An Introduction to Deevie

[Sevly]

An Introduction to Deevie

Table of Contents

Modern Deevie (ModD)

• Deevie Notes

Middle Deevie (MdlD)

• Phonology and Orthography (this post)
  • Vowels
  • Consonants
  • Phonotactics
  • Allophony
  • Transcription Examples
• Morphophonology
  • Consonant Sandhi
  • Vowel Sandhi
  • Resolution of Vowel and Consonant Clusters
• Morphology
  • Morphological Processes One
    • Personal Prefixes
    • Word Classes
    • Nominalization
    • Diminutives
    • Possessive Constructions
    • Verb Conjugation
  • Morphological Processes Two
    • Compounding
    • Quantification
    • Spatial Relations
    • Pronominals
  • Morphological Processes Three
    • Compound Verbs
    • Object Incorporation
    • Relative Clauses

Introduction

Hey guys. As we usher in the new year, what better time to actually set a tone of productivity alongside other resolutions? In that spirit, this thread will serve as a place for me to (hopefully) finally document all the myriad changes that have occurred in Deevie /zɛvi/ (Deevie /zɛβɪ/¹) since the last time I posted about it here (which, incidentally, was also at the end of December), at which point it was still named Dautian and was rather anglocentric. The language is not currently associated with any particular conworld or conpeople, so the discussion will sadly stick to a purely linguistic point of view.

In order to more fully understand modern Deevie, particularly its orthography, we will first take a look at the historical development of the language from the point at which the current writing system began to be codified. I will refer to the language of this era as Middle Deevie (MdlD), which contrasts with the language as spoken and written today, Modern Deevie (ModD). As with English, Deevie orthography has changed little in the intervening period, relative to pronunciation, a stasis which is responsible for creating what is an equally convoluted relationship between phonemes and graphemes. The name of the language itself is a simple example: following palatalization, affricatization, and fricativization, the once-plosive /d/ is now pronounced as the corresponding fricative, /z/. The reason for oddities like this should become evident as we follow the language through time time time time

Ahem. Anyways, here we go.

Middle Deevie (MdlD)

Phonology

VOWELS

• ▶ Monophthongs
  
  • 
  Deevie distinguishes five monophthong vowels. These vowels are prototypically unrounded, although this varies somewhat by dialect and speaker. Nonetheless, back vowels are considerably less rounded than in many other languages, as is noted for the close back vowel /ʊ̹/ in the table above. For the purposes of this grammar, however, /ʊ/ will be used in broad transcriptions with unroundedness assumed rather than marked, and /ʊ̜/, in narrow transcriptions only.
  
  
  ▶ Diphthongs
  
  • 
  • 
  Deevie distinguishes six closing diphthongs, two moving from each of the three non-close vowels to the close vowels. In addition, there are five centering diphthongs. Together, these make up the sum total of MdlD phonemic diphthongs. In rapid speech, other sequences of vowels may result in other diphthongs or even triphthongs; however, these are outside the scope of this introductory grammar.

CONSONANTS

• • 
  Deevie has thirteen consonants spread over three places and four manners of articulation. Voicelessness is contrasted in plosives and alveolar fricatives only; at all other positions, consonants are prototypically voiced.

PHONOTACTICS

• ▶ Syllable Structure
  
  The structure of a Deevie syllable is as indicated in the diagram below. Parentheses indicate optional elements, such that a syllable may range from as little as a single vowel, at its simplest, to sequence of five phonemes, at its most complex. The rules that govern acceptable choices for optional elements will be described in detail shortly.
  
  • 
  
  ▶ Notation
  
  When discussing phonotactic constraints, featural notation will be used to mark the classes to which consonants in a group must belong. For the most part, I have followed the notation seen in most of the literature, but I summarize my practice here for clarity:
  
  1. The features of an individual segment are enclosed in square brackets [].
  2. A [+] indicates the presence of a feature whereas a [−] indicates its absence.
  3. Greek letters are used to co-index features such that any elements with the same letter have the same status regarding said feature, while elements with different letters have opposite statuses. For example, [α voice][α voice] corresponds to either [+ voice][+voice] or [−voice][−voice], whereas [α voice][β voice] corresponds to either [+voice][−voice] or [−voice][+voice].
  
  When writing out the corresponding phonemes, a vertical bar | is used to delineate segments. Phonemes between the same bars represent different possibilities for the given segment. A double vertical bar represents a syllable break. For example, n | t d || t d | r corresponds to any of /nt.tr/, /nt.dr/, /nd.tr/, or /nd.dr/.
  
  Manner of articulation is written separately as the overarching pattern of a given sequence. For example, we might refer to a two consonant of fricatives and plosives as Fricative | Plosive, and specify [α voice][α voice] to say that the fricative-plosive pair must agree in voice.
  
  Finally, note that when only one set of square brackets appears for multiple segments, those features apply to each of the segments. That is to say that, when considering a cluster of so many segments, a single [+alveolar] is equivalent to [+alveolar][+alveolar][+alveolar]…, and so on. Also, the abbreviation NR is used when there is no additional restrictions on a cluster (general rules, such as coda restrictions, still apply).
  
  
  ▶ The Onset
  
  All consonants can occur as the sole consonant of an onset. Legal clusters are as follows.
  
  • 
  
  ▶ The Nucleus
  
  The nucleus consists of one monophthong or one phonemic diphthong. No other vowel clusters are allowed. The only other restriction is that monophthongs may not occur word-finally; alternatively, one can say that a word-final nucleus must contain a diphthong. Observe the examples below.
  
  • 
  
  ▶ The Coda
  
  The only consonants which may appear in the coda, whether alone or in a cluster, are alveolar consonants with the exclusion of the voiced alveolar fricative /z/. Thus legal coda consonants include /n t d s r/ and the following two-consonant cluster combinations of them.
  
  • 
  
  ▶ Medial Clusters
  
  Deevie distinguishes between intramorphemic medial clusters, which are the clusters that occur within indivisible lexical items, and intermorphemic ones, which occur between morphemes during compounding and affixation. In general, intramorphemic medial clusters are much more restricted than those that occur between morphemes. Indeed, they can be summed up quite simply as seen below.
  
  • 
  It is not quite as simple to describe intermorphemic medial clusters, but their rules are merely more numerous; individually they are no less straightforward. Keep in mind, however, that medial clusters span the coda of one syllable and the onset of the next, and that the coda accepts only the consonants /n t d s r/.
  
  • 
  As with intramorphemic clusters, clusters with trills and nasals have the fewest restrictions, whereas clusters between obstruents tend to require similar voicing (indeed, even plosive-fricative medial clusters agree for voice when allophony is considered). And with that note, we conclude our discussion of phonotactics.
  
  Wait, one more thing. The tables above show legal two-consonant medial clusters. But from syllable structure, medial clusters can be as long as four segments long. Medial clusters which have more than two consonants, such as /mɛst+kaə/, are legal if, at the morpheme boundary, the last consonant of the coda and the first consonant of the onset form a legal two-consonant syllable cluster. The given example, /mɛst+kaə/, is legal because /t+k/ is a legal intermorphemic medial cluster. Similarly, the intramorphemic medial cluster /men.traə/ is legal because /n.t/ is legal. On the other hand, because /t+d/ and /t.d/ are not a legal medial clusters, neither are /mɛst+daə/ or /mɛst.daə/.

ALLOPHONY

• In addition to the featural notation outlined above, the following abbreviations will also be used when describing allophonic rules.
  
  
  
  The following alternations occur both morpheme-internally and between morphemes. Those marked (W) also occur between words. The order of precedence is as listed here.
  
  1. Nasal Assimilation (W)
     N → [α place] / __[α place]
     Nasals assimilate to the place of articulation of the following consonant.
  2. Fricative Devoicing (W)
     F → [−voice] / [−voice]__
     Fricatives are devoiced when following voiceless segments.
  3. Bilabial Fricatives in Consonant Clusters:
     
     1. Bilabial Fricative Retraction (W)
        [F +bilabial] → [+labio-dental] / [−bilabial]__
        Bilabial fricatives are retracted to labio-dental position when following non-bilabial consonants.
     2. Bilabial Fricative Lengthening
        [F +bilabial] → [+long] / [−fricative +alveolar]__
        [−fricative +alveolar] → ø / __[F +bilabial]
        Sequences consisting of a non-fricative alveolar followed by a bilabial fricative are realized as a geminate bilabial fricative.
     Processes (3a) and (3b) are exclusive. If one occurs for a given sequence, the other cannot occur. Generally, (a) is predominant in the standard dialect, while (b) is more common in other dialects. Nonetheless, the exact resolution of consonant clusters involving bilabial fricatives varies even between speakers of the same dialect.
  4. Rhotic Retraction
     T → [+uvular] / [+velar]__
     Trills become uvular² when following velars.
  5. Vowel Rounding:
     
     1. Rounding of Monophthong Vowels
        [+back] → [+rounded] / [+bilabial]__[+bilabial]
        Back vowels are rounded between bilabials.
     2. Rounding of Rising Diphthongs
        [+back] → [+rounded] / [+bilabial]__[+close][+bilabial]
        [+close] → [+rounded] / [+rounded]__[+bilabial]
        For diphthongs that rise from a back vowel to a close vowel, both target vowels are rounded when the diphthong falls between bilabials.
     3. Rounding of Centering Diphthongs
        [+back] → [+rounded +long] / [+bilabial]__ə[+bilabial]
        ə → ø / [+rounded]__[+bilabial]
        For diphthongs that start from a back vowel and move to the center, the back vowel is rounded and lengthened and the schwa deleted.
     Rules (5a-c) describe the rounding that occurs when vowel sequences containing a back vowel are found in between bilabial vowels.
  6. Ellision of Plosives
     P → ø / O__O
     Plosives are ommitted between obstruents.

Orthography

Now, we could just go on transcribing everything in IPA, but that would leave out all the fun that can be had by contemplating an orthographic mess, and we can’t have that now, can we? As stated in the introduction of this grammar, MdlD is, by definition, the period at which the writing system still used today was first being standardized, at which time most letters were assigned a one-to-one correspondence with phonemes.

(On a sort of technical note: it would be more naturalistic to assume that Deevie has its own writing system and that the orthography described here is merely a Romanization. On my part, it would require little more effort to simply state this to be the case, but the thing is that I’m really not sure if I’ll ever get around to actually designing a script for Deevie. For this reason, I tend to think of the Romanization as the actual script, and you might as well, also. How? A wizard did it.)

While Deevie is not associated with any conworld in particular, some of the history in the development of the orthography assumes certain social factors. In particular, the early contradictions that exist in the orthography come from the competing practices of two schools of writing: one is the style of the economic and political powerhouse of the Deevie linguosphere, which is responsible for promulgating the standard language through pedagogical practice and economic necessity, whereas the other is the style of the literary and academic centre of the land, where printing presses would have first churned out popular works at the start of the age of literacy. While the influence of (let’s call it) the capital would prove substantial and its speech become the basis of the standard spoken language, the printing presses of literary-land would be determine several aspects of the written language. Yes, that’s it. Anywhom, while the finer details will have to be fleshed out another day, the key thing to take away from all of this is that there were two competing orthographies that eventually came together to bring forth ModD writing.

CONSONANTS

• The representation of consonants is fairly straightforward and is equivalent in both capital and literary styles. In the table below, phonemes are shown in black and graphemes are shown like ⟨this⟩. Where no grapheme is shown, the grapheme is identical to the IPA symbol.
  
  • 

VOWELS

• The monophthongs /ɪ ɛ a/ are written with their closest corresponding Roman equivalents, that is ⟨i e a⟩. The two styles diverge on the graphemes for /ʊ ʌ/ however, and in fact take contradictory positions. As such, in MdlD texts, we see ⟨o u⟩ being used nearly interchangeably to represent back vowels: the capital style uses ⟨u⟩ /ʊ/ ⟨o⟩ /ʌ/, whereas the literary style inverts the two, having ⟨o⟩ /ʊ/ ⟨u⟩ /ʌ/, and there’s quite a bit of confusion in between.
  
  In each style, closing diphthongs are represented by the sequence of graphemes that corresponds to the spoken sequence of graphemes. Thus /aɪ/ is written ⟨ai⟩, /eʊ/ is ⟨eu⟩, and so on. Once again, back vowels are a lost cause: /ʌɪ/ can be either of ⟨oi ui⟩, in the capital and literary styles respectively, while /ʌʊ/ can be any of ⟨uu uo ou oo⟩, although the literary style is inconsistent in its derivation of diphthongs and tends to use ⟨u⟩ to indicate /ʊ/ as the second element of a diphthong, such that we most often see ⟨uu⟩ in literary style texts and ⟨ou⟩ in capital-style texts; the forms ending in -o are very rare in published works and are in fact a mark of semi-literacy that is referenced either exasperatedly or mockingly in many style guides of the period.
  
  There is harmony, at least, in the writing of centering diphthongs. All styles use ⟨e⟩ to mark the schwa, such that /aə/ becomes ⟨ae⟩, /ɪə/ becomes ⟨ie⟩, and so on. In summary, vowels are written as shown in the table below. Where multiple symbols appear, the ones to the left of the dot are preferred by the capital style, and the ones to the right, by the literary style.
  
  • 
  Ultimately, the representation of monophthong back vowels would settle firmly in favour of the literary style. In ModD, ⟨o⟩ is used exclusively for /ʊ/ and ⟨u⟩, for /ʌ/. With diphthongs, however, the graphemes that would become standard varied between words such that the spelling of a word containing /ʌɪ ʌʊ ʊə ʌə/ is lexically, and more or less arbitrarily, determined. In general, the capital style predominates with closing diphthongs—⟨oi ou⟩ occur more often than their counterparts ⟨ui uu⟩—whereas centering diphthongs are more often represented in the literary style: ⟨oe⟩ is most often /ʊə/ and ⟨ue⟩ is most often /ʌə/. But importantly, these are tendencies rather than rules.
  
  In this grammar, MdlD words will be written in the form that corresponds to their modern forms. Consider /zʌʊ/ “smile”: in period texts, we see all of zou (capital-style), zuu (literary-style), zuo (?), and even, though rarely, zoo (???); but because the modern form of the word is zuue, this grammar will use the second of the four. Contrastingly, /mʌʊ/ is written mou, among other choices, because its modern form is moue and not *muue.

TRANSCRIPTΙON EXAMPLES

• We will now combine all that we have discussed on phonology and orthography to give the broad (phonemic) and narrow (phonetic) transcription of several example words. In the examples below, the plus sign + indicates a morpheme boundary. Numbers above arrows refer to the corresponding allophonic rules.
  
  • 
  As seen in several of the examples above, MdlD employs compounding as a primary derivational process. The forms above all obey the phonotactic structure for medial structures across morpheme boundaries. However, it is possible to combine two source words and obtain a compound which does not follow phonotactics.
  
  • 
  In the next post, we’ll take a look at MdlD morphophonology in order to resolve these problems, and others that arise during derivation and inflection.

Footnotes

1. Thanks to Whimemsz for helping me to catch a previous error. The pronunciation given is for ModD, as per the discussion below, but I had previously transcribed ⟨v⟩ as */v/ rather than /β/.
2. I had at first incorrectly said that trills became velar when following velars. Sure, it seemed more intuitive at the time, but given the dispute over whether velar trills are even possible (the IPA doesn’t think so), it was an odd statement. Thanks to Qwynegold for catching this one.

[Atom]

Pretty cool. You're graphics are very detailed.

[Herr Dunkel]

Pretty cool. You're graphics are very detailed.

You know's they're's more to conlang's then they're graphic's, ri'ght?

[Whimemsz]

Pretty cool. You're graphics are very detailed.

You know's they're's more to conlang's then they're graphic's, ri'ght?

Fuck off, DG.

Anyway, Sevly, this is pretty awesome so far. You obviously know a lot more about phonology than most conlangers, and it's cool to see featural notation and the like used. One minor question: in the first paragraph you give the language's native name as: "(Deevie /zɛvɪ/)", but your phonotactic rules don't allow a final /ɪ/...so I'm not sure if you wrote the phonotactics wrong or mistranscribed the name of the language?

[Herr Dunkel]

Pretty cool. You're graphics are very detailed.

You know's they're's more to conlang's then they're graphic's, ri'ght?

Fuck off, DG.

And what's that supposed to mean?

[Astraios]

Well usually it means 'fuck off'...

[Rodlox]

this is a - well its more than a great start. it's a great introduction to an interesting conlang.

Pretty cool. You're graphics are very detailed.

You know's they're's more to conlang's then they're graphic's, ri'ght?

Fuck off, DG.

And what's that supposed to mean?

we'd draw you a picture, but it's not permitted.

[Herr Dunkel]

So you all get hard-ons when someone comments on your conlang like this: "ur is haz vry niec tabls an'd grapfecks" ?

[Astraios]

When something actually is awesome, we tend not to like people who say, "That's crap, where's the rest?"

[chris_notts]

When something actually is awesome, we tend not to like people who say, "That's crap, where's the rest?"

Even if it is crap, I don't like people who just say that and nothing else. Saying why you don't like something and making suggestions is at least constructive. Just snarking doesn't really help anybody. If you can't be constructive, just don't post anything.

[Herr Dunkel]

I never said I don't like this.
I didn't really enjoy the fact that I can't see the images, but other than that, well presented and (I guess) plausible

[Sevly]

Imagine my pleasant surprise to see a total of ten responses to a mere phonology, and then imagine me shaking my head, thinking "I should have guessed", when it turned out that most of it was a bicker about graphics. Ah, gotta love the ZBB.

Well, I personally love the images and wouldn't have spent the time on them if I didn't, so I certainly appreciate the notice. In general, its been noted that I place perhaps too much emphasis on visual elements. For example, whenever my linux-using friends complain to me about Unity, which is darn near universally hated, my response is always "but the GUI... the transparency... it's... it's just lovely." Same goes for Windows 8; inasmuch as it otherwise seems like a disaster for desktop users, it looks pretty sharp.

Enough of that, though. I'm almost threadjacking my own thread. On topic, thanks to everybody for the early comments. I plan to follow up with morphophonology on Tuesday, but for now, I'll address Whimemsz's little catch:

One minor question: in the first paragraph you give the language's native name as: "(Deevie /zɛvɪ/)", but your phonotactic rules don't allow a final /ɪ/...so I'm not sure if you wrote the phonotactics wrong or mistranscribed the name of the language?

It is both the latter and neither. For the problem you describe, the confusion actually arises from the fact that I've given the pronunciation of the language in its modern form. The MdlD form would be /dɛəβɪə/. That said, there's another mistake: just as the MdlD transcription has /β/, so too should the modern form have the bilabial /β/ instead of the labio-dental /v/. Sheesh. Obviously a slip from English. I'll correct it shortly.

Hmm. Upon looking at my original post again, I should be more clear that all the material currently presented (phonology, orthography, whatever) is for Middle rather than Modern Dautian. After I finish a short sketch of MdlD, I'll post the sound changes that lead to the modern language and that's when we'll really be off.

[Solarius]

Enough of that, though. I'm almost threadjacking my own thread. On topic, thanks to everybody for the early comments. I plan to follow up with morphophonology on Tuesday, but for now, I'll address Whimemsz's little catch:

I must give you props on having morphophonology, which most conlangers neglect.

[Qwynegold]

[*]Rhotic Retraction
T → [+velar] / [+velar]__
Trills become velar when following velars.

You mean uvular, right? I'm looking forward for the diachronics.

[Whimemsz]

Imagine my pleasant surprise to see a total of ten responses to a mere phonology, and then imagine me shaking my head, thinking "I should have guessed", when it turned out that most of it was a bicker about graphics. Ah, gotta love the ZBB.

Sorry :(. Wasn't my intention at all.

Well, I personally love the images and wouldn't have spent the time on them if I didn't, so I certainly appreciate the notice. In general, its been noted that I place perhaps too much emphasis on visual elements. For example, whenever my linux-using friends complain to me about Unity, which is darn near universally hated, my response is always "but the GUI... the transparency... it's... it's just lovely." Same goes for Windows 8; inasmuch as it otherwise seems like a disaster for desktop users, it looks pretty sharp.

The images are very nice indeed. It's kind of a welcome change from most ZBB posts, where we're of course constrained in our formatting options.

Hmm. Upon looking at my original post again, I should be more clear that all the material currently presented (phonology, orthography, whatever) is for Middle rather than Modern Dautian. After I finish a short sketch of MdlD, I'll post the sound changes that lead to the modern language and that's when we'll really be off.

Yeah, that's the part that confused me (also...the fact that ModD and MdlD are very similar looking)

Anyway, look forward to seeing more!

[TaylorS]

Very detailed, I like!

[Atom]

It is both the latter and neither. For the problem you describe, the confusion actually arises from the fact that I've given the pronunciation of the language in its modern form. The MdlD form would be /dɛəβɪə/. That said, there's another mistake: just as the MdlD transcription has /β/, so too should the modern form have the bilabial /β/ instead of the labio-dental /v/. Sheesh. Obviously a slip from English. I'll correct it shortly.

Hmm. Upon looking at my original post again, I should be more clear that all the material currently presented (phonology, orthography, whatever) is for Middle rather than Modern Dautian. After I finish a short sketch of MdlD, I'll post the sound changes that lead to the modern language and that's when we'll really be off.

Do you have notes on Old Deevie? Looking forward to the sound changes, those are always interesting, and it's obvious you put much more thought into phonology then most people do.

[Sevly]

First, to answer Atom's question:

• Do you have notes on Old Deevie? Looking forward to the sound changes, those are always interesting, and it's obvious you put much more thought into phonology then most people do.

  Notes? No. Plans? Yes. Middle and Modern Deevie follow one historical developmental path, and I hope to someday reconstruct Old Deevie and then derive another daughter language from that. Old Deevie will indeed be the branching point.

Now, to make a few corrections. I have a few corrections to make to phonotactics and allophony. One was pointed out by Qwynegold, who noted that I must have made a mistake when describing Rhotic Retraction. He’s right, of course—after all, most judge velar trills to be impossible (Thanks, Qwyn!); others have been caught in the processes of typing all of this up. While I will bring the original post up to speed, I’ll also mark the changes here for those who have been following along.

In medial clusters, you may have noticed that I described Plosive || Plosive clusters like this:

• Plosive || Plosive
  [α voice][α voice]
  t || p k ⋅ d || b g

But if all that mediates these plosive clusters is voicing, then why don’t we see /t+t/ and /d+d/? It’s a goof. The actual rule should be this one:

• Plosive || Plosive
  [α voice β place][α voice γ place]
  t || p k ⋅ d || b g

In other words, just as with fricative clusters, plosive clusters have to be heterorganic. Mistake numero uno.

Next, I neglected to clarify something about intermorphemic medial clusters. In the original post I spoke only of two-consonant medial clusters. But from syllable structure, medial clusters can be as long as four segments long. Medial clusters which have more than two consonants, such as /mɛst+kaə/, are legal if, at the morpheme boundary, the last consonant of the coda and the first consonant of the onset form a legal two-consonant syllable cluster. The given example, /mɛst+kaə/, is legal because /t+k/ is a legal intermorphemic medial cluster. Similarly, the intramorphemic medial cluster /men.traə/ is legal because /n.t/ is legal. On the other hand, because /t+d/ and /t.d/ are not a legal medial clusters, neither are /mɛst+daə/ or /mɛst.daə/. There, that deals with mistake two.

Now, in allophony, I missed out this rule, which was originally part of consonant sandhi (we’re getting there…) but which, on further consideration, applies on a broader scale.

• Ellision of Plosives (W)
  P → ø / O__O
  Plosives are omitted between obstruents. (surprise!)

So a sequence such as /mast sat/ would be realized [mas:at] (the W, recall, means that the process ignores word boundaries). Mistake the third.

And then, as Qwynegold pointed out, Rhotic Retraction should be:

• Rhotic Retraction
  T → [+uvular] / [+velar]__
  Trills become uvular when following velars.

Not even Deevie goes beyond the impossible. Mistake numero quatro.

Finally, a note about notation. The phonetic rules that follow use the same notation to that seen for allophonic rules, with the additional note that curly brackets {} indicate that the rule applies for each of the elements with the brackets. Also, when referring to particular phonetic rules, I will refer to the category its first initial and then to the particular rule by its number. For example, allophonic fricative devoicing is the second rule under the section “allophony” and so is denoted A2. Bilabial fricative retraction is A3a, Rhotic Retraction, A4, and so on. Similarly, rules under consonant sandhi will be denoted as C1, C2, and so on.

Morphophonology

We now move to the interaction between morphology and syntax. There are two morphological operations which are commonly seen in MdlD: compounding and affixation. The former deals exclusively with the composition of two or more free morphemes, and so we will start with the morphophonology of free morphemes.

FREE MORPHEMES

• When two or more free morphemes are combined, their boundary often contains a medial cluster that is prohibited by phonotactics, as seen in the diagram in the previous post (that diagram is repeated here for convenience).
  
  • 
  In the first example, mend /mɛnd/ “land” is combined with kie /kɪə/ “name” to produce mendkie, “name of the land”. In the second, it is des /dɛs/ “hand” and zui /zʌɪ/ “victory” which are compounded to produce deszui “work of art”. The pronunciation of these compounds is regulated by consonant sandhi, in which the pronunciation of consonants at an internal morpheme boundary changes due to neighbouring consonants.
  
  
  ▶ Consonant Sandhi
  
  The following processes apply only to the last consonant of the coda and the first consonant of the onset across a boundary of free morphemes.
  
  1. Ellision of Obstruents
     [O α manner β place] → ø / [O α manner β place]__
     The second of a series of homorganic obstruents is deleted if both are of the same manner of articulation.
  2. Voicing Assimilation of Obstruents
     O → [α voice] / [O α voice]__
     Obstruents match the voicing of any preceding obstruent.
  3. Trilling
     {N F} → T / T__
     Nasals and fricatives become trills when followed by trills.
  Consonant sandhi rules apply in the order shown and precede all allophonic rules. What follow now are examples of consonant sandhi in practice.
  
  • 
  
  ▶ Vowel Sandhi
  
  Now we consider examples like this one:
  
  • 
  When two free morphemes are compounded, any vowel cluster that arises is illegal, due to the fact that free morphemes must end in a diphthong such that the vowel cluster is minimally a triphthong and can be as large as a sequence of four vowels. Generally, these situations are either addressed through the elision of one of the targets or through the insertion of an epenthetic consonant.
  
  The exact rules are given below. The first two apply for triphthongs, whereas the third applies for sequences of four vowel targets.
  1. Vowel Ellision
     
     1. V → ø / V[+close]__
        The third target of a triphthong is deleted if the second is close.
     2. [-close] → ø / VV__
        The third target of a triphthong is deleted if it is not close.
     3. [-close] → ø / V__[+close]
        The second target of a triphthong is deleted if it is not close and the third is close.
     All legal vowel sequences in MdlD are descending—that is, the earlier targets have greater significance than later targets. This is realized in the resolution of illegal vowel sequences, in that we can say that the default process is to delete the last, or least prominent, target of the sequence. In counter to this, however, closing diphthongs predominate over non-closing diphthongs. These two factors together contribute to the overall prominence of a given target in a vowel sequence: the earlier the target, the more prominent, and the closer the target, the more prominent.
     
     We can now explain the three rules of vowel elision above. The first target of a diphthong is never elided, because its position at the front of the sequence gives it the greatest prominence. In (V1a), the second target is close, meaning that even if the third is also close, it dominates because of its position, and so the third target is invariably deleted. In (V1b), the third target is not close, and so cannot make up for its late position and so is deleted. In (V1c), the second target is expected to dominate over the third because of position, as in (a) and (b); however, the fact that the third is close more than accounts for its late position, and so it, and not the second target, dominates.
     
     Let’s take a look at some examples.
     
     • 
     As seen in the last example, when the first target of the triphthong is a close vowel itself, the diphthong produced by vowel elision is not a legal one. This is where the second rule comes into play.
  2. Vowel Lowering
     [+close] → [+mid] / __[+close]
     The first in a pair of close vowels becomes mid.
     
     • 
     As seen in this example, rules (V1) and (V2) together combine as necessary to resolve all triphthong combinations that are possible when two free morphemes combine. A third rule, based on epenthesis, is required for four-target sequences.
  3. Intervocalic Epenthesis
     ø → C₁ / C₁VV__VV
     An epenthetic consonant is inserted between two diphthongs, where this consonant duplicates the preceding consonant.
     
     • 
       
       As can be seen when comparing the examples above to others in this post, (V3) is reflected in the orthography whereas (V1, 2) and (C1-3) are not. While this was the tendency of the literary style, and is responsible for much of the woe in Deevie writing today, the capital style maintained a perhaps more sensible tendency to reflect all morphophonemic changes in writing. In this grammar, we stick to the style that would establish modern writing conventions, which for the purposes of morphophonology are the literary ones.
  BOUND MORPHEMES
  • Matters are not as simple with bound morphemes as they are for free morphemes. Whereas in the latter case we can lay out morphophonemic rules that account for all possible boundary clusters, bound morphemes are more difficult primarily because they do not necessarily adhere to phonotactic rules. For example, the prefix that marks the second person singular in verbs and certain other constructions is a- /a+/, a bound morpheme that consists of a single monophthong vowel. Similarly, possessees are marked with a suffix –t /+t/. On the other hand, other bound morphemes, such as deu- /dɛʊ+/, do adhere to phonotactics; in these cases, the morpheme interacts with others just as free morphemes do. In other words, the true dividing line is not so much between bound and free morphemes as it is between phonotactics-adherent and phonotactics-deviant morphemes, but I have structured this morphophonological analysis as I have because one, all free morphemes adhere to phonotactics, and two, the large majority of bound morphemes do not adhere to phonotactics.
    
    Because of their nature, the interactions of bound morphemes are described by tendencies rather than rules. The exact realization of a bound morpheme in a particular context is often idiosyncratic or dependent on historical factors. In this section we will merely note a few generalizations that apply in a significant number of cases. The precise behaviour of the more common morphemes, such as the personal prefixes and the possessee suffix, will be covered in the sections specific to those morphemes.
    
    We will first start by analyzing the morphophonemic tendencies that apply to bound morphemes that consist of, or end in, a single monophthong vowel, such as the personal prefixes a-[/i[ /a+/ 2S, de- /dɛ+/ 3S, and a dialectal form of the 1S prefix, di- /dɪ+/. It is not a coincidence that all of these are prefixes, since, in fact, all monophthong-final morphemes are prefixes.
    
    
    ▶ Diphthongs
    
    When a monophthong bound morpheme meets another monophthong vowel at a morpheme boundary, the result is a diphthong. The table below shows the most common realizations of intermorphemic diphthongs.
    
    • 
    
    
    For diphthongs starting with a close vowel, we observe the same lowering that was seen for triphthongs across free morpheme boundaries. We then observe an additional change that was not present before, which can be stated as follows, which we state, along with the previous rule of vowel lowering (V2), below.
    
    • Vowel Lowering
      [+close] → [+mid] / __[+close]
      The first in a pair of close vowels becomes mid.
    • Vowel Centering
      [-close] → ə / V__
      Vowels that are not closed are reduced to a schwa if following another vowel.
    
    
    Where the sequence of monophthongs results in a legal vowel cluster, the sequence is realized as a phonemic diphthong. The examples below summarize this behaviour.
    
    • 
    
    
    
    ▶ Triphthongs
    
    When a monophthong-final morpheme meets a diphthong, the resulting triphthong is usually resolved according to similar principles as for free-morpheme triphthongs. The two most prominent target vowels will be preserved, where prominence is a measure of both position in the sequence and vowel height. As before, closer targets are more prominent. However, there is room for divergence where the contribution of position is concerned. The triphthongs we dealt with previously are uniformly falling—that is, the first target vowel is most position-prominent and the last is the least position-prominent. However, triphthongs of the form V+VV can be either falling, as with free morphemes, or rising-falling, such that the first target is of least position-prominence, the second target is the most position-prominent, and the third falls between the two. Once again, the overall prominence of a target is the sum of its position- and height-prominence, and in a triphthong the two most prominent targets are conserved and the least prominent target is deleted. In triphthongs that are uniformly falling, the first target is never deleted, but in triphthongs that are rising-falling, the first and third targets are near-equal where position is conserved, and so whichever is non-close is deleted. If neither is close, then the first is deleted. Observe the examples below. Pronunciations in orange indicate the form that is expected by a falling structure, whereas those in green are expected by a rising-falling structure. The asterisk *, as usual, marks an unattested form.
    
    • 
    
    
    As suggested by the examples above, there is some correlation between the form of the monophthong bound morpheme and whether the associated triphthong is falling or rising-falling. It is always the case that triphthongs whose initial target is a non-close vowel are falling. It is often, but not always, the case that triphthongs whose initial target is a close vowel are rising-falling.
    
    
    ▶ Consonant Clusters
    
    We now discuss the resolution of illegal consonant clusters that arise at the boundary between single-consonant and another morpheme. In contrast to monophthong-final morphemes, which are universally prefixes, every single-consonant morpheme is a suffix. There are two such morphemes that are particular common and which will feature in examples in this section, those being the possessee suffix -t /+t/ and the perfective suffix -n /+n/. As might be expected by a consonant that acts as a suffix, both of these are alveolar consonants which may legally appear in the coda.
    
    When the addition of the consonant to the end of the preceding morpheme results in a legal coda cluster, as is the case for the possessee-marked forms of oiterer in the examples above, no change in necessary. If the addition of the consonant would result in an illegal coda cluster, then an epenthetic vowel is inserted between the two morphemes. In general, this dummy morpheme is -e- /+ɛ+/, but in rare cases -a- /+a+/ is seen instead, usually when the preceding morpheme contains /a/ as its sole or most-common vowel. Examples are given below.
    
    • 
    
    
    This gives a picture of the general behaviour of single-consonant morphemes. The perfective suffix, and the personal prefixes, in particular, have peculiarities that are special to verb conjugation, which will be dealt with later.
  
  
  Okay, then. Fire away—I’ll be waiting to answer any questions or comments you might have regarding this all. This pretty much clears it up for phonology stuff (although I’m pondering on a more organized way of explaining bound-morpheme morphophonology, which seems to slip into a bit of disarray—although that’s for really later). Next up is nominal morphology, which I’m aiming to post about on Friday might show up by Tuesday? Maybe?
  
  
  
  Footnotes
  
  1. The form seen here is peculiar to certain non-standard dialects. In standard speech, the 1S personal prefix takes on an allomorph dis- /dɪs+/ when prefixed to a stem beginning in a vowel.

[chris_notts]

But if all that mediates these plosive clusters is voicing, then why don’t we see /t+t/ and /d+d/? It’s a goof. The actual rule should be this one:

• Plosive || Plosive
  [α voice β place][α voice γ place]
  t || p k ⋅ d || b g

In other words, just as with fricative clusters, plosive clusters have to be heterorganic. Mistake numero uno.

Just a notational question - is it usual in this notational convention for the use of separate variable letters for the same feature, in this case β and γ, to force the values to be different? Being originally a mathematician by training, my natural inclination would be to interpret this as they don't need to be the same rather than they must be different, at least without further information.

1. Ellision of Obstruents
   [O α manner β place] → ø / [O α manner β place]__
   The second of a series of homorganic obstruents is deleted if both are of the same manner of articulation.
2. Voicing Assimilation of Obstruents
   O → [α voice] / [O α voice]__
   Obstruents match the voicing of any preceding obstruent.
3. Trilling
   {N F} → T / T__
   Nasals and fricatives become trills when followed by trills.

Does the trilling rule produce an extra-long / geminate trill, or are these consonants actually dropped when a trill precedes? It looks from your examples like you get an extra-long trill. How common in this distinction? In most languages I know of with a length distinction in rhotics, the short rhotic is a tap.

Matters are not as simple with bound morphemes as they are for free morphemes. Whereas in the latter case we can lay out morphophonemic rules that account for all possible boundary clusters, bound morphemes are more difficult primarily because they do not necessarily adhere to phonotactic rules. For example, the prefix that marks the second person singular in verbs and certain other constructions is a- /a+/, a bound morpheme that consists of a single monophthong vowel. Similarly, possessees are marked with a suffix –t /+t/. On the other hand, other bound morphemes, such as deu- /dɛʊ+/, do adhere to phonotactics; in these cases, the morpheme interacts with others just as free morphemes do. In other words, the true dividing line is not so much between bound and free morphemes as it is between phonotactics-adherent and phonotactics-deviant morphemes, but I have structured this morphophonological analysis as I have because one, all free morphemes adhere to phonotactics, and two, the large majority of bound morphemes do not adhere to phonotactics.

Does this have to do with the age of the affixes? Are affixes which have existed for longer typically well integrated, and historically newer ones the exception?

[Sevly]

Next up is nominal morphology, which I’m aiming to post about on Friday might show up by Tuesday? Maybe?

Eh, it's Wednesday. Just a few days behind schedule. But this post focuses mostly on verbal, rather than nominal, morphology, cause that's how it came out. Next Wednesday we'll get more into compounding, which is where nouns really shine.

Just a notational question - is it usual in this notational convention for the use of separate variable letters for the same feature, in this case β and γ, to force the values to be different? Being originally a mathematician by training, my natural inclination would be to interpret this as they don't need to be the same rather than they must be different, at least without further information.

Hmm. I'm not sure what the convention is in the literature—I was just working from a limited memory of the introductory linguistics class that I took last year—but what you say is true. I suppose that for binary distinctive features such as voice, it would make more sense to write

• [α voice][−α voice]

to refer to a sequence of segments that contrast in voice. This doesn't work very well for place and manner though, since they refer to a class of features rather than being binary features themselves. Instead, to mark heterorganicity I should probably use

• [+place α][−place α]

So then the example in question would become

• Plosive || Plosive
  [α voice +place β][α voice −place β]
  t || p k ⋅ d || b g

which avoids, I think, the misuse of notation.

Does the trilling rule produce an extra-long / geminate trill, or are these consonants actually dropped when a trill precedes? It looks from your examples like you get an extra-long trill. How common in this distinction? In most languages I know of with a length distinction in rhotics, the short rhotic is a tap.

I wasn't aware that this was a rare distinction, and so it was my original, perhaps naive intention. I'll have to examine this, because I was planning on having a bit of fun with these long trills in the MdlD to ModD sound changes.

Matters are not as simple with bound morphemes as they are for free morphemes. Whereas in the latter case we can lay out morphophonemic rules that account for all possible boundary clusters, bound morphemes are more difficult primarily because they do not necessarily adhere to phonotactic rules. For example, the prefix that marks the second person singular in verbs and certain other constructions is a- /a+/, a bound morpheme that consists of a single monophthong vowel. Similarly, possessees are marked with a suffix –t /+t/. On the other hand, other bound morphemes, such as deu- /dɛʊ+/, do adhere to phonotactics; in these cases, the morpheme interacts with others just as free morphemes do. In other words, the true dividing line is not so much between bound and free morphemes as it is between phonotactics-adherent and phonotactics-deviant morphemes, but I have structured this morphophonological analysis as I have because one, all free morphemes adhere to phonotactics, and two, the large majority of bound morphemes do not adhere to phonotactics.

Does this have to do with the age of the affixes? Are affixes which have existed for longer typically well integrated, and historically newer ones the exception?

I haven't really thought much about this, but from what I have so far it's the personal prefixes and their ilk, which are historically older, that have the most idiosyncracies; newer affixes are usually byproducts of compounding and thus are more regular. The processes that older affixes are involved in are usually unproductive and thus are less prone to regularization, whereas newer affixes are involved in productive constructions and are often straightened out by analogy. Still, there's a lot more that I'd have to think about here to come up with a consistent description of the relationship between age and affix integration.

And now,

Morphology

PERSONAL PREFIXES

Personal deixis is conveyed in MdlD through the use of a set of prefixes that will be referred to as the personal prefixes. These prefixes interact with both nouns and verbs in various ways. In nouns, for example, they are used in posessee constructions, whereas they indicate the principle argument, or subject, of a verb.

The personal prefixes of MdlD are derived from stand-alone pronouns which were standard in Old Deevie but which had become obsolete by the time of MdlD. These pronouns, shown below, are of interest primarily for historical reasons; much like ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ in modern English, they are unfamilar to MdlD speech and writing in all styles of the period.

• 

From this forms, the personal prefixes are derived primarily through the reduction or deletion of the final diphthong, resulting in the following.

• 

As can be seen from the following tables, both Old and Middle Deevie distinguish three persons and two numbers. However, as the stand-alone forms of Old Deevie are not used in Middle Deevie, and the personal prefixes of the latter language are bound morphemes, their use in indicating speaker, adressee, and referent is not so clear cut. The personal prefixes are usually tied to one of several nouns, the choice of which is dependent on adressee and referee honorifics, such that the resulting construction is not so much a pronoun but a referential noun, in the style of ‘your grace’ and ‘you guys’.

These details will be elaborated upon later. For now, we introduce the personal prefixes because their scope includes both nominal and verbal morphology, which is our task at hand.

WORD CLASSES

▶ Nouns

Nouns form an open class. Where nouns are concerned, MdlD is rather analytic. MdlD nouns do not decline for number, gender, or case. For example, the root or lemma form korue would correspond to each of the forms of [window] in the sentences given below.

• 

▶ Adjectives

Adjectives form an open class. Like nouns, MdlD adjectives are rather uninflecting. They do not agree with the head noun in any way, such that the lemma form mevae would correspond to each of the forms of the French adjective [grand] in the sentences below.

• 

MdlD does not distinguish adjectives from adverbs. The same form can modify nouns, verbs, and phrases, as seen in the following examples. Following Leipzig’s recommendations, I have used the colon to indicate that the corresponding segment is formally segmentable but that I’m not interested in showing the details at the moment.

• 
  
  

▶ Verbs

Verbs form an open class. The lemma form of a verb is the root; from there, verbs inflect to distinguish two aspects, the imperfective and the perfective. Moods, such as the conditional, irrealis, and imperative, and marked by separate particles. Tense is rearely marked explicitly; when it is, it is usually marked by temporal adjectives that denote a very specific time, such as ‘right now’, ‘today’, or ‘at six o’clock’. On the whole, this leaves verbs lightly inflecting, but still much moreso than the highly isolating forms of adjectives and nouns, and so we will devote particular detail to verb conjugation later in this post.

MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

▶ Nominalization

The use of die, ‘one’, ‘thing’, and its allomorphs spans over both compounding and derivation. When the free morpheme die occurs as the head of an endocentric compound, the resulting construction is a nominalization of the modifying element.

• 

From what must have been, in Old Deevie, a similar construction, in MdlD we also often see the suffix -ie, which is a bound allomorph of die following consonants. Thus we have:

• 
  
  

• 

▶ Diminuitives

In MdlD, diminuitives are primarily formed through the insertion of the infix <i> after the first monophthong vowel of the word. The close vowels /ɪ ʊ/ are lowered to /ɛ ʌ/, respectively, to form legal diphthongs.

• 

These diminuitive forms are often compounded with die, the same morpheme seen in nominalization, to create a stronger diminuitive.

• 

As can be seen from the examples, diminuitives formed this way often carry a connotation of affection. They are commonly seen in nicknames, as in (h). But this is also the only way of forming the diminuitives of words that contain no monophthong vowels, in which case the notion of endearment is not necessarily conveyed.

• 

Nominal diminuitives are always concrete count nouns, regardless of the source. For example, (a) vizie ‘dance’ and (b) mot ‘need’ can both be used in an abstract, mass sense, but their diminuitives veizie ‘little dance’ and moit ‘favor’ cannot. The former refers to a particular instance of dancing, and the latter to a particular instance of helping someone out. Similarly, (i) mui can refer to food in general, but muidie refers to an individual food item.

• 

▶ Possessive Contructions

Possession in MdlD is marked on the possessee, but all agreement is with the possessor. There is a possessive suffix, which agrees with the possessor in number, and even further agreement with the person and number of the possessor is marked by an obligatory personal prefix.

The possessive suffix takes the form –t for singular possessors and and –s for plural ones. An epethentic vowel –e– is inserted between stems ending in consonant and the posessive suffix.

• 

When the possessor is specified, it precedes the possessee.

• 

• 

▶ Verb Conjugation

MdlD verbs conjugate for person, number, and aspect; mood and tense are marked through separate particles. Conjugation begins with the stem or lemma form of the verb, which may be a compound and thus be multimorphemic. The diversity of verb stems will be addressed later; for now we limit ourselves to the immediately relevant distinction between proper and improper stems.

Proper stems are those which adhere to phonotactics; examples include –odae– ‘oppose’, –zoe– ‘see’, –zeen– ‘try’, –zet– ‘invite’, –imat– ‘dance’, . Improper stems violate phonotactics, as evidenced by –imi–, –mev–, –mauk–, –me–, and –zi–. Although proper stems could appear as stand-alone words in speech, improper stems could not; for consistency, this analysis treats all stems as bound morphemes, postulating zero morphemes where necessary.

MdlD inflectional verbal morphology is centered in affixation. Person and number is marked on verbs by means of the personal prefixes, while aspect is marked through suffixes. We have already introduced the personal prefixes, so let’s discuss aspect, where MdlD exhibits a straightforward imperfective/perfective distinction.

Aspect

For most proper stems, the case is simple. The imperfective is marked through a zero suffix, while the perfective is marked by –n.

• 

When the stem ends in a consonant, an epethentic –e– is inserted between the stem and the perfective suffix.

• 

Improper stems present a slightly more difficult. The perfective is formed identically to proper stem perfectives. The imperfective, on the other hand, involves the two-part process of

1. deleting any stem-final consonants, which by the nature of improper stems are unpermissible in the coda.
2. adding an –e–, or in speech, a schwa, to all stem-final monophthong vowels to create a centering diphthong. This process applies to any monophtongs created by the previous step.

• 

There is also a very small closed class of improper stems which take –ten in the perfective rather than –n. These stems are all monosyllabic and of the form CV, such as –me– ‘put’ and –zi– ‘change’.

• 

Finally, all monosyllabic stems ending in –ae, most bisyllabic ones, and polysyllabic stems derived from compounding with one of the afformentioned ones, have the odd property of having identical imperfective and perfective forms. These are referred to as [color=0000BF]nonaspectual verbs[/color].

• 

The ambiguity of nonaspectuals can be resolved through the use of –i– ‘be’ and –at– ‘do’ as auxiliary verbs. When used in this way, the auxiliary verb follows the main verb and is conjugated in the desired aspect; redundantly, –i– is used only to mark the imperfective and –at–, the perfective.

• 

Thus –i– connotes the imperfective and –at–, the perfective. We recall now the irregular perfective suffix –ten, which occurs with certain monosyllabic improper stems. In fact, this suffix comes from a now unproductive method of compounding a root with –at– to create a perfective-biased verb stem.

• 

It is assumed, then, that –t– is a reduced form of –at–, an idea corroborated by the presence of forms such as –meaten and –ziaten in certain nonstandard texts.

Irregular Verbs

MdlD has only two irregular verbs, both of which we have just seen: the copula, –i–, and –at–, meaning ‘do’ or ‘make’.

For the most part, the copula follows the pattern of improper stems. The only deviations occur in the imperfect where, because the stem is a single close vowel, it is not always necessary to add an epethentic schwa to create a legal diphthong; instead, the close front vowel often combines with the final vowel of the personal prefix. Consider the following examples.

• 

The copula is also odd in that the 2P personal prefix used with it is almost always ama–, whereas ma– predominates with other verbs. That aside, the copula is completely regular in the perfective.

In contrast to the copula, –at– has perfectly regular suffixes; it is it’s root which takes on a variable form. In the imperfective, the root is identical to the lemma; we have already seen that it becomes –t– in certain verb-verb compounds; and in the perfective it is just –a–, such that we have the following.

• 

Imperative

In MdlD, verbs in the imperative do not conjugate for person or aspect; instead, the imperative is marked quite simply by the imperative particle –ae, which follows the verb. If the verb is proper, than it may occur in either its imperfective or perfective form, with no semantic difference; instead, the choice is a matter of style. If the verb is improper, then things get a bit messy, as usual.

There are three forms of the imperative particle: ae, nae, and mae. All verbs which maintain the imperfective/perfective distinction can form the imperative in the style perfective + nae, as in the following examples.

• 

Alternatively, these same verbs can form the imperative from the imperfective, as long as they are proper; in this case, some verbs use the formula imperfective + nae, while others use imperfective + mae, a choice which is lexically determined.

• 

All verbs which end in –t or –d use –ae as their imperfective-based imperative particle.

• 

The behaviour of improper stems varies. When the improper stem ends in a monophthong vowel, the imperative can be formed by suffixing –nae to the stem.

• 

When the improper stem ends in a consonant, the imperative can be formed by suffixing –ae to the stem.

• 

If the imperative form of an improper verb ends in a diphthong, on the other hand, then yet another alternative exists; the imperative can be formed according to imperfective + nae.

• 

Some improper verbs—in particular, those which take –ten in the perfective—cannot form the imperative in any way other than the perfective. The only imperative of –me– is meten nae. Most verbs have two imperatives: –zet– has zeten nae and zet ae, while –mev– has meven nae and mevae. And forms such as –mauk– have three equivalent forms of the imperative: mauken nae, maukae, and mau nae.

The choice between forms such as maukae and mau nae, is largely idiosyncratic. Contrastingly, the non-perfective forms are in general preferred over the perfective forms, particularly in writing; it is uncommon to see meven nae in novels, even in dialogue, which in this case is not far off from standard speech. In certain dialects, however, the perfective forms have become one increasingly common example of regularisation.

Finally, there are the imperatives of nonaspectual verbs such as –sokae– and –mae–. These verbs take ae as there imperative particle.

• 

For these verbs and these verbs only, where we have the repetition of /aə/, we often see the omission of the imperative particle.

• 

Imperative Plural

Remember when I said that MdlD imperatives don’t distinguish person or aspect? They don’t, but they do distinguish number. The general imperative seen above is unmarked, but usually assumed singular; to explicitly specify multiple adressees, the particle rae, meaning ‘many’, can be used in conjunction with the imperative, as in the example below.

• 

When the main verb ends in a consonant, rae follows the imperative particle, as in the example above. When the main verb ends in a vowel, rae replaces the imperative particle, as in the example below.

• 

Where the imperative particle affixes to the main verb, rae follows the imperative construction.

• 

Subjunctive

We will know examine the morphology of the subjunctive mood, whose main use in MdlD is in dependent clauses of conditional sentences, such as the bolded part of ‘If we go to the store, I’ll buy icecream.’

The subjunctive is morphologically similar to the imperative; in fact, the subjunctive is merely the imperative marked for person and number using the personal prefixes. Consider the following examples.

• 

Up till now, we have referred to –ae as the imperative particle, but these examples show that it is involved in both imperative and subjunctive constructions. For this reason, we will from now on refer to ae and its allomorphs as the [color=0000BF]irrealis particle[/color], which encompasses both of its associated moods.

Another element that distinguishes the subjunctive from the imperative is that number is not marked through rae.

• 

Summary

The following tables give a summary of MdlD verb conjugation, showing the relationships between the form of the verb stem, the imperfective and perfective aspect suffixes, and the irrealis particle. Note that these relationships are tendencies rather than rules; there are stems ending in –ue, for example, which take irrealis particle mae, but such are in the minority.

• 
  
  
  
  

Next, we take a look at compounding in all its myriad ways: noun-noun compounds, noun-verb compounds, formation of verb stems, formation of reference nouns, etc, etc, ad infinitum. After that, I'll offer a variety of sample MdlD texts. And then—only then, for those of you who claimed interest—will we delve into the transitional period and look at how those texts changed phonetically (yay, sound changes!) and morphosyntacically as well. Long order, I know.

[WeepingElf]

A nice and well-developed conlang that is also lovingly presented with pretty graphics. The graphics are of course not the main reason why this language is good; but they earn some bonus points. Good work, Sevly; rock on!

[Sevly]

A nice and well-developed conlang that is also lovingly presented with pretty graphics. The graphics are of course not the main reason why this language is good; but they earn some bonus points. Good work, Sevly; rock on!

Thank you! I hope to do just that.

Morphology

MORPHOLOGICAL PROCCESSES (CONTINUED)

This post will cover the following topics.

• compounding
• quantification
• spatial relationships
• pronominals

▶ Compounding

MdlD uses compounding extensively to mark relationships between concepts. Compounds may occur within or across word classes, and are used in other more specific morphological processes that will be discussed in this post, such as quantification and spatial relations. This section gives a description on the use of compounds in general.

In endocentric compounds, the compound can be analyzed as a modifier and a head where the modifier restricts the meaning of the head. MdlD allows for a wide variety of semantic relationships between the modifier and the head, as seen in the following examples.

(instrument)




(purpose)





(content)



(material)



(description)





(superpart)



(involvement)




(context)



Other compounds are exocentric, meaning that the morphological head of the compound is not the semantic head; that is, the meaning of the compound is not a subset of the meaning of its head. These compounds are far less common, but one example is given below.



▶ Quantification

In MdlD, quantifiers are nouns and adjectives that express amount. When speaking of quantifiers, it is important to make a distinction between collective and noncollective nouns; the former are nouns which refer to a group of entities as a whole, whereas the latter refer to entities as individuals.

Just as English has a variety of collective terms that refer to a particular class of animal, such as “pride of lions”, “flock of birds”, or “herd of cattle”, MdlD has a wide variety of collective nouns which are used with a particular class of constituent, such as the following.



It is also important to distinguish between count and mass nouns, since only the former can be used alongside numeral quantifiers, also referred to here as absolute quantifiers because they contrast with relative quantifiers which specify amounts in approximate rather than precise terms. This results in a three way distinction in how nouns combine with quantifiers, as illustrated below.



Relative quantifiers

The first type of relative quantifiers are really adjectives of size.



The other relative quantifiers are nouns specifying fractional quantities.



Absolute quantifiers

In general when we speak about absolute quantifiers we refer to numerals, since numerals are used to specify an exact amount. There’s a lot to be said about the Deevie numeral system, but for now I’ll just introduce the names of the digits.



Quantifying mass nouns

Semantically, mass nouns are those nouns whose amounts are treated as nondiscrete quantities; morphologically this is reflected by the face that mass nouns can be relatively but not absolutely quantified.

When a mass noun is quantified by an adjectival quantifier, the noun acts as the head and is modified by the adjective, forming a compound.




When a mass noun is quantified by a nominal quantifier, the mass noun modifies the quantifying noun, which acts as the head of the compound.





Mass nouns cannot be quantified directly with an absolute quantifier. Instead, the mass noun must first be modified by an applicable count noun that acts as a measure word.




Count nouns

Unlike mass nouns, count nouns can be quantified by a numeral. The numeral acts as the head of the compound.




Noncollective count nouns cannot be quantified with adjectival relative quantifiers, since such a construction refers to the size rather than number of the noun. For example, (c) would have the meaning given in (1) and not in (2).



Noncollective count nouns, can, however, by quantified with nominal relative quantifiers. In this case, however, the quantification refers to a fraction of single entities, rather than multiple entities.



In order to quantify multiple entities in a relative manner, the collective equivalents of these nouns must be used.




Note that the verb agrees with the grammatical rather than semantic number of the collective noun, which is singular. Essentially, though, the distinction in the quantification of mass, collective, and noncollective nouns is semantic: each follow the same morphological pattern, which is summarized below.



▶ Spatial Relations

Another common usage of compounds is to describe spatial relations. These compounds are prototypically of the form noun + noun or noun + verb and are used to modify another constituent in much the same way that adposition phrases do in other languages.

The heads of spatial compounds are a small, closed class of nouns and verbs that indicate position or direction relative to the modifying noun. These nouns can be broadly divided into three categories.

Position

The following nouns are used to express position relative to some reference object.



When a noun such as beet “box” is compounded with one of these nouns, the resulting noun refers to the subset of the reference noun specified by the spatial noun, as demonstrated in the following examples.






When these compounds modify another constituent, they often correspond to adpositional phrases in other languages.




This leads to some ambiguity when spatial compounds are used with the copula.



Direction

The following pair of verbs are used to express motion to and away from their object, respectively.



When a noun such as dut “house” is compounded with one of these verb stems, the resulting stem indicates motion to or away from the reference noun. These stems behave just like any other stem created through object incorporation, as seen in the following example.




The spatial semantics of these verbs are most prominent when they modify another noun or verb. In these situations the verb can be translated as either a relative clause or an adpositional phrase, depending on the context.




In the case of other verbs of motion such as dait “run”, there are two ways in which the origin or destination of the motion can be indicated. Either the noun can be compounded with the directional verb, which then modifies the verb showing the manner of motion, as in (e), or the verb showing the manner of motion can be compounded with the directional verb to create new verb stem that takes the origin or destination as its direct object, as in (f).




In general, the second of these methods is preferred in writing and is more common in speech in most dialects, anyways. However, there is a shift towards the former, which as we will see only becomes more prominent as we move from Middle to Modern Deevie.

Association



This section deals with the spatial compounds that are used to indicate association or accompaniment between two objects. The more basic of such relationships is marked through object incorporation with the verb en “have”, which indicates possession or some abstraction of possession, as in the following examples.




Due to the possessive nature of this construction, it is considered insulting to use it with animates and especially so with humans. Instead, one speaks of the company of a person using nie “company”, which is incorporated into en to produce nieen, as illustrated below.






As seen in (e), the meaning of nie as a free morpheme is somewhat different than in this construction, since whereas alone it implies the actual physical presence of an accompanier, it has been generalized in this construction to denote any relationship between people.

▶ Pronominals

MdlD does not pronouns per say, in the sense of having function words that substitute for noun phrases; instead, MdlD uses several nouns along with possessives to create pronominal noun phrases. These phrases are fully analyzable and can be used in a wide range of contexts, but when used to replace another noun phrase they are referred to as pronominals.

Pronominals are all formed from the same general pattern. A stem noun is chosen and then the possesse construction is applied to mark the person and number of the pronominal’s referent. Many of these stem nouns are derived from adjectives through zero derivation. The choice of stem is largely a matter of referent honorifics, and is a reflection of the perceived status between the speaker and the referent.

General forms



These forms are used in informal and standard styles when the speaker is addressing or referring to an equal or inferior.




Hand forms



These forms are used by subordinates to address their superiors, such as employees addressing their employers or vendors addressing their clients.




It is impolite and somewhat arrogant to use a hand form to refer to oneself. Superiors usually refer to themselves using the general forms when around subordinates.



When a superior does refer to themselves using such a form, the connotation is one of impatience and dissatisfaction; the superior is elevating themselves above the perceived incompetence of their subordinates.



Also worth noting is that, particularly for client-vendor relationships, these terms are only used on an individual level. When referring to one’s clients in abstract terms, or when doing business with another company, the house forms are used instead. For example, in (g) a hand form is used because the customers do not represent any unified entity; each frequents the store according to their own needs, whereas (h) is the form seen when companies are discussing business deals, where the clients represent a unified front.




Humble hand forms



These forms are humulific companions to the hand forms above. Whereas the hand forms are used to address employers and clients, the humble hand forms are used by employees and vendors to refer to themselves in the presence of the former.



The form deisrae “many little hands” is used in the plural only, and, like the house forms, is used to refer to a group as a whole. The form is generally used by business in reference to the entire front end available to customers.



Helping hand forms



These forms are variations of the hand forms used by superiors to address subordinates. The form moree is a shortening of the more formal moree des and is only used in informal styles.




As seen in (l), the moree of moree des is precedes the possessive construction. Once again, since it is the element that distinguishes this form from the regular hand form, moree is often used on its own in informal styles, and there are intermediate but heavily stigmatized occurrences where moree is included in the possessive, as in (m), below.



House forms



These forms are used whenever the speaker or referent represents a formal group, such as a club, institution, business, or corporation.



Academic forms



These forms are just a few or those used in academia to refer to someone more learned than oneself. The first, anaemie, pervades academic writing and is used by university students to address their professors; rasenen is a figment of academic writing alone, sometimes used in place of anaemie, while soree is quite the opposite, being used by elementary and secondary school students to address their teachers and by almost anyone on the mentee side of a mentee-mentor relationship.





Flattering forms



These forms are cutesy forms. There what you say to someone particularly close to you, such as a mother to their daughter or boyfriend to his girlfriend. As such, they are almost exclusively used in the second person, except when being used sardonically.

The first form, teeen, carries connotations of femininity or childishness, whereas the second, momotie, connotes masculinity. Accordingly, teen is used by boyfriends and husbands addressing their girlfriends and wives or by parents embarrassing their children, and momotie by girlfriends and wives addressing their boyfriends and husbands. One use sometimes seen in the third person is to refer to a man using the feminine cutesy form, which is usually used as an insult and a veiled questioning of his sexuality.




In informal usage—and really, these forms are only used in informal styles—the stem noun and the possessive suffix tends to be reduced to /tɛ/ ~ /tɛə/ and /mʊmʊ/ respectively, such that the above examples would be pronounced as follows.

[Valkura]

What do you use to make all these pretty graphics?

[Sevly]

I write all my long posts in Word or OneNote, which looks something like this.





For the early posts in this thread, I created the graphics and glosses right in the Word file using tables, like you see in the image above. I then created a copy of the file for just the graphics, placing everything that I wanted in one image on one page. Then I printed that file to PDF, and then imported the PDF to Photoshop. When you do that, Photoshop gives you the option to import each page in the PDF as its own image, and to autotrim the images, and to give them a transparent background. After that I uploaded the images to Picasa, and then created a new copy of the original word file where I replaced the tables which image tags.

That kind of grew tiresome, so for the last post I just created the images directly in Photoshop. In the future, I think I'll create them in Illustrator and save them as vector graphics so that the text can scale to whatever zoom level readers are working with. I'm trying it out right now, but the board sadly doesn't seem to be treating it as nicely as I would hope (compare the embedded version to the link):

[Qwynegold]

Just started reading this, so sorry if I'm commenting on old stuff that's already been dealt with. Oh wait, apparently I have read this before. @_@

You don't allow a /nr/ cluster intermorphemically, but allow it intermorphemically. That's odd...

On the other hand, because /t+d/ and /t.d/ are not a legal medial clusters, neither are /mɛst+daə/ or /mɛst.daə/.

Those last two examples are identical.