Låzhö

Låzhö
Pronounced:	/lɑ.ʝø/
Timeline and Universe:	Zebia
Species:	Human
Spoken:
Total speakers:
Writing system:	Zhetu Låzhö (Låzhö script)
Genealogy:
Typology
Morphological type:	Isolating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Ergative-absolutive, dechticaetiative
Basic word order:	SVO
Credits
Creator:	Tmeister
Created:

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants
	Bilabial		Labiod.				Alveolar				Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m						n						ŋ
Plosive	p	b					t	d			c	ɟ	k	g	ʔ
Fricative			f	v			s	z			ç	ʝ
Lateral Approximant								l

Vowels

Vowels
			Front		Central				Back
High			i	y					ɯ	u
Mid			e	ø					ɤ	o
Low			æ		a				ɑ

Phonotactics and allophony

The core syllable structure is CV, although various standalone consonants (/s n t p k/) may complicate a syllable. Standalone consonants (except for /n/) assimilate in voicing with the next consonant, although /l/ is considered unvoiced for this purpose. /n/ assimilates in place of articulation with the next consonant, and so may be realized as any of [m n ɳ ŋ ɴ] ([ɴ] occurs before /ʔ/, but this sound can also be merged with [ŋ]).

A standalone consonant attaches to the previous syllable if this is possible, then to the next syllable if this is possible, then to a dummy syllable /ʔa/ if neither is possible. At the beginning or end of a syllable, a single consonant is possible, as is /s/+C. At the end, C+/s/ and /n/+C are also possible.

The glottal stop /ʔ/ varies freely with zero except in very careful speech. Intervocalically, it is pronounced as a semivowel based on the frontness and roundedness of the previous vowel, except when that vowel is /a/. For example, /iʔo yʔo uʔo ɯʔo/ are realized as [ijo yɥo uwo ɯɰo].

Romanization

Consonants are romanized as in IPA except for /c ɟ ç ʝ/, which are romanized <ch j sh zh>. /ʔ/ is not written except when it is between a consonant and a vowel within one word, in which case it is written as a dash (<->) separating two syllables. Standalone consonants are phonetically transcribed, taking assimilation into account by writing one of <z m d b g>. Standalone [ɳ ŋ ɴ] are all transcribed as <n>, and standalone /k/ is written as <c> for esthetic reasons.

The vowels /i e a o u/ are written as in IPA. /y ø æ ɑ ɤ ɯ/ are transcribed as <ü ö ä å ë ÿ>, respectively.

Grammar

Word order

The basic word order is SVO. The object is optional, and the subject may be left out if the topic is known, although generally a sentence consisting only of one verb is not permissible. Sometimes dropping the subject can cause ambiguity, in which case it must be included for clarity, even if it is only the placeholder word ÿ.

Verbal morphology

Verbs are marked for two attributes: aspect and voice. The aspect may be imperfective or perfective, and the voice may be active or passive.

Aspect is indicated by placing a single-consonant morpheme before the verb: s for imperfective and n for perfective. Imperfective aspect is used for incomplete or ongoing actions, while perfective aspect is used for state-of-being or for actions which have been completed and have not been undone.

Voice is also indicated by a single-consonant morpheme: s for active and n for passive. This morpheme goes after the verb. Active voice means that the subject is the agent and the object is the patient. Passive voice means that the subject is the patient and the object is the agent. In either case, the object is optional.

For example, in imperfective aspect and active voice, the verb -z güs means "to make (something) red". By changing the aspect to perfective, the word becomes -n güs, "to have made (something) red". If we now change the voice to passive, it becomes -n gün, meaning "to have been made red (by something)", and so if there is no object, it means simply "to be red". Finally, changing the aspect to imperfective yields -s gün, which means "to be made red (by something)" or, in the absence of an object, "to become red" (by something)" or, in the absence of an object, "to become red".

Ditransitive verbs

Låzhö uses dechticaetiative alignment, meaning that the recipient is treated as the object, while the theme is specially marked with the prefix u. The theme comes after the object. For example, -s fus means "to give". A sentence of the form "A gives B to C" is expressed as As fus C u B, where A, B, and C are the donor, theme, and recipient respectively.

Clauses

Subordinate

A subordinate clause is usually opened with t and closed with c. More rarely, p is used instead of t, which occurs when the speaker is saying that the clause is true (as opposed to t, which makes no statement about the truth of the clause). A subordinate clause like -t/-p X c is treated as a noun meaning "the fact that (X)". At the end of a sentence, c may be omitted, although it is always included in the examples in this article for clarity.

When reporting speech indirectly in a subordinate clause, pronouns are always used as if they were direct. For example, the sentence Ös lås ut soz ŋos choc is translated as "The person says that he/she is drinking water", but the literal meaning is "The person says that I am drinking water". This is because the statement is from the person's perspective, and in that case "I" is the way to refer to that person.

Relative

Like subordinate clauses, relative clauses are enclosed in t--c, and c can be omitted at the end of a sentence. Within the clause, the word being relativized is replaced by the relative pronoun ë. The relative clause comes after the word it modifies. For example: Chot öz ŋos ëc = "The water that the person is drinking". When the relative pronoun is the first word in the clause, it can be (and usually is) omitted. For example, the previous phrase can be reworded as Chot azŋon öc by changing the voice to passive, switching the subject and object, and then dropping ë, which is now at the beginning of the sentence. Because of this, in a subordinate clause the subject cannot be dropped, since otherwise it would look like a relative clause.

Serial verbs

Serial verbs can be used to provide tense and mood information about the main verb. The main verb comes last, and various auxiliaries come before it. Auxiliary verbs do not have voice, since they have no object as such, so there is no voice-indicating morpheme after them. The aspect of an auxiliary verb is usually perfective, but imperfective can be used to express a changing mood.

For example, the sentence Soz ŋos means "I am eating/drinking" in a tense-neutral way. The auxiliaries -m bu, -n cha, and -n sa can be put before the main verb to express explicit tense: e.g., Som buz ŋos "I ate/drank" and so on.

Other verbs that can be used as auxiliaries are -n chi ("to be able to...") and -n gu ("to quickly do X"). So Son chiz ŋos means "I can eat/drink" and Son guz ŋos means "I am quickly eating/drinking". If we change the aspect of the auxiliary verbs to imperfective, then the sentences become Sos chiz ŋos ("I am acquiring the ability to eat/drink") and Soz guz ŋos ("I am accelerating my pace of eating/drinking").

Serial nouns

Nouns are compounded right-branchingly, the reverse of languages like German or Chinese. That is, the head of the noun phrase comes first, while its modifiers come after it. For example, the word zevä, meaning "night", is composed of ze ("time") and vä ("star").

Noun compounding also can indicate possession, with the possessor coming after the possessed. For example, cho so means "my water", literally "water me". The particle e, translating roughly as "of", is used to separate the constituents of a large compound noun phrase that might otherwise run together and create confusion. For example, a phrase like "the cryptographer's berry-juice" would be rendered as ŋodÿmäki e öchituŋä, since if the e were left out, then the result, ŋodÿmäkiöchituŋä, means "food/drink liquid fruit small person ability writing secret", which is confusing even if not wholly incomprehensible. Of course, long compound nouns can be used deliberately to confuse outsiders.

Determiners

Certain pronouns cannot be possessed:

• so: I, me
• ge: you
• other personal pronouns
• ku: this
• te: that
• po: what
• shö: all
• be: each

When one of these words is placed in the position of a possessee, it is taken to modify the "possessor". For example, ku ŋodÿmäki means "this berry-juice", and ge zögä means "you leader".

Parts of speech

Nouns and verbs

In principle any noun can be used as a verb by surrounding it with aspect and voice markers. However, not all of them make sense. For example, the noun të means "knowledge", and the verb -s tës means "to teach".

Both nouns and verbs can be modified by relative clauses. In the case of a verb being modified, the relative clause comes immediately before the voice marker. For example: -z ŋos "to eat/drink"; -z ŋot anjöncs "to pleasantly eat/drink". The relative clause is -t anjönc.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions may be used to connect clauses (both subordinate and relative), nouns, and verbs. When more than one relative clause modifies the same word, a conjunction is inserted between them only if it is not "and". In that case, simple juxtaposition of the relative clauses indicates that both modify the word before them.

True adjectives

Most expressions translated into English as adjectives are actually relative clauses. There are only a few "true adjectives" in Låzhö, which generally indicate the speaker's thoughts about a particular item in the sentence. They are placed after the modified word. For example, lö (which means "yes" by itself) when placed after a word indicates "indeed", as if the speaker were contradicting an opposing statement that someone else said. Also kila means "just, only", as if it would not be expected that something would be so limited in scope.

SOV word order and double subjects

Sometimes, adhering to the usual SVO word order is extremely awkward, usually because of a long phrase modifying the verb that would otherwise separate the object far from the verb. In this case, SOV order can be used by separating the subject and object with the particle u (the same word used for ditransitive sentences).

A few verbs are obligated to take a double subject, such as -n nös "to be on either side of". The two subjects are also separated by u, and if the voice is changed, both subjects must be moved after the verb.

Expressions of implication

Implication is expressed with the word -m fÿs, which means "implies" (the aspect is perfective because implication is a state, not an action). The subject and object may be either subordinate clauses or nouns. By changing the voice to -m fÿn, the meaning becomes "because (of)".

As mentioned earlier, there are two types of subordinate clauses: p-c clauses (ones that the speaker is saying are true, opened with p and closed with c) and t-c clauses (ones that are not necessarily true, opened with t and closed with c). Combined with mood and tense markers, variou types of implication expressions can be formed. Note: -m bu is the past tense marker, -n cha present, and -n sa future; -n tå means "habitually do something".

• t-A-c am fÿs t-B-c: If A, then B. A timeless statement.
• t-A-c am bum fÿs t-B-c: If A had happened, then B would have happened. A did not happen.
• t-A-c an cham fÿs t-B-c: If A is happening now, then B would also be happening.
• t-A-c an sam fÿs t-B-c: If A happens, then B will happen (in the future).

• t-A-c an tåm fÿs t-B-c: While A endures, B endures. A is not necessarily true.
• t-A-c am bun tåm fÿs t-B-c: If A had endured, then B would have endured. A did not endure.
• t-A-c an chan tåm fÿs t-B-c: If A is ongoing now, then B would also be ongoing.
• t-A-c an san tåm fÿs t-B-c: If A endures (in the future), then B will also endure.

• p-A-c am fÿs p-B-c: A, therefore B. A timeless statement expressing a general truth.
• p-A-c am bum fÿs p-B-c: When A happened, B happened as a result.
• p-A-c an cham fÿs p-B-c: Because A is happening now, B is also happening.
• p-A-c an sam fÿs p-B-c: When A happens, B will happen (in the future). We know that A will happen.

• p-A-c an tåm fÿs p-B-c: Because A endures, B endures. A is true, and the statement is timeless and expresses a general truth.
• p-A-c am bun tåm fÿs p-B-c: While A endured, B also endured.
• p-A-c an chan tåm fÿs p-B-c: Because A is ongoing now, B is also ongoing.
• p-A-c an san tåm fÿs p-B-c: As long as A endures, B will also endure.

If A is in a p-c clause and B is in a t-c clause, then the interpretation is that we know A, and that ought to imply B, but we are not sure of B. On the other hand, if A is in a t-c clause and B is in a p-c clause, then we know B, and we know that A would cause B if A were true, but we are not sure about A. To express "because", we switch the subject and object and change the voice.

Comparatives and superlatives

To express a comparative, modify the word that is being compared with a relative clause using either the verb -n nen ("exceed"), -n jån ("equal"), or -n lën ("be less than"). For example, starting from the sentence Son jöz ge "I like you", we can make Son jöz get an nen te öc ("I like you who exceed that person", or "I like you more than [I like] that person"). We can also make Sot an nen te öc an jöz ge ("I who exceed that person like you", or "I like you more that that person [does]"); and, if we modify the verb, Son jöt an nen an näs acs ge ("I like which exceeds dislike you", or "I like you more than [I] dislike [you]").

A superlative is the same as a comparative, except the object of the comparing verb is the word be, meaning "each [thing, person, etc.]". Less commonly, shö is used, which expresses the meaning "everything put together".