
3rd feminine animate rahú rahuhé
Now, with a class II: digi, 'she's tall'

Present
Singular Plural
1st digʌ digʌ́
2nd diga dige
3rd masculine inanimate digaj digé
3rd feminine animate digi digehé
Past
Singular Plural
1st digun diguné
2nd digu digú
3rd masculine inanimate diguj digujé
3rd feminine animate digú diguhé
Future
Singular Plural
1st digon digoné
2nd digo digú
3rd masculine inanimate digoj digué
3rd feminine animate digú diguhé
Still several classes to go, and some pointers as to how to figure out which is which tomorrow. (I hope)
Last edited by Ares Land on Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:46 pm, edited 5 times in total.
evmdbm
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Re: Erdaníra -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by evmdbm »

Not sure I follow. There's quite a lot of syncretism here eg the 1st person sing pres of rahé turns out to be the same as the 2nd person sing of the past, and the 2nd person sing pres is the same as the 2nd person future and 3rd person future masculine. Normally I would say "So what? Just add the pronoun and a bit of context and it's clear what's happening." But if the language is polysynthetic does that not imply that everything should be clear from the verbal form, which it's not?

What am I missing?
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Whimemsz
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Re: Erdaníra -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Whimemsz »

I don't know what Ars Lande's answer is, but there's nothing that needs explaining: real languages have syncretisms and ambiguity, they don't follow some platonic ideal where everything perfectly fits into a conjugation chart with no complications and no overlap and no weird exceptions and ... etc. And just because a language is "polysynthetic" doesn't mean it will *always* use "polysynthetic" strategies for expressing every notion at every turn. To expect a language to show no syncretism of inflectional forms because it has been labeled "polysynthetic" is really weird. "Polysynthetic" languages are as messy as every other language.

EDIT: Also, I should add that "everything should be clear from the verbal form" is not what a "polysynthetic" language is. All a "polysynthetic" language is is a language with a lot of synthesis. There's a number of traits that tend to cluster together in those cases, including polypersonal verbal marking and pro-drop, or even full nonconfigurationality, but the presence of this one or that one doesn't imply the presence of a third one, let alone all of them. I realize I wrote the Polysynthesis thread years ago, but one thing I would emphasize much more if I were writing it now would be that I don't think "polysynthesis" is even a very useful category. If I tell you that a given language is "polysynthetic", you've learned virtually nothing about the language whatsoever. All you now know is it has a high morpheme:word ratio. More detailed explanations of its morphosyntax are necessary in order to actually gain any useful insights. (Now, since Ars Lande's language specifically is supposed to be partially Iroquoian-ish, you could infer some things about how it instantiates "polysynthesis" from that, but it's still not enough information to know the precise level of head-marking, whether it's nonconfigurational, and so on.)
Last edited by Whimemsz on Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ares Land
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

evmdbm wrote: Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:18 am Not sure I follow. There's quite a lot of syncretism here eg the 1st person sing pres of rahé turns out to be the same as the 2nd person sing of the past, and the 2nd person sing pres is the same as the 2nd person future and 3rd person future masculine. Normally I would say "So what? Just add the pronoun and a bit of context and it's clear what's happening." But if the language is polysynthetic does that not imply that everything should be clear from the verbal form, which it's not?

What am I missing?
First, a note. I went and changed some forms '(sound change mess-ups and what have you), so the endings are still ambiguous, but differently. Oh, and the language had an intervocalic -r- in its name, which is kind of embarassing.

Anyway... As for ambiguity in tense/person, there are several strategies:
  • These are the simplest forms, the ones you'd use when tense/person can be inferred from context.
  • The future is problematic; in fact it hangs on mostly because it's hardly ever used without a modal.
  • Supposing context isn't sufficient, you'd add at least an aspect suffix... And these a) help disambiguate tense b) trigger different person endings. For instance, say, present perfect rahaen 'I'm tied (perfect)' (with the implication: so help me!) vs. past delimitative rahawa, 'you were tied (but no longer are).'
  • Person marking may also be done, via prefixes: hadigú with animate singular ha- implies the third person animate singular; diladigú with polite vocative dila- implies second person feminine.
  • And finally, if all else fails, Erdaníla still allows independant pronouns: dilamuá digú 'you(pl), you're tall.
Ares Land
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

More classes!

Class III

òmi, she's heavy
Present
Singular Plural
1st òmʌóʌné
2nd òmaóʌ́
3rd masculine inanimate òmaóʌé
3rd feminine animate òmióʌhé
Past
Singular Plural
1st óʌhunóʌhuné
2nd óʌhuóʌhú
3rd masculine inanimate óʌhujéóʌé
3rd feminine animate óʌhuhéóʌhé
Future
Singular Plural
1st óʌonóʌoné
2nd óʌoóʌ́
3rd masculine inanimate óʌoóʌé
3rd feminine animate óʌóʌhé
Class IV

éskehʌli, she's frozen
Present
Singular Plural
1st éskehʌlʌéskehʌlʌ́
2nd éskehʌlaéskehʌle
3rd masculine inanimate éskehʌlaéskehʌlé
3rd feminine animate éskehʌliéskehʌlehé
Past
Singular Plural
1st éskehʌrhunéskehʌrhuné
2nd éskehʌruéskehʌrhú
3rd masculine inanimate éskehʌrhujéskehʌrhujé
3rd feminine animate éskerhúéskehʌrhuhé
Future
Singular Plural
1st éskehʌlonéskehʌlʌoné
2nd éskehʌloéskehʌlú
3rd masculine inanimate éskehʌloéskehʌlué
3rd feminine animate éskehʌlúéskehʌluhé
Class V: mei, she's great, grand, holy
Present
Singular Plural
1st méʌméné
2nd méa
3rd masculine inanimate méaméssé
3rd feminine animate méiméssé
Past
Singular Plural
1st messunmssuné
2nd messumessú
3rd masculine inanimate messujmessujé
3rd feminine animate messúmessuhé
Future
Singular Plural
1st méonméoné
2nd méoméú
3rd masculine inanimate méoméué
3rd feminine animate meʌméuhé

So, which class does a given verb belong to?

Any verb with the 3rd person present feminine-animate in belongs in Class I.

A verb with a 3ppfa ending in nasal + i will be in Class III.
Verbs with a 3ppfa ending in -li are in Class IV
Verbs with a 3ppfa ending in vowel in high tone + i are in Class V.
Anything else ending in -i is in Class II.

Classes III, IV and V are really special case of Class II, with, for class III a consonant / nasal vowel alternation; for Class IV, r surfacing as an allomorph of l, with a past tense marker in -hu (the h is deleted in every other class). FInally, the high tone of Class V verbs alternates with -ss-.

OK! We've barely attacked the mountain; tomorrow we'll talk about agent marking. (And then transitive verbs!)
gestaltist
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by gestaltist »

I'm quite enjoying this thread. The phonology was interesting, and your presentation style is fun to read.
evmdbm
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by evmdbm »

Whimemsz wrote: Tue Apr 21, 2020 11:23 am I should add that "everything should be clear from the verbal form" is not what a "polysynthetic" language is. All a "polysynthetic" language is is a language with a lot of synthesis. There's a number of traits that tend to cluster together in those cases, including polypersonal verbal marking and pro-drop, or even full nonconfigurationality, but the presence of this one or that one doesn't imply the presence of a third one, let alone all of them. I realize I wrote the Polysynthesis thread years ago, but one thing I would emphasize much more if I were writing it now would be that I don't think "polysynthesis" is even a very useful category. If I tell you that a given language is "polysynthetic", you've learned virtually nothing about the language whatsoever. All you now know is it has a high morpheme:word ratio. More detailed explanations of its morphosyntax are necessary in order to actually gain any useful insights. (Now, since Ars Lande's language specifically is supposed to be partially Iroquoian-ish, you could infer some things about how it instantiates "polysynthesis" from that, but it's still not enough information to know the precise level of head-marking, whether it's nonconfigurational, and so on.)
I guess I can add polysynthesis to the long list of things I don't really understand then. A little bit of knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing. What's nonconfigurationality for instance? (sorry if I'm hijacking your thread, Ars Lande)
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

gestaltist wrote: Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:49 am I'm quite enjoying this thread. The phonology was interesting, and your presentation style is fun to read.
Thanks!
evmdbm wrote: Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:21 pm I guess I can add polysynthesis to the long list of things I don't really understand then. A little bit of knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing. What's nonconfigurationality for instance? (sorry if I'm hijacking your thread, Ars Lande)
No problem!
I won't attempt a serious linguistic definition, but the general idea is free word order, including syntactically discontinuous expressions: for instance an adjective may be seperated from his head noun by other constituents, which makes traditional syntax trees, er, tangled.
A good example is Latin (in poetry or rhetoric), which achieves this through gender and case marking; Mohawk, for instance, does it through gender and head marking.
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Whimemsz »

I also posted a reply in the Linguistic Miscellany thread (before I saw your reply here) so we could continue the discussion there if preferred.
Ares Land
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

Agent marking

Agentive verbs require agentive marking for their subjects. The general idea, you'll recall, is that the subject is deemed willing enough to be considered an agent.

Agentive suffixes still combine tense + person; but we'll only have four classes to deal with; and only six persons.

Class I and II

There's a correspondance between agentive and patientive verb classes -- but class I and class II are merged.

We'll use goge, 'she walks' as an example

Present tense
Singular Plural
1st gogugogó
2nd gogégoga
3rd gogegogá
So whatever happened to the gender distinction? You'll remember that the masculine/feminine distinction doubles as animate/inanimate... and subjects of agentive verbs are always animate. So there goes the distinction in the 3rd person, and we're left with a comfortable, familiar, 6-person table (well, the suffixes could be easier to remember. Ah, well.)

Past tense
Singular Plural
1st gogaogogaó
2nd gogáegogaá
3rd gogaegogaé
Future
Singular Plural
1st gogeogogeó
2nd gogeágogés
3rd gogeégogéa
So far, so good. It's getting late, but tomorrow we'll cover more agentive verbs, such as gar, 'she sits',
raheámone, 'she requests help from her network of mutual obligations' and udeksi, 'she prepares fish'.
Last edited by Ares Land on Thu Apr 23, 2020 6:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ares Land
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

Class III

raheámone 'she requests help from allies'

Present tense
Singular Plural
1st raheámonuraheámonó
2nd raheámonéraheámona
3rd raheámoneraheámoná
Past tense
Singular Plural
1st raheámonaoraheámonaó
2nd raheámonáeraheámonaá
3rd raheámonaeraheámonaé
Future
Singular Plural
1st raheámʌ́oraheámʌó
2nd raheámʌ́áraheámʌ́s
3rd raheámʌ́éraheámʌá

The only difference is in the future tense, characterized by a switch from last vowel+n to ʌ.

Class IV

gár, 'she sits'

Present
Singular Plural
1st gálagáló
2nd gálégála
3rd gárgálá

Note the -l+Vowel / -r alternation in the third person singular.

What is this alternation coming from? Well, the proto-Helian ending for third person singular was *-∅ -- no marker at all. An epenthetic -e was added so often that it was reinterpated as the 3PS ending.. But as r+clusters are all legal, for the most part, class IV retained the -∅ ending. l > r is a regular development in syllable codas.


Past tense
Singular Plural
1st gálaogálaó
2nd gáláegálaá
3rd gálaegálaé

Nothing interesting to see here, move along...

Future tense
Singular Plural
1st gardogardó
2nd gardágardé
3rd gardégardá

What's that -rd- doing here? Well, it dates back to *t in proto-Helian. We may presume there was a pre-proto-Helian future marker in *-t, deleted after stops and nasals, but kept after r (and fricatives, as we'll see)

Class V

udeksi, 'she prepares fish'

Present
Singular Plural
1st udeksihuudeksihó
2nd udeksihéudeksiha
3rd udeksíudeksihá

Note the null ending for the third person singular. This time proto-Helian *-s resurfaces as -h- intervocally.


Past tense
Singular Plural
1st udeksihaoudeksihaó
2nd udeksiháeudeksihaá
3rd udeksihaeudeksihaé

Yet again, identical to other verb classes.

Future tense
Singular Plural
1st udeksistoudeksistó
2nd udeksistáudeksisté
3rd udeksistéudeksistá

Note the marker in -t-, analogous to -d- in Class IV


Class Vb.

OK, I said five classes, and I and II merge; but I lied: there's a class Vb, which is, as the number implies, a variant on the previous one.
psealasá, 'she' s versed in rune-lore'


Singular Plural
1st psealasáupsealasáó
2nd psealasáépsealasáa
3rd psealasápsealasáá

This time, no trace of an intervocalic -h-, but we still have the null ending in the third person. (Besides, the high tone hints that there was a fricative there in proto-Helian)

Past tense
Singular Plural
1st psealasáhaopsealasáhaó
2nd psealasáhaepsealasáhaá
3rd psealasáhaepsealasáhaé

That -h- between the root and the endings is probably there by analogy with Class V verbs.

Future
Singular Plural
1st psealasádopsealasádó
2nd psealasádápsealasádé
3rd psealasádépsealasádá
This time, the future marker is simply -d-.

All right, good night, may Sàlané and Iàgélan Ioíssaj watch over you!
Next up: transitives.
Ares Land
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:35 pm

Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

Transitives

Transitive verb involve both an agent and a patient -- or, if you like, a subject and an object.
Erdaníla marks both with a single fused morpheme which, like agent and patient markers, encodes tense as well.

There's been a fair bit of syncretism, eplecially for the patient part.
For agent, Erdaníla distinguishes first, second and third person, singular and plural (so six persons in all). Just like the agent markers, transitive suffixes don't distinguish gender.
The transitive markers merge singular and plural in first person patient, second person patient, and third person inanimate patient.
There are distinct suffixes for 1st person patient (singular and plural), 2nd person patient (singular and plural), 3rd person patient (masculine singular, inanimate singular and plural), 3rd person patient (feminine singular), 3rd person patient (animate plural).
There's no suffix for reflexives or reciprocals.
In total, there's 26 different forms, multiplied by three tenses, across five verb classes. So we'll sure be looking at a lot of charts tonight...

Of course, you must be wondering how the language handles reflexives or reciprocals, or how it distinguishes 'you see me' from 'you see us'. That's handled by post-pronominal suffixes -- but we'll cover these later.

Class I & II

The classes are basically the same as the ones for agentive verbs; we'll use dùgaj 'she cuts it' as an example.

Present tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** dùgúdùgo dùgʌ dùguhé
2sgdùgen ***dùgea dùgei dùgéssé
3sgdùgan dùgádùgaj dùgé dùgahé
1pl**** dùgódùgoa dùgoi dùgóssé
2pldùgaʌ ****dùgá dùgé dùgahé
3pldùgiʌ dùgédùgia dùgii dùgéssé

Past tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** dùgaódùgoo dùgoʌ dùgaohé
2sgdùgaen ****dùgaej dùgaí dùgaehé
3sgdùgaan dùgeádùgeaj dùgeé dùgeahé
1pl**** dùgaódùgawa dùgawoi dùgaóssé
2pldùgaʌ ****dùgaa dùgai dùgássé
3pldùgeʌ dùgaédùgea dùgei dùgaéssé

We can identify a past tense marker in -a- , though it disappears in many forms.

Future tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** dùgeódùgeo dùgeʌ dùgeohé
2sgdùgeen ****dùgeaj dùgei dùgeehé
3sgdùgean dùgeádùgeaj dùgeé dùgeahé
1pl**** dùgeódùgewa dùgei dùgeóssé
2pldùgésʌ ****dùgésa dùgési dùgésessé
3pldùgaʌ dùgeádùgaa dùgai dùgeássé

And, likewise, we'll note a future marker in -e- in many of these forms.

Class III

We'll use mʌaj, 'she beckons it' as an example.

Present tense,
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** monúmono monʌ monuhé
2sgmonen ***monea monei monéssé
3sgmʌn mʌámʌaj mʌé mʌahé
1pl**** monómonoa monoi monóssé
2plmonaʌ ****moná moné monahé
3plmoniʌ monémonia monii monéssé

The root here is mon-, it undergoes a Vn > ʌ change with third person agents.

Past tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** monaómonoo monoʌ monaohé
2sgmonaen ****monaej monaí monaehé
3sgmonaan moneámoneaj moneé moneahé
1pl**** monaómonawa monawoi monaóssé
2plmonaʌ ****monaa monai monássé
3plmoneʌ monaémonea monei monaéssé

The stem remains mon- throughout; the suffixes are identical to those for Class I verb.

Future tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** mʌómʌo mʌʌ mʌohé
2sgmʌen ****mʌaj mʌi mʌehé
3sgmʌan mʌámʌaj mʌé mʌahé
1pl**** mʌómʌoa mʌi mʌóssé
2plmʌ́sʌ ****mʌ́sa mʌ́si mʌ́sessé
3plmʌaʌ mʌámʌaa mʌai mʌássé

In the future tense, the Vn> ʌ (or ʌ́, mind the high tone!) change occurs consistently in all persons.


Class IV


anelaj, 'she boils it'

Present tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** anelúanelo anelʌ aneluhé
2sganeren ***anelea anelei aneléssé
3sganekʌ anekáanekaj aneré anerahé
1pl**** anekóaneloa aneloi aneróssé
2planeraʌ ****anelá anelé anerahé
3planeriʌ aneléanelia anelii aneléssé

Good news! No stem changes, and the suffixes are identical to those for Class I.

Past tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** anelaóaneloo aneloʌ anelaohé
2sganelaen ****anelaej aneraí anelaehé
3sganelaan aneleáaneleaj anereé aneleahé
1pl**** anelaóanelawa anerawoi anelaóssé
2planelaʌ ****anelaa anerai anerássé
3planeleʌ anelaéanelea anerei aneléssé

Ditto.

Future tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** anerdóanerdo anerdʌ anerdohé
2sganerden ****anerdaj anerdi anerdehé
3sganerdan anerdáanerdaj anerdé anerdahé
1pl**** anerdóanerdwa anerdi anerdóssé
2planerjʌ ****anerja anerji anerjessé
3planerdʌ anerdáanerda anerdi anerdássé

The future tense marker is -d-/-j- for this class -- for the same reasons that -d- shows up in the Class IV agentive future; and l > r before d, j

Class V

akahaj, 'she alters it'

Present tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** akahúakaho akahʌ akahuhé
2sgakahen ***akahea akahei akahéssé
3sgakahʌ akaháakahaj akahé akahahé
1pl**** akahóakahoa akahoi akahóssé
2plakahaʌ ****akahá akahé akahahé
3plakahiʌ akahéakahia akahii akahéssé

Past tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** akahaóakahoo akahoʌ akahaohé
2sgakahaen ****akahaej akahaí akahaehé
3sgakahaan akaheáakaheaj akaheé akaheahé
1pl**** akahaóakahawa akahawoi akahaóssé
2plakahaʌ ****akahaa akahai akahássé
3plakaheʌ akahaéakahea akahei akahaéssé

Both present and past tense are identical to class I.

Future tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** akastóakasto akastʌ akastohé
2sgakasten ****akastaj akasti akastehé
3sgakastan akastáakastaj akasté akastahé
1pl**** akastóakastwa akasti akastóssé
2plakastʌ ****akajja akajji akajjessé
3plakastʌ akastáakasta akastai akastássé

Here the future tense marker is -t-.


Class Vb


marsáaj, 'she leads it'


Present tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** marsáúmarsáo marsáʌ marsáuhé
2sgmarsáen ***marsáea marsáei marsáéssé
3sgmarsáʌ marsáámarsáaj marsáé marsáahé
1pl**** marsáómarsáoa marsáoi marsáóssé
2plmarsáaʌ****marsáá marsáé marsáahé
3plmarsáiʌ marsáémarsáia marsáii marsáéssé

Past tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** marsáaómarsáoo marsáoʌ marsáaohé
2sgmarsáaen ****marsáaej marsáaí marsáaehé
3sgmarsáaan marsáeámarsáeaj marsáeé marsáeahé
1pl**** marsáaómarsáawa marsáawoi marsáaóssé
2plmarsáaʌ ****marsáaa marsáai marsáássé
3plmarsáeʌ marsáaémarsáea marsáei marsáaéssé
Again, only the future tense differs from Class I, with a future marker in -t-.

Future tense
>1p sg & pl >2p sg & pl >3p sg. masc/3p inan >3p sg. fem/anim >3p pl. animate
1sg**** marsátómarsáto marsátʌ marsátohé
2sgmarsáten ****marsátaj marsáti marsátehé
3sgmarsátan marsátámarsátaj marsáté marsátahé
1pl**** marsátómarsátwa marsáti marsátóssé
2plmarsátʌ ****marsájja marsájji marsájjessé
3plmarsátʌ marsátámarsáta marsátai marsátássé

Well, that's enough verb for today. Next time we'll talk about irregularities.
Last edited by Ares Land on Tue Apr 28, 2020 2:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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KathTheDragon
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Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by KathTheDragon »

Why are all the plural rows labelled with 'sp' instead of 'pl'?
Ares Land
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:35 pm

Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

KathTheDragon wrote: Sun Apr 26, 2020 9:42 pm Why are all the plural rows labelled with 'sp' instead of 'pl'?
That was a typo... Thanks for pointing it out!
Ares Land
Posts: 2990
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 12:35 pm

Re: Erdaníla -- an Euro-Iroquoian-clone

Post by Ares Land »

Irregular verbs.

Rather than irregular verbs, we should speak of irregular roots -- all verbs derived from the same root will share in the same irregularity.

Thankfully, there aren't too many of them. I'll list some of the most common ones.

Irregular patientive verb roots.

A few of these have completely irregular suffixes.

Now, with a class II: -mʌ-, 'be a person, be people' -- which, additionally, lacks 1st and 2nd person forms.

Present
Singular Plural
3rd masculine inanimate -mʌo-mʌé
3rd feminine animate -mʌʌ-mʌhé
Which uses regular class II suffixes, with a root -mew- in the past tense:
Past
Singular Plural
3rd masculine inanimate mewuj mewujé
3rd feminine animate mewú mewuhé
The future root is -mʌ-
Future
Singular Plural
3rd masculine inanimate mʌoj mʌué
3rd feminine animate mʌú mʌuhé
-jjʌ́, 'to be dead' is similar. It goes further in eliminating inanimate/masculine forms;

Present
Singular Plural
3rd animate -jjʌ́-jjʌhé
Past

The past tense root is -jjoʌh-
Singular Plural
3rd animate -jjoʌhujsjoʌhuhé
And the future root is -jjoʌ-
Singular Plural
3rd animate -jjoʌúsjoʌuhé
-ksal-, to stand, has, in the present tense, a different root in the singular and in the plural (except for the first person plural)

Present
Singular Plural
1st -ksalʌ -ksalʌ́
2nd -ksala -ksele
3rd masculine inanimate -ksalaj -kselé
3rd feminine animate -ksali -kselehé
In the past tense, the root is -kserh-
Past
Singular Plural
1st -kserhun -kserhuné
2nd -kserhu -kserhú
3rd masculine inanimate -kserhuj -kserhujé
3rd feminine animate -kserhú -kserhuhé
And the future tense reverses the pattern, using -ksel- for the singular and first person plural, and -ksal- for other persons.

Future
Singular Plural
1st kselon kseloné
2nd kselo ksalú
3rd masculine inanimate kseloj ksalué
3rd feminine animate kselú ksaluhé
As with all others irregular verbs, the endings used are those for class II.

Other verbs simply alter the root for past, present and future.
ʌ̀ri, 'she's good, she's kind' forms her past tense with the root ʌ̀j- and class II endings: ʌ̀jú 'she was kind', and the future with the root ʌ̀r: ʌ̀rú 'she'll be kind'.
Likewise, hèli, 'she's bad', hìlahú 'she was bad', hìloú 'she'll be bad'
-ssí, 'to be small' > past -ssís-, future -ssis- hassíi, 'she's small', hassísú, 'she was small', -ssis > hassisú

A quick note on verb roots and verbs
Oh, by the way, you may have noted that I instited on using 'verb roots' instead of 'verb' for several of these irregular roots; also that I didn't use the usual 'she is X/ she was X', using the infintive instead.
Why is that? Well, plenty of verb roots can't be used alone, as independant verb without a prefix added.

For instance, you can't stay *mʌʌ 'she's a person'. You need to prefix it, for instance: namʌʌ : here-person-sg: there's someone here. You can't use *ksali 'she' without a prefix, either; but the roots combines with prefixes and other roots: naòameksali: here-tree-stand-3sanim: 'here is a tree'.

I'm introducing this a bit earlier than I expected - but you can't really cover irregular verbs without it. The key thing to note, for now, is that there are a lot of irregular verbs; but most of these are derived from a very restricted set of irregular roots.

Next up: irregular transitives.
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