Phonology

Inventory

Consonants

/m n r l/ are collectively termed sonorants, and show similar behaviour.

Vowels

e and o are always stressed, and ə is always unstressed. When the other stress occurs on these vowels, they all shift to a.

Diphthongs

ai, au, ei, eu, oi, ou

Allophony

Morphology

Taiwitachic morphology is based on a root of the form CVC, which may be compounded with other roots, to which afficies are added to form stems (usually also involving placing the root in an ablaut grade), and finally endings are added forming full words. For example, the root daup- forms an adjective stem dup-ró-, from which a factitive stem dup-rá-χ- is created, to which the third person active ending is added, forming the word dupráχt 'he deepens smth'.

Root Ablaut

Roots exhibit various ablaut grades throughout the morphological system, which are closely associated with stress. There are eight grades in total, but in general, these can be grouped together as short-long pairs, stressed-unstressed pairs, and further as e, o, and null.

The a-grade is the normal citation grade for roots.

Nominals

Taiwitachic nominals inflect for 6 cases (agentive, patientive, vocative, genitive, dative, and instrumental) in 2 numbers (singular and plural). Each is assigned to one of 3 declension classes according the final element of the stem - those ending in consonants are first declension, those in a i or u are second declension, and those in o or a are third declension.

Additionally, nouns are assigned common or neuter gender, while adjectives inflect for both. The only differences between the two are that neuter nominals do not distinguish any direct case, and do not form plurals. For this reason, only common inflection is given in the tables below. The neuter direct case is identical in form to the common vocative singular.

Note that e and o in the tables refer to the underlying vowel when the vowel can be stressed or unstressed. a is always unstressed, while é and ó are always stressed.

First Declension

Second Declension

Third Declension

Pronominals

Pronouns inflect for the same forms as nominals (minus the vocative) and most follow a common 'pronominal' paradigm. Those that do not are the 1st and 2nd person pronouns, which are also nominative-accusative. i/e-stems display a curious ablaut paradigm, with i in the patientive the and instrumental singular (though it does not surface before the i of the patientive plural), and e elsewhere. The neuter direct case ending is -t.

Verbs

Derivation

Syntax

Word Order

Clitic Placement

Clause Formation

Other Formations

Miscellaneous

Name Formation