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:''NOTE, ALL POSWA AND PABAPPA ARTICLES ARE FAR OUT OF DATE AND WILL BE FOR QUITE SOME TIME. I WILL UPDATE THEM WHEN I GET A CHANCE. THANK YOU.''
:''This page presents the language as a grammar organized by subject. See [[Pabappa/scratchpad]] for older chronological updates.  FOR NOW, ALL PAGES ARE SCRATCHPADS.''
'''Pabappa''' is the daughter language of [[babakiam|Play]] that remained in the original Play homeland around the capital city.   


'''Pabappa''' is the most iconic language of present-day planet [[Teppala]], although not the most widely spoken, either in terms of number of speakers or geographical extentIt is similar to [[Poswa]], but much simpler in almost every way.  Since splitting off from Poswa about 3200 years ago, it has changed more quickly than Poswa, again in almost every way.  However, the general acoustic impression of Pabappa is closer to that of their shared parent language, [[Babakiam|Bābākiam]], than is Poswa's, because both languages underwent various sound shifts that created new consonants and consonant clusters, but only Pabappa later simplified them back to a system similar to Bābākiam.
Pabappa is a '''Lava Bed''' language, like its sister Poswa, and its parent language PlayThe grammar is noticeably simpler than in these other languages, but still retains the classic Lava Bed trait of using suffixes and infixes that can affect all parts of a word, even the beginning, hence "erupting" and molding all of the available space.


'''NOTE: Because most of my writing in this encyclopedia concerns the time period from 1700 to 4268 AD, nearly every mention of the word "Pabappa" in fact refers to its ancestor, [[Babakiam|Bābākiam]].'''  The use of the name Pabappa is to make it clear that it refers to the language spoken in [[Paba]], while the use of the name [[Paba]] is to show its historical and geographical continuity with the present-day Paba.
Unlike [[Poswa]], Pabappa continues to make use of [[compounds]].


==Phonology==
==Phonology==
:''See [[Pabappa phonology]].''
===Consonants===
The consonants are
Bilabials:   p  m  b  w
Coronals:    t  n  d  l  s
Dorsals:              r


==Grammar==
The pronunciation of ''r'' varies widely according to the speaker and the place in the word, as it is the only dorsal consonant in the language and is thus very distinctThe ''l'' phoneme sometimes appears as IPA /j/ after a vowel.  The other consonants have very little allophony.
Unlike Poswa, Pabappa has a copula verb, ''pip'', which means that "good ice cream" and "the ice cream is good" are different sentences.   


===Nouns===
===Vowels===
:''See [[Pabappa nouns]].''
The vowel inventory is /a e i o u/, and this is the native Pabappa alphabet order as well.
The inflection of Pabappa's nouns is similar to that of Poswa, but with less irregularity.  A Poswa speaker can generally handle Pabappa nouns with no problem whereas a monolingual Pabappa speaker will have trouble learning the traps and tripups of the many irregular nouns of Poswa.


When two vowels occur together, they are pronounced as a sequence, never as a diphthong.  The only diphthongs are those involving a vowel followed by one of /l r/.


===Verbs===
==Nouns==
:''See [[Pabappa verbs]].
Nouns have a (historically passive) object slotThis is derived from the B stem. These resemble BB compounds in Play, but with the extra cane in the middle.
Pabappa verbs are again similar to those of Poswa, but much simplerVerbs are inflected for tense only, unlike Poswa where they are inflected twice for person, and once each for tense, aspect,<ref>Not sure about this one</ref> mood, and voice. Thus, pronouns are used much more commonly than in Poswa.


===Sample sentences===
==Verbs==
*'''Blumpurpum pesaunamap piliblilabi.''' "the children walked across the frozen lake".
Most verbs belong to the '''U-verb''' class, cognate to Poswa's, but radically expanded in Pabappa. This derives from the instrumental case, which is a shared Poswa/Pabappa innovation derived from a [[babakiam|Play]] plural infix.
*'''Pom map peminiba.''' "I hear you."
*'''Pom pempomop peminiba.''' "I can hear the sea."
*'''Wipambi wapibup pisa.''' "The palm tree is tall."


== Geography ==
One difference between the U-verbs in the two languages is that in Pabappa, they are derived directly from the verbal stem, whereas in Poswa, they are derived from a possessed form of the stem. Thus, in Poswa, the U-verbs mean "to use one's (own) X", but in Pabappa, they mean "to use an X". Nonetheless, the meanings of the U-verbs in both languages are primarily idiomatic and this difference in origin means little.
Pabappa is spoken in warm climates, considered to be tropical because they are on the south coast, although temperatures are not as high as those associated with the tropics on Earth.  Vegetation rather than temperature determines whether a given climate qualifies as tropical or not. It is largely urban, with most speakers living in the cities of Paba or Lunila (Lunila is an Andanese city).
;Paba
Largest city in the lowlands; it is over 4000 years old.  It is governed and mostly populated by "White Pabaps", the traditional ruling class of Paba and many other territories. Their rule is very strict, yet peaceful.  People are not allowed on the streets at night without permission from the governors.
;Lunila
The city of Lunila was where the god Lun was worshipped by the Andanese. (Sometiems the whole are was called "land of the gods", but the other parts of the empire didnt like this,.) The god's name in Andanese was Ini, and the city was named Ini Ilasa. Lasa = temple, cognate to Pabappa ''pala''.


Recently Pabaps in despair at their land being swarmed and assimilated into the Poswob Empire have begun moving out of the empire, generally into other tropical areasEven though by doing so they are giving up their citizenship, for many emigrant families, this seemed like the right thing to do.
===Object slot===
:''LATE ADDITION (05:55, 3 November 2024 (PST)): it is possible that private verbs, which may be the same class as U-verbs or a subset of them, are in fact the ones that do not have an object slot.''
U-verbs (and most other verbs) have an object slot after the stem, which can either be a single consonant (usually '''-p-''' for reflexive and '''-s-''' for reciprocal), a noun classifier word, or emptyIf it is empty, then the /-u/ suffix directly abuts the stem of the verb, and may cause stem changes.


Importantly, any verb with an object slot uses an A-stem, not the B-stem that generates the citation form.  This A-stem can be very different from the B-stem, as they are both often inherited from Play with no analogy, and even in Play they were often quite different. Sound changes often drove them even further apart.  This means also that some verbs collide in the A-stem but not in the B-stem, or vice versa.  This means that there are verbs that can only be used transitively, or only intransitively, because in the other "voice" they collid with some other verb. However, Pabappa nonetheless has much analogy, and many A-stems were rebuilt after their B-stem.  (Note also the conditional sound changes of /k š/ > /p s/ effectively undid Play's sound changes.)
The object slot construction is descended from Play's '''AB compounds'''.  In Play, these behaved like head-initial noun compounds, rare at the time, and had to be capped with a further suffix that reflected the noun classifier of the head (not the object), thus turning the word back into a head-final compound as was the standard for the Play language.  In Pabappa,  they behave as verbs and the subject noun classifiers have been lost; instead, Pabappa marks the noun class of the object using what was once a standalone word of an open class but has now evolved into a closed-class infix.
The object slot marks the classifier of the object, and in some cases may communicate the action well enough by itself that the object of the sentence can be omitted.  This is comparable to the English object pronoun ''it'', except that in Pabappa there are a few dozen such morphemes corresponding to the various noun classes.  This enables the object to be omitted even from some sentences in which the speaker has not recently mentioned it.  Nonetheless, the object is most often named explicitly in the sentence and marked as such despite the presence of the object classifier infix on the verb.
These object classifiers could also be called verb classifiers, but most Lava Bed languages with verb classifiers have them as prefixes before the verb, priming the listener by giving contextual information before the verb is heard.
====Secundative====
The objects can include animates. It is possible that they will be linmuted, like in Play, to the "closest" object only, not the object that is the patient. '''BUT IT IS MORE LIKELY THESE OBJECTS REFER TO THE PATIENT OF THE ACTION, NOT THE INSTRUMENT, BECAUSE THEY INCLUDE PEOPLE, AND EVEN INCLUDE THE 1ST AND 2ND PERSON MARKERS.'''
====with passive verbs====
this an lead to odd situations such as '''-t-''' after passive just by itself meaning "by a hammer/saw" (heavy toolk) because it is from -nt-.
this will be an agreement morpheme.
in fact
perhaps ALL passive verbs should agree ith noun class of subj
if the -p is lost for 1st person passives, they would behave as actives from then on and the 1ps PAT pronoun would distinguish.
this could also mean that Play -m plsuy any word means "tree branch" wannopa etc
if the -nopa sux is detached and copied to the sub
===Aspect===
:09:02, 21 May 2023 (PDT)
Pabappa "freezes out" [[babakiam#Aspect|Play's open-class Lava Bed aspect system]] by having just a few aspects corresponding to traditional grammatical aspect categories.  Play had been able to use any verb as an aspect marker, similar to English constructions like "eat to exhaustion".  Poswa retains this as well.
There may be irregular shortening from -s- insertion before nasals, e.g. žam > am but žasm > žamm > zm >  m.
====Aspwct slots====
There are probably at least three aspect slots on every verb, but zero morphs are allowed, "like in a normal language".  It is possible that all aspect markers are preceded by '''-a-''' since the tenses are marked by /i/ and /u/.  This would be from Play /Za/, which would reflex to /a/ only some of the time, but enough to analogize from.
*'''Slot 12''':  accepts at least -ra- "do many at once; a lot; repeat/intermit" and another one meaning repeated over time (study>learn)
#'''a''', a zero morph, but appars only when other slots are filled (at least one)
#'''ra''' many atsonce/intermit/rpt/alot
#'''ta''' unknown
#'''pta''' unknown
These can be analyzed as consonants + /a/.
*'''Slot 24''':  has 4 forms to do with success&difficulty. probably animate agents only, and there may be a morpheme that just indicates inanimacy rather than using a zero morph for it
#'''a''' zero morph (see above, /aa/ > /a/)
#'''mpa''' attemp, try
#'''psa''' try unsucc AGREEMENT MORPH
#'''pa ~ ba''' do with difficulty but succeed
#'''nsa''' try unsucc AGREEMENT MORPH (mp + ps)
#'''pta''' involuntary (implies success)
*'''Slot 36''':  two statives and a cess/emph-perefcet
#'''ma''' stative aspect. possibly cannot occur alone
#'''ptama''' stative aspect. possibly implies involuntary action
#'''ri''' unknown (mayber wrong slot)
#'''mi''' cessative, emph perf ("do to completion", not "stop"). possibly inherently past tense due to -i
===gender===
the inherited Play gender ystsem only gives words for children: boy, girl, child, people.
adults use dunamic gender (adjs)
===copula===
might use transitive copula with object slots


==Notes==
==Notes==
<references />
<references />


[[Category:Teppala]]
[[Category:Languages of Teppala]]
[[Category:Pabappa]]
 
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Latest revision as of 05:56, 3 November 2024

This page presents the language as a grammar organized by subject. See Pabappa/scratchpad for older chronological updates. FOR NOW, ALL PAGES ARE SCRATCHPADS.

Pabappa is the daughter language of Play that remained in the original Play homeland around the capital city.

Pabappa is a Lava Bed language, like its sister Poswa, and its parent language Play. The grammar is noticeably simpler than in these other languages, but still retains the classic Lava Bed trait of using suffixes and infixes that can affect all parts of a word, even the beginning, hence "erupting" and molding all of the available space.

Unlike Poswa, Pabappa continues to make use of compounds.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonants are

Bilabials:    p  m  b  w
Coronals:     t  n  d  l  s
Dorsals:               r

The pronunciation of r varies widely according to the speaker and the place in the word, as it is the only dorsal consonant in the language and is thus very distinct. The l phoneme sometimes appears as IPA /j/ after a vowel. The other consonants have very little allophony.

Vowels

The vowel inventory is /a e i o u/, and this is the native Pabappa alphabet order as well.

When two vowels occur together, they are pronounced as a sequence, never as a diphthong. The only diphthongs are those involving a vowel followed by one of /l r/.

Nouns

Nouns have a (historically passive) object slot. This is derived from the B stem. These resemble BB compounds in Play, but with the extra cane in the middle.

Verbs

Most verbs belong to the U-verb class, cognate to Poswa's, but radically expanded in Pabappa. This derives from the instrumental case, which is a shared Poswa/Pabappa innovation derived from a Play plural infix.

One difference between the U-verbs in the two languages is that in Pabappa, they are derived directly from the verbal stem, whereas in Poswa, they are derived from a possessed form of the stem. Thus, in Poswa, the U-verbs mean "to use one's (own) X", but in Pabappa, they mean "to use an X". Nonetheless, the meanings of the U-verbs in both languages are primarily idiomatic and this difference in origin means little.

Object slot

LATE ADDITION (05:55, 3 November 2024 (PST)): it is possible that private verbs, which may be the same class as U-verbs or a subset of them, are in fact the ones that do not have an object slot.

U-verbs (and most other verbs) have an object slot after the stem, which can either be a single consonant (usually -p- for reflexive and -s- for reciprocal), a noun classifier word, or empty. If it is empty, then the /-u/ suffix directly abuts the stem of the verb, and may cause stem changes.

Importantly, any verb with an object slot uses an A-stem, not the B-stem that generates the citation form. This A-stem can be very different from the B-stem, as they are both often inherited from Play with no analogy, and even in Play they were often quite different. Sound changes often drove them even further apart. This means also that some verbs collide in the A-stem but not in the B-stem, or vice versa. This means that there are verbs that can only be used transitively, or only intransitively, because in the other "voice" they collid with some other verb. However, Pabappa nonetheless has much analogy, and many A-stems were rebuilt after their B-stem. (Note also the conditional sound changes of /k š/ > /p s/ effectively undid Play's sound changes.)

The object slot construction is descended from Play's AB compounds. In Play, these behaved like head-initial noun compounds, rare at the time, and had to be capped with a further suffix that reflected the noun classifier of the head (not the object), thus turning the word back into a head-final compound as was the standard for the Play language. In Pabappa, they behave as verbs and the subject noun classifiers have been lost; instead, Pabappa marks the noun class of the object using what was once a standalone word of an open class but has now evolved into a closed-class infix.

The object slot marks the classifier of the object, and in some cases may communicate the action well enough by itself that the object of the sentence can be omitted. This is comparable to the English object pronoun it, except that in Pabappa there are a few dozen such morphemes corresponding to the various noun classes. This enables the object to be omitted even from some sentences in which the speaker has not recently mentioned it. Nonetheless, the object is most often named explicitly in the sentence and marked as such despite the presence of the object classifier infix on the verb.

These object classifiers could also be called verb classifiers, but most Lava Bed languages with verb classifiers have them as prefixes before the verb, priming the listener by giving contextual information before the verb is heard.

Secundative

The objects can include animates. It is possible that they will be linmuted, like in Play, to the "closest" object only, not the object that is the patient. BUT IT IS MORE LIKELY THESE OBJECTS REFER TO THE PATIENT OF THE ACTION, NOT THE INSTRUMENT, BECAUSE THEY INCLUDE PEOPLE, AND EVEN INCLUDE THE 1ST AND 2ND PERSON MARKERS.

with passive verbs

this an lead to odd situations such as -t- after passive just by itself meaning "by a hammer/saw" (heavy toolk) because it is from -nt-.

this will be an agreement morpheme. in fact perhaps ALL passive verbs should agree ith noun class of subj


if the -p is lost for 1st person passives, they would behave as actives from then on and the 1ps PAT pronoun would distinguish.

this could also mean that Play -m plsuy any word means "tree branch" wannopa etc

if the -nopa sux is detached and copied to the sub

Aspect

09:02, 21 May 2023 (PDT)

Pabappa "freezes out" Play's open-class Lava Bed aspect system by having just a few aspects corresponding to traditional grammatical aspect categories. Play had been able to use any verb as an aspect marker, similar to English constructions like "eat to exhaustion". Poswa retains this as well.

There may be irregular shortening from -s- insertion before nasals, e.g. žam > am but žasm > žamm > zm > m.

Aspwct slots

There are probably at least three aspect slots on every verb, but zero morphs are allowed, "like in a normal language". It is possible that all aspect markers are preceded by -a- since the tenses are marked by /i/ and /u/. This would be from Play /Za/, which would reflex to /a/ only some of the time, but enough to analogize from.

  • Slot 12: accepts at least -ra- "do many at once; a lot; repeat/intermit" and another one meaning repeated over time (study>learn)
  1. a, a zero morph, but appars only when other slots are filled (at least one)
  2. ra many atsonce/intermit/rpt/alot
  3. ta unknown
  4. pta unknown

These can be analyzed as consonants + /a/.

  • Slot 24: has 4 forms to do with success&difficulty. probably animate agents only, and there may be a morpheme that just indicates inanimacy rather than using a zero morph for it
  1. a zero morph (see above, /aa/ > /a/)
  2. mpa attemp, try
  3. psa try unsucc AGREEMENT MORPH
  4. pa ~ ba do with difficulty but succeed
  5. nsa try unsucc AGREEMENT MORPH (mp + ps)
  6. pta involuntary (implies success)


  • Slot 36: two statives and a cess/emph-perefcet
  1. ma stative aspect. possibly cannot occur alone
  2. ptama stative aspect. possibly implies involuntary action
  3. ri unknown (mayber wrong slot)
  4. mi cessative, emph perf ("do to completion", not "stop"). possibly inherently past tense due to -i

gender

the inherited Play gender ystsem only gives words for children: boy, girl, child, people.

adults use dunamic gender (adjs)

copula

might use transitive copula with object slots

Notes