Fuman

[Shemtov]

The Proto-Lang's phonology:
/p pʼ b t tʼ d k kʼ g kʷ kʷʼ gʷ/
/m n -ŋ/
/s x xʷ h/
/l/
/j w/

/i ɨ u/
/e̞ ə o/
/æ/
/ ä/

FUMAN PHONOLOGY:
/p b t d k g/ <p b t d k g>
/m n ɲ -ŋ/ <m n ny -ng>
/f θ s ɕ x h/ <f th s sh kh h>
/t͡ɕ d͡ʑ/ <c j>
/l/ <l>
/j w/ <y w>

/i a u/ <i a u>


Sound Changes:
/kʷ kʷʼ gʷ xʷ/>/k k' g x/
/p t k/>/f θ x/
/pʼ tʼ kʼ/>/p t k/
/ɨ ə/>/ɯ ɤ/
/æ/>/a/
/t d k g θ s x j h/>/tʷ dʷ kʷ gʷ θʷ sʷ xʷ ɥ ʍ/>p b p b f f f w f / _u _o
/ɯ ɤ/>/u o
/s θ t d k g n x l/>/ʃ ɹ̠̝̊ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ c ɟ ɲ ʎ/ _i
/e o/>/i u/
/ɹ̠̝̊/>/ʃ/
/ʎ/>/j/
/ʃ ç/>/ɕ/
/t͡ʃ c/>/t͡ɕ/
/d͡ʒ ɟ/>/d͡ʑ/

NOUNS:
Fuman Nouns have 5 cases, Ergative, Absolutive, Dative, Genetive-Locative and Causal-final, and two numbers, singular and plural. Plural is not distinguished when the noun is described by an adjective. Both Dative and Causal-Final can serve as a lative case, however, the latter is used with nouns of location and the former with other nouns, in the sense of "to the place where x is"

Example noun: <Walath> "Dog":

Singular Endings:
Absolutive: Walath
Ergative: Walathna
Dative: Walathung
Genitive-Locative: Walathul
Causal-final: Walathma

INDICATIVE ACTIVE VERBS:
Despite the fact that nouns in Fuman are marked with ERG-ACC alignment, the verbs agree with the person and number of the ergative noun or the absolutive subject (the single argument) in intransitive utterances. (This is attested in Papuan-Tip languages, at least according to Wiki.)

There are two tenses, past and non-past.

CONJUGATION OF THE VERB <Suluntas> "To eat; To drink":
1P Past: Suluntasnu
2P Past: Suluntasfu
3P Past: Suluntasthu
1P Non-Past: Suluntasfi
2P Non-Past: Suluntasa
3P Non-Past: Suluntas


Active indicative verbs mark number with the suffix <-hu>
Example sentences:

Suluntasnu baling
Suluntas-fi baling
drink-1p.PST baling
"I drank [the] baling [psychedelic sacrament]"

Walathnu suluntas'hu Kalisil diya
Walath-nu suluntas-hu Kalis-il diya
dog-ERG.PLR eat-PLR Kàleshian-PLR.GEN general
"The dogs are eating the Kàleshian general"

Walathu suluntasthuhu
Walath-u suluntas-thu-hu
dog-ABS.PLR eat-3P.PST-PLR
"The dogs ate".
Plural Endings:
Absolutive: Walathu
Ergative: Walathnu
Dative: Walathung
Genitive-Locative: Walathil
Causal-final: Walatham

MOODS:
Irrealis moods do not differentiate between the second and third person and form plurals the same way as indicative verbs.
MOODS ON THE VERB <Suluntas> "To eat; To drink":
1. Subjunctive mood. Used for the protasis of a conditional clause.
1P Past: Suluntasnyi
2P/3P Past: Suluntasshith
1P Non-Past: Suluntasshi
2P/3P Non-Past: Suluntasshi

2. Dubitative mood. Used to negate a statement.
1P Past: Suluntasul
2P/3P Past: Suluntasuth
1P Non-Past: Suluntasfal
2P/3P Non-Past: Suluntasli


3. Imperative Mood. Only exists for the Second Person:

Suluntasal


4. Prohibitive mood. Used as a negative Imperative


Suluntaska

[scorpryan]

Very cool! I like the protolanguage phonology and the past/non-past paradigm (I am a fan of these). I have two questions so far:

I am not an expert linguistically so maybe there is a scientific justification for it, but why did all the consonants with diacritics in IPA simplify, like for example the labialized ones like the /x/ that is labialized (on phone, can't type IPA right now). Wouldn't it be cool if one or two of these unusual sounds were retained? But perhaps that doesn't make sense with regards to how we know languages evolve...

Also, I want to nitpick with the orthography. Having the orthography represent the devoiced dental fricative with <th> like in English seems like it could be problematic because in words like <suntasthu> might be read as suntast-hu or suntas-thu... Unless you included the phonotactic constraints here and mentioned that either <st> or <th> are not allowed to occur word medially... Does that make sense? Maybe I am wrong and it is just my noobness. Await further conformation. Maybe I just have a bias against <th> and am secretly angry that the sound is so rare on this planet that we really don't have much precedence for how to represent it orthographically in a more succint way (i.e, with ç, which is what I use in my language but doesn't feel quite right nor is it widely accepted)

[scorpryan]

One more comment: I noticed that the affixes for the ergative and the causative-final are minimal pairs. Ones which I find a tad difficult to distinguish in the middle of a word in rapid speech. Surely there is no problem with this, because if it is so crucial to meaning your native speakers would easily be able to tell the difference. I guess Im just noticing it as an interesting aspect of your language; such a subtle contrast with such a big change in meaning is interesting. It's not rare in natlangs at all so not criticizing you. I'm always scared to create morphemes for cases that are minimal pairs or too phonetically similar, kudos to you for not having that hang up I suppose.

[Shemtov]

Also, I want to nitpick with the orthography. Having the orthography represent the devoiced dental fricative with <th> like in English seems like it could be problematic because in words like <suntasthu> might be read as suntast-hu or suntas-thu... Unless you included the phonotactic constraints here and mentioned that either <st> or <th> are not allowed to occur word medially... Does that make sense?

Yes, but I insert a <'> to avoid confusion, if it's not a digraph. See the Op and the word <suluntas'hu>. I wanted to show that this was /tas.hu/ not /ta.ɕu/.