Asinen

[Greyhawthorn]

Asinen is something I've been working on on the bus for some time now, and while it's not the first conlang I've done, it'll be the earliest one to see the light of day (because the others were absolutely horrid). It's part of a group of languages I've recently started filling out more, although Asinen is the most complete by far. So, without further ado....

Phonology:

/p b t d k g q/ <p b t d k g q>
/f v~ʋ θ ð s ç~x~h ħ/ <f v þ ð s h *>
/w ɬ l r j/ <w ł r j>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ng**>

/æ ø y/ <ä ö y>†
/ɑ~ɐ o u/ <a o u>
/e i/ <e i>

*The sound /ħ/ is only ever found before the voiceless plosive series, and never before a geminate or supergeminate sound. It is written as an apostrophe following the plosive; however the sound /ħ/ is only ever pronounced before the plosive. E.g., t' is /ħt/, p' is /ħp/, &c. Any grammatical process which adds a /ħ/ before a consonant which is not in the voiceless plosive series changes to an /h/ (and thence either to a ç or x, depending on whether the consonant is not-velar or velar, respectively) and is written as such. E.g., /æħsæri/* > /æhsæri/* > /æçsæri/ Ähsäri. /ħ/ may never be word-initial.

** The sound /ŋ/ is written ng except when before k where it's written as n. /n/ is never found before /k/, so there is no ambiguity.

† The sounds ä, ö, and y are the front counterparts of a, o, and u, and the two groups may never be mixed in a word except due to compounding or loaning. All affixes, appropriately, have front and back variants when they contain these vowels. All affixes are listed with back variants, but unless otherwise noted, the front variant should be used when appropriate. For the purposes of vowel harmony, e and i are neutral (may be with either back or front vowels), but when used in isolation, are considered front vowels.

‡ The following sounds may be either geminated or supergeminated: /p t k q f θ s ɬ l r j m n/ and all the vowels. Geminated sounds are written double and pronounced for approximately double the time of simple sounds. Supergeminated sounds are written double with an apostrophe, and in very careful speech, pronounced as an over-long geminate sound. In standard dialects and registers, supergeminate sounds are pronounced as glottalised, creaky voiced, or pharyngealised geminates (varying by speaker, dialect, and register), or alternately as, for example, /æ^ʔæ/ ää'. Supergeminate consonants are, in many dialects, pronounced as simple geminate consonants, but must be kept distinct because they are important grammatically.

E.g.

Ðann'e eneþyn upuutot soo'san koajaan ikaat'asi.
/ðɑnːːe eneθyn upuːtot soːːsɑn koɑjɑːn ikɑːħtɑsi/
[ðɑnːeːneθyn upuːtot so^ʔosɑn koɑjɑːn ikɑːħtɑsi]
'Near the tall mountain in the East, I built a cabin.'

[Greyhawthorn]

Nouns:

Nouns are not declined for case, but are inflected for definiteness, number, and possession.

Every noun is considered to be owned by something or someone, and so every noun shows its ownership. This is tempered slightly by a 'null ownership' which is used when a noun isn't possessed by anything. The possession is also inflected for number, and the number listed in the next section is for the possessor, not the noun itself.

The symbol ^FV^- means that the first vowel of the stem is taken from geminate to simple or supergeminate to geminate (that is, it is shortened one level). Letters in parentheses are found before stems which begin in a vowel (for parenthetical j) or consonant (for parenthetical i). The symbol ^FV- means that the first vowel of the stem is reduplicated in the form of a prefix (this can make the first vowel geminate or supergeminate).

1 singular ni(j)- ^FV^-
1 dual nel(i)- ^FV^-
1 plural appe(j)- ^FV^-

2s ase(j)- ^FV^-
2d asel(i)- ^FV^-
2p asse(j)- ^FV^-

3s amme(j)- ^FV^-
3d amel(i)- ^FV^-
3p amme(j)- ^FV^-

4 an(i)- ^FV^-

0 ^FV-

E.g.
mämmö --> ämämmö
dessert --> dessert (i.e. unowned)

saamuni --> nisamuni
hero --> my hero

Non-pronominal possessional relations (i.e., genitive relations between nouns) are expressed using a special set of prefixes in addition to the normal possession prefixes. This can lead to complex relations (e.g. things like 'my mother's friend of yours') which can seem quite opaque or stilted, and are thus avoided in ordinary speech; therefore, most nouns in a possessional relation are in the 0 person.

There are two members in any possessional relation, the P member and the p member. In English, the relation may be expressed as P's p. Unless other grammatical considerations come into play, P precedes p. Keep in mind that P need not be adjacent to p, although they must be in the same sentence.

The P member is not marked for number, and the p member is marked for the number of the P member. That is, if P is plural, p takes a different prefix than if P were singular or dual, and vice versa.

All the relation affixes come between the normal possessional prefixes and the stem.

P -^FV-

p singular -^FVme(j)-
p dual -^FVmessi(j)-
p plural -^FVmme(j)-

E.g.

aasaamuni äämemämmö
hero's dessert

äämämmö aamesaamuni
dessert's hero

Definiteness and number are expressed on a noun by the use of suffixes, which have a set of sandhi effects described below.

The symbol V^F+ means that the final vowel of the stem is geminated if simple or supergeminated if geminate.

D singular V^F+ -(e)n
D dual V^F+ -(e)li †
D plural V^F+ -(e)net *†

I singular -(e)t
I dual -(e)li †
I plural -(e)set *†

* In nouns with a V^F of e, the final e in the suffix dissimilates to i.
† In nouns with a C^F (i.e. a final consonant in the stem) the same as the first consonant of the suffix with a single vowel between, the interceding vowel is deleted.

E.g.

nimämmöön
my dessert (the dessert of mine)

asaamunnet
heroes

aasaamuniin äämessimämmööli
the hero's (two) desserts

nijasamuniset ässejämmemämmöset
my heroes' desserts of yours{plural} (your {plural} desserts which belong to my heroes)

[R.Rusanov]

Sounds like Finnish.

[Greyhawthorn]

Sounds like Finnish.

The phonology and Romanisation are heavily based on Finnish (with the obvious additions of q, w, b, g, f, þ, ð, and ł), but beyond that, it's not all that similar, especially in the verbal structures and lack of cases of any sort.

[Greyhawthorn]

Pronouns:

The simple pronouns are a simple set of 9+1 (1, 2, 3, in s, d, p + 4) as follows:

1s miðä
1d milet
1p minät

2s ðötä
2d ðölet
2p ðötät

3s tömä
3d tölet
3p tömät

4 naj

The relative pronouns have a three-way distinction for distance (proximal, medial, distal) and for number (singular, dual, plural). They can be abbreviated as + (proximal), 0 (medial), and - (distal) and the usual s, d, p.

They are as follows:

s+ tä
s0 itä
s- tötä

d+ tet
d0 itet
d- tötet

p+ tät
p0 ität
p- tötät

Particles:

There are two interrogative particles which are used to make a sentence a question, both of which are always placed at the beginning of a sentence.

The first is So and is a general interrogative. Used before a simple statement, it changes it into a simple (i.e. yes-or-no) question. There are a number of contractions used with so combined with either a second- or fourth-person pronoun; however, those will be covered later under the section on verbal phrases. For now, I shall simply list the contracted forms. It is of note that the uncontracted forms are only used in the most archaic or arcane dialects.

So-ðötä --> Sötä
So-ðölet --> Sölet
So-ðötät --> Sötät
So-naj --> Sön

The second is Te and is used for personal questions of another person; either requests or personal inquiries. For example, the question 'How are you?' translates more literally to 'Are you walking well?'. Using so instead of te is considered very rude, much as if you were to speak to someone using 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she'.

There are three further common particles, two of which are still productive, and one which is mostly only found in fossilised phrases.

The first of the two productive particles are a softener or generalised diminutive, kii, and, while it is increasingly being found used as a clitic suffix, it is still found primarily as a particle. It is not a strict diminutive in the sense of diminishing size or effect, but instead softening the impact. For instance, the verb qo (meaning 'to cheat' or 'to swindle') becomes qokii in the clitic form (meaning 'to embarrass', 'to tease', or 'to play a trick on'). If it were used as a particle instead of a clitic, it would have a meaning more like 'to cheat, but not so badly'. Not that there is no difference in pronunciation between qokii and qo kii unless qokii is conjugated, in which case the clitic is conjugated along with the verb itself.

The second of the two productive particles is a focus marker, þaa', which adds emphasis to any word that follows. Because word order is very strict, the focus marker is important in shifting the emphasis around within a sentence. When used in conjunction with so, the focus particle shifts the focus of the question (i.e. the word the question is actually about, usually marked by a rising intonation in English) to the word which follows.

The fossilised particle, rjo is found primarily in interrogative words, and only rarely outside of those, so is covered in the section on interrogatives.

[Greyhawthorn]

Copulae:

The copula is extremely important in any sentence, and is inflected for tense, mood, person, and number.

Moods are as follows, with the abbreviation, what tenses are allowed, and their inflected suffix:

Indicative (i) P/R/F -ä
Conditional (c) F -ök'ä
Subjunctive (s) R -ykk'ö
Historic (h) P -issy
Imperative (m) R/F -ellä
Optative (o) P/F -ime
Jussive (j) R/F -imärrä
Potential (p) F -iwän
Perfect (r) P/R/F -yn

The moods express the following things:

Indicative is for facts or general statements.
Conditional is for any conditional phrases (e.g., 'If x then y.')
Subjunctive is for questioned hypotheticals
Historic is for events in the distant past (in time immemorial or in legends, i.e. 'Once upon a time')
Imperative is for commands
Optative is for hopes or wishes
Jussive is for hopes or wishes directly reliant on another person
Potential is for possible hypotheticals
Perfect is for completed actions (the perfect is technically an aspect, but is treated as a mood for standard analyses)

The tenses are as follows, along with their abbreviations and suffixes (note that the tense suffix always follows the mood suffix):

Past P -i
Present R -∅
Future F -ivi

This gives the following combinations:

iP, hP, oP, rP
iR, sR, hR, mR, jR, pR, rR
iF, cF, mF, oF, jF, pF, rF

The copula is also in each of the four persons and three numbers, as below:

1s en-
1d el-
1p äpp-

2s äs-
2d äsel-
2p äss-

3s äm-
3d ämel-
3p ämm-

4 änj-

The copular stem is simply -eþ-, although with all of its various inflexions, there are a total of 198 forms of the copula (not here enumerated, for brevity and simplicity's sake, as the various inflexions are entirely regular).

It is important to note that in copular sentences (unlike verbal sentences; see below), the word order is always:

Copula-subject-predicate

E.g.

So ämeþykk'öi tä ämemämmöön?
So äm-eþ-ykk'ö-i tä äme-mämmö-ön?
? 3s-copula-sP this 3s-dessert-Ds