Zompist Bboard Again

Or, the writings of language-making/Lērisama (it's intentionally ambiguous). This is more a reminder to myself put stuff here in the near(-ish) future, but questions are very welcome (not that there is much to question yet). Since I have it open, here's a copy of my dictionary definition for hecūsih, although it might not make that much sense:

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切ョシく、hecūsih vt. – to write ﾎキョーシカゥ　/xət͡sʲuːsɪʲx/ ﾎキョーシャラゥ、ﾎキョーシィバㇻ̞ゥ、ﾎキョーシィビラ̞ゥ hecāçal, hecūçiver, hecūçivir Definition: 1. To write sth. Etymology: PPS *ϙukjūsja, from *ϙukja + *-ūsja. Perfect different to stem verb

I was playing around with Zompist's phono tool to try and work out bbcode tables, so here's the phonemic inventory of Lēri Ziwi (there isn't a way to merge cells, is there?). There is a decent smattering of allophony and morphophonology, notably the voiced obstruents vary between plosives and fricatives in slightly conditioned variation.

Consonants

	Labials	Coronals	Palatals	Velars
Plosives	p b	t d	t͡sʲ d͡zʲ	k
Fricatives	f	θ (s) (z)	sʲ	x ɣ
Nasals	m	n
Approximants	w	l ɾ	j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	iː ɪ		uː ʊ
Mid	ɛː	ə	ɔː
Low		a

The katakana is intriguing!

What do the three supplementary forms of hecūsih correspond to? Can that verb be used intransitively as is?

Historical kana orthography! Amaterasu save me.

切 for "write" implies writing is a recent acquisition - the ancient meaning, preserved in its use in fǎnqiè formulae, is "run together". Is this your intention?

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 2:20 pm The katakana is intriguing!

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 8:41 pm Historical kana orthography! Amaterasu save me.

Sorry to disappoint (I probably should have mentioned this yesterday), but they aren't real kana. They are representing the native script of Lēri Ziwi, which I know how it works, but not (the vast majority of) the actual glyphs used. I use kana because I think, say, ﾎキョーシャラゥ looks better than huº-kĭ-yō-sĭ-ya-lă, and when we (eventually) get round to making a font, it will probably end up mapped to kana anyway, and I'd rather not rewrite everything then.

切 for "write" implies writing is a recent acquisition - the ancient meaning, preserved in its use in fǎnqiè formulae, is "run together". Is this your intention?

I wasn't aware of that, no, but it doesn't particularly matter in this case because a) it is actually a diminutive of 切リく ‘to cut’ and b) the kanji assignments are an anachronistic mess anyway with ‘what can I type easily on my Japanese phone keyboard’ being a rather large factor.

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Vilike wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 4:30 pm What do the three supplementary forms of hecūsih correspond to?

The three forms are a 3>1 present ‘(S)he's writing me’, a 3>2 perfective ‘(S)he wrote you’ and a 3>2 perfective agentive (what the Lēri Ziwi grammarians call it. I have no idea. It marks the topic being the same as the subject (probably, the grammarians may not be trustworthy on this)) ‘(S)he/it wrote you’ (not that they make much sense for this particular verb). The citation form is a verbal noun, which is quite versatile – it's used as both a nominalisation and as part of verbal inflection (e.g.

a-h-a hec-ūsi-h

NEG-3s-1s cut-DIM-VN

‘I'm not writing it’

Can that verb be used intransitively as is?

You can pseudo- and really intransivise it in several ways, but you can"t unambiguously intransivise it:

• Use a dummy 3rd person singular object hecūsiha ‘I'm writing it/something’ it roughly equivalent to ‘I'm writing’
• Incorporate a generic object into the verb – you get intransitive inflexions on the verb, but the object is still implied Lērehecāça ‘I'm writing (words)’
• Use the middle. It's mainly a reflexive, but it could definitely be coöpted to do this hecūçīh ‘(S)he is writing’ (among many other interpretations)

Lērisama wrote: ↑Sun Oct 27, 2024 5:09 am Sorry to disappoint (I probably should have mentioned this yesterday), but they aren't real kana. They are representing the native script of Lēri Ziwi, which I know how it works, but not (the vast majority of) the actual glyphs used. I use kana because I think, say, ﾎキョーシャラゥ looks better than huº-kĭ-yō-sĭ-ya-lă, and when we (eventually) get round to making a font, it will probably end up mapped to kana anyway, and I'd rather not rewrite everything then.

I see; that's pretty clever.

I was contacted by Janko asking for numbers (Yay! I'm now an Official Conlanger™). I have now made the ones I lacked (4-10) and I might as well share them here (up to 12, since Lēri Ziwi uses base 12). Superscript numbers refer to example of the usage being discussed.

1: 一く ūh vi. オーカゥ /uːx/
オーハ、〜、〜
Āha, –, –
Etymology: PL VN *ūhkë, 1s *ūha
This is a verb, as are most lower numbers – it is used as a relative clause (although explicit marking of that is rather rare¹, unlike is typical²). The verbal noun is used for counting, but technically means something along the lines of oneness, or unity³, and is used as such, as well as being the usual way to express identity⁴*. Note the lack of perfective forms; this is common to all numbers that are verbs.

2: 二く kutuh vi. コトカゥ /kʊtʊx/
コタ、〜、〜
Keta, –, –
Etymology: PL VN *kutukë, 1s *kutwa
Another verb. It is also used to express non identity⁵

3: 三く pīllih vi. ピーラㇼカゥ /piːllɪx/
ピーラㇼャ、〜、〜
Pēlja, –, –
Etymology: PL VN *pīrëγikë, 1s *pīrëγja
Not really much to say that hasn't already been said. Let's move on

4: 四く pīđeh vi. ピン̞サヵゥ /piːd͡zʲəx/
ぴーン̞サ、〜、〜
Pīđa, –, –
Etymology: PL VN *tinsëkë, 1s *tinsa
The initial consonant has changed by analogy with the preceding number.

5: 五く jāg vi. ヤン̞カゥ /jɔːɣ/
ヤマ、〜、〜
Jama, –, –
Etymology: PL VN *jankë, 1s *jama
This has an interesting conjugation – the stem final nasal messed everything up if the suffix started with a consonant. Otherwise normal though

6: 六く jūveh vi. ヨーバヵゥ /juːbəx/
ヨーバ、〜、〜
Jāva, –, –
Etymology: PL VN *jūφëkë, 1s *jūφa
Boring again.

7: 七 selgew n. サラｷ̄ﾞワゥ /sʲəlɣəw/
サラｷ̄ﾞワゥヰ, selgewui
Etymology: PRk *ssᵊrgiuˣ
Two new things here. This is a noun, used with the noun qualified in the oblique⁶ (note the head has changed from the noun to the numeral), and it has been borrowed from Proto-Rākēwuic. They are not unrelated: Lēri Ziwi prefers to borrow nouns, and there was already a nominal numeral pattern, so it was grouped with those.

8: 四く kūtih vi. コーチカゥ /kuːtɪx/
コーチャ、〜、〜
Kāca, –, –
Etymology: PL VN *kūtikë, 1s *kūtja (disputed)
Back to native verbs now. The dispute over the Proto-Lēric is because some more distantly related languages show descendants of *kutinsëkë, *kutinsa (recognisably ‘two fours’, with probable haplology from earlier *kututinsa), instead, but a Proto-LZ+closest relatives *kūtik, *kōca, of unknown origin is unlikely for morphological and phonological reasons. It has been suggested that this form is a contraction of *kutinsa, in which case it would have to be old.

9: 九 þeman n. タ̞ゥマン /θəman/
タ̞ゥマニ, þemani
Etymology: PRk *ttᵊmar
Another Rākēwuic noun

10: 捌 mīh n. ミーカ̞ゥ /miːx/
ミーカ̞ゥヰ mīhui
Etymology: PRk *mriːkkᵊ
Ditto

11: 玖 wīvil n. ヰービラゥ /wiːbɪl/
ヰービラゥヰ wīvilui
Etymology: PL *wëjëφwirë
The native core those nominal numerals were based on. Recognisably from *φwirë ‘12’, with *wëjë- prefixed. It's probably a reduced form of *wajë ‘out of, without, from’, with an meaning of ‘not quite 12 (i.e. 12)’

12: 十 fil n. ピ̞ラゥ /fɪl/
ピ̞ラゥヰ filui
Etymology: PL *φwirë
And that's the end.

Examples:

1. 馬ゐ三アフ目ギバ羊ナ彼ゐ
   Rādiwi pēljāh, āzevā ivi na tui.
   [ˈɾɔːðɪwi ˈpɛːljɔːx | ˈɔːzʲəvɔː ˈɪβi na ͡ˈtʊi]
   

   rādi-wi

   horse-OBL

   pīlj-āh

   three-3p

   āg-iv-ā-∅

   see-PFV-3p-3s

   ivi

   sheep

   na

   at

   t-ui

   DEM.DIST-OBL

   
   The 3 horses were seen by the sheep.†
2. 口人ィバハ馬イフピパ可アハギト羊
   Līceggivhā rādi ih pēvgāhā zēþu ivi.
   [ˈliːt͡sʲəɣˌɡiβɦɔː ˈɾɔːði ɪx ˈpɛːβɡɔːˌhɔː
   

   līc-gj-iv-h-ā

   say-SPEC-PFV-3s-3p

   rādi

   horse

   ih

   COMP

   pēf-g-āh-ā

   carry-PST.nPFV-3p-3p

   zēþu

   load

   ivi

   sheep

   
   The horses carrying loads counseled the sheep.
3. サギラコヒオイハンく
   Sāzlakūhi-ejehāg.
   [ˈsʲɔːzʲlakˌuːhi ͡ˈəjəˌhɔːɣ]
   

   Sāzlak-ūh-i=

   Sāzlah-one-SUP=

   BEN.APPL-MID-1p-VN

   uj-ih-ān-k

   
   Sāzlakūhi-ejehāg (a state in Zhōs. The compound is very postclassical, and features Mithun type II incorporation of a state – a feature of scholarly Lēri Ziwi of the modern era★)
4. オふ行シくヂ行ンサくゐ
   Ūh kāđih di kamēđgui.
   [ˈuːx ˈkamsʲɪx ˌdi ͡kaˈmɛːzʲɡʊi]
   

   ū-h

   one-3s

   kā-si-k

   go-DIRECT-VN

   di

   with

   kam-ːđ-k-ui

   go-DIRECT-VN-OBL

   
   Coming is going.
5. 二ふ馬ワイ羊
   Kutuh rādi wai ivui.
   [ˈkʊtʊx ˈɾɔːði ˌwai ͡ˈiβʊi]
   

   kutu-h

   two-3s

   rādi

   horse

   wai

   out.of

   iv-ui

   SHEEP-OBL

   
   Horses are different from sheep.
6. ポラリァフ九人ゐ
   Peljāh þeman henwi.
   [ˈpəljɔːx θəˈman ˈhənwi]
   

   pulj-āh

   blink.PFV-3p

   þeman

   nine

   hen-wi

   person-OBL

   
   Nine people blunk.

* I can't remember if I shamelessly stole this from Kebreni, or if I came up with it before I read that page.
† Yes, this is referencing Schleicher's fable
‡ I don't think this ⟨one⟩ can be coloured
★ Classical Lēri Ziwi was spoken up to around 300 IUZ. The modern day is 2448 IUZ (although Zhōs years are shorter than Earth ones)

Edit: bbc doesn't work with British spellings, a missing verb, fixing IPA, adding IPA for the examples

Jú Ziaran¹, or overly thorough non-naturalism

I was reading Darren's Mitsiefa Thread (excellent, by the way), and couldn't help but read list of Universals as a challenge: how many can I break while the result (at least on the surface) still seems sane (or at least could-come-from-PNG weird², rather than bad conlang weird)? Natually, given the premise, it lives on the island of Kyffj, a place of high language diversity (both human and Qa-Qa³) and general phonological fun. For reference, here is their final list (non-trivial ones bolded):

Darren wrote: ↑Sun Jan 28, 2024 12:27 am 1a. All spoken languages have phonemes
1b. There are never fewer phones than phonemes in a phonological system
2a. All spoken languages have multiple consonant phonemes
2b. All consonant inventories have multiple degrees of sonority including multiple obstruents
2c. There are always multiple consonant phonemes which are more sonorous than the least sonorous series of phonemes
2d. There are always multiple contrastive places of articulation in a consonant inventory
2e. Consonant phonemes will always occur at at least two out of labial, coronal and velar POAs.
3a. All languages have at least one vowel phoneme.
3b. All languages have multiple vowel phonemes unless consonants or words have markedness for F2.
3c. All languages have at least one [+front] vowel, or a [+front] consonant such as /j/.
3d. No language distinguishes frontness (F2) without also distinguishing height (F1).
3e. No language has fewer than three vowel phonemes which does not also have more than ten consonant phonemes.

A closer look at the Universals

• 1a is going to be very hard to break, probably beyond my ability, and the result probably wouldn't seem naturalistic anyway, so let's chalk this down as a loss
• 1b is the same; with the allophony probably going to be required to pull the seeming naturalistic bit off this will probably be impossible (especially looking ahead to 3e). I'll bear it in mind in case the allophony is less severe than needed though
• 2a is pretty much the same as 1a. I'm starting to think natural languages may have already done all the possible weird things, which would explain a lot
• 2b Aha! One I can break easily! The (ex-)sonorants fortate and the (ex-)obstruents lenite in various situations, and then some syncope to create clusters that don't care about the original distinction, so there is no synchronic way to tell the difference
• 2c is automatically broken by breaking 2b, although if I have to lose 2b I can still keep this one as long as I only have one more-sonorous-than-the-rest phoneme.
• 2d is incompatible with 2b if I want more than one consonant phoneme, and I think I prefer breaking it to breaking 2b, since contrasting does a lot of work here – an inventory of e.g. /k b~m s ɾ j/ would still break this, while still being natural(-ish)
• 2e spoils that plan. Maybe I could save it bg avoiding labials and splitting velars into palatals and uvulars? Something like /t d͡ʒ χ ɾ j/, although that would be a pain to naturalise. There are definitely possibilities though
• 3a I'm keeping this for the sme reason as 2a. Also Ibwas planning to get extra (allophonic) onsonants from various hiatuses, and breaking this would spoil that plan. Plenty of opportunity for colouring though, given the consonant inventory. I'll see. It may be more efficient to have vowels so I can break more of the following
• 3b this is easily compatible with 3a, but only allows me a phonetic vertical vowel system, which breaks the naturalism requirement, so I'll have to keep this
• 3c I'd have to lose palatals at least in the consonant inventory, and probably all coronals, which would mean I could only use a choice between labials/velars, uvulars, pharyngeals & glottals. I might as well just have the front vowel. Compatible with 3a though
• 3d is easy. All I need a vowel system like the /i u/ + epenthetic [a] mentioned in the thread. Maybe /ɨ u/ if I do end up removing [+front]. Although wouldn't be best analysed as [+front] anyway. That settles it, I'm doing this one and not 3c (it's also incompatible with 3a, so
• 3e kind of comes for free – I'm already going to be going for a 2 vowel system, and given the restrictions on consonants, 10 would be tricky anyway

I'm only going to be breaking 4 out of the 10 non trivial universals, which probably bodes well for their longevity – if they were too easy to break and seem natural, I'd be surprised if an actual natural language hadn't beaten me to it.

Decisions, decisions
So, now all I have to chose one of the compatible systems. I choose /t d͡ʒ n h ʀ/⁴⁵ for consonants and that lovely /i u/ for vowels. Given the premise, it's getting an underlyingly simple tone system that goes through enough horror (interacting with epenthesis?) to utterly bamboozle any learners. For now, it's getting word level tone melodies of ∅, L, H, or HL. See below for how these get assigned to vowels

Allophony
If this is going to appear remotely natural, I'm going to need a lot. It also has to satisfy two conditions. Firstly, it has to provide ample evidence for the phonemes being what they are, so the "universal breaking" phonology is more than an artifact of analysis, and secondly create something natural seeming. Obviously a subjective criterion, but I'm aiming for it anyway.

In the order given:

• Assign each tone in the melody to a vowel, from right to left. If there are more tones than vowels (not that rare, as epenthisis hasn't happened yet) a maximum of one floating tone can be ejected to the left. If an vowel unassigned for tone preceded it in the phonological phrase (not sure exactly what its boundaries are just yet), it attaches there, otherwise it deletes.
• [z] is inserted to break up hiatus, except [uu], which becomes [uɣu]
• Epenthesise [a] after two consonants, if another consonant follows, and before a word final consonant preceded by another consonant
• High tone⁶ spreads leftwards, to any unassigned vowel
• The rightmost of two adjacent independently marked high tones (i.e. not one tone that spread, but the leftmost vowel of a spread high tone adjacent to a different high tone is eligible⁷) dissimilates to a low tone
• All vowels without a tone assigned gain a low tone
• [ht hd͡ʒ hn hh hʀ] become [ħt ʕd͡ʒ n̥n̥ ħħ ʀʀ]
• [ti ni tti] palatalise to [si ɲi tt͡si]
• The leftmost one of [i u] gains primary stress. If none are present, the leftmost [a] gets primary stress
• Secondary stress is asigned to every second vowel after the primary stress
• [a i u] are raised to [ɤ i u] when stressee (incl. secondarily stressed) and laxed to [ɐ ɪ ʊ] otherwise
• [d͡ʒ] devoices and deaffricates to [ʃ] initially, and in coda becomes [j]. [ʊj ɪj uj ij] are realised as [wi̝ i̝ wi̝ i̝], with the tone transferred to the vowel
• [ʀ] is realised as [ʁ] intervocallically, and [ɐʀ ɪʀ ʊʀ ɤʀ iʀ uʀ] are [ɑ jɑ wɑ ɑ jɑ wɑ]
• [n] nasalises a preceeding (semi-)vowel⁸, flaps to [ɾ] intervocalically or after a consonant, assimilates to the POA of a following consonant, and becomes [ŋ] word finally. [nn n̥n̥] becomes [ndɾ n̥tɾ̥]

And that's the end of the phonological sketch. More things may or may not come in the future. For now, here's table of (major, I got bored) phones:

Consonants

	Alveolar	Palatal	Dorsal	Glottal
Stops	t	d͡ʒ
Fricatives	s z	ʃ	ħ ɣ ʁ	h
Nasals	n	ɲ	ŋ
"Rhotics"	ɾ		ʀ
Semivowels		j	w

Vowels

	Non-back	Back
Fricated	i̞
High	i	u
Mid	ɪ	ɤ ʊ
Low	ɐ	ɑ

Footnotes
¹[ʃʊ́ ˈzjɑ̃̀ɾɐ̃̀ŋ] /d͡ʒu iʁnnᴴᴸ/. This may or may not be a clue to how terrifying this phonology is
²No offence to Papuan languages intended. It's the kind of weirdness all languages should aspire to
³Giant, sentient ravens. Their languages have hit a dead end, as I'm still trying to work out grammatical features that allow them to still have human-like language diversity while keeping them just alien enough
⁴I'm not putting this in a table. I'd almost need a new row and column for each phoneme
⁵As a sop to diachrony, I'm going to say it derives from a marginally more sane /t d~ɾ k ɡ n s l/. /t/ remained the same but spirantised to [s] under circumstances to be dealt with under allophony, /d/ merged into /n/ and lost its plosive allophone, /k ɡ/ became /t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/ -> /t~d͡ʒ d͡ʒ/ (specifically the [s] allophone of /t/) when palatalised and /h ʀ/ when not, /s/ debuccalised to /h/ or deleted when not palatalised and merged with /t/ elsewhere, and /l/ delateralised and either vocalised or merged with /ʀ n/
⁶Actually I think low tone could spread too, but it doesn't effect the final outcome
⁷I have no idea if this is naturalistic, but I quite like it
⁸I want this to spread leftwards until blocked by a set of consonants, but I don't want to do anything that implies multiple consonants pattern together to avoid implying that the main thing differentiating then is POA & accidently meet 2d. The rule as given is a compromise

Lērisama wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2024 10:48 am Jú Ziaran¹, or overly thorough non-naturalism

I like this very much, and I hope you go further with it – I'd like to see if it's actually usable. I considered trying something like it out myself, and I feel like now I may have to. Your word tone system is very neat, I will try not to steal it.

⁵As a sop to diachrony, I'm going to say it derives from a marginally more sane /t d~ɾ k ɡ n s l/.

Now that's a nice inventory – like a Mekeo dialect but with no labials instead of no coronals.

Darren wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2024 1:26 am I like this very much, and I hope you go further with it – I'd like to see if it's actually usable. I considered trying something like it out myself, and I feel like now I may have to. Your word tone system is very neat, I will try not to steal it.

Yeah, I ended up liking it more than I thought I would. I do have some plans for grammar (vocalic affixes would mess things up delightfully) and I'd like an orthography that isn't just making things up on the spot. The tone system started as added evil, and became something I actively enjoyed (as well as an extra way to hint that [a] isn't phonemic)

⁵As a sop to diachrony, I'm going to say it derives from a marginally more sane /t d~ɾ k ɡ n s l/.

Now that's a nice inventory – like a Mekeo dialect but with no labials instead of no coronals.

Yeah it also ended up surpisingly nice; if I do continue this past a sketch, I'll definitely develop the ancestor more.

So as soon as I wrote that, I couldn't help but do more. I don't have that much time, so here's more complete phone tables, with orthography supplied. A couple of phones only occur geminate, these are displayed as such in the table.

I added a little more allophony: a glottal stop gets inserted at the start of vowel initial words, and [ɾ] is in free variaton with [ɺ] (this is totally just to excuse the orthography, but it makes sense diachronically)

	Alveolar	Palatal	Dorsal	Laryngeal
Stops	t d tt͡s ⟨t d ts⟩	d͡ʒ ⟨j⟩		ʔ
Fricatives	s z ⟨s z⟩	ʃ ⟨x⟩	ɣ ʁ ⟨g r⟩	h ħ ʕ ⟨h⟩
Nasals	n n̥ ⟨n⟩	ɲ ⟨n⟩	ŋ ⟨n⟩
"Rhotics"	ɾ ⟨l/r*⟩		ʀ ⟨r⟩
Semivowels		j ⟨i⟩	w ⟨u⟩

*In the combinations ⟨ndr ntr⟩ for /nn hn/ only

	Non-back	Back
Fricated	i̞ ⟨y⟩
High	i ⟨i⟩	u ⟨u⟩
Mid	ɪ ⟨i⟩	ɤ ʊ ⟨a u⟩
Low	ɐ ⟨a⟩	ɑ ⟨a⟩

Surface tone is marked by an acute on a vowel with high tone

This does make the language name Xú Zialan, but I can live with that. Especially the ⟨x⟩.

More Xú Iạlan¹ – some words & basic verbs

I'd rather involve real words than keep things theoretical, so here are some words to morphosyntax with, before I actually start the morphosyntax:

• Hai [hɤ̀j] /hd͡ʒ/ v. – to have
• Hạsi [hɑ̀ˈsì] /hʀtiᴴᴸ/ v. – to sail
• Hatu [hɐ̀ˈtù] /htu/ clit. – Hearsay evidential
• Iạlan [ˈʔjɑ̃̀ɺɐ̃̀ŋ] /iʀnnᴴᴸ/ n. – a Iạlan person
• Íntrin [ˈʔĩ́tɾɪ̃̀ŋ] /ihninᴴᴸ/ n. – Ezangnin
• Naru [nɐ̀ˈʀù] /nʀuᴸ/ v. – to talk
• Rásí [ʀɐ́ˈsí] /ʀtiᴴ/ clit. – inference evidential
• Sínjú [ˈsĩd͡ʒʊ] /tind͡ʒuᴴ/ v. – to say sth.
• Tuý [twì̝] /tud͡ʒ/ n. – a personal name
• Xạ́rít [ʃɑ́ˈʁíʔ] /d͡ʒʀʀitᴴ/ v. – to be numb

And also pronouns (+ the definite article – it's identical to the 3rd person pronouns)

	Singular	Plural
1st	Ha [hɐ̀] /hᴴ/	Í [ɪ́] /iᴴ/
2nd	Na [nɐ̀] /nᴸ/	Nut [nʊ̀ʔ] /nut/
3rd nfem	U [ʔʊ̀] /u/	Y [ì̝]/id͡ʒᴴᴸ/
3rd fem	Uạ [ʔwɑ̀] /uʀ/	Ijạ [ìd͡ʒɑ̀] /id͡ʒʀᴴᴸ
Reflexive	Tah [tɐ̀ħ] /th/	n/a

The verb phrase² in Xú Iarlan is made up of a verb and various clitics, in the order subject pronoun³, verb, object pronoun, evidentials⁴, with the verb-object complex tighter bound than the rest⁵. An example of a maximal verb phrase is below

Uạ hái y hatu
[ʔwɑ̀ ˈhɤ́j ì̝ hɐ̀ˈtù]

uʀ

3sf

hd͡ʒ=id͡ʒᴴᴸ

have=3p.nf

htu

HSY

(I heard) She has them

This can be further extended with Serial verb constructions. These fall into three main categories: V+hai, forming a past tense⁶; result+V, forming a resultative; and V+V, indicating a set of closely related sequential actions, the latter two of which must agree in immediacy⁷. Examples of all three are below

U nárú ha xai
[ʔʊ̀ nɐ́ˈʁú hɐ̀ ʃɤ̀j]

u

3s.nf

nʀuᴸ=hᴴ

talk=1s

d͡ʒ~d͡ʒ

IMM~have

He just talked to me

Ha xáirárít nút nanru
[hɐ̀ ˈʃɤ́jʁɐˈʁíʔ núʔ nɐ̃̀ˈʁù]

hᴴ

1s

d͡ʒ~d͡ʒʀʀitᴴ=nut

IMM~numb=2p

I'm talking you to numbness

Hạsi Íntríli uạ sínjú hạsi
[hɑ̀ˈsì ˈĩ́trɪ̃́ˌɺɪ̀ ʔwɑ̀ ˈsĩ́d͡ʒʊ́ hɑ̀ˈsì]

hʀtiᴴᴸ

sail

ihninᴴᴸ-i

Ezangnin-ALL

uʀ

3sf

tind͡ʒuᴴ

say

hʀtiᴴ

sail

She talked about sailing then set sail for Ezangnin

¹ In what is fast becoming a pattern there is an orthography update and a couple of new allophonic rules: I realised [ɐ/ɤ ɑ] contrast sometimes, so the latter is now ⟨ạ⟩, /t/ is [ʔ] word finally (still ⟨t⟩), /n/ deletes before a consonant, nasalising the vowel (still written ⟨Vn⟩), and hiatus resolution doesn't apply across words anymore, so [ʃʊ́ zjɑ̃̀ɺɐ̀ŋ] is now [ʃʊ́ ʔjɑ̃̀ɺɐ̀ŋ] ⟨Xú Iạlan⟩. Floating tones are also only resolved after epenthesis now.
² Just the clitic parts, the morphology will be dealt with later
³ While Xú Iạlan is split ergative with an evil highly fun split (what did you expect?), the pronouns are not marked for case and are reliably nom-acc i.e. the "subject" here refers to both the S and A arguments.
⁴ I have no idea how to present this
⁵ Phonologically, that is (it is treated as one word for all tone and stress related things, and hiatus resolution applies across the word boundary). If it weren't for the phonology the whole complex could be treated as one word
⁶ Aspect is for later; it neads a post to itself (and alignment-related consequences). Rest assured interactions happen with this construction
⁷ The not-quite-aspect to be dealt with next, it's just probably worth mentioning now