Aθáta

Aθáta
Spoken in:	Raθθán Highlands
Timeline/Universe:	Arvorec
Total speakers:	Unknown
Genealogical classification:	Edastean  Proto-Edak    Aθáta
Basic word order:	VSO/head-initial
Morphological type:	Fusional
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Nominative-accusative
Created by:
Rob Haden	2006-

Aθáta [a.ˈða.ta] is a descendant of the earlier Adāta language developed by Deiniol Jones (aka Dewrad). It was created for the "Derivation Relay" in August 2006. Currently, Aθáta is considered to have existed about 500 - 800 years after its parent tongue. While it maintains many ancestral features, there have also been significant changes in phonology, grammar, and lexicon.

Phonology

Sound Changes

The ancestral phonology can be found here. Over the next several centuries, the following sound changes occurred:

1. Original [h] was lost in all positions.
2. [x] weakened to [h], which was then lost except in initial position.
3. In words with initial stress, the rightmost non-initial long vowel attracted the stress, e.g. *Ádāta > *Adâta "Aθáta".
4. Aspirated stops lenited to voiceless fricatives: [pʰ tʰ kʰ] > [f θ x].
5. Voiced stops lenited to voiced fricatives (perhaps simultaneous with #4): [b d g] > [v ð ɣ].
6. Elision of unstressed vowels:
   • Medial unstressed short vowels were elided immediately following a vowel with primary or secondary stress, e.g. *dízaka > *ðíska "king".
   • In disyllabic words with final stress, the first vowel was elided if it is short and preceded by a consonant, e.g. *kuthê > kθê "steal".
7. Short and long vowel distinctions were lost in monophthongs.
8. Short diphthongs were smoothed to long monophthongs: [ai ei oi au eu ou] > [ē ī ī ō ū ū].
9. Long diphthongs were shortened: [āi ēi ōi āu ēu ōu] > [ai ei oi au eu ou].
10. Coda stops were aspirated and then merged with the corresponding fricatives, e.g. *mékat > *mékaθ "brother".
11. All fricatives came to be pronounced voiceless in initial and final positions, and voiced in medial position (except before a voiceless stop), leading to a formal merger of the voiced and voiceless fricatives.
12. Palatalization changes:
    • Velars became palatals next to a front vowel: [k x ɣ] > [c ç ʝ].
    • Dentals became postalveolars before [i]: [t s z] > [tʃ ʃ ʒ]. The affricate then quickly merged with the palatal stop [c].

Phonemes

Allophones are marked in brackets.

Consonants
	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalv.	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosives	p	t			c	k
Fricatives	f	θ	s	ʃ	[ç]	x	h
	[v]	[ð]	[z]	[ʒ]	[ʝ]	[ɣ]
Nasals	m	n
Laterals		l	ɾ
Glides					j

Vowels
	Front		Central		Back
High	i	ī			u	ū
Mid	e	ē			o	ō
Low			a	ā

Orthography

Aθáta has a slightly different orthography from its parent language. However, it is almost completely phonemic (meaning one-to-one phoneme correspondence), since the allophones are always predictable. Only the phoneme [c] is marked by two different graphemes, <c> and <ti>, for reasons of etymology. The main orthographic differences are:

• Use of <c> instead of <k> to mark /k/.
• Use of <f θ x> instead of <ph th kh>, due to those sounds (earlier aspirated stops) becoming fricatives, as mentioned above.
• Lack of <h>, since its corresponding phoneme has long since disappeared.
• Use of <si> to indicate /ʃ/.
• Word stress, which is not predictable, is always marked. An acute accent marks stress on a short vowel, while a circumflex marks it on a long vowel or diphthong (in the latter case, always on the second member).

Aside from these changes, the orthography is exactly like Adāta, including the use of macrons to indicate (unstressed) long vowels.

Pronounciation

Here are some simple rules on pronouncing written Aθáta:

• The letters <f θ x s> are voiceless at the beginning and end of a word. In the middle of a word, they are voiceless before <p t c> and voiced otherwise. Examples: <fáfor> [ˈfa.vɔɾ] "strength", <mécaθ> [ˈme.caθ] "brother", <θísca> [ˈθis.ka] "king", <énθa> [ˈɛn.ða] "(to) feel", <xósa> [ˈxo.za] "grove", <láxo> [ˈla.ɣo] "bone", <máθexlax> [ˈma.ðɛʝ.lax] "your (pl.) hearts", <θmôcaix> [ˈθmō.kaɪç] "our city-states".
• The letters <c x> are pronounced as palatals when adjacent to a front vowel and as velars otherwise. Examples: <éxa> [ˈe.ʝa] "domesticated animal", <xénu> [ˈçe.nu] "light", <xocé> [xo.ˈce] "tin", <cálas> [ˈka.las] "borders", <écon> [ˈe.cɔn] "hostile".
• The letter <t> is pronounced as [c] before /i/ and [t] otherwise. Likewise, <s> is pronounced as [ʃ] before /i/ and [s] otherwise (voicing rules apply as above). Examples: <pacátia> [pa.ˈka.ca] "throne", <túsiax> [ˈtuʒax] "they are eating", <fasa> [ˈfa.za] "staff", <rúlas> [ˈru.las] "foreign", <síma> [ˈʃi.ma] "mud".

Grammar

One can expect a language's grammar to change considerly over five to eight centuries, and Aθáta is no exception. It has innovated many features that did not exist in its parent tongue, including possessive suffixes on nouns and subject endings on verbs. For reference purposes, the ancestral Adāta grammar can be found here.

Nouns

Like its parent language, Aθáta's nouns are largely lacking in grammatical morphology. However, they do inflect for number (singular and plural) and can also take a possessive pronominal suffix.

Pluralization

Historically, the plural affix comes from *-k, from the pronominal plural. In Aθáta, this ending becomes -x in coda position and -c otherwise (i.e. when a possessive suffix is added). For words ending in consonants in the singular, an [a] is inserted between the noun stem and the plural ending. Also, sometimes the noun stem changes form between the singular and the plural. Examples:

1. Coda vs. non-coda: éθcix [ˈɛθ.ciç] "mistresses" vs. éθcicāx [ˈɛθ.ci.cāx] "their mistresses" vs. éθcixlax [ˈɛθ.cɪʝ.lax] "your (pl.) mistresses".
2. Vowel-stems vs. consonant-stems: fθô [ˈfθō] "fat", fθôx [ˈfθōx] "fats" vs. êf [ˈēf] "man", êfax [ˈē.vax] "men".
3. Alternation vs. non-alternation: neré [ne.ˈɾe] "woman", neréx [ne.ˈɾɛç] "women" vs. íθun [ˈi.ðʊn] "sea", íθnax [ˈɪð.nax] "seas".

Possession

Aθáta marks possession on the head instead of the dependent, using suffixes. A noun marked by a possessive suffix is governed by the following noun. There are endings for all grammatical persons (first, second, and third) and numbers (singular and plural):

	Singular	Plural
First	-(a)in	-(a)ix
Second	-(a)θon	-(a)lax
Third	-ān	-āx

For the first-person endings, the [a] is included when the noun ends in a consonant (this includes all plural nouns). Compare caroîn [ka.ˈɾoɪn] "my friend" vs. carócain [ka.ˈɾo.kaɪn] "my friends". The second-person endings include the [a] when an illegal consonant cluster would otherwise occur, e.g. xírlaθon [ˈçɪɾ.la.ðɔn] "your book" for *xírlθon. Historically, these possessive suffixes come from the old possessive particle *ax plus oblique pronouns. So, for example, níθain [ˈni.ðaɪn] "my bread" came from earlier *níθa ax in "bread of me".

Many words alternate the same way for possessive suffixes that they do for plurals. Examples: cálas [ˈka.las] "border" vs. cálsax [ˈkal.zax] "borders" and cálsaix [ˈkal.zaɪç] "our border"; mécaθ [ˈme.caθ] "brother" vs. méxθax [ˈmɛʝ.ðax] "brothers" and méxθacāx [ˈmɛʝ.ða.kax] "their brothers";céla [ˈce.la] "scribe" and célax [ˈce.lax] "scribes" vs. célcān [ˈcɛl.kān] "his scribes".