Sarim

Sarim (Sarim: Sarim Sovat) is a language spoken in Sarmenyn, a nation on the continent of Yandras. It is a largely fusional, head-final language, displaying split-ergative morphosyntactic alignment.

Phonology

Sarim has a fairly simple phonology; it distinguishes 22 consonants and 10 vowels, as detailed below:

Consonants:

• Labial: /p b m f v/

• Alveolar: /t d n θ s z ts) r l/ <t d n th s z c r l>
• Palatal: /tɕ ɕ dʑ j/ <c̘ sh j y>
• Velar: /k g ŋ/ <k g ŋ>
• Glottal:/h/ <h>

Vowels:

/i e a ɐ ɨ o u/ <i e a ă ŭ o u

• /ai au ɐi ɐu oi ou ei eu/

<ai au ăi ău oi ou ei eu>

Allophony

-The consonants /t d n l/ are realised as dental unless adjacent to one of /s z/, which are always alveolar (and laminal).

-The rhotic /r/ is realised as a tril [r] when intervocalic or word initial. Word-finally or when adjacent to another cosnoant, it weakens to a flap [ɾ] or even an approximant [ɹ].

-/j/ is realised as the voiced palatal fricative [ʝ] word-initially.

-When stressed, all vowels are realised as longer than in unstressed syllables.

-When unstressed or in a closed syllable, /i e ɨ u o/ lower [ɪ ɛ ə ʊ ɔ], except word finally, where they are always tense.

-/a/ is realised as [æ] when unstressed, and [ɑ:] or [ɒ:] in stressed syllables.

More work needs to be done here, but I don't like Phonologies

Phonotactics

A Sarim syllable consists of an onset and a rime.

The onset may consist of any single consonant, or a cluster of Cr or Cv, with the exception that /r l j v/ may not be C, and only velars and /s/ may occur in Cv onset clusters. Zero-rimes also exist, although they are not particularly common.

The rime may consist of any single vowel, or a vowel plus one of a limited number of coda consonants. Word internally, these consonants are /t s r l h/ or a nasal at the same point of articulation as a following consonant. Word-finally, /m n ŋ/ are distinguished phonemically, /h/ may not occur, and /d θ/ do occur.

In addition, there are also rules governing which clusters may occur:

• /h/ may not occur after another consonant.
• Clusters of /lr vr/ do not occur, undergoing metathesis to /rl rv/.
• Clusters of stop+nasal undergo
• Coda /t/ may not occur before another stop.

Elision

Elision is a Sandhi feature very common in Sarim, and occurs when two vowels are neighbouring across a word boundary, e.g. 'ti omi that (he) see(s). If the two vowels are the same quality, they are realised together as a long vowel. If the two vowels are of different quality and either the first or last element is one of unstressed /e i/ or /o y/, then these are realised as [j] and [w] respectively, so /ti omi/ is realised as [tjomi]. If neither of these conditions is fulfilled, and one of the words involved is a grammatical particle, that particle looses its vowel, which orthographically is represented by replacing the vowel grapheme with an apostrophe. If the two words are lexical words, and removing the final vowel of the first one would not create an illegal consonant cluster, it may be dropped, indicated orthographically by replacing the vowel with an apostrophe. If none of these conditions are met, no change is made.

Stress and Pitch Accent

-Sarim syllables are moraic.

• An open syllable whith a monophthong counts as one mora.
• A consonant rime with a monophthong, or an open rime with a diphthong, counts as two morae.
• A consonant rime with a diphthong counts as three morae.

Stress is regulary on the final syllable, unless the last syllable is a possessive affix on a nounor person inflection on a verb, where the stress is on the penultimate. Pitch accent falls in the antepenultimate mora of a word (or leftmost mora if a word has two or one morae). Stress is realised with an increase in volume and length, pitch accent with a raising of pitch. Any syllable immediately preceding an accented syllable (even across word boundaries) receives a rising tone, whilst any syllable after an accented syllable receives falling tone. Stressed syllables which do not receive pitch accent are realised as low or falling, whilst a stressed syllable immediately proceeding the pitch-accented syllable has a rising-falling tone. If a stressed syllable occurs between two accented syllables, it is mid-high. If two accented syllables are adjacent, the first one is realised as rising tone.

/jɑ́'trɤ̄ɥs/ /sā'rĩ:m sō'và:t/ /kōjù'na:/

Where /a/ = /a11/, /á/ = /a13/, /à/ = /a31/, /ă/ = /a312/, /ā/ = /a33/, and /ã/ = /a22/

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Nominal Morphology

Sarim nouns are declined for three cases and three numbers. To show how examples of allomorphy and how the various suffixes are formed, four sample noun stems shall be used: dŭn ; man maze; house ; Sarm; Sarim aprah; child

The Absolutive form is the same as the stem, with the exception that consonant stems ending in two consonants have an additional epenthetic /i/ inserted between the two consonants in this form, and stems ending in -h lose their final consonant: dŭn, maze, sarim, apra.

The Oblique is identical to the Absolutive if the noun ends in a vowel or -h. Otherwise, -ă is suffixed.

dŭnă, maze, sarmă,apra

The Genitive is formed with -n if a noun ends in a vowel and -en if it ends in a consonant. -h stem nouns lose their vowel and take -n. If the last syllable of the stem contains /n/, then the genitive morpheme dissimilates to -m

dŭnem, mazen. sarmen, apran

The plural is formed with -t for all stems, with an epenthetic -a- inserted afterconsonant stems:

dŭnat, mazet, sarmat, 'aprahat

Before the oblique and genitive inflections, the -a of the plural morpheme is lost:

dŭntă dŭntem; mazetă, mazeten; aprahtă, aprahten

The nullar is a more recent innovation; it is formed with -(e)l after the case inflection. The nullar genitive is -nde. -h stems have a nullar objective in -hel.

dŭnel, dŭnăl, dŭnende; mazel, mazel, mazende; sarmel, sarmal, sarmende; apral, aprahel, aprande

Pronouns

Sarim 1P, 2P, 3P and 4P animate pronouns are inflected for nominative, accusative, oblique and genitive cases. The 3P and 4P inanimate pronouns are inflected for absolutive, oblique, and genitive cases.

1P Singular - Plural:

• NOM:na - nan
• ACC:năm - nam
• OBL:nat - nenta
• GEN:nem - neman

2P singular - plural:

• NOM:ath - eda
• ACC:enda - adan
• OBL:ath - adan
• GEN:atham - alyam

3P(animate) singular - plural:

• NOM:ko - kor
• ACC:kam - karyn
• OBL:kor - koda
• GEN:kom - koram

4P(animate) singular - plural:

• NOM:ri - rede
• ACC:rem - riden
• OBL:ride - rădat
• GEN:rem - riyem

The third and fourth person inanimate pronouns are ka and ri respectively. They are inflected like normal nouns, with the exception that their oblique singular forms are kai and rŭ respectively.

Possessive Clitics

These appear on nouns after any case or number inflections:

1PS:-an 1PP:-ane 2PS:-alh 2PP:-eda 3PS:-a 3PP:-ar 4PS:-ar 4PP:-ara

If the noun in question ends in a vowel, the vowel of the possessive affix is elided, except for -a, which becomes -ya e.g. mazene our house, otaya his father, yatrenamane of our town.

Verbal Morphology

Compared to nouns, Sarim verbs are more richly inflected. The bare form of the verb is the stem. There are two verb classes in Sarim, stems ending in vowels, e.g. kară- use,make,do and consonant stems, e.g. sov- speak.

The first "slot" of the possible verbal suffixes is occupied by the negative marker -l- after a vowel stem and -e- after a consonant stem. If the verb is affirmative then no morpheme is required.

Next come the mood markers. Sarim distinguishes two moods: realis and irrealis. The realis is the default mood. The irrealis is formed with -i- if it follows a consonant, and -ye if it follows a vowel.

There is one infinite verb form in Sarim, the verbal noun. If the verbal noun morpheme appears following a consonant, it is -ŏ. If it appears after a vowel then it has the allomorph /0/. Any potential verb form may be made into a verbal noun, e.g. mathidŏ play-IRR-PERF-VRB.NOUN maybe having played. The possessive clitics may be used on a verbal noun construction, but not the person verbal clitics, e.g. sovŏn my speaking, not *sovanŏ. The verbal noun may also receive case inflections:

• nidŏnane yatrenă tos ya phŭrjan karyo
• be-PERF-VRB.NOUN-GEN-1PP town-OBL to at have-INC-1PS hunger
• I started to get hungry when we arrived in town

Syntax

Theta-roles in Sarim

Sarim shows Ergative alignment. This means that Sarim treats the sole argument of an intransitive verb (S) and the patient of a transitive verb (P) the same, and marks the agent of a transitive verb (A) differently. However, the animate pronouns show nominative alignment, as found in English and most other European languages. Sarim is therefore a split-ergative language.

Sarim ditransitive verbs show dative alignment; the theme (what is given) is marked as absolutive, whilst the receiver is marked as Dative.

Sarim Words

The basic divide in Sarim is between lexical and grammatical words.

• Lexical words are any words referring to an object, state, or action
• Grammatical words show function or position, or modify meaning.