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Indefinite constituents

Tsi marks indefinite, specific constituents optionally with a preposed mte~mde (inanimate) or mre~mạr (animate). These typically appear in the postverbal space. Consider the following examples:

(1a) nzu bà mte hạnzu

he wrote (will write) a (specific) letter
he wrote (will write) some (specific) letters

(1b) nzu tsą mte hạnzu
[/tt]
he was (is, will be) writing a (specific) letter
he was (is, will be) writing some (specific) letters

Although (1a) (as discussed above in the TAM section) is unambiguously specific because it is perfective, without mte (1b) could also be read as generic. mte marks the letter(s) as discourse-relevant ('specific'). Note that although this form is clearly etymologically identical with the postposed numeral mte, it is not restricted to singular constituents, as implied by the plural readings given above.

The plural suffixes -odʰę and rą also force a specific interpretation onto a newly introduced noun. Note that they too can freely co-occur with the indefinite. Compare the following sentences:

(2a) Ya-dgo tsa mte quuŋ-odʰę

He mixes some mud
He's mixing some mud

(2b) Ya-dgo tsa quuŋ

He mixes mud
He's mixing mud

(2c) Ya-quuŋ dgo tsa

He mixes mud
He's mixing mud

The difference between (2a) and the other two sentences is that in (2a) the mud is specific and probably discourse-relevant. In the other two cases it may be background information or generic. We might propose a hierarchy of backgroundness/genericness from (2a) to (2c), but the exact difference between (2b) and (2c) in most cases is not clear. In any case, this distinction - if it does exist - is largely restricted to direct objects.

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كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية

tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!

Kangshi should have verb conjugation. I made a table (the asterisk stands for noun class prefixes).


kangshi_conjugation.png [ 19.31 KiB | Viewed 10774 times ]

At present tone on verbs is used for the second person. Covers all of the tones, but functional load is extremely low. Maybe I will go back to using it for TAM ablaut, who knows.

Sample with the new conjugation:

tɤmqɤbstau qxâ bníe btɤʁmâ bɤŋmqɤʐoʁ mzɤpa


ŋɯi ni mzɤpa ùo bníe bɤŋmdæi ni qxâ


mɯksi qɤ mɯndò tɤmziekde, sɤsæ ʁmɯqbɯ sɤsæ ʁbiez
,

Contact is still possible -- English and French were in contact, but English is mostly devoid of inflection and French is arguably polysynthetic.

It is possible that there was morphology in Pre-Gehui that was lost, especially during monosyllabization.

I'm not sure why the Gehui "classifiers" are glossed that way. I think they are supposed to be articles.

_________________
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

Was Middle French arguably polysynthetic? At what point (can we even tell?) did French move from mere clitic-stacking to whatever it is today?

Purpose clauses

As well as the converb construction mentioned above, which expresses 'closely bound' purpose and implies the same subject, Tsi also has two more general constructions for expressing purpose. The more standard one is the fairly conventional use of içç, with or without the postposition ro.

(1) ka maŋ dzo ksù-x içç (ro)

I hit the man so he'd shut up

The second construction uses the more colloquial optative subordinator fò:

(2) to-ddòòbh dži mdòt k!a-k!a ççe-ç fò

She came to the copse to chop wood

(3) to-ddòòbh mpa-dži mdòt k!a-k!a ççe-ç fò

He sent her to the copse to chop wood

(4) ka maŋ dzo ksù-x fò

I hit the man so he'd shut up

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كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية

tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!

_________________
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية

tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!

Zenzi doesn't arise early. Ziwan is about as far out from V'eng as the language of the Qieyun is from Old Chinese. (I'm not sure what the temporal relationship is between V'eng and Hlu. They could be at the same time; V'eng would then be pretty conservative, but that's OK since its branch is.)

If you want an early Macro-Vengic empire, pre-Narngic is a possibility. Probable linguistic influences: strong stress accent, front rounded vowels, a register contrast of some sort or other. [edit: Vynyi is another candidate; it has sort of a Khitan~Mongolic relationship with the rest of Vengic and is probably spoken far away from everything else, which raises the question of how it got there]

In retrospect, there's probably more distance between Kannow and Enzielu, because of the complete collapse of the consonant system. This could be an artifact of expansion, however.

I've been assuming Enzielu went the way of Latin due to events either arising from or setting the political stage for some major technological advance, which would set it after YP.

As for industrial revolutions, you can at least get textile industry automation with water power. Where's our Pawtucket Falls?

What's the history of writing? Miar is ~Sumerian and Kett is ~Old Persian, but how does it get to Kangshi?

What's the relative timeline for Cuhbi, Tsi, and Kllk? Are they all contemporaneous?

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

Cuhbi, Tsi and Kllk are contemporaneous, yes. Risha Cuhbi and Tsat Tsi are spoken at YP, the *written* dialect of Tsi is significantly older, and probably contemporaneous with... Proto-Western Cuhbi. Cuhbi and Tsi split early; Cuhbi drops clicks first thing in the morning (L-Hathic influence?), whereas Tsi screws with the morphology, but is phonologically very conservative compared to Cuhbi.

There are two options for Kangshi writing. Either the Kangshi invent it themselves after expansion to the lowlands, which would probably set the Kangshi expansion contemporaneous with... Gehui (or earlier; how long have the Han been in the Yellow River valley?). The other option is that Kangshi gets some other form of writing from the other side of the continent. This depends on if there is a silk road -- the climate of most the continent is probably not as conducive to that as the Eurasian steppe is.

A third possibility is that the Tsi have writing independently from the Kangshi, descended from something in the Eastern part and imported via maritime trade routes.

Did you ever poast a history of your conworld?

I've been assuming that there's some sort of Eurasian Steppe-like deal. Not *as* conducive to steppe things as the Eurasian Steppe, but there are trade routes and the occasional empire.

Kannow, Arve, etc. are all spoken east of the Very Large Mountains. The vague general history of this region is:

- There is an island, Harue, which is populated by speakers of Arve /hɛuwɪ/, Sestmag /ɕːmɒ/, and similar languages. Possibly this is a Paleosiberian situation and these languages are not in fact related.
- Kett /kɜt̪͡ʙ̥:/-speakers come from the east, probably bringing writing. They settle the top half or so of Harue.
- Over time, they do a sort of Roman-Empire-but-from-Britain deal, establish control of sea trade routes, settle the coasts etc.
- Eventually there is a great deal of war, followed by a Kannow state that's assimilated a lot of Kett culture. Probably there are other states that are gradually mopped up China-style.

The details depend on material, religious etc. history, which remain to be worked out.

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

The K!ek Tbi K!oo, in English The Five Springs, is an influential Tsi work of verse-prose describing the world known to the Tsi and its mythical history. Comprising several thousand lines of verse, its composition spanned the reigns of three Tsi Emperors and elevated its author, N!ʰan Príd, to significant esteem and a comfortable position at the imperial court, much to the chagrin of his detractors, who ridiculed the bad poetic form and the excessively modernizing language used. The personal tastes of the Emperor Bdáát Tạŋ|ọ, a man of greater strength than sophistication, prevailed in the end, however, breaking with the existing norms and ushering in the era of what may be called modern written Tsi.

The work is composed in trochaic trimeter based on syllable weight, with the seventh and final syllable in each verse being neutral. A specialty of Tsi versification is that the trochees are relative -- the "short" syllable in each foot can be long as long as the "long" syllable has a greater weight.

The following lines, describing the Tsi creation myth, are from the very beginning of the work, composed during the late reign of Emperor Bdáát G|ʰaa, the father of Bdáát Tạŋ|ọ and brother of the intervening emperor Bdáát Njọ̀m.

Glory to the family of the Emperor Bdáát G|ʰaa
Bdáát G|ʰaa Ngáád-rų qoo to-mbááŋ


In the twelfth year of his glorious reign
battse baabʰelʰ dò bdʰá ʃaŋ


"He has worn the Bdha gloriously for twelve years." The Bdha is a ceremonial sash that is worn only by the Emperor and the highest-ranking officials of the tenfold crown. The number 12, as a compound of ten and two, agrees in noun class with dò.

I begin my investigation of the world and its parts
báálʰ ŋa loŋ-hạạ btoŋ m!áá ptám


Lo! The sky wooed the sea
Pság t!óó n|úúŋ bzá lę-ŋŋáá-gʰum


And she bore five brothers
ʃò-tta-zųų tʰó sóŋŋa dʰò


The brothers grew to men and began to feel jealous
ʃoo dʰò-rǫǫ kà ʃóó yàdʰ rų


And asked of their father and mother their birthright
ptá-n' ŋa dzoo-n' lų pság ma-maaŋ


The sea and the sky gave to each a property
n|úúŋ t!óó dááŋŋú dʰò-r' k|ʰagąą


The eldest, Gąą Dbé, in his property
Gąą Dbé tbáálʰé dááŋŋú q!ʰąą


Made himself a hot land
dʰạạ go báárʰ dzo hunnạ-r' lʰáá-ç


For he loved the sunshine
naa ro ktááq yeŋąą lę-ptịị-ç


And he made from dust the first dog to be his companion
bráád go dʰạạ-ç k!oo ɢááppʰ-ax ŋóódʰ


Lo! Sri Takʰ, the second
Pság Sri Takʰ ro brellʰé tʰó


Loved the darkness, and upon his land
kǂạ̀ạ̀mmọ ptịị go dááŋŋú q!ʰąą


Made himself a shady jungle
dʰạạ-ni bʰọ́ọ́ qǀʰum ɢááppʰ-ax dʰą̀ą̀


And he made from mud the first leopard to be his companion
quuŋ go dʰạạ-ç tʰạ ɢááppʰ-ax ŋóódʰ


The third, De Lu, cleverest of them all
De Lu liiyé onta g|íí-ç


The translation here is quite free -- the verse, literally, is just "De Lu, the third, who was clever"

Who loved the fruits of both
báárʰ kǃọt kǂạ̀ạ̀m kǃọt ptịị-ç go içç


Thus took his inheritance
gondà oqqà dʰạạ-ç go içç


"go içç" is a very useful metrical filler, and the final relativiser carries little semantic information in this verse.

And made of it a land, fertile and temperate
mussʰùù ax'bʰii ɢááppʰ-ax dʰą̀ą̀


And he made the first Tsi to be his companion
Tsi 'ndà ɢááppʰ-ax ŋóódʰ nri g|íín


T|ąą Pʰò, the fourth, loved the wind and the cold
T|ąą Pʰò bʰaaqé sʰị́ị́ç nǃòd ptịị-ç


So he raised his land to a great hight
dááŋŋú q!ʰąą go dʰạạ-ç to-mbááŋ


But lo! Sri Takʰ and Gąą Dbé were jealous
Pság Sri Takʰ ŋa Gąą Dbé tʰó


So they came upon him by night
ʃóó yàdʰ tʃagʰ tʰó lę-ŋŋǃee go


And crushed T|ąą Pʰò’s skull with a stone
T|ąą Pʰò-r' qa-ŋŋǃè cuu-hą-x dʰą̀ą̀


They took the land of T|ąą Pʰò
dááŋŋú-r' T|ąą Pʰò gondà q!ʰąą


And having split it into pieces, Sri Takʰ devoured his corpse
ɢǃònù-x Sri Takʰ cʰẹẹ ed qʰòlʰ


The verb form ed is historically a perfect, with the -d a suffix. In inscription Tsi the distinction is still maintained in some basic verbs, although in more modern literature the aspect forms are often chosen for metrical convenience rather than semantics.

Rą́ą́ Yop, the youngest, at his brothers’ quarreling
Rą́ą́ Yop rwààbʰé fʰììrkǂę ro


Felt great sadness
andà kdékk-eç mrạạ 'nnạ ro


Far away he fled, beyond the sea
wuun 'ndà qǃóŋŋ-ox n|úúŋ bʰị-ç go


And he made nothing in his land
oqqà-r' ạnni aŋŋ' hą lʰáá-qǃʰ


But embraced all the mourners
gǂụ̀ụ̀ka fị́ị́ rų tʰiil ọxad


To share their sadness with him
kdékmo gonn' dzo hunn' d|ʰa mbąą

Great stuff!

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ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!