Minhast

Introduction

Minhast (Minhast min kirim lit. "Minhast-speak), the national language of Minhai, is spoken by nearly 59 million people. Approximately 1 million speakers live in expatriate communities throughout the globe, with the largest concentrations residing in the U.S., Xayda, Mexico, the Middle East, Kallaxwān and Canada. Significant numbers also exist in Southeast Asia and Norhern Europe.

Minhast is divided into two major dialects. Upper Minhast, which is centered in the highlands of Kilmay Rī, Ešked (Ekšed), and Attum Attar; the northeastern coastal prefectures of Iskamharat and Perim-Sin; and the National Capital Region, consisting of Āš-min-Gāl, Ankussūr, Huruk, Nammadīn, and Kered. Lower Minhast is spoken mainly in the southeastern coastal prefectures of Neskud, Yaxparim, Senzil, and Rēgum. The two dialects differ chiefly in phonetics and the lexicon, with Lower Minhast containing some Spanish loanwords absorbed during the Colonial Occupation ("Ayawaškum min Karkaraktimaħt"). Otherwise, the two dialects are mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, it is Upper Minhast that is the standardized form of the language, used in government, commerce, and the media.

Additionally, the two dialects are divided into several smaller dialects. The major subdialects of Upper Minhast include the Salmon Speakers of the "Gaššarat" (Northeastern Coast), the Dog Speakers of the "Hisašarum" (Northeaster Plains), the Horse Speakers of the "Gannasia" (Middle Plains), and the Knife Speakers (Plateau Prefecture). Lower Minhast consists of the Gull Speakers (Senzil and Rēgum Prefectures), the Osprey Speakers (Kings' Bay), and the Stone Speakers of the southernmost prefectures (Neskud and Yaxparim).

Minhast possesses a complex grammar, demonstrated in particular by the elaborate polysynthetic morphology of its verbal system. The Minhast verb inflects not only for tense and aspect, but can inflect to indicate mood, modality, causation, potentiality, intensity, and other functions. The verb also possesses a well-developed set of pronominal affixes used to cross-reference the core arguments of a clause. These affixes indicate both gender and number of the nouns they cross-reference, an essential function as Minhast nouns themselves do not have any markings to indicate these two classifications. Additionally, the verb can carry out three other operations, that of noun incorporation, antipassivation, and applicative formation, used by speakers for discourse purposes such as backgrounding previously established information and for changing the argument structure of the phrase for the purposes of focusing on a particular argument, ensuring that priviledged noun phrases retain their core status, or to employ rhetorical devices. This polysynthetic characteristic can lead to very long verbs that can express an entire sentence. To demonstrate, the English phrase, "You did not even try to get them to reconsider the matter with this evidence" requires only three words in Minhast: "Keman yattah, tašnišpipsaryentinasummatittaharu", meaning literally "To them the evidence, not-try-cause-return-look.at-yet-matter-with-it.you-did." The verb "tašnišpipsaryentinasummatittaharu", which is an individual sentence in its own right, can be parsed to its individual morphemes, yielding "ta-šn-šp-b-sar-yenti-nasum-mat-tittah-ar-u" (neg.-conative-causative-resumptive-look.at-yet- matter-instr.applicative-3rd.inanim.sg.patient/2nd.sg.agent-past-transitive).

Minhast is classified as an ergative language, where an agent of a transitive clause receives one type of case marking, while patients of a transitive sentence and subjects of intransitive clauses are grouped together under a single case. This is in contrast to an accusative language like Latin, which groups agents and subjects together under a single case (e.g. -us in mund-us "world"), and patients under a different case (e.g. -o in mundo ). For Minhast, agents are marked with the ergative clitic =de (e.g. nassa-de "brother"), while subjects and patients receive null marking (i.e. nassa=Ø).

Word order is SOV. In simple sentence, this word order is free, although the verb rarely deviates from its clause-final position. Deviation from the unmarked SOV word order is used for discourse purposes; an argument that is to be focused is fronted to the head of the clause. For compound and complex sentences, the verb is obligatorily fixed in clause-final position, but the other arguments of the clause, core, oblique, and sentential complements, still display free word order.

The following grammatical sketch is a description primarily of the National Capital Region variant of Upper Minhast, the standard dialect used for government, commerce, and media; examples from other Minhast dialects, or from Old or Classical Minhast will be noted as appropriate.

Phonology

Syllabic Structure and Phonemic Interactions

Minhast words are subject to complex morphophonemic changes resulting from interactions with other morphemes occurring in the word. The verb is particularly complex in the various sound changes that may occur as a result of noun incorporation as well as the aggluginative processes involved in conjugation or other inflectional processes. These phonemic changes can be broken down according to the following classifications:

Assimilation Metathesis Syncope Epenthesis Voicing/Devoicing

These complex morphophonemic interactions operate according to the general phonological principals outlined below:

No syllable can have a consonant cluster of more than two consonants. Syncope can be applied only if a biconsonantal cluster is formed, and the vowel is not a part of a heavy syllable (i.e. the vowel is long, or it occurs in a VCC sequence). No Minhast word can have an initial consonant cluster. After any initial consonant cluster results from one or more of the possible morphophonemic alternations described below, an epenthetic is automatically appended to the head of the word to form the permissible iCC- pattern. An epenthetic vowel is always inserted between two syllables if combining the syllables results in a triconsonantal cluster. The default epenthetic vowel is , but the other 3 vowels may also be used, depending on multiple factors (e.g. vowel harmony, an underlying quiescent initial vowel as part of the attached morpheme, etc.) Minhast has a strong tendency to form intermedial clusters, either or , providing that Rules #1-#3 are observed. If necessary, an epenthetic vowel may be added before or after the syllable to create these syllabic patterns, e.g. e.g. kanut-maris-kar- >> -kant-(u)-maris-kar The tendency to form intermedial consonant clusters creates complex assimilation interactions that nevertheless are predictable and almost always regular. These interactions are illustrated in Table X below:

Final Consonant  

Initial Consonant

f p b k x g t d s š z l r m n h w y f ff pp pp fk fx fk ft ft fs f fs fl fr fm fn f fw fy p pp pp pp pk xp pk pt pt ps p ps pl pr pm pn p pw py b pp pp bb pk xp mg pt mb ps p ps bl br mb mb p bw by k kf kp kp kk kk kk kt kt ks k ks kl kr km kn k kw ky x xf xp xp kk x gg xt xt ss šš ss xl x xm xn x xw xy g kf kp gb kk k gg kt gd ks k zg lg gr gm gn k gw gy t ft pt pt kt xt kt tt tt st t st tt rt mt nt t wt šš d ft pt bb kt xt gd tt dd st t zd ld rd mb nd t dw d s sp sp sp sk xs sk st st ss šš ss sl ss sm sn s sw š š p p p k šš k t t ss šš ss l šš m n ħš ww š z sp sp zb sk ss zg st zd ss šš zz zl zz zm zn s zw ž l lf pp lb kk xl lg tt ld sl l zl ll rr mm nn l lw yy r rf rp rb rk x rg rt rd, dd ss šš zz ll nn rm nn rh, r ww yy m mf mp mb k xn mg mt md ns n nz ml mr mm nn mh ww my n mf mp mb k xn g nt nd ss šš nz ll rr mm nn nh nw ny,yy h f p p k x k t t s ħš s l r m n h w y

Vowels are classified according to a "weak-strong" gradient, where the "strong" vowels are more resistant to syncope than neighboring "weak(er)" vowels. All long vowels are by definition "strong", so the weak-strong gradient really applies to short vowels: Table X: Vowel Gradients In Order of Increasing Strength The shape of a -CVCVC- syllable may contract either to a -CCVC- or -CVCC- pattern, depending on the strength gradients of the vowels with respect to one another. The -CaCaC- syllable pattern is the only one that does not contract. Syllables consisting of the same vowels may appear in either -CCVC- or -CVCC- patterns; the pattern they resolve to is influenced by interactions from surrounding syllables. These contractions are summarized in Table X:

Table X: CVCVC Vowel Gradient-Based Contractions Initial Pattern Final Contraction -CaCaC- (no change) -CaCuC-, -CaCeC-, -CaCiC- -CaCC- -CuCaC-, -CeCaC-, -CiCaC-, -CCaC- -CuCuC-, -CuCeC-, -CuCiC- -CuCC- -CuCuC-, CeCuC-, -CiCuC- -CCuC- -CeCeC-, -CeCiC- -CeCC- -CeCeC-, -CiCeC- -CCeC- -CiCiC- -CCiC-, -CiCC-

A verb root or an incorporated noun tends to lose one or more vowels to form at least one biconsonant cluster. The vowel that is lost depends on its strength gradient in relation to the noun of the neighboring syllable. With the exception of pattern -CaCa-, when two adjoining syllables have vowels within the same gradient, vocalic syncope resolves to CVCC. The pattern (C)VVCC always resolves to (C)VCC Compared to nominal and verbal roots, inflectional morphemes (e.g. theme, aspect, tense, person, etc) are resistant to syncope because this may lead to the inflectional morpheme to be changed beyond recognition. For example,-šp-irak- he informed (him) (lit. "he caused him to know") does not resolve to -šip-rak-, even though this would prevent the impermissible CCV pattern from occurring. Instead, an epenthetic vowel is added before the causative affix to prevent this impermissible consonant cluster from occurring. Although inflectional morphemes do not experience syncope, they still may experience phonological changes in the form of metathesis and devoicing. Vowel devoicing occurs in CVħC, CVxC, CVsC, or CVC syllables, where C is any of the unvoiced consonants listed in Table X. Two consecutive syllables with the pattern CVCVC resolves to CVCCVC, due to the difficulty of pronouncing the allophone in two consecutive closed syllables. Additionally, the vowel in the previous syllable may be devoiced if its adjacent consonants are voiceless, as in Example A, where the verb root vowel -a- which occurs the voiceless consonants -k- and -h- devoices to -ạ-. Note also the epenthetic vowel -i- appearing before the verb root and the 1st person incl. pl. affix ,-ħk- e.g.: naħtikemkaraban >> *naħtiħkemaraban >> *naħt-hkem-ar-ab-an "We were (being) annoying" (lit.: annoying-we.and.you-[past]-[ imperf.]-[intrans]) nekạħtikemaraban >> *nekạħtịħkemaraban >> *nekạħt-ħkem-ar-ab-an "I was avoiding..." Dissimilation occurs in CVC-patterns involving š-Vš, resolving to s-Vš. A prime example is the number "twenty", e.g.*šan-šentāz >> *san-šentāz > > saššentāz Dissimilation occurs in CVC-patterns involving mVm, resolving to nVm.

Verbs

Test
Spoken in:	Test
Timeline/Universe:	Here and Now
Total speakers:	1,500
Genealogical classification:	Test Test Test [[Test] Test
Basic word order:	VSO
Morphological type:	agglutinating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	active-stative
Created by:
Test	2009-

Test

Subitem

Ergative	Absolutive	Oblique
galuu=de	galua	galuu