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'''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 extent. It 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.
:''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.    


'''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.
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==
==Phonology==
The phonology consists of five vowels: /a e i o u/, and ten consonants: /p m s b l w r t d n/. If /w/ is analyzed as an allophone of /u/, there are only nine consonants, which rivals but does not quite beat the smallness of the phonology of Late Andanese. For comparison, Bābākiam had four vowels (/a i u ə/) and 11 consonants (/p b m f t n s š ž k ŋ/; note that /w j/ were considered allophones of the vowels), while Poswa has six vowels and 29 consonants. All words are accented on the initial syllable, even if they are very long. About 42% of words in the dictionary begin with /p/, which is also the most common consonant in other positions. 
===Consonants===
 
The consonants are
Vowel proportions are as follows: '''a''' 42.3%, '''e''' 7.4%, '''i''' 20.4%, '''o''' 10.0%, '''u''' 20.0%.
 
Bilabials:   p m b w
Consonant proportions are as follows: '''p''' 32.5%, '''m''' 12.6%, '''s''' 11.2%, '''b''' 11.0%, '''l''' 7.5%, '''r''' 7.3%, '''n''' 6.3%, '''t''' 5.6%, '''w''' 3.9%, '''d''' 2.0%. The sound /d/ occurs in native words only between vowels, and never as a geminate. Not surprisingly, words with /p/ as the only consonant are common:
  Coronals:    t  n  d  l s
*'''pupupopa''' "umbrella"
  Dorsals:              r
*'''pipapi''' A state within Padempim (earlier known as Pipaippis)
*'''pepupop''' "to dream"
*'''pupapap''' "to cry"
*'''pipipi''' "municipal, city-level government"
*'''papapa''' "to squirm, slither"
But verbal inflections use /p/ very rarely (only in the subjunctive), leading to a less extreme balance in overall text. For example:
:'''Pampa pupapasi.'''
::The baby cried.
changes the final ''-p'' in '''pupapap''' "cry" into an ''-s-''. This is due to an old sound change where ''p'' in some positions changed to ''f'' (as it still is in [[Poswa verbs|Poswa]]) and then to ''s''. 
 
Additionally, around 800 years ago Pabappa underwent a different sound change whereby /p/ between vowels changed to /b/. Previously there had been even more use of /p/ in the language.  At this time the language was called Papapfa.  Most occurences of geminate /pp/ in modern Pabappa go back to clusters of dissimilar consonants such as /pf/.


If /w/ is considered an allophone of /u/, then /u/ is the only vowel that can occur in sequences, as other sequences such as /oo/ are shortened to singles in compounds.
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.


===Stress and division of compounds===
===Vowels===
:''See [[Pabappa nouns]].''
The vowel inventory is /a e i o u/, and this is the native Pabappa alphabet order as well.
As in its ancestor [[Babakiam]], and its sister languages such as [[Poswa]], all words in Pabappa are stressed on the initial syllable.  There are no exceptions to this rule, although function words such as pronouns are generally pronounced with less obvious stress than content words such as nouns and verbs.


Pabappa has some very long words, both nouns and verbs:
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/.


:'''Pop pampapubisi.'''
==Nouns==
::We've remarried.
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.


:'''Mas apsemabablesa?'''
==Verbs==
::Do you give up?
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 popapimpemip islosa sipompi.'''
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.
::I bought a new chair.


However, in Pabappa, sometimes compounds are broken up into two separate pieces, even if they are thought of as a unit by the speakers.   
===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.   


For example, the common word for weather is '''pubomblap''', a compound of ''pubom'' "top" and ''blap'' "sky".  Thus, it means "the sky (on) top".  (Not "the top of the sky", which would be ''*blapubom''.) When pronounced as a single word, the commonly perceived meaning is "weather". However, it would still be acceptable in Pabappa to say '''pubom blap''', pronouncing the compound as two separate words, and still intend the meaning "weather".  It would merely be more ambiguous whether you were talking about the weather or simply the uppermost visible layer of the sky from which the weather pours down.
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.)


In general, the only compounds which cannot be broken up in this way are those in which one element of the compound is ambiguous as a standalone word.  The Pabappa word '''tappibup''' means "pear (fruit)".  This word is a compound because historically the Pabaps considered pears to be simply a kind of apple, namely the ''pup'' kind. (The change of ''-p-'' to ''-b-'' is due to a sound rule.) but one cannot say ''*tappi pup'' for "pear" because in this compound, the morpheme ''pup'' is no longer meaningful on its own, since it occurs with this meaning only in this word.
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.


===Historical sound changes===
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.
====The sound change champions====
Examples of sound changes:
*'''pepupop''' "dream", from ''fīp bubaešep žeše''
*'''rasumptam''' "frog", from ''vaipa babu bem žeptam''
*'''pulta-''' "to drink", from ''beiyabaup mibeas'' "to destroy thirst"
*'''wisi''' "pornography", from ''žužu žišafu''; compare the almost unchanged Poswa cognate ''žužužišaf''
*'''pumpassi''' "knee", from ''buba map pasi pi''
*'''popa''' "mermaid", from ''tūpbayaba''; however, this word is obsolete as a standalone morpheme


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.


Note that these words exclude inflected forms, which would make the contrasts even starker.  For example, the possessive suffix ''-i'' comes from the combination of an early Pabappa inflected form of a noun followed by a  suffix such as ''bā'', later ''baba'' (all of the suffixes merged as ''-i'').  Thus, since a noun already ending in ''-i'' is its own possessive, it could be said that the word for knee actually comes from ''buba map pasi pi bā''.  But since this would work for all nouns, it does not set some nouns apart from others, and thus is not considered part of the "championship".
====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.'''


====The many ways to /p/====
====with passive verbs====
Pabappa can derive /p/ from many unexpected paths, especially at the beginning or end of a word.  Below are some examples of Pabappa words that begin with or contain /p/ that developed from other consonants in the parent language [[Babakiam]]. Note that the spelling in the first word in each chain is in Babakiam's Romanization, which uses ''v'' for /w/ and ''e'' for /ə/.  Also, the Englsh translations given are those for the modern Pabappa words, and do not always match the meaning of the original Babakiam word. To keep the chains short, some steps are skipped:
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-.


*'''p''': [this is the regular outcome]
this will be an agreement morpheme.
*'''b''': ''bižip'' "suds, bubbles, foam" > bižep > biep > '''piep''' [this is the regular outcome in initial position]
in fact
*'''m''':  ''bismibu'' "to crash, collide, bump into" > besmibu > bemibu > bemeby > bemʲy > bevy > beb > '''pep'''
perhaps ALL passive verbs should agree ith noun class of subj
*'''f''': ''fip bubaešep'' >>> '''pepup'''
*'''t''': ''tuepbebaus'' "wheel" > twybbybos > pwybbybos > pubbybos > pubbibos > pobbibos > pobbos > poppos > poppo > '''popo'''
*'''n''':
*'''s''': ''sevi'' "sleep flower" > syre > sʷre > fre > pre > '''pe''' (in '''pepta''')
*'''š''': [probably no match, but it did generate /pš/ partway through before losing the /p/ again]
*'''ž''': [look for a word whose Babakiam form ends in ''žu'']
*'''k''':
*'''ŋ''': ''ŋuŋe'' "fat, blubber, weight" > gugy > gugi > žuži > vuvi > fuvi > '''pubi'''


==Grammar==
Unlike Poswa, Pabappa has a copula verb, ''pip'', which means that "good ice cream" and "the ice cream is good" are different sentences. 


===Nouns===
if the -p is lost for 1st person passives, they would behave as actives from then on and the 1ps PAT pronoun would distinguish.
:''See [[Pabappa nouns]].''
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.


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


===Verbs===
if the -nopa sux is detached and copied to the sub
:''See [[Pabappa verbs]].
Pabappa verbs are again similar to those of Poswa, but much simpler.  Verbs 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===
===Aspect===
*'''Blumpurpum pesaunamap piliblilabi.''' "the children walked across the frozen lake".
:09:02, 21 May 2023 (PDT)
*'''Pom map peminiba.''' "I hear you."
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.
*'''Pom pempomop peminiba.''' "I can hear the sea."
*'''Wipambi wapibup pisa.''' "The palm tree is tall."


==Obscene and profane language==
There may be irregular shortening from -s- insertion before nasals, e.g. žam > am but žasm > žamm > zm > m.
Pabappa's approach to obscene and profane language resembles that of its neighbor, [[Poswa]]. However, while Poswa could be analyzed as entirely lacking obscene words, in Pabappa it is more common to say that the obscene vocabulary lacks the sharp bite that comes with such words in most other languages.  
===Obscene language===
Pabappa's vocabulary of obscene words is mild by comparison to its neighbors, but not entirely absent as in Poswa. One commonly heard word is '''popop'''. An angry young child saying
:'''  ''Popopop'' pobumpu!'''
::Eat ''crap''!


May catch the notice of adults in the room, but such speech would not be considered out of character or deserving of punishment.  Nevertheless, toddlers and young children are more likely to use words like ''popop'' and its derivatives than to use terms for sexual intercourse or other things not commonly accessible to young children.  ''Popop'' has many variants with little difference in meaning.  For example, '''popopa''', which has the "of humans" suffix ''-a'', is considered to be simply a synonym of ''popop''.  Because the suffix consists of a single vowel, it is entirely eliminated when the possessive suffixes are added and therefore merges with the word from which it is derived.  Another variant is '''puppop''', which means etymologically "pile of poop".
====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.


;Urine
*'''Slot 12''':  accepts at least -ra- "do many at once; a lot; repeat/intermit" and another one meaning repeated over time (study>learn)
The word for urine, '''wupu''', is not considered particularly forceful, despite the fact that it is homophonous with one of the words for pain.  '''Wupu''' can even substitute as a euphemism for ''popop'' "poop, crap, shit" in some contexts, regardless of whether or not it makes sense semantically:
#'''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


:'''Poma ''wupuba''!'''<ref>Note, this is homophonous with "pain".  Perhaps the word for pain needs a ''-p'' suffix.</ref>
These can be analyzed as consonants + /a/.
::I ''pee on'' you!


===References to sex and violence===
*'''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
====Obscene terms for sex and sexual activity====
#'''a''' zero morph (see above, /aa/ > /a/)
Adults are more likely than young children to use references to sex in their sentences.  The verb '''lana''' "to have sex" is used in everyday speech with little elicited reaction from the listener, so '''puppupu''' "rape" is more common in aggressive speech.  Another synonym for sexual intercourse is '''pussini'''.<ref>Consider tying this together with ''pussi'' below even though the two words are not related.</ref>
#'''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)


The nouns '''pumapi''' "penis" and '''pumblara''' "vagina" are also in common use, and can function as verbs indicating sexual roles.  Oddly, there are many synonyms for these words, but few are in widespread use, because what are today the primary terms were originally euphemisms that only recently drove out the words they were created to replace.  Nevertheless, many Pabaps are familiar with terms such as '''pamblara''', '''paru''', '''pau''', '''warbi''', '''ronni''', '''passar''', and '''nilim''', all of which mean "vagina".  These words can be used as interjections, with little regard to context or literal meaning, as general expressions of frustration.  This is more common than encountering them used literally.  Any of the terms not already ending in ''-a'' can additionally take the meaningless body part suffix '''-a'''; with this suffix on, ''pau'' becomes '''pawa'''.


The original terms for penis and vagina, '''nopop''' and '''lara''', are rarely encountered today.  (''Lara'' originally meant "legs", and was itself a euphemism for an earlier term '''pip'''.)  There are also more specific terms such as '''pella''' "vaginal labia", but these are not widely considered obscene and have not developed euphemistic replacements.  '''Pimmi''' "clitoris" is another word which can be used either in a literal sense or as an expression of frustration, but is not generally considered obscene in and of itself.


The number of alternative terms for the penis is much smaller: '''noppana''', '''nampa''', '''nini'''.  Thus, ''n-'' has come to be considered a masculine-sounding consonant in Pabappa to some extent, despite historically being associated with feminine words.  None of these words are considered obscene, and so none appear commonly in aggressive speech; they are better considered as slang terms rather than obscenities.
*'''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


For the buttocks, there are several competing words, such as '''pupop''', '''pussi''', '''pupi''', '''pubia''', and '''pumpa''', with little difference in meaning.  The similarity in sound of these many words is primarily due to coincidence, as they are not actually cognates, except for ''pubia'' and ''pumpa''.
===gender===
the inherited Play gender ystsem only gives words for children: boy, girl, child, people.  


'''Menstruation''' is also highly taboo, and euphemisms exist for the process as well as associated words such as '''pallasa''' "tampon" which may be acceptable in some contexts and not in others.
adults use dunamic gender (adjs)
 
====Categorization of obscene words in different speech registers====
In most social circles, males are forbidden to use the word '''palla''' "to menstruate" in the presence of females of any age.  This taboo also extends to words derived from ''palla'', such as '''pallasa''' "tampon".  Instead, men are allowed to use euphemisms such as '''wapti''' "to face away" and '''bala''' "(to be) human".  That is to say, experiencing menstruation is seen as a defining characteristic of being human, but is generally hidden from sight.
 
Women also sometimes use euphemisms for menstruation, but only rarely do they use the same terms that men use.  Pabappa has three different word stems with the same meaning, of which is '''palla''' is considered the true word and the others are considered gentler.  The second most common word root is '''pappadep''', which is a distant cognate of ''wapti'' "to face away".  A variant of this is '''pappadap''', which has the additional body part suffix ''-a'' before the reflexive marker ''-p''.  Both verbs are always reflexive.  Thus one can say
:'''Blalola ''pappadesa''.'''
::The girl ''is menstruating''.
 
The third word stem is '''nappupap'''.  This is historically a compound of ''nap'' "menstruation" and ''wupa'' "process, series of events", with the reflexive marker ''-p'' stuck on the end, but neither of these morphemes is used in modern Pabappa independently.  ''Nap'' contributed the word '''napsi''' "tampon", which is homophonous with the word for "arrow (weapon)" and therefore considered more acceptable to use in mixed company than the standard word ''pallasa''.
 
:'''Publipis wurpomusup suppabi ''napsil''.'''
::The soldier defeated the spy ''with her arrows''.
 
However, ''napsi'' is actually a loanword from Poswa.  A variant of this stem is ''nara'', which collided with the word for "to hug" and thus fell from use.  Nevertheless, some Pabaps still speak of menstruation using the euphemism '''narap''' "to hug oneself".
 
====Use of verbs and complete sentences with obscene vocabulary====
The above words show that what little capacity for obscene speech that Pabappa provides is mostly focused on use of nouns.  Verbs and complete sentences are rarely used.  A complete sentence may actually sound more forceful than a simple interjection, but would not necessarily be considered more obscene or otherwise objectionable.  For example,
 
:'''Mas pastidip lanaba!'''
::You have sex with your dog!
 
Is considered far more offensive than a single-word insult such as '''pumapi''' "penis", even though it uses the most neutral term for sexual intercourse that the language possesses.
 
Male homosexuality is openly practiced and encouraged among the Pabaps, although it is actually less common than among Poswobs and other cultures further north.
 
====Terms for violent acts====
Pabaps have traditionally been a very pacifistic people, and have neither invaded nor been invaded by a foreign nation in more than a thousand years.  They are very peaceful internally too, with one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world.  Thus, terms for violence often bring to mind an unrealistic, even comical aspect, as few people hearing a shouted threat such as
 
:'''Nubes<ref>not in dictionary; derive this from ''nə < nùi'' "stand, believe"</ref> poma ''pipibu''!'''
::I ''will kill'' you!
 
Would have any reason to worry.
 
Few Pabaps own dangerous weapons, so most people associate violence and bloodshed with encountering natural objects such as sharp thorns on bushes and the teeth of animals more so than with manmade objects such as knives and spears.  To some extent, however, these natural objects are associated with pain because they are uncontrollable by man, whereas Pabap society has a whole has had their own temptation to misuse weapons under control for quite some time.  Anything with a sharp point can be used as an expression of pain, whether or not it describes a literal encounter.
 
===Euphemisms for obscene concepts===
As Pabappa's repertoire of obscene vocabulary is mild, it has developed few euphemisms.  One of the few in common use is '''papsu''' "sticky, adhesive", which replaces ''popop''.  Another option is to say '''pepara''' "soil of humans", or, commonly, just '''pepar''' "soil".  All of these words are generally used as substitutes for ''popop'' only in a literal sense, as a sentence like
 
:'''  ''Pepir'' pommisu!'''
::Bathe yourself ''with soil''!
 
Would sound about as meaningful as its literal English translation, and not be perceived as aggressive.  Likewise, using ''papsu'' would bring to mind the mental image of a person taking a bath in a tub of glue.  Instead whenever a metaphorical meaning is intended, it is more common for a speaker seeking a euphemism to instead substitute a word for an entirely different thing, often choosing '''wupu''' "urine". 
 
For the buttocks, there is also a euphemism '''wapiba''', literally meaning "curve".  There is also a cover-all term '''pup''' "genitals, belly, crotch", used when a speaker does not want to be too specific, but this is considered too vague to be even a mild obscenity.
 
The words for penis and vagina were originally euphemisms, which only recently drove out the original words inherited from the parent language.  This is why Pabappa lacks convenient euphemisms for these words despite having euphemisms for the buttocks, generally considered a less obscene part of the body.
 
===Profane language===
By contrast, '''blasphemy''' is strictly taboo, and this taboo has extended to other religions adopted by the Pabaps throughout time.
 
 
===Slang vocabulary===
Pabappa also does not have a large corpus of slang terms that are confined to informal usage.
 
== Dialects ==
Historically Pabappa was divided into two main dialects: '''Piris Pabappa''', or "Blonde Pabappa", centered in the city of Paba, and '''Tarpabappa''', "Tara Pabappa", which encompassed everything else (''Tara'' was an ethnic name).  Tarpabappa really is not close enough to be considered a dialect, but it was grouped with Pabappa for political purposes. 
 
Genetically, Blonde Pabaps had more in common with the Poswob Empire to their north than with the so-called Tarpabaps, and their hair color was evidence of that.  But Poswobs had little interest in Paba and considered them at best a rival in the goal of peaceful domination of the world.  In the year 7414, Blop launched a "pacifist war" called '''Poblwopab''' against Paba, and installed many Poswob governors in the rural areas of the empire, and the Tarpabaps mostly came to identify as Poswobs and gave up their language, leaving only Piris Pabappa.  Thus, while both the Pabaps and the Poswobs identify themselves as blonde people living in empires with dark-haired and dark-skinned people mixed within them, the Poswobs in Paba are primarily dark people.
 
 
== Culture ==
===History===
:''For history from 1700 AD to 6000 AD, see [[Babakiam]].''
Pabappa is the language of a people who have not moved their capital city (Paba) for the last 7000 years.  In the year 4200, it was just one of many small cities that were the capitals of independent empires, but Paba is the one that "won" ... not a war, but a peaceful struggle for economic and thus imperial domination that lasted a further 1500 years.  From about 5500 onward, Paba was the unquestioned capital of the Padempim empire, but northern extensions of the empire which had broken away were beginning to outgrow the more compact and tightly controlled southern states.  But even so, the dialects of these northern states were derived entirely from the dialect of Pabappa, not those of previously competitive rival cities such as Lunila.
 
====Bammam Pampobapi====
Bammam Pampobapi, "the War of the Toe", was an event that happened late in history when sailors from the empire of Falo invaded the southwest corner of the Pabap Empire by ship in order to claim more land for themselves.  They anticipated an easy victory because many of the people in Bamma were already immigrants from Falo and the Pabaps in that area held no particular animosity for them. Moreover, the next state over was "majority-minority" and the Faloans felt it would be a barrier for Pabap soldiers that would help Falo more than it would hurt.  But the Poswobs found out about the invasion and sent reinforcements over the mountains to help.  However, the natives of Bamma did not like being used as a battleground for two warring empires, neither of which seemed to care how many Pabaps died.  They figured that the Faloans would not want to kill them, and at worst would make them slaves.  And so the Pabaps, under the command of a woman named Papsada, actually switched sides and helped the Faloans, bringing the war to a quick end with a victory for Falo.  However the Faloan pirates did not actually act on behalf of Falo and thus did not attach their newfound land to Falo; they merely became the new rulers of it, and it remained nominally inside the Poswob Empire so that it could still be protected by the treaty from invasion by yet another power.
 
Note that this invasion actually took place in [[Subumpam]]ese territory, but it had been turned over peacefully to Paba even though Subumpam had defeated Paba in a war not long before.  Both Subumpam and Paba were so strongly pacifist that Subumpam didn't complain about the sudden switch of control from Subumpam's capital (Blop) to Paba's capital (Biospum, but usually just called Paba).
 
===Modern cultural traits===
The Pabaps are pacifist feminist nudist vegetarian environmentalists. They symbolize these five tenets with a five pointed star (''tatsa pabi'') which gives the empire's primary political party its name: '''Tatsapabiusa'''.  This logo is sometimes also called a Peace Sphere (''moromadup''), and was not invented by the Pabaps, but rather taken from the indigenous Moonshine people inhabiting the mountains to their north. 
 
The idea behind the image is that the sphere is a bubble protecting humans from all evil and painful things, and the five points of the star symbolize the human body (arm, leg, leg, arm, head).  However the Pabaps have found danger even in that imagery, saying that the symbol could be seen as a human trapped inside an egg or crushed against a round object.  Thus they prefer to think of the five points of the star not as human limbs but as five pillars denoting their philosophy:
 
*'''Pacifism''': Pabaps cannot attack anyone at any time in any place for any reason.  They cannot defend themselves against wild animals in their homes, or against being robbed while out on the street, or even when they're in a foreign land.    They cannot own or manufacture weapons beyond the simple wooden knives they use to cut fruit and some hard furniture to sit on which is mostly too heavy to use as a weapon. In contrast to the Poswobs, and indeed, all of the other pacifist nations in the world, they reject the idea that violence in self defense is sometimes necessary for survival.  They have survived for 4000 years without being conquered by enemies for several reasons:
::* They are poor, and not many enemies would want to conquer them anyway, 
::*most of the immediately adjacent tribes are pacifists too, so they're sort of a buffer,
::*Paba itself is a walled city;
::*Despite being on the mainland, there are tall mountains surrounding the Pabaps on three sides, and so the only way to get in is from the east (where the Saks live) or by ocean;
::*and there are plenty of other natural dangers such as wild animals keeping others out.  However these animals have sometimes turned against the humans, and there are cases of lone animals such as pigs eating dozens of humans who had nothing to defend themselves with.
*'''Feminism''': Women should be in control of men, because women are more morally pure than men.  This does not mean that men are slaves, just that they are best kept under the watch of a woman, be it their wife, their girlfriend, or a sort of religious advisor. "Police" watch the cities so thickly that the whole state feels like an oversized elementary school, with people asking the police for permissions to do simple things such as staying out alone at night to reach a relative's house on the other side of town. There is a group of police called the "people of the night" (''pasapta'') who are the only ones allowed to be outdoors after dark.  The police are usually men because they are seen as being better able to handle physical threats.  (The ultra-feminist Pabaps feel that true feminism means that although nobody should ever have to fight, if there is no alternative, men should be the ones doing it.)  Just like everyone else, Paba's police are weaponless, but they tend to be people who are stronger than average.
*'''Nudism''' In the distant past Pabaps spent lots of money on clothes.  The Poswobs still do, but the Pabaps dont because it's against the law to wear clothes unless absolutely necessary (such as in mountain areas when it gets cold).  Thus it is impossible to rob someone, since they cannot carry money or anything else that they could give.
*'''Vegetarianism''' Hand in hand with pacifism comes the ideal that Pabaps, being human, should not be eating animals even if they find animals who had died of natural causes with no human effort.  Even an animal that died of natural causes is taboo.  The ideal diet consists entirely of fruits and vegetables with not even little insects added in.  Those, they say, who eat meat are cursing themselves into a life of disease. 
*'''Environmentalism''' This word is difficult to translate, since the level of technology is so low and the human population so small that Pabaps would not have to worry about things such as deforestation and environmental pollution even if they tried their hardest to destroy the world around them.  Instead this fifth pillar of their belief system states that humans should stay within their natural "habitats", within which they can do anything they want, but they should never even venture outside even with peaceful intentions unless they are sure they will not be intruding on some other animals' living space.  Thus there are no roads in the woods, or bridges across lakes, etc. in Pabap territory.  This makes the city difficult to reach and adds to their protection.
 
Their culture is an extreme example of a pacifist hyper-egalitarian society, in which people are not allowed to be violent even towards dangerous animals, women are in control of men, and people wear no clothes, not to show their beauty or to be closer to nature, but because people had historically used expensive clothes to show their social status and Pabaps wanted to prevent that from happening again.  (It stops them from carrying concealed weapons as well, although in reality, nudism is only mandatory in summer, because even though Paba is at 28N and has a climate similar to the US Gulf coast, it can get quite chilly in winter.) They also do not share the Poswob opposition to homosexuality or abortion, or the seemingly paradoxical traits of Poswob pacifism such as trapping and starving snakes so that they would be "fresh" when the Poswobs were ready to eat. To a Western eye, they might seem to be a parody of modern Western liberalism, except for the fact that they generally have strong religious beliefs and see all their traits as "conservative" from the point of view of their religion.  On the other hand, these traits are mostly just social attitudes, in contrast to the Poswob empire, where similar "pacifist/feminist" ideas have proven unstable and need to be enforced by strict government regulations, often tied to the religion.
 
To a citizen of Earth the Pabap culture seems very emasculated; and many of the other cultures on the planet Tebbala would agree.  But it should be noted that in a society with so little technology as this, everyday life was full of physically demanding tasks, and that there were essentially no healthy men who did not have to perform at least some athletic work to get by each day, even people with positions such as politicians.  This is due to the prevalent egalitarian ideology which states that no human (or animal) should be forced to be a servant for another, even if that other person's time could be more productively spent working on non-physical tasks.
 
On a different mindset, Pabaps might say that having a large family is a sign of masculinity, and though not everyone had large families, many did, such that throughout history the Pabaps have been constantly expanding out of their homeland as it became overcrowded (at least by the standards of Tebbala), and moving into places where humans could barely survive.  See [[Pabap culture]] for more info.
 
Since the Pabap homeland (called "Pabi Padempim" or "Isiblol") is governed by the Poswob empire, things such as abortion and homosexuality that have been ruled illegal in the central government are technically illegal here as well.  But because of the technology (comparable to medieval Europe at best) there is no feasible way to enforce these laws, and in any case the central government has far greater problems to worry about, such as the huge holes in its territory inhabited by openly hostile armies who do not even allow the Poswob governors to visit, let alone enforce the laws.  But even so, the central government has occasionally launched civil wars against the rebellious Pabaps, figuring that it would be safer to attack a weak ally than a strong enemy.  The Pabap term for this is ''pampobapi'', meaning "war", since it is the only form of war they know of.
 
== Geography ==
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 areas.  Even though by doing so they are giving up their citizenship, for many emigrant families, this seemed like the right thing to do.


===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

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