Sefdaanian grammar - phonology

A DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR OF SENJECAS, THE LANGUAGE OF SEFDAANIA by Charles W. Brickner, M.A.

Introduction t̬ivas

• Senjecas (Ancient-Speech) is the name given to the language that was first spoken by loquent beings. It was implanted by Ilmus in the Children of Air, the Ethrans, the first created of the Six Loquent Peoples when s/he sang their unique song into their ears, and subsequently sang their unique songs into the ears of the other loquent peoples as they were created. Eventually differences between the Peoples and regional differences within each People arose which led to the development of diverse languages, many of which became mutually unintelligible. The ability to speak Senjecas had never been lost by the Children of Wood, the Xylans and the Ethrans. Senjecas remains the lingua franca of the Six Loquent Peoples.
• The language is an isolating (analytic) language with only a very few inflections, although compounding is common. It is a Type A tonal language (register system) with an absence of velar and uvular sounds and limited consonant clusters. It is classed as a nominative-accusative language.
• This grammar is divided into four sections.
  • Part I describes the phonology of the language. In this section is discussed the writing and the sounds of the language, the syllabification and accenting of words, and punctuation.
  • Part II describes the inflection of the words. In this section is discussed the formation of individual words in their several categories (nouns, verbs, etc.).
  • Part III describes word formation, the way in which individual words are combined to form new words.
  • Part IV describes the syntax. In this section are discussed the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences.

The Alphabet ṙųníȝos

• 001. The Senjecan alphabet has 30 graphemes: 24 consonants and six vowels.
  • Labialized and palatalized consonants are not considered to be separate graphemes, e.g., dúta, ḑóqos, d̬ó.
  • When using the Latin alphabet, labialization is indicated by placing a caron over or under a consonant (č, ǧ, t̬). Palatalization is indicated by placing a cedilla under or over a consonant (ç, ģ, ţ).
  • When using the Greek alphabet, labialization is indicated by placing <ῠ> after the consonant, <ςῠ>. Palatalization is indicated by placing <ῐ> after the consonant, <ςῐ>.
  • When using the Cyrillic alphabet, labialization is indicated by placing u karotkaje <гў> after the consonant. Palatalization is indicated by placing yer <ь> after the consonant <гь>, with the exceptions of <љ>, /gʲ/, and <њ>, /nʲ/.
  • When using the Hebrew alphabet, labialization is indicated by placing vav <ו> after the consonant <פו>. Palatalization is indicated by placing an apostrope after the consonant <‘ס>.
    • When not preceded by a consonant, the vowel points are placed under an aleph <אִ, אֵ, אַ, אָ>, with the exception of /o/ <וֹ> and /u/ <וּ>.
  • Long vowels are indicated by doubling the grapheme in all the scripts, with three exceptions.
    • When using Latin letters an ogonek indicates a long vowel: į, ę, ą, ɔ̨, ǫ, ų.
    • In Devanāgarī the avagraha is used.
    • In Cyrillic a doubled palatal vowel repeats the vowel without the palatalization, e.g., <font=blue>кòŗ̇ągúes (cavalry) = <коряагyec>, not <коряягyec>.
  • There are three other graphemes used in Senjecas which are not considered to be separate letters. These are the pépe (weak e, ë) used to prevent disallowed consonant clusters (ḷéṙnësos, torch); the pépi (weak i, ï) used when a palatalized consonant is followed by a consonant (кóŗ̇a, wage war; кòṙïną́ṁos, warship); and the pépu (weak u, ü) used when a labialized consonant is followed by a consonant (óĸ̌os, eye; òкüкáðos, eyelid).
  • Senjecan linguists speak of two types of consonants, male and female.
    • The plosives

      are male consonants; they must undergo lenition when followed by another consonant.

    • The fricatives <f/v, þ/ð, x/q, s/z> and the approximants <ṁ/m, ḷ,l, ṙ/n, ȝ̇/ȝ> are female. They do not undergo lenition.
  • In the case of the approximants, voicelessness is indicated with a dot above or below the letter: <ṁ, ḷ, ṙ, ȝ̇>. If the dot is not available, a digraph with <h> is used: <mh, lh, rh, yh>.
• 002. Several alphabets have been in use since the Ethrans invented graphemes for writing Senjecas. In all of them there is a one-to-one correspondence between the grapheme (letter) and the phoneme (sound).
• 003. The earliest alphabet consists of rectilinear graphemes which are acrophonic, i.e., represent the object used as the name of the letter, not unlike the Phoenician alphabet at its origin. These were devised by the Ethrans for recording their great discoveries. These rectilinear graphemes were adopted by the Xylans for carving in wood and by the Lithans for carving in stone. Because they are not symmetrical they may be used as runes for divination.
• 004. These rectilinear graphemes quickly evolved into cursive forms when the Ethrans discovered how to make quill pens and ink.
• 005. A third alphabet consists of symbols derived from the preceding cursive symbols, but suitable for brush strokes. These were devised by the Hydorans and continue to be used by them.
• 006. The vowel graphemes from the rectilinear alphabet may also be used with the other alphabets.

i ⋅ , ̣ u − , ̝ e : , ̤ o = or ^ a ⋮ or ∴ ɔ ≡ or △

	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal
Plosive	p	b	t	d	c	ƶ	к	g
Fricative	f	v	þ	ð	s	z	x	q
Sonorant	ṁ	m	ḷ	l	ṙ	n	ȝ̇	ȝ

	Front unrounded	Back rounded
High	i	V
Mid	E	O
Low	A	_

• 007. The order of the alphabet is based on articulatory phonetics. The order with the IPA symbols is shown in order in the following tables:

a. The Labials. Lat IPA Snj Name Grk Cyr Heb Arb Grg Arm Shv p p pų́ṙes pųṙ π п ףּ ٮ პ պ b b bą́ĸos β б בּ ب ბ բ f ɸ ɸ ф פ ڡ ფ ֆ v β vévres vev ϐ в ב ف ვ վ ṁ m̥ ṁiṁéṙes ṁiṁ μ̇ ӎ מּ م მ’ m m mános man μ м מ ݥ მ մ

b. The Dentals. Lat IPA Snj Name Grk Cyr Heb Arb Grg Arm t t taúṙes ţol τ т תּ ط ტ տ d d ḑúvles deṙ δ д דּ ظ დ դ þ θ өþ θ ҫ ת د თ’ թ ð/đ ð ðuĸ ϑ ҙ ד ذ თ ḷ l̥ łem λ̣ ԓ ל ل ლ’ ղ l l láĸos leuð λ л לּ ڶ ლ լ

c. The Alveolars. Lat IPA Snj Name Grk Cyr Heb Arb Grg Arm c ʦ cáĸes cąṙ ϻ ц צ ص ც ծ ƶ ʣ ƶom ϫ ж צּ ڞ ძ ձ s s sų́bes sųb ς с ס س ს ս z z zoð ζ з ז ش ზ զ ṙ r̥ ṙaíces ṙeþ ρ р ר ر რ ր n n nęþṙes nęþ ν н נ ں ნ ն

d. The Palatals. Lat IPA Snj Name Grk Cyr Heb Arb Grg Arm ĸ c ĸą́fṙes ĸos κ к כ ح კ կ g ɟ ǧíȝes ǧǫṁ γ г ג ڄ გ գ x ç xreð χ х ח ع ჯ խ q ʝ qaídes qav ϟ ғ ק ݝ ღ ȝ̇ ȷ̊ ȝ̇évlos ȝ̇es ⱶ һ ה ى ჱ հ ȝ j ȝą́nes ȝąn ϳ й י ي ჲ յ

a. The Vowels. Lat IPA Snj Name Grk Cyr Heb Arb Grg Arm i i ι и ִ ი ի e e elóṁes η э ֵ ე է a a ámṙes α а ַ ა ա ɔ ɔ ɔ́þces ο о ָ ო ո o o ω ѡ ֯ ჵ օ u u ų́sṙes υ у ֻ უ ու ï ɪ pépi ϊ ӥ ֱ ი̈ ի̇ ë ə pépe ε ӭ ְ ჷ ե ü ʊ pépu ϋ ӱ ֲ უ̈ ու̈

• 008. By the time the Humans had begun writing, the Peoples were already dispersed among them. As the various human cultures began to write, the Peoples took advantage of the various alphabets for writing their own language, but at all times retaining their skill in their three original alphabets. The Committee on Orthography of the Council of Archimages (ùfsefƶúmë meðкantús ṙųnpexmás qòṁa dąṙкántïmus - UMRD) has always desired to make the various human alphabets as simple as possible by not using digraphs or diacritics. As the alphabets have developed, the UMRD has updated the orthographies to match, keeping in mind the phonemes used in Senjecas. The use of the Latin alphabet by various languages has given the committee greater freedom to represent the Senjecan phonemes. I have chosen their currently approved Latin alphabet for this work.
  • <þ> (thorn) and <ð> (eth) are retained from the Anglo-Saxon alphabet to represent the voiceless and voiced dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ respectively.
  • <ȝ> (yogh), has been retained from the Middle English alphabet for /j/ and / ȷ̊/.
  • <ḷ> is used to represent the voiceless dental lateral fricative /l̥/.
  • <ƶ> reflects an Italian use of the grapheme as used for /ʣ/.
  • <ṁ> has been taken from the IPA for /m̥/.
  • <ɔ> is taken from the IPA to represent the open mid-back rounded vowel /ɔ/.
  • Each of the graphemes is named after a natural creature whose name begins with that grapheme or whose name includes that grapheme. The long vowels are specified as ṁázda (long a), ṁázde (long e), etc. For the three weak vowels, v. #001.

Vowels and Diphthongs šèvšenóesĸ̌e d̬opèlṙųnóesĸ̌e

• 009. The vowels are i, <e>, <a>, <ɔ>, <o>, and u ordered from front non-rounded closed to back rounded closed. These vowels approximate the sounds found in deem, dame, dame (French), dawn, dome, doom. Transliterating the Senjecan alphabets into the Latin alphabet for the speaker of English requires a few modifications. In this case, Senjecas has six vowel phonemes, while the Latin alphabet has but five graphemes with which to represent them. Since one of these Senjecan phonemes does not have its own grapheme in English, the <ɔ> grapheme from the IPA was adopted to represent it.
• 010. The vowels are the pure vowels found in Italian or Spanish. Remember to keep the <e> and the <o> pure, without the i or u glides that occur in the English pronunciation of these phonemes.
• 011. The grapheme <ë>, pépe, pronounced as in pet, is used for euphony to avoid an improper consonant cluster, e.g., éṙmis, round; éṙmëtas, roundness. When the final consonant and the initial consonant are the same the pépe and the duplicated consonant are eliminated: mánus, man; mánënis > mánis, anthropoid. The dictionary lemma is given as mán(ën)is.
• 012. When a suffix beginning with a consonant is added to a root word ending in a palatal consonant, the palatalization is vocalized and pronounced as in pit, e.g., tém̧is, malleable; témïtas, malleability.
• 013. When a suffix beginning with a consonant is added to a root word ending in a labial consonant, the labialization is vocalized and pronounced as in put, e.g., ṙeų́ð̬is, reddish; ṙeų́ðütas, reddishness.
• 014. The Senjecan vowel can be either long or short. The long vowels are indicated by the addition of an ogonek to the letter: <į>, <ę>, <ą>, <ɔ>, <ǫ>, and <ų>. The quality of the long vowel is not changed, but it is pronounced for a longer time than the short vowel.
• 015. There are no diphthongs in Senjecas. Each vowel is syllablic and the tone is placed on every vowel according to the rules for tone.

Consonants àṙgëšenóes

• 016. The consonants are divided, according to the organs of speech by which they are produced, into plosives, fricatives, and approximants. In Senjecas these organs include the lips (labials), the teeth (dentals), the alveolus (alveolars), and the palate (palatals). Each consonant may be either voiced or unvoiced. There are no geminate consonants.
• 017. Plosives are produced by the complete closing of the organ of speech. These plosives are:
  • Labials: p/b
  • Dentals: t/d
  • Alveolars: c/ƶ
  • Palatals: к/g
• 018. Fricatives are produced by an incomplete closing of the organ of speech. These fricatives are:
  • Labials: f/v
  • Dentals: þ/ð
  • Alveolars: s/z
  • Palatals: x/q
• 019. Approximants are produced by a relatively free flow of air. These approximants are:
  • Labials: ṁ/m
  • Dentals: ḷ/l
  • Alveolars: ṙ/n
  • Palatals: ȝ̇/ȝ
• 020. The following table gives the relationship of these consonants, as understood by the speakers of Senjecas.

labial dental alveolar palatal plosives p/b t/d c/ ƶ ĸ/g fricatives f/v þ/ð s/z x/q approximants ṁ/m ḷ/l ṙ/n ȝ̇/ȝ

• 021. These consonants are pronounced as in English, with the following exceptions:
  • <f> and <v> are bilabials as in Spanish, not labiodentals as in English.
  • <ṁ> represents the voiceless counterpart of the English m. It occurs in English after a voiceless consonant, e.g.', smoke (cf. mutt).
  • <þ> and <ð> represent the sounds /th/ as in thigh, and /th/ as in thy, which are interdental in English, but dental in Senjecas.
  • <ṙ> represents the voiceless counterpart of the Spanish tap <r>. A trilled, but still voiceless, <r> is allophonic and often used with the interrogative <-r> at the end of a question.
  • <ḷ> represents the voiceless counterpart of <l>. It occurs in English after a voiceless consonanct, e.g., pleat (cf. bleat).
  • <l> represents the clear <l> of light, never the dark <l> of dull.
  • <x> represents the sound of <ch> as in the German ‘’ich’’, not the <ch> as in the German ‘’bach’’.
  • represents the voiced counterpart of <x>, as found in Spanish intervocalic <g>, ‘’haga’’.
  • <ȝ̇> represents the voiceless counterpart of <j>. It occurs in English after a voiceless consonant, e.g., the y-glide between the

    and the u in puny (cf. beauty).

• 022. Labialized and palatalized consonants are ordered immediately after the letter they affect, e.g., s, <ş>, <š>, <t>, etc.
• 023. Only consonant clusters of two consonants are permitted in Senjecas.
• 024. When it happens that the addition of a morpheme would result in a three-consonant cluster, an epenthetic <ë> is inserted for euphony, e.g., álvis, barley; àlvëȝǫúsos, barley broth. This epenthetic <ë> is ordered after <e> in an alphabetical listing.
• 025. Consonant clusters may not contain two stops, e.g., <gb>. In order to prevent this, when a morpheme with an initial stop is added to a base with a final stop, the final stop is muted to the corresponding fricative in a process known as lenition. Thus, odégos, stem, + bólos, lump, = òdeqbólos, tuber.

Elision dų́ṙas

• 026. Elision is the omission of a word-final vowel when the next word begins with a vowel. The two words are written separately and an apostrophe marks the omission. When writing with the various Senjecan alphabets, no apostrophe is used.
  • Elision occurs with the negating adverbs ne and me, which are always elided with a following initial vowel, e.g., n' ìðu, not here.
  • Elision occurs when the final vowel of a word is the same as the initial vowel of the following word, e.g., ṁùm cemelós èn' apá, our father in heaven.
  • Elision occurs when a postposition is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, e.g., nùes tę̀mvi véṙso cúṙĸom ànt' éṙa, they are paddling futilely against the swift current.

Syllabification šenlęƶós ṁéṙƶas

• 027. A Senjecan word has as many syllables as it has vowels. The last syllable is called the ultima. The syllable next to the last is called the penult(ima[te]). The one before the penult is called the antepenult(imate).
  • A single consonant between two vowels belongs to the following vowel, e.g., a-pé-los, force.
  • Two contiguous consonants are separated with the first consonant going with the preceding syllable, e.g., sél-ĸ̌es, seal.

Intonation šenós ṁéṙƶas

• 028. In many modern languages, such as English, the accent is known as stress accent in which the accented syllable is pronounced more intensely than the other syllables. In Senjecas, as in some modern languages, the accent is known as register pitch accent in which the vowel of the primary syllable is pronounced on a higher pitch. This is called intonation. There are three pitches in Senjecas, the primary, the secondary, and the basal. These are relative pitches and their absolute pitch will vary with the individual speaker. These pitches are neither grammatical nor lexical, therefore the substitution of stress accent is allophonic.
• 029. Accent marks are not used when writing in any of the Senjecan alphabets. More for the help of the non-Senjecan reader than anything else, accent marks are used with the Latin alphabet. An acute accent marks the primary pitch, e.g., sámðos, sand. A grave accent marks the secondary pitch, e.g., sàmðëmáṙos, desert. The basal pitch is unmarked.
• 030. For purposes of intonation, Senjecan words are placed into two categories: those which take the primary pitch (verbs, nouns, adjectives, and interjections) and those which do not (the other words).
• 031. Monosyllables, except for interjections and numerals, are pronounced on the basal pitch.
• 032. The primary accent regularly stands on the penult. When the verb is finite, the accent remains on the penult, e.g., mümúda. With the participles, the accent is shifted so as to remain on the stem vowel, e.g., múdantis, múdaþus.
• 033. The primary accent may not be any farther back than the antepenult. Therefore, when the participles are declined in the plural, the accent must be shifted forward. The primary accent is then replaced by the secondary accent, e.g., múdaþus, mùdaþúes.
• 034. Nouns and adjectives take the primary accent on the penult, e.g., cólos, front; gų́ngos, shin; ȝ̇agúlos, gum. When they are declined in the plural, the primary accent remains on the penult, e.g., colóes, fronts; ȝ̇àgulóes, gums.
• 035. When nouns and/or adjectives are compounded, the root word retains the primary accent while the primary accents of the prefixed words are changed to secondary accents on alternating syllables, e.g., táses, animal + ṁeídas, knowledge + the agentive suffix –ą́gus = tasṁèidą́gus, zoologist.
• 036. Some monosyllables attach themselves so closely to the preceding word that they lose their own accent. These are called enclitics and comprise an exception to the regular accent pattern. They include the conjunction -ĸ̌e, and, and the disjunction -ṁo, or, e.g., ṁiṙúesĸ̌e ǧenúesĸ̌e, men and women.

Punctuation páкas

• 037. The following punctuation is used with the three Senjecan alphabets.

1. An interpunct (⋅) (ṁįspáĸos) is used instead of spaces between words. This is no longer used in contemporary scripts, although it may be seen in formal writing.
2. The function of the comma to set off vocative exclamations is taken by a period (.) (dèṙvëspáĸos).
3. The function of the comma to set off dependent clauses, is taken by a hyphen (—) (ĸ̌įlsëspáĸos).
4. The function of the period is taken by two raised dots (:) (d̬ispáĸos).
5. The end of a paragraph is marked by three dots (⋮) (tèṙëspáĸos).
6. The function of quotation marks is taken by the quotative particle ṁa(ṙ) placed before and after the quoted words.
7. Question marks and exclamation points are not used.
8. The spelling of Senjecas is unicameral, i.e., there are no capital letters. Thus, capital letters are not used when the language is transliterated.