Héhà

Héhà
Pronounced:	/héˈhà/
Timeline and Universe:	theoretically this universe, future
Species:	Humanoid
Spoken:	Northwest and central Lhined
Total speakers:	~10,000
Writing system:	Romanized Equivalent
Genealogy:	Pre-Tir'jauta  Héhà
Typology
Morphological type:	Isolating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Split Ergativity with limited Animacy Hierarchy
Basic word order:	SVIO
Credits
Creator:	Humancadaver101 aka Schwhatever aka Buckfush530
Created:	March 2008

Héhà is the language of the largest indigenous tribe to the mountainous area directly south of Lescealh. This group was largely displaced during the mass immigration from the Measceineafh, but not only has it survived in the vast majority of the more remote subregions, but also provided an extensive substrata (among other local languages) in the contemporarily dominant Eastern Rajo-Faraneit languages.

Phonology

	Bilabial	Apical Alveolar	Laminal Alveolar	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop	p  b	t	d	k  g		ʔ
Affricate		ts_a	ts_m  dz
Nasal	m		n	ŋ	ɴ
Fricative	ɸ  β	s	z	ɣ	χ	h
Approximant		r
Lateral Flap			l

• Vowels
  • High Tone: /a i u e ʌ/
  • Low Tone: /a i u e ʌ/
  • Wild Tone: /a~ i~ u~ ə/

• Phonotactics
  • Onsets
    • Nothing
    • Any Consonant
    • /p b t d s z k g ʔ/ + /l n/
    • /p b s z k g ʔ/ + /r/
    • /p b ɸ β t d/ + /m/
    • /t d s z k g ʔ/ + /ɴ/
    • /k g ʔ/ + /χ/
  • Cores
    • Any Vowel
    • /i u/ + /a e ʌ/
  • Codas
    • Nothing
    • /p b t d s z k g m n ɴ r l/
  • Intersyllabic
    • Epenthetic [ʔ] between vowels
    • /z/ + /b d g m n ŋ ɴ/
    • Nasal + Corresponding Plosive
      • Epenthetic slightly shortened [ə] between anything else

• Distribution
  • /ɸ β ɣ h/ are only distinguished from /s z/ prior to nasal vowels.
  • /ts_a ts_m dz ŋ/ are only present syllable-initially

• Allophony
  • /ts_a ts_m dz/ + /i/ > [ʧi tɕi dʑi]
  • /kχ ʔχ/ > [qχ]
  • /pl tl sl kl ʔl/ > [pɬ tɬ sɬ kɬ ʔɬ]
  • Unstressed Vowels slightly centralise
  • Affricates and Plosives aspirated when initial
  • Intervocular (or when following a nasal and prior to a vowel) Plosives have no audible release
  • Unstressed /ə/ lowers to [ɐ] when followed in the next syllable by /a/

• Tone Sandhi
  • HL and LH clusters have slight tonal contours
  • HWL and LWH are realised as HML and LMH regardless of stress
  • HˈWH and ˈWH are realised as HLH and LH
  • LˈWL and ˈWL are realised as LHL and HL
  • Otherwise WH and WL are realised as HH and LL
  • W# is realised as M

Orthography

• /p b t d k g ʔ ts_a) ts_m) dz)/
  • p b t d k g q ts tz dz
• /ɸ β s z ɣ χ h/
  • f v s z gh x h
• /m n ŋ ɴ r l/
  • m n ng nq r l
• /a_H i_H u_H e_H ʌ_H a_L i_L u_L e_L ʌ_L/
  • á í é ú ó à ì è ù ò
• /a~ i~ u~ ə/
  • a i u y

Verbal Morphology

All verbs conjugate for two "tenses" (in the general sense): the perfective and the imperfective. While frequently, this system is conflated with a past (perfective) and non-past (imperfective) system, in reality, it is much more complex. While frequently these associates are made, a variety of particles can specify more specifically whether the verb is taking past, present, or future tense, and to a greater degree it's aspectual placement with in those three categories.

These adverbial modifiers come in two forms: noun-based, and purely particle. The first have semantic meaning for a specific time relating to the present. For instance, áŋè, tomorrow, ì, yesterday, or íúl, a while ago, all modify the verb by giving it a specific time.

On the other hand, there are pure particles, which cannot function as nouns and modify more generically. To specifically mark the imperfective as occuring in the present, such a marker, ín, is used. Likewise, èl gives the perfective a plurperfect meaning and the imperfective a distant future tense. The last commonly used one is tãk, which reinforces the perfective's implications of past tense and moreso suggested distant past, while purely suggesting that an imperfective verb denotes a past action.

There are three main verb classes, but the distinctions among them are purely phonetic and not semantic.

• I VERBS - These typically end in -í, -ì, or -ìà in the infinitive. In the perfective they end in -è, while in the imperfective they end in -é.
• U VERBS - These typically end in -ú, -ù, or -ùà in the infinitive. In the perfective, they end in -ò. In the imperfective they end in -ó
• A VERBS - These typically end in -á. For the perfective, -y. For the imperfective, -yá.

To see the three irregular verbs' paradigms, see Irregular Verbs in Héhà

It is worth mentioning, in tandem with its highly isolating nature, verbs never conjugate for person or number, solely for "tense". As a result, SVO constructions are vastly favored over alternatives, provided that both agent and patient roles extist for a given verb.

Imperatives are formed with the reproduction of the first syllable of the verb a second time. For instance:

lùà - to eat
lùàlùà - Eat!
zagá - to think
zazagá - Think!

Negative imperatives are formed by replacing the final verb marker with -y.

tsígù - to bring, to give
tsítsígù - Bring (it)! Give (it)!
tsítsígy - Don't bring (it)! Don't give (it)!

Syntax

As mentioned in the previous section, SVO is the foundational word order for monotransitives, but to go beyond low valency transitives such as these, a much more complex system needs to be understood.

Intransitive verbs are broken into three categories: controlled, uncontrolled, contextual actions. The first uniformally places the subject prior to the verb, syntactically marking it as nominative, while the second uniformally places the subject after the verb, syntactically marking it as accusitive. The final group can use either pattern depending on whether the action was perceived as intentional and controlled or unintentional and uncontrolled. This distinction has eliminated various English pairs (such as jump off and fall off) as they are distinguished grammatically, rather than semantically.

This split ergativity is completely absent in the monotransitive verbs. Instead agents are uniformally placed prior to the verb and patients placed after. There is no passive voice, except through the so-called "fourth person". Even that construction, however, is rather rare.

Although ditransitive verbs also lack any sense of split ergativity, they incorporate an animacy hierarchy. Inanimates (abiotic material, and relatively non-motile biotic material such as plants) automatically follow animates or humans, while animates in turn automatically follow humans. Inanimate and animate direct objects are marked with the prefix ku- when the indirect object is human. Likewise, inanimate direct objects take the prefix tyrà- when the indirect object is animate.

Nominal Morphology

Topicalization

Similar to the verbal paradigm, topicalization of a given noun in Héhà is concatenative, that is, internally changing, rather than strictly morphological or syntactic. Nouns ending in /i a u/ in low tone have them become high. For example.

Héhà mákó
(Some) Héhà are jumping.

Héhá mákó
(Some) Héhà are jumping.

All other nouns are much more logically morphological, adding é- to their front.

Mákó kxùdó
(Some) fruit(s) are falling.

Mákó ékxùdó
(Some) fruits(s) are falling.

Lexicon

Héhà Lexicon