’iiŋìm

[Dezinaa]

<’iiŋìm>

I've already posted this on the CBB (here), but I'll post it here too. My original purpose for making this conlang was to challenge myself not to scrap something for at least a month, and I guess I succeeded because It's been more than three months.

Also, I'm not sure if I should have put this in C&C quickies since it's not 'complete.'

Phonology

The phonemic inventory of ’iiŋìm is very small, consisting of seven consonants and three vowels.

/p t k ʔ/ <p t k ’>
/m n ŋ/ <m n ŋ>
/i u a/ <i u a>

It also has three tones: high, mid, and low. High tone is marked with an acute accent, low tone is marked with a grave accent, and mid tone is unmarked.
Syllable structure is (C)V(C). Any consonant can begin or end a syllable.

Allophony

Because of having such a small number of phonemes, ’iiŋìm has very noticable allophony.

Between vowels, /p t k/ become [β ɾ ɣ].
After a nasal, /p t k/ become .
After a pause, /m n ŋ/ become .
Next to /i/ in the same syllable, /k ŋ/ become [c ɲ]. Between two vowels, if the second one is /i/, /k/ becomes [ʝ]. In rare cases of /VNki/, /k/ is realized as [ɟ].
Because of the last two rules, utterance-initial /ŋi/ is realized as [ɟi].
Vowels are nasalized before nasals.
In closed syllables, /i u a/ become [ɪ ʊ ɐ].
Next to /i/, /a/ becomes [e].
Next to /u/, /a/ becomes [o].
If two non-identical high vowels are in the same syllable, the first one becomes a semivowel.
Two identical vowels next to each other become a long vowel.
If two /ʔ/s occur next to each other, the first one is deleted.
When /i u/ become semivowels, their tone is moved onto the other vowel in the same syllable. For example, ŋáánaù /ŋa˥.a˥.na˧.u˩/ is really pronounced [ŋãː˥.now˧˩].


Word Order

The basic word order is agent-patient-verb-oblique (SOV). Technically, it's ergative-absolutive-verb-oblique, since it is an erg-abs conlang.

To demonstrate, here is a sentence with one argument:

Àn màp.
1SG.ABS sleep
I sleep.

Here is a sentence with two arguments:

Paànmúim ŋá’ka uiìkpi’ manàpàì.
paànmú-im ŋá’ka uiìkpi’ manàp-àì.
house-ERG angry cupcake.ABS throw-3SG.ERG
The angry house throws a cupcake.

As you can see, the verb is only marked for the ergative argument.


Nouns

There are five cases in: absolutive, ergative, genitive, dative, and locative. Ergative and dative use suffixes, and genitive and locative use postpositional clitics. Absolutive is unmarked.

Here is the declension of ŋúnaa, 'human, person'.

ABS ŋúnaa
ERG ŋúnaa-im
GEN ŋúnaa ___=nu
DAT ŋúnaa-a’
LOC ŋúnaa=’ai

Notice that for the genitive case, the possessor is not what is marked. For example, ŋúnaa paànmú=nu means "the person's house", not "the house's person".

Nouns do not have number. However, as long as whatever would normally have number is in the ergative case, the verb would get rid of ambiguity.


I'll post more later, including the script.

[Dezinaa]

Script

The script is somewhat featural. I think it might be an abugida, or a syllabic alphabet. Each character represents one phonemic syllable. The writing direction is left to right and top to bottom.

Syllable blocks can be separated into three parts. The top is for optional consonant onsets. The middle is for vowels, and the bottom for optional coda consonants. High tone is marked with a dot above the character, and low tone with a dot below.

These are the basic "letters" of the script:



They represent the phonemes in this order:

/m n ŋ/
/p t k ʔ/
/i a u/

The script has one punctuation mark, which looks like a dotless i <ı> or an iota <ι>. It is used to separate words. To of them in a row can be used for a pause in speech, such as at the end of a sentance.

Complete words do not have to be on a single line. They can be separated onto the next line. When affixes are placed on words, the root word is not written differently, even if the affix changes the syllable structure of the word.

Here are a few short example texts:



<í,,nam.tí.am,,àn,tú.am,,í,àn.ma.am,,nà.á,tú.íŋ.mí,,>
Í namtíam. Àn túam. Í ànmaam. Nàá túíŋmí?
[ĩ˥ nɐ̃mdjẽm˥˧ | ɐ̃n˩ dwõm˥˧ | jẽn˥˩mãːm | daː˩˥ ɾwɪ̃ŋ˥mi˥]
2SG.ABS greet-1SG.ERG | 1SG.ABS be-1SG.ERG | 2SG.ABS see-1SG.ERG | who be-2SG.ERG
Hello. I am me. I see you. Who are you?


<í,pu.i.ta.am,,>
Í puitaam.
[i˥ βwiɾãːm]
2SG.ABS love-1SG.ERG
I love you.

Handwritten version:



Edit: I just noticed a mistake. I accidentally wrote <Í paitaam> in this one.

Demonstratives and Pronouns

There are five pronouns in ’iiŋìm, but no third person pronouns. Demonstratives are used instead of 3p pronouns.

Pronouns:
SG PL
1 àn in (EXCL), ŋaú (INCL)
2 í pà

As you can see, there is a clusivity distinction in the 1p plural pronouns.

There are three distance contrasts in the demonstratives: proximal, medial, and distal.

PROX: aka
MED: mì
DIST: tuu

The demonstratives come after nouns. If they are used for pronouns, they take the nominalization suffix -at.

aka → akaat
mì → mìat
tuu → tuuat

Demonstratives and pronouns can have cases like nouns.