Mvithizu

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Chengjiang
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Mvithizu

Post by Chengjiang »

This can be considered a companion thread to Chavakani's thread.

Mvithizu is the language of a nomadic pastoralist people of the same name, who inhabit a wide area of tropical savanna. (Properly, in this language the people are Mvithizukye and the language is Mvithizutsi, but at least for the time being I've decided to use Mvithizu for both in English.) They are periodically in contact with the sedentary agricultural Chondru, as well as with other nomadic groups. To the small extent that I've envisioned their culture thus far, they are somewhat based on the Maasai.

Design Principles

Mvithizu, like Chavakani, isn't inspired by one real-world language group but by several, and unlike with Chavakani I'm having a harder time identifying a primary inspiration as ideas come to me. Typologically, the following things can be said about Mvithizu:
  • It is heavily synthetic, favoring suffixes
  • It is head-marking
  • It has relatively free word order but defaults to SOV along with other head-final traits
  • Its morphosyntactic alignment is primarily ergative and dative
  • It has quite a few noun classes
Phonology

Nasals: /m n/ m n
Lenis stops/affricates: /b d dz ɡ/ b d dz g
Fortis stops/affricates: /p t ts k/ p t ts k
Lenis fricatives: /v ð z ɣ/ v dh z gh
Fortis fricatives: /f θ s x/ f th s kh
Other: /w l r j/ w l r y

Vowels: /i u ɛ ɑ/ i u e a

Onsets are compulsory while codas are forbidden. Onsets consist of a base consonant optionally preceded by a homorganic nasal (written m before labials and n otherwise) or followed by a glide /w/ or /j/. All consonants except /m n w l r j/ may be preceded by a homorganic nasal, and all consonants except /w j/ may be followed by either glide. While this means that phonetically Mvithizu has prenasalized consonants, since nearly every consonant can be prenasalized in this language I think it's more parsimonious to analyze them as clusters of a nasal and a following consonant rather than as unitary phonemes as in Chavakani.

The exact difference between the fortis and lenis consonants varies between dialects. Although I've transcribed them with the characters for voiceless and voiced consonants for simplicity, for most speakers voicing is not the primary distinguishing feature. Fortis consonants are typically held for somewhat longer than lenis consonants, and for some speakers they are aspirated. Some but not all speakers partly or fully voice the lenis consonants. The overall situation resembles that of Ojibwe.

Phonetically, /d t ð θ/ are lamino-dental, and /n l r/ are apico-alveolar. /dz ts z s/ may be lamino-alveolar or apico-alveolar. The velars front significantly before /i/ and /j/, more so than is common in English, becoming more or less cardinal palatals. Although I've transcribed the vowels /i u ɛ ɑ/, each has a pretty wide range of realizations, dependent more on free variation than allophony: /i/ may be [i ɪ ɨ ɪ̈], /ɛ/ may be [e ɛ æ], /ɑ/ may be [ɑ ä ɐ ʌ], and /u/ may be any of [u ʉ ʊ o ɵ]. Vowels are generally nasalized before a following prenasalized consonant. For many speakers, utterance- or even word-final vowels devoice.

Mvithizu is more or less syllable-timed, with nasals and glides not adding to the length of syllables. Because of this, vowels are generally slightly shorter before clusters or fortis consonants. It does not have contrastive stress or tone, although most commonly speakers will pronounce the first syllable of a word with a pitch-based stress and pronounce weaker secondary stresses on the third, fifth, and any subsequent odd-numbered syllables after that.

Up next: Noun classes, and possibly also pronouns!
Last edited by Chengjiang on Tue Apr 19, 2016 4:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that

Formerly known as Primordial Soup

Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.

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Re: Mvithizu

Post by Chengjiang »

Noun class

You may have noticed that in the last post I said that in the language itself, the language is called Mvithizutsi, and its speakers, Mvithizukye. The -tsi and -kye in those words are class suffixes. As in Bantu, Mvithizu has a wealth of noun classes, most of which distinguish singular and plural. Mvithizu indicates a noun's class via suffixes; the same morpheme conveys both class and number.

The classes are as follows. I've chosen to treat singulars and plurals as belonging to the same class, rather than to different classes as some Bantu linguists do. In nearly every case, a noun whose singular ending belongs to one class will take a plural ending belonging to the same class. There are a handful of exceptions which will be discussed later.
  • Class I is best described as the class of "persons". This includes most humans, gods/spirits, fairies (another sentient species in this setting), and anything else one might consider a person. Its endings are -twa in the singular and -kye in the plural. This class is sometimes considered the class of "speaking" entities. Notably, infants (as opposed to toddlers, older children, and adults) are not in this class, instead belonging to class VIII.
  • Class II is a class for animals, typically those which are useful or beneficial to humans, such as livestock, hunted animals, and pets, as well as some animals with neither positive nor negative associations. It has three endings rather than the two most classes have: singular -be, paucal -sya, and plural -nthi. The paucal -sya indicates a small set, typically two to four animals, while the plural -nthi generally means a flock, herd, or similar group.
  • Class III is another animal class, typical members of which are "noxious" animals that are pests or are dangerous to humans or to their livestock. As with Class II, it also contains some animals with a neutral relationship to humans. In addition, it includes some natural phenomena with "living" properties, such as wind and lightning. Its endings are singular -dza and plural -gyu.
  • Class IV is the "edible" class. Foods, whether animal or vegetable in origin, belong to this class, including fruits even if they are still entirely in their natural state. Its base ending is the collective -vu, with a singulative ending -li for discrete natural units of food such as an egg or a piece of fruit.
  • Class V is the "potable" or "fluid" class. While its core sense is arguably liquids, via apparent metaphorical extension it also includes air, fire, smoke, and numerous abstract concepts, including languages. As nouns of this class are generally treated as mass nouns, it has a single ending: -tsi.
  • Class VI is the "plant" class. It includes most plant life other than its directly edible parts; using a Class VI ending for an edible plant signifies the entire plant, while using a Class IV ending signifies its fruit or other edible part. Its endings are singular -pa and plural -nsyu.
  • Class VII is the "inanimate" class. Although this probably sounds like a very broad class to English speakers, and its membership isn't exactly tiny, it's not quite as vast as one would think, as many inanimate objects take a class ending corresponding to something with which they are associated, such as animal hides taking the "useful animal" ending or wooden tools taking the "plant" ending. Inorganic materials, features of the landscape, and some natural phenomena belong to this class. Its endings are singular -dhe and plural -mve.
  • Class VIII is a hodgepodge, but many of its members are in some way diminutive or a part of something else. As noted above, pre-verbal human babies are referred to with this class's suffixes instead of Class I's. Its suffixes are singular -nyi and plural -mbi.
Although I've given the primary group of nouns each class covers, there are quite a few nouns in the language that have the "wrong" class ending. With some one might conceive of a reason that may or may not have had something to do with it (lightning, gwelendza, roars and strikes like an animal; speech, ramatsi, flows), but with others no such process suggests itself (e.g. byumetwa "thorn" taking an ending normally reserved for people).

Unfortunately I'm going to have to cut this one short for now, but more about the noun class system is forthcoming.
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that

Formerly known as Primordial Soup

Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.

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Re: Mvithizu

Post by gach »

Since you describe the classification suffixes as a noun class system, I expect that your follow up will include how they are involved in agreement processes. I'd be especially interested to see if some of the classes lack full differentiation in some forms of agreement.

I see that all of your noun classes have overt marking on the nouns in all numbers. What happens to loans from other languages and their class assignment when they become a part of the language? Or what about citation loans that aren't nativised at all and by definition lack class markers? I'd also like to hear about nominalised verb forms, if you have any. How do they interplay with the noun class system?

You also give some examples of fluid class assignment or derivational use of the class markers. What's the extent of this phenomenon? Is there only a limited number of words that can be used in more than one class or is changing one class to another a commonplace process in the language?

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Re: Mvithizu

Post by Burke »

The noun class thing looks fun. As soon as I saw it I was hoping you were going to pull a Navajo and put lightening in the class associated with the highest animacy, along people.

On that note, is there an implied animacy hierarchy here, and will that reflect itself in the verbal system where if I mention a shaman and a tomato, the default is to expect the shaman as the Subject and the Tomato as the Direct Object, or is everything going to be explicit?
Formerly a vegetable

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Re: Mvithizu

Post by Chengjiang »

Sorry I haven't updated this in a while. The truth of the matter is that this language has just plain gotten less thought than Chavakani, and of late some things have been distracting me from conlanging.
gach wrote:Since you describe the classification suffixes as a noun class system, I expect that your follow up will include how they are involved in agreement processes. I'd be especially interested to see if some of the classes lack full differentiation in some forms of agreement.
They are definitely involved in verbal and adjective agreement. Adjective agreement is pretty much one-to-one, while verbal agreement is a little bit off for higher-animacy classes. Haven't quite ironed out the details yet.
I see that all of your noun classes have overt marking on the nouns in all numbers.
In hindsight I think this was a mistake. I'm going to rework this so a couple of classes can have zero marking in the singular (at the very least probably Class I), as well as having more allomorphs for the class endings.
What happens to loans from other languages and their class assignment when they become a part of the language?
A lot of things with a really obvious class membership simply get the ending added, like wolves getting the "disliked animal" endings. Many others take class endings only in the plural (or in the singulative for edibles), corresponding roughly to what they would "logically" fall into. A very large number of loanwords, however, just get dumped in Class VIII.
Or what about citation loans that aren't nativised at all and by definition lack class markers?
They lack class markers in the singular (or the collective for edibles) and in many cases gain the appropriate ones in the plural (or the singulative for edibles), although some are also unmarked in the plural. Words agreeing with them of course take the expected marking for that class.
I'd also like to hear about nominalised verb forms, if you have any. How do they interplay with the noun class system?
I haven't made any yet. This language has very little vocabulary that I've decided on. (The single biggest factor slowing down my conlanging is that I'm actually pretty bad at coining vocabulary that I'm satisfied with.) That said, verb nominalizations are probably mostly going to belong to Classes V, VI, VII, and VIII, often deriving from older senses the nominalizing forms had.
You also give some examples of fluid class assignment or derivational use of the class markers. What's the extent of this phenomenon? Is there only a limited number of words that can be used in more than one class or is changing one class to another a commonplace process in the language?
As yet I don't have a firm idea, but it's probably somewhere in the middle. There are a number of commonly accepted derivational uses of class marking, but you can't just change markings however you please and expect to be understood.
Burke wrote:The noun class thing looks fun. As soon as I saw it I was hoping you were going to pull a Navajo and put lightening in the class associated with the highest animacy, along people.
Thanks.
On that note, is there an implied animacy hierarchy here, and will that reflect itself in the verbal system where if I mention a shaman and a tomato, the default is to expect the shaman as the Subject and the Tomato as the Direct Object, or is everything going to be explicit?
There is at least some animacy hierarchy, but at the moment I'm waffling between:
a) something like what you described with nominative-accusative behavior for personal pronouns and Class I's and ergative-absolutive behavior for other classes
b) something more like Dyirbal with nominative-accusative behavior for personal pronouns only (possibly non-third-person pronouns only) and ergative-absolutive behavior everywhere else
[ʈʂʰɤŋtɕjɑŋ], or whatever you can comfortably pronounce that's close to that

Formerly known as Primordial Soup

Supporter of use of [ȶ ȡ ȵ ȴ] in transcription

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a 青.

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gach
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Re: Mvithizu

Post by gach »

Chengjiang wrote:
I see that all of your noun classes have overt marking on the nouns in all numbers.
In hindsight I think this was a mistake. I'm going to rework this so a couple of classes can have zero marking in the singular (at the very least probably Class I), as well as having more allomorphs for the class endings.
Having an unmarked, or at least only lightly marked, residue class could also be a reasonable choice. That would be easy to explain historically as a lack of an individuating classificatory morpheme and could also give the speakers a simple default way to handle new unclassified loans.
That said, verb nominalizations are probably mostly going to belong to Classes V, VI, VII, and VIII, often deriving from older senses the nominalizing forms had.
That could work. It's a nice way to do the class assignment of abstractions.

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