Hantic

Author's Note:

The Hantic language I've been working on for the last ten years has been shelved in favor of its redevelopment through a series of progenitor languages thanks to the diachronitis I contracted by hanging out (lurking more than posting) on the ZBB. This Hantic site will for the time being focus on the earliest version of the language: Proto-Hantic.

Proto-Hantic Background

Hantic, even in the context of the conworld, is not a natural language. It was specifically and intentionally created, supposedly by a certain mythical denizen of the conworld, the Hant. In other words, it is a con-conlang. In con-worldish actuality, it was created by a charlatan who associated his language with the name of the Hant in order to deceive his students into believing he was in possession of arcane knowledge -- so Proto-Hantic could even be described as a con-con-conlang.

Proto-Hantic is a pseudo-philosophical constructed language based on a system of 400 consonantal pairs, each of which, when realized through the six vowels, yields a collection of roots that are related by morphology and by the "attributes" the consonantal pair supposedly encodes. The system was never intended to be taxonomic or derivationally productive -- it was intended merely to give the illusion of systematicity. The ascription of meaning to the 2400 roots was both arbitrary and pragmatic: it yielded the necessary terms for using the language as a pseudo-system of magical incantation, but it did not provide a complete lexicon for use in everyday life. Generally speaking, among the six roots from each consonant pair there was usually one verbal root, an adjectival or adverbial root, and a number of nominal roots, though the specific realization depended on the idiosyncrasies of the language creator. Later attempts at reconstructing the "system" of vowel alternation will create competing, and hotly debated, theories about the "ablaut" system of the earliest instantiations of the Hantic language.

Proto-Hantic, despite its ignoble and deceitful beginnings, will eventually (after about 3000 years of development) evolve into the premier literary and artistic language of the Talliscine civilization, my principal concivilization.

NB: ANY of the inflections presented below are subject to immediate revision based upon whether I think sound-change alterations are resulting in phonologies for descendant languages that I like. As George W. Bush is wont to say, "I am the decider", so sayeth the conlanger.

Proto-Hantic Phonology

Phonological Inventory:

• Plosives: /p b t_d d_d t d k g/ < p b td dd t d k g >
• Fricatives: /f v T D s z x G/ <f v th dh s z x gh>
• Nasals: /m n/ <m n>
• Liquids: /l r/ <l r>
• Vowels: /a e i o u y/ <a e i o u y>

NB: The orthography here is merely for my own benefit in attempting to read what I am creating. Proto-Hantic was originally written with a logographic writing system that I have not invented yet. Compound words are separated in this orthography by a hyphen, so this orthography does not present ambiguities with medial consonant clusters in compounds.

Vowel Harmony: Vowel harmony is both progressive and regressive. Based upon the vowel of the root, the vowels of prefixes and affixes will align along a front/back axis. Vowel harmony is broken in compounded roots -- prefixes will align with the first root and suffixes will align with the second.

• Front vowels: [i] and [y]

• Back vowels: [o] and [u]
• Neutral vowels: [e] and [a]

Where an affix does not have a prescribed neutral vowel, the vowel of the affix is [o] for back-vowel roots, [i] for front-vowel roots, [e] for [e]-roots, and [a] for [a]-roots.

Syllable Structure: strictly (C)V(C)

In principle, any consonant may articulate against any other consonant within compounds or across word boundaries. Allophony is not being considered in the phonology of the protolanguage because I am assuming that the first stimuli for sound-change into descendant dialects will be allophonic compensations for natural difficulties with consonant clusters within compounds and across word boundaries.

Prosody: The language is pragmatically stress-timed with regular stress placed on the root, or in the case of compounds, on the second root. Prosodic stress will (I think) also provide a plausible instigation for sound change, both in stressed and non-stressed segments.

Morphosyntactic Alignment

Strict ergative morphological and syntactic alignment, (as purely ergative as I can make it).

NB: It is my intention that the MSA will also evolve during the development of the language, possibly developing a split- then fluid-S system, and ultimately a system that has both ergative-absolutive and nomitive-accusative features.

Core Cases:

• Absolutive: sole argument of intransitives, object of transitives, theme of ditransitives
• Ergative: subject of transitives and ditransitives
• Dative: recipient of ditransitives

Oblique Cases:

• Locative
• Genitive
• Ablative
• Instrumental
• Vocative

Word order is generally VSO, but due to the case system, it is relatively free. (I am sort-of assuming that this particular case system will break down fairly quickly, but I don't yet have a rationale for why.) Adverbial phrase order is Time-Manner-Place, and these phrases are generally sentence final, though time adverbials will often precede the verb. My intent is that the ultimate literary language will have a strict, even rigid, OSV word order.

Nominal Morphology

Noun Classes:

• Animate: (intelligent, supernatural, animal, natural forces)
• Non-animate: (vegetable and inanimate material)

NB: Only the animate class may take the ergative case in the protolanguage. (This distinction will eventually be entirely lost, probably.)

Number/Definiteness Inflections:

• Singular/Indef: -s
• Singular/Def: -0
• Plural/Indef: -n
• Plural/Def: -k

NB: Nominal roots are inflected first for number and definiteness. Case inflections are then added to the resulting stem. The vocative is "additive" and can be combined with all of the other cases except the ergative. When there is the requirement that the vocative and ergative be combined, the fusional prefix is "gho-".

Case Inflections:

• Absolutive: -0
• Ergative: de-
• Dative: -em
• Genitive: -en
• Locative: -t
• Ablative: -r
• Instrumental: -p
• Vocative: va-

Verbal Morphology

Verbal Inflection: Verbs conjugate for person, number, and aspect. Verbal agreement for person and number is with the absolutive argument. (This peculiar agreement will probably remain throughout the evolution of the language.)

NB: Verbal roots are inflected first for person and number. Aspectual and mood inflections are then added to the resulting stem. Vowel harmony is observed also in verbal inflection.

Person: The persons are the standard 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. It is always understood, however, that the "magical" invoker is the 1st person, the "magically" invoked is the 2nd, and the 3rd is anything peripheral to the relationship between the invoker and invoked. There is no method whatsoever for indirect discourse.

Number: The numbers are simply singular and plural. (I'm not yet sure how this might evolve.)

Person/Number Inflections:

• 1st S: -v
• 2nd S: -dd
• 3rd S: 0
• 1st P: -z
• 2nd P: -dh
• 3rd P: -m

Tense/Aspect: The aspects are punctuative and iterative:

• Punctuative aspect indicates that the action of the verb occurs only once.
• Iterative aspect indicates that the action of the verb occurs repeatedly.

The punctuative aspect will probably quickly come to be used as a quasi-narrative past. These aspects will eventually evolve into a system of aorist, perfect, and imperfective aspects with temporal associations and uses.

NB: It is pretty clear that this aspect system will not work with certain verbal types. I hope that the deficiencies of this system will also provide stimulus to invent among those who would use the language as a language of every-day life.

There is no morphological tense in Proto-Hantic. Indeed, as a language for "magical" incantation, the speech act is mostly concerned with the present in the forms of invocation and command.

Mood: Moods are indicative, imperative, and conditional. There is no irrealis whatsoever (another exploitable instability).

Aspect/Mood Inflections:

• Punct. Ind.: 0
• Punct. Imp.: -at
• Punct. Cond.: -af
• Iter. Ind.: -e
• Iter. Imp.: -et
• Iter. Cond.: -ef

Voice: Proto-Hantic admits no voice-changing operations, though the final descendant language will, I hope, have a rich voice-changing system with certain of the less-often-used voices having interesting temporal and aspectual associations and uses.

Pronouns

Proto-Hantic has a symmetrical system of distal and proximate pronouns, including in the first person. A distal 1st person is somewhat odd as a linguistic concept, but it is used heavily in Proto-Hantic:

• to refer to oneself while in an altered state of consciousness (vision quest, out-of-body state)
• to make a mind (distal) / body (proximate) distinction
• to refer to spell/spellcaster, causer/agent distinctions (these alternations are actually fairly elaborated, but I won't bore the reader here).

In the 2nd and 3rd person, the distal and proximate pronouns are used to refer to persons or objects either distal or proximate to the speaker, as one might expect.

This distal/proximate distinction in the pronouns will probably eventually be lost. The 1st person pronouns may evolve into clitics used in a kind of agent/instrument construct state, the 2nd person pronouns into a familiar/polite distinction (maybe), and the 3rd person into demonstratives (probably).

Demonstrative-like constructions can be achieved in Proto-Hantic by simply stating the appropriate pronoun followed by the substantive.

Pronouns:

• 1st prox.: tdu
• 2nd prox.: tda
• 3rd prox.: tdo
• 1st dist: lu
• 2nd dist: la
• 3rd dist: lo

NB: Strangely, pronouns are not inflected for number (go figure -- another potential instability to exploit in the development of the language).

Relative Clauses

Proto-Hantic does not have a very robust process for relativization. It simply uses a relative particle with proximate pronouns. This construct simply incorporates an entire clause in normal word order into the NP. These relativizations look more like appositives than genuine relatives.

Interrogatives

Proto-Hantic, as a ritual language, does not have a method for interrogation. (Yet another instability ripe for invention.)