Taking a break from polysynthesis for a while to work on a language family which will, hopefully, be easier to work with. The tentative name for the proto-language is
semet ja brik, or 'language (
brik) of the tribe (
semet)'.
Phonology
Brik (as it'll be called from now on) has a presyllable structure: all morphemes ('word' is for various reasons not the most helpful label) consist of either one or two syllables. In two-syllable morphemes, there is a very strong stress on the second syllable, which may have a coda; the first syllable cannot have a coda and is constructed from a reduced inventory compared to the second syllable. All syllables must have onsets, so that the minimal morpheme is CV, and the maximum is CVCCVC.
Initial clusters are allowed in main syllables only and are restricted to SR, where S is a stop and R is a liquid /w r l j/. Additionally, *l and *j are disallowed after dental stops, and *w after labials.
Voiceless stops: /p t c k/ <p t c k>
Voiced stops: /b d ɟ g/ <b d j g>
Aspirated stops: /pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ/ <ph th ch kh>
Voiceless fricatives: /s ħ h/ <s ħ h>
Voiced fricatives: /z ɣ ʕ/ <z ĝ x>
Nasals: /m n ɲ ŋ/ <m n ñ ŋ>
Semivowels/liquids: /w r l j/ <w r l y>
Vowels: /i ɨ u e a o/ <i ə u e a o>
Codas in main syllables are limited to /p t c k b d ɟ g m n ɲ ŋ r/. The onsets of presyllables are limited to /p t k b d g m n ŋ s ħ h z ɣ ʕ m n ŋ w r l j/.
Morphology
There is no inflectional morphology, but there is a system of derivational morphology, relying mostly on ablaut, consonant mutation and prefixation.
Raising a vowel in verbs creates a causative: dwaŋ 'fall', dwəŋ 'drop'.
A mediopassive-like formation can be formed from transitive verbs by prefixing xV-, where V is a copy of the root vowel: chij 'boil something', xichij 'boil'.
Voicing an initial consonant can be used as a general nominalizer: prik 'speaks', brik 'speech, language'.
Collectives can be formed with se-: mə 'crow', semə 'murder of crows'.
Reduplication, neglecting codas and with appropriate mergers to account for segments disallowed in presyllables, can indicate lexicalized habituality or intensity: yanh 'to plant', yayanh 'to be a farmer'; ħeŋ '(be) green', ħeħeŋ 'be very green'.
rI- (where -I- represents a high vowel agreeing with the root in roundedness and position) can be used to indicate human agents: riprik 'speaker', rəyanh 'farmer'.
we-, on the other hand, creates an instrument from a verb: wechij 'pot'.
Syntax
Bik is mostly head-final. Since I don't have to worry about inflectional paradigms, I'm just going to write some example sentences and let the syntax develop organically as I work with it.
tuk manhtree grow
'The tree is growing.' (SV order in intransitive sentences.)
tuk ħettree green
'The tree(s) is green.' (No copula with adjectives/stative verbs in predicate position. Also, plurals aren't explicitly marked.)
jra tuk khebwoman tree see
'The woman sees the tree.' (SOV order in transitive sentences.)
jra manh ĝo tuk khebwoman grow REL tree see
'The woman sees the tree that's growing.' (Relative clauses precede their nouns, with the relativizer
ĝo marking the relative clause.)
ħet ĝo tuk manhgreen REL tree grow
'The green tree is growing.' (Attributive adjectives are treated as the stative verbs they are.)
ŋə tuk kheb3F tree see
'She sees the tree.'
de manh3N grow
'It grows.'
jra de kheb ĝo tuk manhwoman 3N see REL tree grow
'The tree that the woman sees is growing.' (Resumptive pronouns are required unless the head noun is acting as a subject in the relative clause.)
tuk ŋe manhtree fast grow
'The tree grows quickly.' (
ŋe is an adjective, but acts as an adverbial here. As we'll see, this is also the structure used in serial verb constructions.)
kle rəħa sotman meat cut
'The man cuts the meat.'
kle phyu sosotman wood chop
'The man chops wood.' (
sosot here is an intensive reduplication of
sot.)
kle tuk sosot dwaŋman tree chop fall
'The man chops the tree down.' (This is a serial verb construction.)
nho ja jra1s POSS woman
'my wife'
nho kla də1s man COP
'I am a man.' (The copula
də is only used when linking a subject with another noun or a postpositional phrase.)
setuk sa tharforest in house
'a house in the forest' (Postpositional phrases precede their head nouns.)
nho setuk ced1s forest go
'I went to the forest'. (No distinction is made between destinations and objects. Also, tense marking isn't obligatory.)
nho setuk ced tuk sosot dwaŋ1s forest go tree chop fall
'I went to the forest to chop down the tree.' (Clause chaining. Here the distinction between purpose and result is not made- it's not relevant to this isolated sentence whether the speaker intended to chop down a tree (but didn't), or did but wasn't intending to, or intended to and succeeded.)
nho setuk ced tuk sosot dwaŋ nob1s forest go tree chop fall intend
'I went to the forest in order to chop down the tree.' (Clause chaining, with
nob 'intend to' expressly used to indicate purpose.)
nho setuk ced ka tuk sosot dwaŋ1s forest go later tree chop fall
'I went to the forest and later chopped down a tree.' (Here the narrative particle
ka clarifies that the tree chopping was a result, with intention shoved aside.)
nho gyon nakhu wəwa ter1s girl copulate babby form
'I knocked a girl up.' (Serial verb constructions and clause chaining can get out of hand.)
nho grət (ca) ŋejak sosot dwaŋ1s oak (and) maple chop fall
'I chopped down an oak and a maple.' (You can have more than one object, if you like. Explicit conjunction is optional.)
pan dyo wəwathree CL baby
'three babies' (Numerals must be accompanied by classifiers.)
nho de kheb ħa1s 3s see not
'I don't see it.' (The negator
ħa follows the verb. Since Brik is strongly head-final, it's arguably an auxiliary.)
nho yakwi dəħa.1s dog be.not
'I am not a dog.' (The negated form of the copula
də smushes it together with the negator, so that they're now a two-syllable word where
dâ is a presyllable.)
yakwi no thar sa dâdog that house in COP
'That dog is in the house.' (Demonstratives follow their nouns.)
cheña setuk sa jib ĝa?wolf forest in live Q
'Do wolves live in the forest?' (Questions are formed with the particle
ĝa.)
cheña met yem ħaĝa?wolf person eat Q.NEG
'Wolves don't eat people, do they?' (
ĝa and
ħa will coalesce into a standard disyllable.)
ze cheña dəħa ĝa?2s wolf be.not Q
'You're not a wolf, are you?' (But
də takes precedence over
ĝa when combining with
ħa.)
yabya nho pəlar ñe jib, tabya lañ pha yemwhen 1s river near live then much fish eat
'When I lived near the river, I ate a lot of fish.' (Constructions such as 'when,' 'why,' etc., must use pairs of related conjunctions.)
(To be continued...)